Quote:
Originally Posted by tarcone
Good question. The way things are going, I could see 200 being the new 300. Not many pitchers go more than 6 innings anymore. And that seems to becoming more rare itself.
Actually, I could see wins as a stat fading away.
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And I do too, I'm honestly the biggest proponent of just throwing out wins and rbis as stats that mean anything in terms of value (because they don't). However, it still is a benchmark. I could *almost* be talked into hits singularly being a worthless stat, too (Ben Revere led the league in hits in 2014 [iirc] and was graded by any measure a below average hitter) - but let's stick to the original topic.
The reason I asked is because it was recently brought up if someone like Jon Lester would be a HOF candidate. I scoffed at first, but upon further review, he has 3 championships (whatever value, it has to have some, Dave Bancroft i.e.), only 4 A-S in a bloated league - it's annoying the dudes that racked up AS appearances when there were 8 teams in each league. Lester also has a very nice career 3.56 ERA, has only had one season below quality ('12), and has been really good for a long stretch. His top 5 Win seasons by total? 19-19-16-16-15. People just don't get numbers anymore and he's at 165 so it seems ridiculous but he's actually an interesting candidate. All in all, he's probably not getting a sniff but I hope you see this example as the reason I bring it up.
Edited to add:
I just wasted my time looking up Lester numbers when a much better example would be King Felix, who has exactly one more win than Jon (166), but probably a much better resume (2 CY for starters). That's probably a better example of how even 250 seems fucking impossible today.