July 31, 2002
Big Unit K's:
With 15 K tonight, Randy Johnson is only 13 behind Seaver for 15th on the all-time K list. He's also now within 1900 of Ryan. He'll be 40 in September, but his K per 9 remains very high at 11.2. Given he keeps this up for the rest of the year. He'll be within 1700 of Ryan at the end of the season. So he'll need to average a little less than 300 K a year for 6 years to pass Ryan. Here's Ryan from the age of 40 on (seasonal age):
Age K K/9
--- ---- ---
40 270 11.48
41 228 9.33
42 301 11.32
43 232 10.24
44 203 10.56
45 157 8.98
46 46 6.24
That's a total of 1437 K. So even if Johnson matches the greatest pitching performance by anyone over 40, he'll still fall short. But let's say Johnson has two more 350 K seasons left in him. That would leave him about 1000 short of Ryan, and from age 42 on, Ryan had 939 K's.
Ryan's record looked insurmountable when it was set. It still may be, but until Johnson actually slows down, I wouldn't bet against him reaching that mark.
Posted by David Pinto at
11:11 PM
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Baseball
