DownSwinging.com

Which top five active pitchers are the closest to earning 300 wins?

1.    Randy Johnson (299)
2.    Jamie Moyer (249)
3.    Andy Pettitte (219)
4.    John Smoltz (210)
5.    Tim Wakefield (184)

That’s a relatively surprising list. Obviously Johnson and Smoltz make sense. And Pettitte has been a good pitcher for some time. Moyer and Wakefield though? Clearly they have both been around for a long, long time, but the fact that they are far above any others in the game is a little shocking. What’s more interesting though, is that the “star” pitchers in the prime of their careers have pretty low win totals themselves. Roy Oswalt: 130 wins. Jake Peavy: 91 wins. Johan Santana: 116 wins. What’s the point? None of them are going to touch 300 wins. When Johnson gets the one win he needs to be the 24th man reach 300, he will join an elite group of individuals, who are all enshrined in Cooperstown (barring Maddux, Glavine and Clemens, the first two who will surely be in, and the third who may if voters ignore his PED involvement). As we have seen more and more home runs, all of the offensive records have fell, one after the other. 400 or even 500 home runs doesn’t mean what it used to. But 300 wins still does, maybe now more than ever. In an era when pitchers are pitching fewer games, and having shorter careers, wins are hard to come by. Even when they do pitch, when you walk off the mound in the sixth inning, it leaves a lot of time for things to change, for a win to be lost. What does it mean? When Johnson heads to the hill in an attempt to nab his 300th win, he may very well be the last man to do so.