300 Winners, Then and Now

Need proof that the recent crop of 300 game winners are a superior lot to those who joined the 300 Club a generation earlier (from 1982-1990)?

The six guys who retired a generation ago (Perry, Carlton, Sutton, Seaver, Niekro and Ryan) compiled a combined won-loss record of 1920-1536, a combined winning percentage of .556. A team could go .556 for a year (90-72) and miss the playoffs (both NY teams missed it with 89-73 records this year)!

Compare that to the guys who've joined the club this decade (Clemens, Maddux and Glavine), plus Randy Johnson, expected to joine them next year, barring injury. Those four's combined won-loss record is 1309-774, a combined winning percentage of .628. That's approximately the equivalent of a team going 102-60, which is good enough most years to make a team the prohibitive favorite to win the World Series.

Need still more proof? Compare the adjusted ERA+ rankings for the two groups. ERA+ is calculated by comparing a pitcher's ERA each year to the league's average ERA for that year. If one's ERA exactly matches the league ERA, the score would be 100. Higher than 100--say 110 means that one's ERA was about 10% lower than the league average.

The scores for the earlier group of six: 127, 117, 115, 115, 111 and 108, for an approximate average rating of 115.5.

The scores for the recent quartet: 142, 137, 132, and 118, for an approximate average rating of 132. So the difference between these guys' ERA's and the league average was twice as great as it was for the earlier six.