Saturday, December 17, 2022

Game Scores For Pitchers' 300th Win And Other Milestones

The table below shows the game score for when each of the pitchers listed won their 300th game. It goes from highest to lowest Game Score (Walter Johnson's 300th came in relief so Game Score is not applicable but his pitching line is included as the last entry). 

Game Score is a Bill James stat used to estimate how well a pitcher did in a given start. The formula is given after the table.

I used game logs from Baseball Reference to find the pitching lines for all the post 1900 milestones. For those before 1900 (like Welch and Keefe), I found box scores through Google searching.

Also included are the 400th wins for Cy Young and Walter Johnson and 500th for Cy Young. I could not find unearned runs for his 500th win. So there are two lines for that game. There was one error in the game (made by Young). But he allowed 1 run in the first inning and 1 run in the 8th inning. So at most there could only be 1 unearned run (and maybe even zero). So one line has his Game Score if he allowed 1 earned run and the other line is if both runs were earned.

For Eddie Plank, I found his Game Score for his 300th MLB win (which happened in the Federal League). That line is labeled FL. After one year in the FL, he came back to the AL and got his 300th AL win. So that line is labeled AL.

Pitcher

IP

H

R

ER

BB

K

GS

Radbourn

9

4

0

0

1

4

82

Nichols

9

3

0

0

2

2

81

Young500-1ER

11

5

2

1

3

3

81

Niekro

9

4

0

0

3

5

81

Sutton

9

3

1

1

0

3

80

Young500-2ER

11

5

2

2

3

3

79

Seaver

9

6

1

1

1

7

77

Spahn

9

6

1

1

1

5

75

WJohnson400

9

4

1

1

4

3

74

Mathewson

9

5

1

0

1

0

74

Cy Young300

9

8

1

0

2

6

73

Young400

9

7

1

1

0

3

72

Carlton

8

7

2

2

1

12

71

Clarkson

9

5

2

2

2

3

70

Welch

9

5

2

2

2

3

70

RJohnson

6

2

1

0

2

2

66

Ryan

7.2

6

3

1

2

8

65

Alexander

12

15

3

2

1

2

63

Clemens

6.2

6

2

2

2

10

62

Keefe

9

8

4

1

3

2

60

Perry

9

9

3

3

1

4

60

Plank FL

8

8

2

2

2

2

58

Galvin

9

9

4

4

0

1

54

Glavine

6.1

6

2

2

1

1

53

Plank AL

9

13

3

3

3

4

50

Grove

9

12

6

5

1

6

46

Wynn

5

6

4

4

3

3

39

Maddux

5

7

4

4

3

3

37

WJohnson300

3.2

3

1

0

0

0

NA

Here is the Game Score formula:

    Start with 50 points.
    Add one point for each out recorded, so three points for every complete inning pitched.
    Add two points for each inning completed after the fourth.
    Add one point for each strikeout.
    Subtract two points for each hit allowed.
    Subtract four points for each earned run allowed.
    Subtract two points for each unearned run allowed.
    Subtract one point for each walk.

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