Mike Mussina has concluded that a starting pitcher who wins 50 percent of his starts is successful. He is right on target.

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.

Reference:

Baseball-Reference