On Greg Maddux and 400 Wins

In June of 2006 I posted an item on the 300 Win Club in baseball. I wrote about how very few additional pitchers are likely to make it to 300, with Tom Glavine being the obvious one to predict at that time. He did in fact go beyond 300 in 2007, and the next in line, Randy Johnson, is at 284 wins after an injury-shortened 2007 campaign held him to a 4-3 record. Should he make it to 300, he could be the last. Mike Mussina could possibly do it, as he is at 250, but there is no way David Wells (239), Jamie Moyer (230), Curt Schilling (216), or Kenny Rogers (210) will get there. Pedro Martinez proved he can still pitch at age 35 by going 3-1 with a 2.57 ERA in September after rehabilitating most of the season. But with only 209 wins and history of being fragile, I wouldn't bet much on him getting to 300. As I said in that entry, "never again" is a strong claim to make, but it is a worthwhile question to raise at this point.

But a recent post to the SABR-L discussion list raised another interesting question along the same lines: could Greg Maddux reach 400 wins? I had never thought of that, but it seems at least reasonable to ask.

I'll begin by noting I don't see Roger Clemens getting to 400 wins. He has more than Maddux currently, as he ended the 2007 season with an outstanding lifetime 354-184 record. While he was dominating for the Astros in 2005 (13-8, 1.87 ERA in 32 starts) and 2006 (7-6, 2.30 ERA in 19 starts), his 2007 season back in the AL with the Yankees was a disappointment (6-6, 4.18 ERA in 17 starts). He turned 45 in August, so I consider it likely he either won't come back for another season, or if he does his performance will continue to decline. Getting 46 more wins would mean pitching until his 49th birthday at least -- and I don't even see the great Roger Clemens doing that.

But what about Greg Maddux? At only age 41 he ended the 2007 season with a lifetime 347-214 record. He continues to start 30+ games a year -- in fact, he's done that every year since 1987 except the two strike-shortened seasons in the 1990s. And while he's far from his dominance of a decade ago, he continues to be a quality #2-4 guy in a rotation, posting records of 13-15, 15-14, and 14-11 the past three years. His ERA ihas been over 4.00 the past four seasons, but not far above and still around or slightly better than the league average.

So could he pitch four more seasons? Very possibly, since that would put him at age 45 for his last year in 2011. Could he average 13-14 wins a season for those years? That could be tough, as he'd have to not decline any from his recent levels. But if we won say, 14, 14, 13, and 13 that would give him 401 wins for his career. So would give seasons with win totals of 14, 13, 11, 9 and 7. Either of those scenarios seem at least possible. Of course, he could easily choose to retire before then, or finally get that bad injury that his excellent conditioning and high intelligence have allowed him to avoid his entire career. But neither of those events are at all predictable.

So what would joining the exclusive 400-win club mean exactly? Any serious baseball fan knows he'd be only the third major-league pitcher to reach that mark. The incomparable Cy Young of course tops the list with an insane 511 wins. Walter Johnson is second all-time with 417. After that are fellow old-timers Grovery Cleveland (Pete) Alexander and Christy Mathewson with 373

Most of the highest guys on this list are from baseball's earliest days, with only Warren Spahn (1942-1965) currently at 360 or more wins. He ended up with a 363-245 record, and was a model of consistency. He won 20+ games 13 times, but never won more than 23 in a season. In fact, starting in 1956 at the age of 35 he won 20+ games 7 out of 8 seasons. This culminated in his 23-7 and 2.60 ERA season in 1963, at the young age of 42. But then he went downhill fast, going 6-13 the next year and retiring after going 7-16 in 1965. An amazing career, and I bet people were asking about the possibility of 400 wins for Spahn after that 1963 season. But then it didn't happen, and didn't really come close to happening actually.

Next I'll discuss briefly the other recent players to top 300 wins (not including Tom Glavine), and how they did at the end of their careers:

• Steve Carlton ended up with a 329-244 record. He took home the Cy Young Award at age 37 in 1982, going 23-11 with a 3.10 ERA. But then he went 15-16 and 13-7, and ended with poor campaigns of 1-8, 9-14, and 6-14 (plus a brief 0-1 season at age 43 in 1988). He had great conditioning during his career, but clearly had lost it at the end and most would argue he held on too long.
• Nolan Ryan first made it to the bigs at the age of 19 in 1966, but that was a brief stint. He returned in 1968 but for three seasons he did mixed duty as a starter and relievers. He pitched for some bad teams, but I've seen some analyses that indicate that his wins total didn't actually suffer that much because of it. One season where it clearly did was 1987, when at the age of 40 he had a 2.76 ERA but managed only an 8-16 record. In the end he recorded a 324-292 lifetime record. He was still going strong in 1991 at age 44, when he posted a 12-6 record. But then his last two years he went only 5-9 and 5-5.
• Don Sutton only reached 20 wins in a season, going 21-10 in 1976. Still, he ended up with a 324-256 recor. He won 15 games in both 1985 and 1986, but then at age 42 he slipped to an 11-11 record and in 1988 at age 43 he went only 3-6 in 16 starts.
• Phil Niekro through a knuckler so he was able to hold on a long time, finally retiring at age 48 in 1987 with a 318-274 record. He had several fine seasons past the age of 40, but that last was weak (7-13 with a 6.30 ERA).
• Gaylord Perry took home Cy Young Award honors in 1978 at age 40 going 21-6 with a 2.73 ERA. But then had win totals of 12, 10, 8, 10, and 7, ending up with a lifetime 314-265 mark.
• Tom Seaver, arguably the best pitcher of this group, actually ended up with the fewest career wins. He was going strong in 1981 at age 36, but the strike messed up his season (14-2, 2.54 ERA). The next two seasons were disasters, as he went 5-13 and then 9-14. A move to the AL revived his career, as he went 15-11 in 1984 and 16-11 in 1985. But then at age 41 he went 7-13 and called it quits after that. His lifetime record of 311-205 gives him a .603 winning percentage, but obviously he was no threat to reach 400 wins.

So it is clear from these other greats that it is quite easy to reach the 300-330 win mark, be in your early 40s, and then decline rapidly. But none of these guys went past 330, let alone reached 347 wins by age 41. Mr. Maddux has a chance, but because so many things could happen, I'd put it at well below 50/50.