350-win club
Posted by: Peter Abraham - Posted in Misc on Jul 03, 2007 
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All-time victories
1. Cy Young 511
2. Walter Johnson 417
3. Pete Alexander, Christy Mathewson 373
5. Pud Galvin 364
6. Warren Spahn 363
7. Kid Nichols 361
8. Roger Clemens 350
Active players
10. Greg Maddux 340
23. Tom Glavine 297
28. Randy Johnson 284
51. Mike Mussina 243
60. David Wells 233.
Other than Maddux, I’d be surprised if anybody else ever reached 350. With the money players make now, the incentive to pitch that many years will be missing.
I believe Clemens could hang around long enough to get past Spahn. Being the winningest pitcher of modern times would be something that motivates him. Well, that and $870,000 a start.
Congratulations to the Rocket.
“With the money players make now, the incentive to pitch that many years will be missing” i’ve been hearing reporters say things like that for years but look at the money Rockets’ making and once your done that its you don’t come back again these players don’t want to stop cant stop themselves most of the time plus retirement last the rest of their lives and doesn’t pay as well
the money will actually lure these guys to play longer. they can set there families up for generations….
guys are playing longer then ever and the money is better then ever!!!!!!
Wait. He can catch Spahn at 363 but not the Pudster at 364?
Huh?
he means Spahn is a modern pitcher, never heard of Pud Galvin but the others were dead ball era turn of the century pitcher. we all know cy young won 511 games but Walter Johnson threw 120 shut outs. These thing aren’t possible in the modern game
Pud Galvin and Kid Nichols were pre-1900.
Pete –
You said: “With the money players make now, the incentive to pitch that many years will be missing.”
Hasn’t recent history shown that the opposite might actually be true – that some players will stick around and keep playing (presumably, at least in part, because they make millions of dollars each year that they stay in MLB)? There are a lot of 40-something players right now… San Francisco practically fields a team of them (not to mention the Yanks’ winning pitcher last night).
The last 80 years have seen one pitcher (Spahn) win 350 games. Now we have Clemens and Greg Maddux will probably do it next year. According to baseball-reference Maddux has made $134 million in his career and Clemens has made $121 million. How come these guys haven’t retired with all the money they made? You don’t see baseball players retire early. Maybe an occasional running back like Barry Sanders or Jimmy Brown. Sorry, Pete, your analysis is about as good as Cashman’s ability to build a strong bench.
I feel that Greg Maddux will surpass Rocket’s total in due time..
yeah, but NL wins don’t mean as much… :/
My point is that the minimum wage when Maddux broke in was $82,500. Now it’s close to $400,000.
Now you have guys like Pavano making $10 million a year six years into their career. Roger didn’t get that much until 2001.
Obviously it’s all relative, it’s a lot of money. But guys now can get to $50 million in career salary very quickly. Clemens, Maddux, Glavine, Wells, did’t get there until late in their careers. So they have the incentive to stick around as long as they can and rake it in.
A guy who breaks in today, say Phil Hughes, is he going to pitch until he’s 44 or 45? I don’t think so because by the time he’s 35, he’s going to have made a huge amount of money.
Look at Andy Pettitte. He wanted to retire last season. Roy Oswalt talks all the time about wanting to work on his farm.
The reason pitchers don’t win 300 games anymore has nothing to do with money – pitchers just don’t win as many games as they used to, because they don’t go as deep, there are no 4-man rotations, they aren’t as healthy – there are numerous reasons. A select few pitchers will have the longetivity and be consistently very good to get there, but it’s got nothing to do with money.
I also believe that in the vast majority of cases, players don’t _continue_ playing because of the money either. A top starter hanging on for a couple extra years is going to add what, maybe $8M to a $100M+ fortune he’s amassed earlier? They do it because they’re competitors and because they love the game. I could see a fringe major leaguer sticking it out in hopes of making $500K for a few seasons, but not the best pitchers in ML history.
I think Roy Oswalt is going to want to work on his farm equally as much if he has make $80M or $100M in his career.