| Plus-Minus
by David Fleitz |
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Randy Johnson's Topps rookie card from 1989. P.S. Tom Glavine of the Braves, who now has a won-lost record of 231-134, has a plus-minus log of +97. He'll join the plus-100 club in a few weeks. Boston's Pedro Martinez, at the age of 30, is already at +80 after starting this season with 7 wins in a row. P.P.S. Steve Carlton ended 1984 with a +106 log (313-207) but fell back below the +100 standard in his last five seasons. He wound up at 329-244 for a +85 mark. |
In the early part of the season, I ran across a few articles by writers who wondered in print if Randy Johnson is a great pitcher or not. Johnson, the six-foot-ten-inch lefthanded pitcher for the Arizona Diamondbacks, nearly broke Nolan Ryan's record last year for strikeouts in a season, finishing just 11 short. He then joined with Curt Schilling to pitch the Diamondbacks to the World Series title over the Yankees. Johnson won the sixth game of the Series as a starter and then won the seventh in relief. Johnson has been, for more than a decade, the most intimidating pitcher in baseball and, when he's pitching well, the most overpowering. He didn't become a dominating pitcher until he was in his early thirties (because it took him a long time to gain control of his huge body) but he still managed to pass the 200-win mark last year. In fact, Johnson entered the 2002 season with a won-lost record of 200-101, 99 games above the break-even point. Only 20 pitchers in history have finished their careers at +100 or better, and two others, Greg Maddux and Roger Clemens, are still active. Thirteen of those 20 pitchers started their careers before 1920, and several pitched in the 1800s when starters often won 40 to 50 or more games in a season. Compare Johnson's plus-99 record to some of the pitchers who are in the Hall of Fame:
Wins-Losses +/- Of all the pitchers who joined the major leagues after 1920, only nine of them have compiled 100 more wins than losses. Here they are, with updated stats for Clemens and Maddux: Wins-Losses +/- Active Grove, Lefty 300-141
+159 1925-41 When Randy Johnson won his first game of 2002, he joined the club. He's now 8-1 on the season, and his career log is now: Johnson, Randy 208-102 +106 1988-2002 Johnson's +106 mark is even more impressive when you remember an article I posted here a while back, titled 7,213 pitchers. In that piece, I wrote that the great majority of all major league pitchers ended their careers at +0 or worse. Only 1,837 of those 7,213 pitchers wound up on the plus side of the plus-minus ledger, and very few of those got higher than +10. When you go to the Hall of Fame and look at the plaque of Rube Marquard, who won 201 games and lost 177, you get the idea that Randy Johnson is a viable candidate for Cooperstown. If Johnson had started his 2002 season with a win and then lost his next 76 games in a row, he and Marquard would have the same won-lost record. Johnson is 38 years old now, and I really don't think he'll last long enough to get to 300 wins, but he's the most intimidating pitcher of this generation. He has more than 3,500 strikeouts now, and he will probably be the third pitcher (after Nolan Ryan and Steve Carlton) to pass the 4,000 mark. I'd put him in the Hall of Fame as soon as he's eligible.
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