Wake Up With Tom Glavine Winning His 300th Game (2007)
Tom Glavine was the second to last pitcher to win 300 games (Randy Johnson in ’09 most recent), and that will have taken place ten years ago this August. We talk about this a lot, how baseball statistics are constantly changing in how we value them or how we use them, and for a long time, the pitcher win stat was one of the big ones. You were swingin’ a big dick if you were a 20-game winner.
Don’t get me wrong — you can’t win 20 games in a season and suck, but I don’t think anyone looks at J.A. Happ as a top of the rotation, No. 1 starter, bonafide ace after winning 20 games last season. Same thing goes for the reigning Cy Young award winner, Rick Porcello. So, over time, we have devalued the pitcher win stat quite a bit.
But what about 300 wins? It’s the same stat, right? We’re adding up pitcher wins. But over a single season, they don’t carry as much weight as they used to, as we’ve had a 13-game winner win the Cy Young award in recent years. However, when we look at overall careers, they carry quite a bit of weight.
If you win 300 games, you’re a Hall of Famer. Might as well skip looking at any other statistical category. Three hundred wins = Hall of Fame ten times out of ten. That is, of course, unless your name is Roger Clemens, but he’ll get in eventually. You can have a one-season wonder who wins 20 games and never comes close to that again, but you can’t fluke a 300-win career.