Major League Baseball Will Have Another 300-Game Winner
Justin Verlander could be the last 300-game winner in MLB for a while, but there will be more
IBWAA members love to write about baseball. So much so, we've decided to create our own newsletter about it! Subscribe to Here's the Pitch to expand your love of baseball, discover new voices, and support independent writing. Original content six days a week, straight to your inbox and straight from the hearts of baseball fans.
Pregame Pepper
Did you know…
. . . Reaching 300 wins has long been considered a pinnacle pitching milestone, though there are almost an equal amount of pitchers with 250-299 wins (25) as with 300+ (24).
The difference between the two milestones is evident in Hall of Fame voting. Only one pitcher with 300+ victories is not in the HOF (and Roger Clemens’ exclusion is not due to his on-field performance). Of the 25 with 250-299 victories, nine have not been voted into the HOF, with one that hasn’t reached eligibility yet, one that is on the ballot, and one active.
The two pitchers with the most wins between 250-299 are both currently left out of the Hall. Bobby Mathews won 297 games between 1871 and 1887. Tommy John won 288 games between 1963 and 1989 (not to mention being the namesake to a surgery that has revolutionized pitching).
Leading Off
MLB Will Have Another 300-game Winner
By Benjamin Chase
When Justin Verlander laces up his cleats for his first start of 2025, the righty will be 42 years old. The former second-overall draft pick out of Old Dominion will be pitching in his 18th full major-league season (he made two starts in 2005).
Verlander sits at 262 wins. To reach 300, one of the most iconic marks in Major League Baseball, Justin would need 38 more before calling it a career. He went 18-4 in 2022, when his 1.75 ERA led the league, but then won only 18 games the past two seasons. Tommy John surgery had limited him to one start in 2020-2021 and halted his steady march toward the 300 Club.
Playing for a team like Houston should have given him plenty of opportunities for to reach the milestone, but only if he could stay healthy. That didn’t happen in 2024.
He needed 140 innings pitched in 2024 to guarantee his contract for 2025, when he'd be 42 — and the oldest player in the majors.
It'd require two impressive seasons for him to reach it by then, meaning he likely will have one more contract negotiation, with 300 wins as the primary selling point to bidding teams.
Will Verlander be the last to challenge 300 wins? Maybe even the last to clear 250?
Let's first take a look at the history of 300-game winners.
Dead-ball Era Creation
There have been 24 players to reach 300 wins in the entire history of the game. Eleven of those 24 won their 300th game through the 1924 season.
What major thing happened in the mid-1920s? The game drastically changed to a "live" ball that drastically improved offense. After the game shifted toward offense, only three pitchers won their 300th game in a 57-season time frame between 1925 and 1982.
The changes to favor pitching in the 1960s as well as the adaption of sliders and split-finger fastballs, among other pitches, ushered in a new era of "big" winners in the game, as ten pitchers won their 300th game from 1982 to 2009.
One “Empty” Decade Already
Already, no matter what is going to happen with Verlander, an entire decade of players will not reach the 300-win plateau, as no player who made his debut in the 1990s reached 300 wins and none will, as there are no remaining pitchers from that decade.
However, that is not uncommon, as only two decades since 1950 have even had a pitcher debut who would go on to win 300 games.
Still, it's two of the most common debut decades in the entire history of the game, as the 1960s had six future 300-game winners debut and the 1980s had four debuts (tied for second-most in a decade with the 1880s).
That said, since the live ball era began in the 1920s, those are the only two decades with more than one future 300-game winner debut.
The Future
History shows us that changes in the game strongly dictate how many players achieve any number of career milestones. A focus on speed and athleticism that began being put into play in the rule book this past season could work to restructure lineups from teams full of power hitters from lead-off to the 9-hole.
That could be counter-balanced by the implementation of the designated hitter throughout baseball. Adding the designated hitter is an obvious difference in pitchers who accomplished winning 300 games.
Since the rule was implemented in 1973, only one of the ten pitchers who have won their 300th game did so after pitching the majority of his seasons in the American League. The designated hitter rule being part of more games with inter-league play cannot be ignored in the fact that no pitcher who debuted after inter-league play has yet to win 300 games.
The DH became universal in 2022 after the National League experimented with the rule during the virus-shortened 2020 season.
In general, though, we see ebbs and flows in the game over the decades. The pitching-friendly 1960s to he early-1990s spawned ten 300-game winner debuts. Hitter-friendly conditions since have slowed that pace, so just as quickly a move toward pitching could open the door for more 300-game winners.
Benjamin Chase is a newspaper reporter in South Dakota with an intense love for baseball. He is a co-editor for Here’s the Pitch, writes for Rotoballer, and is the co-host of the Pallazzo Podcast prospect show among other writing and podcasting. He can be found on most social media under biggentleben.
Timeless Trivia
The first pitcher to win his 300th game is also the first pitcher who ever threw a perfect game, though neither was a recognized feat at the time.
Who was this pitcher?
Not possible considering Verlander's age and long distance from 300 wins. Bill James agrees in his latest Bill James Handbook, which contains computer-simulated projections that give him only a 29% chance and no one else more than 5%. Not good odds.