MLB Thread Number 3, 2007

No wonder I failed that math class.

 

Wow. Spnited wins the prize. Alexander's numbers really say something, but I'm not sure what that something is. I believe guys threw more innings in those days. There were probably fewer strikeouts late in games than there are today with relievers taking the hill. I don't know that hitters were as good as they are today.

So maybe Glavine's is the lowest among modern-day pitchers. A quick glance showed that most of the more recent 300-game winners ended their careers with 3,500 or more Ks. Glavine might not make 2,700 if he retires this year or next year.

 

I love baseball-reference.com

It does look like Glavine will have the lowest K/9 ratio since Alexander, who had nearly 5,200 IP in 20 years. Glavine just past 4,200 IP in 21st season

 

Pretty interesting discussion here. I wasn't aware of Glavine's K/9 numbers, but I asked somebody better than me at this stuff to sort the list of 300-game winners by K/9 so we could compare.

In the meantime, here's a few notables from the K/9 career leaders list on B-R.com (minimum 1,000 IP and 100 decisions ... "+" means HOFers).

After the top 10, I pulled out most of the HOFers:

I could go on, but I think you can see that Glavine's not in terrible company on that list. He's slightly ahead of Palmer and Catfish, neither of whom won 300 games but who pitched in a similar hitter-friendly era.

Conclusion A: Strikeouts are often overrated. Dominance is fun to watch, but the greatest pitchers would rather get batters out on 1 pitch instead of 3.

Conclusion B: Strikeouts weren't nearly as important in the Dead Ball Era, nor were batters swinging from their heels and missing the ball so much back then. As you can see, Walter Johnson is 10 spots behind Tom Glavine on this list. That tells you all you need to know.

Conclusion C: Rube Waddell is so far ahead of his Dead Ball contemporaries that it's not even funny. Nobody else in the top 171 all-time even pitched a single inning before WWII. You have to get to Dazzy Vance (172) and Smokey Joe Wood (173) to find anyone else from Waddell's era.

 

Waddell--wouldn't you love to have him around to interview?

Of course, if he lived today, Waddell would have been different--or institutionalized--and Shoeless Joe would have been able to sign his name.

 

Hell, Rube was all but institutionalized in his time anyway. What an amazing, tragic, amazing story. Can't imagine you'd get much out of an interview before he went off to chase fire trucks, though.

And friends in low places have delivered. Here's your list of 300-game winners, sorted by career K/9. Glavine's not even close to the bottom, although he'll be third-to-last (Spahn, Wynn) among post-WWII pitchers. But he'll replace Walter Johnson at No. 9 among the 23 pitchers:

 

Andrew Miller will get his first major league start on Friday. Bonderman heads to the DL with a blister problem that won't go away.

Miller started the season in A ball, made one start in AA and is now summoned to the big club.

 

That's 4.3 Ks per nine innings... nowhere close to 1.

 

Chien-Ming Wang has thrown 361 innings and struck out just 133 in his career.

 

Wickman looks gassed in games, which I would think is more concern than the injury. He's just not in shape. Beyond that, Mike Gonzalez wants to close and has the stuff to close. Maybe not this year, but that eventually will be his role.

 

I don't see them giving up on Wickman this season. Wickman did look rather pissed when he was yanked in the second game at Coors Field with the save opportunity still there. If I remember, Peter Moylan of all guys was called upon to finish the job. It wasn't necessarily the injury that night, because Wickman sucked the next day, too.