Can Justin Verlander Win 300 Games?

Justin Verlander won his league leading 18th game of the year last night tossing 7 2/3 innings of 1 run ball against the Twins. The win lowered his ERA to 2.31 and put him over 200 strikeouts for the 3rd straight season. It was also the 101st win of his career and being that he's only 28 it raises the question, can Justin Verlander win 300 games?

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300 wins is a milestone for pitchers the way 3000 hits is a milestone for batters. Only while 3000 hits is still very attainable in the modern era, 300 game winners are becoming more and more scarce. Of the 24 pitchers in the 300 Win Club, only 4 of them debuted after 1970. The switch to a 5 man starting rotation coupled with the close monitoring of pitch counts has caused pitchers to log fewer starts, and fewer innings. In 1968, Denny McLain started a league high 41 games for the Detroit Tigers and he was able to win 31 of them. That same year Juan Marichal fired 30 complete games. By comparison, last year only two pitchers - Chris Carpenter and Dan Haren - made 35 starts. And no pitcher threw double digit complete games. In fact, since 2000 only one pitcher has registered 10 complete games - CC Sabathia in 2008 (although Tampa's James Shields does have 9 already this year). Bottom line, pitchers aren't getting as many starts and they aren't pitching as deeply into games, both of which result in fewer wins for starters.

Some speculate that after Tom Glavine and Randy Johnson reached the milestone in 2007 and 2009 respectively we may never see another 300 game winner. But let's look at Verlander and how he compares to Glavine. Glavine got his start a little earlier than Verlander pitching his first full season at age 22 compared to Verlander's being 23. But even with the later start, Verlander began his career only 9 wins behind Glavine's pace. By the time he was 29, Glavine already had 3 20-win seasons and a total of 108 wins. But Verlander is only 7 off the pace and will likely have 8 starts remaining during the 2011 regular season. Let's conservatively say he wins 4 of them putting him at 105 wins. Between the age of 29 to 41, Glavine averaged 15 wins a season over 13 years to break the 300 barrier. If Verlander was also to win 15 games a year until through age 41, he too would reach 300 wins. Considering that Verlander has only won fewer than 17 games once in six Major League Seasons, winning 15+ games a year, at least in the near term, is certainly feasible. He'll have to stay healthy, and he has to sustain his greatness for a lot longer before it really starts becoming a real possibility, but he seems a good candidate to at least be in the 300 win conversation. We'll know more in a few years whether or not this continues to be a real possibility.

Despite Verlander's performance, he might not be even the best candidate to reach 300 wins right now. CC Sabathia has 173 wins and he just turned 31 last month. Sabathia benefited from an early start breaking into the majors at age 20. Playing with the Yankees hasn't hurt him either as he's won 56 games since joining them in 2009. If Sabathia wins 15 games a year moving forward, he can hit 300 right around the time he turns 40 in 2020.

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