The 100 Greatest in 100 Days: #26 Tom Seaver

Dazzling the list at #26 is “The Franchise” Tom Seaver. Seaver famously led the Miracle Mets—a team that had not finished better than 9th in the National League in its seven seasons of existence—to the 1969 World Series Championship. His capstone performance was a 10-inning complete-game victory over the Orioles in Game 4, giving the Mets a commanding 3-1 lead in the series. Seaver’s ’69 regular season was largely responsible for the Mets making the playoffs in the first place as he went 25-7, leading the league in wins while also winning the NL Cy Young and finishing runner up in the MVP race. While 1969 was a stellar year for him, Terrific Tom’s career was just getting started on the superlatives. He would follow up his first Cy Young with two more in 1973 and 1975 on his way to eight top-5 finishes. Only Roger Clemens, Greg Maddux, and Randy Johnson have more. Seaver is 6th all-time in strikeouts and 7th all-time in shutouts and WAR. He’s the only pitcher in history with at least 310 wins and fewer than 206 losses, 3,500 strikeouts, and 200 complete games. He’s the only pitcher in history with 3,500 strikeouts, fewer than 4,000 hits allowed, and an ERA under 3.00. He’s the only pitcher in history with more than 60 shutouts, 230 complete games, and 3,600 strikeouts.  He’s the only pitcher since 1915 with 300 career wins and an ERA under 3.00. His nine consecutive 200-strikeout seasons are the most in history, and he joins Roger Clemens and Greg Maddux as only three pitchers since 1914 with at least a 127 career ERA+ over 4,200 innings.

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