Baseball Musings
Baseball Musings
December 08, 2008
Posnanski on the Win Record

Joe Posnanski looks at the all-time leaders in terms of the 20-year rule, but has this to say about the all-time wins leader:

Impressiveness quotient: Unimaginable. Of course, Cy Young was simply playing a different game than baseball now. Look:

- He 72 games before the pitcher's mound was moved back to 60 feet, 6 inches.
- He won 267 games when when home plate was still a square.
- He won 351 games before foul balls were considered strikes.
- And, of course, he won all 511 games before the spitball was abolished, and most of those games when scuffing the ball was pretty common practice.

Frankly, it's pretty ridiculous, considering all the changes, that Young's record is considered the official one. It would probably be more realistic to consider Walter Johnson's 417 wins (21 wins ever year for 20 years) as the official record, and that record, while it would be unthinkable to break to it now, would at least be POSSIBLE to break. Greg Maddux announces his retirement today with 355 victories -- 62 victories short.

There are a number of records, especially those in the National League, that are listed as all-time and since 1900. Maybe we should do this for wins also.


Posted by David Pinto at 11:19 AM | Records | TrackBack (0)
Comments

Didn't he still ahve to beatt he team he was pitching against?

Posted by: Bandit at December 8, 2008 12:39 PM

More impressive than the wins is the 749 complete games. The only other guys to start more than 749 games are Nolan Ryan & Don Sutton.

That's over 37 complete games a year for 20 years. With a 5 man rotation, you only make about 33 starts a year. Even a 4 man rotation works out to about 40-41 stars a season.

And if you take 749 - 511 = 238 complete games Young pitched in a losing effort (assuming, for the moment, that every win is a CG).

Completely different game from today.

Posted by: rbj at December 8, 2008 01:24 PM
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