Kevin Brown having more than Pedro sure is surprising.
I thought for sure Tom Seaver would be here. Turns out he had three such seasons and one with an ERA+ of 149.
Does any individual player have a bigger gap between what fans think of him in hindsight and how much of a dominant impact he had as Roger Clemens? Even a lot of PED haters will give Bonds credit for being great before he roided up. But it doesn’t seem like Clemens ever benefits from that perspective, even though his career was kind of similar to Bonds’s (dominated while young and then took PEDs which extended/improved his prime beyond what anyone would’ve expected).
Rangers legends Kevin Brown and Greg Maddux
Grover Alexander looks like he’s 55 years old here. Apparently his nickname was Old Pete.
Felix Hernandez misses the list by one season. Plenty of seasons over 200IP but only three of those seasons above 150 ERA+ to his credit two of the seasons were back to back with an ERA+ above 170. The third time he did it is ERA+ was 170.
Surprised Bob Gibson isn’t on here.
Rube Waddell’s inclusion is even more impressive when you realize he had a dog’s brain.
Why is the Santana picture in a Mets uniform when three of those four seasons were with the Twins? May as well have one of Maddux in a Cubs uniform.
Addie joss was the first guy I looked up to see how close he was
4 years of 150+ but one of the years was only 192.2 ip
Not bad for only playing 8.5 years
Historically great pitchers who are missing from this list? My biggest surprise is no Tom Seaver or Bob Gibson. Seaver had three, and is a rounding error away from a fourth in 1977. Gibson also had three and also came very close to a fourth in 1966.
Johan Santana was really him
Rube
Forgive me Mordecai Brown, I was not familiar with your game
I miss Greg Maddux so much. Nothing he threw was straight. Made the ball dance with pinpoint accuracy.
Roy Halladay is rated and in the Hall, and yet, he’s still the most criminally underrated pitcher of the 21st Century. He was the greatest artist I have ever watched pitch, and I watched prime Pedro.
I always get excited when I see mention of Mordecai “Three-Finger” Brown.
Rube!
Quick, throw him the puppy
Put some mf respect on Kevin Brown’s name
KB was robbed of 2 Cy Youngs
Y’all, if you’re between 30 and 50 years old, we got to watch or hear HALF of these pitchers dominate.
And that Greg Maddux sits at 8 seasons, tied with Roger Clemens’ and his overwhelming repertoire, got there with far less stuff as perhaps the most skilled pitcher of all time, making the best maximal use of his God-given talents, what an accomplishment.
That’s reason to smile as a baseball fan.
And maybe I’m too old school for thinking that going 6+ innings for 32 to 33 starts a year to hit 200 IP in a season should still be an individual goal for pitchers, but I wish it wasn’t so rare. That we’ll likely never see any pitchers ever enter this list makes me almost equally bummed.
3 sets of questions for all you statheads out there:
1. Who makes this list now if we keep these parameters? Even amazing pitchers like deGrom and Chris Sale falls short on innings in particular years. And even the best of the best young aces like Skenes and Skubal seem too valuable to their teams to be allowed to hit 200 IP even with optimal game-to-game pitch counts.
2. Do we move the IP count from 200 in a year to, say, 180 IP as the modern measure for a true workhorse pitcher in today’s MLB?
3. Just like it went from 300 IP to 250 to 200 over the years, is 180 IP the final single season frontier?
I will die on the hill that Santana getting bounced from the HOF ballot *in his very first year* is the biggest miss by voters this century.
Surprised Seaver isn’t on the list
I knew Adam Wainwright had to be close to being on this list. He had 3 such seasons, and one season with 241ip but missed the ERA+ by a little.
Wow, I did not expect to see Kevin Brown on this list. I only think of him as the guy Damon hit his grand slam off of in Game 7 of the 2004 ALCS.
30 comments
Why Kevin Brown and Johan Santana should be in the Hall of Fame.
“As of 2025”. Looking forward to seeing him increase the number of seasons next year.
* **[Here’s](https://www.sports-reference.com/stathead/tiny/lGhHP)** the stathead link. No active player has 3.
* [Here’s the complete list (450) of such seasons.](https://www.sports-reference.com/stathead/tiny/kf0tF) Garrett Crochet and Cristopher Sanchez did it in 2025.
* All of these players are in the Hall of Fame except Clemens (steroids), K. Brown (steroids?), Kershaw (ineligible), Verlander (active), and Santana (inept voters)
* [Pedro is first with five 150 IP / 200 ERA + seasons.](https://www.sports-reference.com/stathead/tiny/6uvdt) Only him, Walter Johnson, and Clemens have more than two.
Roger Clemens is the Cy Young of baseball.
Kevin Brown having more than Pedro sure is surprising.
I thought for sure Tom Seaver would be here. Turns out he had three such seasons and one with an ERA+ of 149.
Does any individual player have a bigger gap between what fans think of him in hindsight and how much of a dominant impact he had as Roger Clemens? Even a lot of PED haters will give Bonds credit for being great before he roided up. But it doesn’t seem like Clemens ever benefits from that perspective, even though his career was kind of similar to Bonds’s (dominated while young and then took PEDs which extended/improved his prime beyond what anyone would’ve expected).
Rangers legends Kevin Brown and Greg Maddux
Grover Alexander looks like he’s 55 years old here. Apparently his nickname was Old Pete.
Felix Hernandez misses the list by one season. Plenty of seasons over 200IP but only three of those seasons above 150 ERA+ to his credit two of the seasons were back to back with an ERA+ above 170. The third time he did it is ERA+ was 170.
Surprised Bob Gibson isn’t on here.
Rube Waddell’s inclusion is even more impressive when you realize he had a dog’s brain.
Why is the Santana picture in a Mets uniform when three of those four seasons were with the Twins? May as well have one of Maddux in a Cubs uniform.
Addie joss was the first guy I looked up to see how close he was
4 years of 150+ but one of the years was only 192.2 ip
Not bad for only playing 8.5 years
Historically great pitchers who are missing from this list? My biggest surprise is no Tom Seaver or Bob Gibson. Seaver had three, and is a rounding error away from a fourth in 1977. Gibson also had three and also came very close to a fourth in 1966.
Johan Santana was really him
Rube
Forgive me Mordecai Brown, I was not familiar with your game
I miss Greg Maddux so much. Nothing he threw was straight. Made the ball dance with pinpoint accuracy.
Roy Halladay is rated and in the Hall, and yet, he’s still the most criminally underrated pitcher of the 21st Century. He was the greatest artist I have ever watched pitch, and I watched prime Pedro.
I always get excited when I see mention of Mordecai “Three-Finger” Brown.
Rube!
Quick, throw him the puppy
Put some mf respect on Kevin Brown’s name
KB was robbed of 2 Cy Youngs
Y’all, if you’re between 30 and 50 years old, we got to watch or hear HALF of these pitchers dominate.
And that Greg Maddux sits at 8 seasons, tied with Roger Clemens’ and his overwhelming repertoire, got there with far less stuff as perhaps the most skilled pitcher of all time, making the best maximal use of his God-given talents, what an accomplishment.
That’s reason to smile as a baseball fan.
And maybe I’m too old school for thinking that going 6+ innings for 32 to 33 starts a year to hit 200 IP in a season should still be an individual goal for pitchers, but I wish it wasn’t so rare. That we’ll likely never see any pitchers ever enter this list makes me almost equally bummed.
3 sets of questions for all you statheads out there:
1. Who makes this list now if we keep these parameters? Even amazing pitchers like deGrom and Chris Sale falls short on innings in particular years. And even the best of the best young aces like Skenes and Skubal seem too valuable to their teams to be allowed to hit 200 IP even with optimal game-to-game pitch counts.
2. Do we move the IP count from 200 in a year to, say, 180 IP as the modern measure for a true workhorse pitcher in today’s MLB?
3. Just like it went from 300 IP to 250 to 200 over the years, is 180 IP the final single season frontier?
I will die on the hill that Santana getting bounced from the HOF ballot *in his very first year* is the biggest miss by voters this century.
Surprised Seaver isn’t on the list
I knew Adam Wainwright had to be close to being on this list. He had 3 such seasons, and one season with 241ip but missed the ERA+ by a little.
Wow, I did not expect to see Kevin Brown on this list. I only think of him as the guy Damon hit his grand slam off of in Game 7 of the 2004 ALCS.
Kevin Brown?!??