The Importance Of Justin Verlander's Next Win
On retro records, or perhaps a better name than that.
It’s not clear to me when they realized Cy Young had the record for most career wins—he passed Pud Galvin in 1903, but I couldn’t find any fanfare about it—but it wasn’t long before people started declaring it would never be broken. In 1915, just after Young retired, one writer wrote: “He is the only major league pitcher who has won 500 games, and is probably the only pitcher who will ever turn that trick.” So far, he is.
We could, in a sense, say that every record held holds within it two different achievements:
First to do something
Last to do something
During the period that you actually hold the record—as Young does—you have (at least temporarily) done both, but lots of people still get credit for having done only the first. It’s a really big deal that Babe Ruth was the first person to hit 714 home runs in a career and 60 in a season, even though he wasn’t the last. You surely know that Ty Cobb once held the career hits and stolen bases records, even though he doesn’t any more; so on, so forth. The first record in isolation is still something.
I’ve become just as interested in the second accomplishment in isolation. In my head, I call those retro records, because they’re records that can be appreciated only looking backwards in time. We won’t even know for sure for sure for sure for sure that they’re really the last until its confirmed by the end of human existence and/or organized ball. In some cases, for some statistics, I find these retro records to be even more impressive, or at least illustrative, than the actual record holder holding the actual record.
Consider:
In 1887, Walter Johnson was born, 20 years after Cy Young was born. Times had changed in those 20 years, and when Johnson debuted—already 450 wins into Young’s career—baseball, too, had changed. Most notably, the expectations of pitchers were already changing. By 1915, newspaper writers were already talking about the archaic Pud Galvin/Cy Young models:
As Young was the best pitcher of his time, Johnson was the best pitcher of his time, by comparable margins. Young pitched for 22 years, led his league in wins five times, in ERA twice, had a 147 ERA+ in his career. Johnson pitched for 21 years, led his league in wins six times, in ERA five, and had a 154 ERA+. Because pitching was different across their respective careers, Johnson never caught up to Young in wins, or even got remotely close. But you could say about Johnson’s win totals what they said about Cy Young’s: He is the only major league pitcher born in the last 150 years to win 400 games, and is probably the only pitcher who will ever turn that trick.
The closest anybody has come since is Warren Spahn, who was born in 1921 and won 363 games. That’s not enough to pass Johnson or Young, but nobody born in the last 100 years has won more games than Warren Spahn. The closest anybody came to toppling him was Greg Maddux. Nobody born in the past 50 years has won more games than Maddux’ 355—a retro record that will probably never be undone (which means, by definition, that neither will Young’s or Johnson’s or Spahn’s).
All of those players are Hall of Famers, because this thing I’m talking about is an important way of capturing a player’s greatness. That old-timey sportswriter who declared Young’s record would never be broken understood this: It’s as impressive to do something that will never be done again as it is to do something that had never been done before, especially because “never” probably covers more years than “so far.”
Now: Nobody born after 1968 has won more games than Mike Mussina’s 270.
And: Nobody born after 1972 has won more games than Andy Pettitte’s 256.
I mentioned that in passing when I wrote up the case for Pettitte to be in the Hall: “There's a pretty good chance that nobody born after him will ever top his [career wins total],” I wrote. I’m surprised it was only in passing. This seems like a really strong Hall of Fame argument, considering every other pitcher in history that it’s true of is in the Hall of Fame. Ah, but of course there’s a problem with declaring a retro record.
If you ask me my age, I’ll tell you how many years I have been alive. I won’t tell you how many years I have left to live. For adults, the latter is probably more relevant, tells us more about one’s status as a being in this universe. Hence why Kirk Cousins apparently counts down his life, from a tube of stones. But Cousins doesn’t know how many years he actually has to live, and I don’t, either.
Similarly, when it comes to retro records: We know a record is set as soon as it’s set, but we don’t know for sure that a retro record is ever set. If we’re prudent, it would be decades before we even felt confident about it. (All sorts of people, including Ty Cobb used to declare Lou Gehrig’s iron man streak the most unbreakable record in sports; Pete Rose declared Henry Aaron’s home run mark unbreakable just a couple years after he set it. Cy Young’s pitching appearances record was, in a 1913 newspaper I saw, declared unbreakable; nobody foresaw the bullpen revolution that would wipe that one away. Maybe somebody will pass Walter Johnson someday. On Tuesday, somebody had a chance to tie Pettitte.
When Pettitte retired, his chances of holding the retro record forever looked plausible—I’d say fair, if not quite likely. There were four visible challengers for him to outlast, in this order of threat:
CC Sabathia: 205 wins, 33 years old
Clayton Kershaw: 77 wins, 26 years old
Justin Verlander: 137 wins, 31 years old
Mark Buehrle: 186 wins, 35 years old
But Sabathia lost steam five wins short of Pettitte, and Buerhle quit baseball at 36 rather than chase the long, Moyeresque career tail common to the crafty lefty. Kershaw has actually surpassed any expectations we had for him even back then, but the realities of modern ball and a slightly vulnerable body have him still 50 wins behind Pettitte.
Verlander, meanwhile, twice looked liked his chances of catching Pettitte had died. He lost velocity and had a career-worst season at age 31. Then he got hurt at age 37, and won a total of one game across his ages 37-38 seasons. But he had two of baseball’s great late-career physical comebacks, winning Cy Youngs at 36 and 40. Even early this year he looked like he might be washed, with a spring injury and then an uninspiring first seven starts of the year. He’s been great in 17 starts since then.
His passing Pettitte has become inevitable. His passing Mussina—14 wins farther along—is attainable, bordering on likely, and close to certain if he pitches in 2025 or beyond. After that, it’s hard to see anybody—with, perhaps, some wild scenarios involving Kershaw—ever passing him. That would leave us with Cy Young—> Walter Johnson —> Warren Spahn —> Greg Maddux —> Justin Verlander, with Kershaw set to establish the retrospective record after him. It’s a convincing list of baseball pitching history that, to be perfectly honest, is better without Pettitte on it.
Verlander is one of the three true aces of his generation. His career wins total captures everything from his early greatness—he was a phenom who allowed only 17 earned runs in the minors before he arrived in the majors and won the Rookie of the Year award—to his longevity, his ability to survive multiple health scares in an era where that has been arguably the make-or-break skill of pitching. If Rich Hill retires after this season, Verlander will be the oldest pitcher in baseball next year, and he’ll still be listed for Cy Young Award prop bets. He is also, like Johnson and Spahn and Maddux before him, a pitcher who bridges pitcher-usage eras, such that his mark has become essentially unreachable to any pitcher starting out today. When Verlander debuted, starting pitchers got the win in 72 percent of games. This year, it’s 58 percent.
Ultimately, we’re just such at the mercy of changing game styles. Records are always a product of time and place. The game changed after Cy Young’s career, and it kept changing, and no matter how many better pitchers than Cy Young the world produces it will never produce a 512-game winner. Honestly, I think all records older than 50 years or so should probably just be reset, sunsetted; in the absence of that, though, the retro records feel worth paying attention to.
There actually are plenty of baseball achievements where we focus on the last person to do something instead of the first. Ted Williams is the last AL/NL player to hit .400, and his batting average is far more famous than any of the many players who hit .400 before him, including the official batting average record holder. The last triple crowns in each league (by Joe Medwick and, until 2012, Carl Yastrzemski) always seemed way more famous than any other triple crowns. Verlander’s complete game in the 2017 ALCS—the “last” postseason complete game, to date—will get more famous with time, despite Verlander being only the 546th pitcher to throw a postseason complete game.
Cy Young—coming full circle here—was actually the first. He allowed seven runs and lost.
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I was interested, and you might be, too, in who holds retro records in some other stats.
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