MLB: Looking Ahead to Career Milestones of 2017

Bartolo Colon – 250 wins

Pitcher wins don’t mean as much as they used to, and for good reason. There are many other statistics, both simple and advanced, that can paint a better picture of a pitcher’s performance in a game, in a season or in a career. But wins and losses are still assigned to pitchers, and at least serve to tell about a pitcher’s longevity. Approaching his age-44 season, Bartolo Colon has longevity in spades.

Colon still has 17 wins to go to reach the 250-win milestone. He is the active leader in wins, 10 ahead of CC Sabathia and nobody else remotely close. It will be a long time before we see another pitcher cross the 300-win threshold, so we have to celebrate our current reality. Colon has surpassed 17 wins five times in his career, including as recently as 2013. However, only nine pitchers reached 17 wins last season, and counting on a 44-year-old pitcher to strike gold once again is not a great bet. Having said that, Colon has certainly beat the odds in the past and is pitching for a much-improved Atlanta Braves squad.

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Colon did not make his MLB debut until he was nearly 24. He had perhaps his best season in 2002, when he won 20 games with a 2.93 ERA for Cleveland and Montreal, who acquired him for the steep price of Cliff Lee, Brandon Phillips, Grady Sizemore and Lee Stevens. Colon won 18 games in 2004 despite a 5.01 ERA, and rebounded well to win the Cy Young in 2005. The bottom then fell out for Colon, as bouts of injuries and ineffectiveness limited him to a total of 257 innings over 48 appearances for the next five seasons, posting a 14-21 record, 5.18 ERA and 1.51 WHIP over that stretch. He looked done.

A funny thing happened on the way to retirement, though, as Colon resurrected his career with the Yankees, flourished with the Athletics and became a cult hero with the Mets. He has made two all-star teams since turning 40 and there really seems to be no end in sight. Bartolo Colon will never be a hall of famer, but the 250-win marker should be a special one for Big Sexy.