Who will follow Randy Johnson in the marathon race to 300 wins?
You can leave an optional "tip" with Mahalo's virtual currency, Mahalo Dollars. If you are asking a difficult question that might require some research, or if you'd like a wide variety of feedback, a higher tip often leads to more answers to your question.
M$2 Answers
1. The White Sox brought him up very young - he was starting at 21
2. He is a left handed pitcher. Left handed starters pitch forever. Pitching for another decade is not unreasonable.
3. He pitches deep into games and does not miss many starts - he has 200+ innings pitched every full season other than his rookie year (when he pitched mostly in relief)
4. He does not walk very many hitters (less than 2 non-intentional walks per 9 innings).
Joe Posnanski has had a couple of great pieces of writing on this topic lately. One (link 2) is a conversation with the amazing Bill James, and the second (link 3) is a blog entry assessing the chances of various pitchers by age. Power pitchers may have more early success, but they have to be able to adjust as they get older. "Crafty lefties" just stay crafty.
If it's not Buherle, I agree with Posnanski's assessment of Roy Oswalt, although Oswalt has had some injuries and is having an unusually poor (for him) year so far in 2009. I like Roy Halladay, but I think his earlier injury history is going to make it difficult for him to pitch effectively until he's 40.
http://www.baseball-reference.com/players/b/buehrma01.shtml
http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/2009/writers/joe_posnanski/05/20/randy.joh...
http://joeposnanski.com/JoeBlog/2009/05/20/the-300-workout-plan/
http://www.baseball-reference.com/players/o/oswalro01.shtml
http://www.baseball-reference.com/players/h/hallaro01.shtml
You can leave an optional "tip" with Mahalo's virtual currency, Mahalo Dollars. If you are asking a difficult question that might require some research, or if you'd like a wide variety of feedback, a higher tip often leads to more answers to your question.
M$You can leave an optional "tip" with Mahalo's virtual currency, Mahalo Dollars. If you are asking a difficult question that might require some research, or if you'd like a wide variety of feedback, a higher tip often leads to more answers to your question.
M$