Mike Mussina has concluded that a starting pitcher who wins 50 percent of his starts is successful. Mike has started 504 games and has won 250 while losing 145. Mussina is a borderline Hall of Famer who will end his career with close to 300 wins. How have some Hall of Fame starters and some almost Hall of Fame starters done with respect to Mike's standard of success?
Current Starters and Winning Starts
The following table compares the number of career starts and career wins for some of today's top starters:
Johan Santana 177 Starts, 95 Wins, .537
Randy Johnson 556 Starts, 284 Wins, .511
Roger Clemens 707 Starts, 354 Wins, .501
Andy Pettitte 403 Starts, 201 Wins, .499
Mike Mussina 504 Starts, 250 Wins, .496
Curt Schilling 436 Starts, 216 Wins, .495
Greg Maddux 709 Starts, 347 Wins, .489
David Wells 489 Starts, 239 Wins, .489
Kenny Rogers 445 Starts, 210 Wins, .472
Pedro Martinez 449 Starts, 208 Wins, .463
Tom Glavine 671 Starts, 303 Wins, .452
Jamie Moyer 551 Starts, 230 Wins, .417
Santana Leads Them All
Among active starters with at least 200 career wins, only much maligned seven time Cy Young Award winner Roger Clemens and the amiable Randy Johnson have won more than 50 percent of their starts (John Smoltz is not included). Johan Santana has won an amazing 53.7 of his starts, and that number only figures to get better. These data support Mike Mussina's conclusion, but let's return to an era in which pitching was dominating the game to such a great extent that the pitching mound had to be lowered. The following table presents the number of career starts and career wins for some top starters who pitched in the late 1960s and 1970s:
A Sample From the 1960s and 1970s
Juan Marichal 457 Starts, 243 Wins, .532
Sandy Koufax 314 Starts. 165 Wins, .525
Bob Gibson 482 Starts, 251 Wins, .521
Jim Palmer 521 Starts, 268 Wins, .514
Mike Cuellar 379 Starts, 185 Wins, .488
Tom Seaver 647 Starts, 311 Wins, .481
Ferguson Jenkins 594 Starts, 284 Wins, .478
Luis Tiant 484 Starts, 229 Wins, .473
Catfish Hunter 476 Starts, 224 Wins, .471
Steve Carlton 709 Starts, 329 Wins, .464
Gaylord Perry 609 Starts, 314 Wins, .455
Jim Kaat 625 Starts, 283 Wins, .453
Don Drysdale 465 Starts, 209 Wins, .449
Mickey Lolich 496 Starts, 217 Wins, .438
Jim Bunning 519 Starts, 224 Wins, .432
Nolan Ryan 773 Starts, 324 Wins, .419
Bert Blyleven 685 Starts, 287 Wins, .419
Tommy John 700 Starts, 288 Wins, .411
Blyleven and John at the Bottom
Again, Mussina's conclusion is validated for a representative sample of top pitchers from the 1960s and 1970s. While it is recognized that "wins" is not one of the best ways to evaluate pitchers, it is interesting that among today's hurlers, only Johan Santana, Randy Johnson, and Roger have won more than one half of their starts. From the 1960s and 1970s Marichal, Koufax, Gibson, and Palmer won more than one half of their starts. Two pitchers whom many believe are Hall of Famers, Bert Blyleven and Tommy John, won less than 42 percent of their starts.
Three All-Time Greats
Finally, three of the greatest of all pitchers, possibly the three greatest pitchers of all time, have the following statistics with respect to percent of starts that they won:
Christy Mathewson 551 Starts. 373 Wins, .677
Lefty Grove 457 Starts. 300 Wins, .656
Walter Johnson 666 Starts. 417 Wins, .626
While it is undeniable that Mathewson, Grove, and Johnson are among the very best pitchers of all time, the fact that they won such a high percent of the games they started merely emphasizes how the game has changed over the years.
