The final cut from the list of options was, believe it or not, Esteban Loiaza, who like Hernandez and Millwood has 123 -- but Loiaza is 34 while the other two are each 31.

Loaiza has an established performance level of around 11 wins... he's quite unlikely to make it but not impossible.  The Favorite Toy (crude, but a good simple analytical tool) gives him a 2% chance.

TFT gives Colon a 23% chance of making it to 200, but I think his chances are better than that.  I'd assume (just as a WAG) he has a 50% chance of getting his fastball back, and if he does, he's got much better than a 50% chance of getting 60 more wins in his career.  Even if he doesn't, there's a chance that Colon could still be an effective innings-eater and give himself an outside shot, but basically, he needs that heater.

TFT gives Johan Santana a 66% chance at 200, 32% at 250 and 14% at 300, which is pretty much in the ballpark as far as I can see...

I voted Other.  I had in mind this tall likeable starter out of Colorado whose name escapes me right at the moment.  You know the one; Herbie Larry Hanrahan might be it.

I voted for Herbie too. He's not even 30 yet! How come he's not one of the options, anyways!

Just noticed a name missing - Roy Halladay.  At 95 right now and entering his age 30 season.  His 'established' level used by the favorite toy is 13 thus no real shot at 200 but given he has a shot at 20 every season when healthy, and healthy he should be now, I could see an average of 17 per year thus needing just over 6 years to get there.  It would be sad if Halladay follows Dave Stieb into the sub-200 win for a Jay ace category though.  Weird that the only guy who came up through the Jay system (one that has Stieb, Halladay, Key, Clancy sort of, Hentgen, Guzman, Escobar) to get 200 wins total is David Wells at 230 wins.  Very weird.

Why is Halladay not an option? Good question. The honest answer is, I just forgot.  He's clearly in the Oswalt/Santana category and should probably bump Willis.

But to be frank, I'm kind of glad he's not on the list -- I think the homerism would've dropped 70 percent of the vote on HLH, whereas in the current list, lots of candidates are getting support, but none (at this writing) have a majority or even a third of the votes!

I would be surprised if Halladay didn't get to 200, but I would be very surprised if he got there "next."

Incidentally, I went with Millwood. (I see only two of us have done so at this point.) He's at 123 and if he replicates his last seven years over the next seven years, he will get there. Sound unlikely? Well, consider that in three of those seven seasons, Millwood won 7, 9 and 9 games and I think it is a good bet that he will actually do better than that -- barring injury, of course.

Millwood is a fairly good bet.  Here are his BBRef comparables. He's probably got a better chance than many of his comparables were at this stage, as he is maintaining his strikeout rate as he ages and he has been healthy.  It' kind of amusing to see Jason Schmidt and Bartolo Colon on the list.

Whoops.  "It's kind of amusing..."

I see that list has two more active pitchers in Freddy Garcia (116 wins) and Matt Morris (111). Do they belong as poll options? Halladay is probably a better bet than either, but there's a complete lack of love for Mike Hampton's 138 wins, so maybe Morris for Hampton?

His 'established' level used by the favorite toy is 13 thus no real shot at 200

Halladay : NeedWins = 105, YearsLeft = 6.6, EstLevel = 13.3 wins.  His estimated chance is 33%.

By the way, apparently I'm doing these kinda wrong, because James has a revised Favorite Toy that I need to analyze fully.  Most of the existing literature on TFT uses a faulty calculation, but not for that reason.

 

Wow, Halladay's list of Most-Similar pitchers through age 29 is like a sonnet to arm injuries.  McGregor, Malone, Hentgen, Smiley... the one guy on the list who made it to 200 was Moose.

Of the guys who aren't active on Halladay's ten most-similar-through-29 list, the career win numbers after the age-29 year are...

• McGregor 42
• Newcombe 64 (27 at age 30)
• Malone 43
• Hentgen 37
• Smiley 36

Ouch!  Mussina has 121 wins after the age of 29.  Anyway, I'm kinda glad that Halladay is only signed for three more years.  :)

TFT percentage for Hampton is actually 21%, which is not bad.   Hampton has at least been effective in each of the last three years, more than you can say about some of these guys.  Project his 2005 numbers out to 30 starts, and he'd be at exactly a 50-50 proposition.  Of course, there's an internal "reason" why the system doesn't have you project like that. 

Naturally, I have to vote for the prize of this year's free agent crop... you know, the 28 year old with 102 career wins who's never missed a start in his life. Wears # 75, which is easy to remember...

And yes, the next edition of Chasing the Big Numbers is long overdue...

How bout Tim Wakefield at 151? Knuckleballers can throw forever, anyway.

I don't understand how anyone can vote for Santana over Oswalt when the question isn't "who's better?" but rather "who gets to 200 next?"

Actually, Santana and Oswalt are a tossup in who's better -- go ahead, look at the career and recent stats; Santana may be slightly better, but there's an argument. Oswalt has 20 more wins and is just 18 or so months older. If Santana wins 20 games a year for the next six years, that puts him at 198. Oswalt would need to win "just" 17 games a year over that same period to be at 200.

Somebody who voted for Santana, make the argument -- seriously, I'm curious. And yeah, I voted for Millwood. He only needs to average 13 wins a season over that timeframe to get to 201.

I didn't vote for Santana, but I'll make the argument.  But first, here are his BBRef comparables. Again, it's amusing to find both Oswalt and Millwood there.

Probably the two best statistical markers for the long-term success of a 27 year old pitcher are ERA+ and K rate.  Using those as markers, this is probably a more accurate group of comparables. Santana started late, but he's pitched more like Seaver than like Millwood.  The biggest question with Santana is health.  If he's healthy, I'm pretty sure that he'll average 15 wins over the next 10 years.  With other pitchers, including Oswalt, the strikeout rate is low enough that a sudden loss of effectiveness, even in the absence of injury, could occur in 2 or 3 years. 

I still think that Oswalt or Halladay is more likely to make it faster, but that's the argument.