Not this this means anything to anyone but numerologists, but 714 was also Joe Friday's badge number on Dragnet.

OJ,

In order for someone to approach Denny McClain's 30 win year in 1968, that person would have to win 30 of, at most, 33 starts in a 5-man rotation. Considering that with the unbalanced sked a division team gets to see that same pitcher up to 4 times, that becomes even more of a tall order.

And let's not even discuss the ballpark changes that would have to be implemented for someone to even have a shot at Bob Gibson's ERA.

It's easy to imagine a team going with a four man rotation for a year or two or a dominant pitcher being put on one.

Felix Hernandez throwing half his games at the Kingdome could break it--heck, John Tudor had a sub-2.00 one year.

Yeah, but in this era of pitcher specialization, do you know of one team that will attempt such a thing? Even Ozzie Guillen has a 5-man rotation.

The Cubs did it for awhile a few years ago--when they had Mike Harkey. Some manager will try it again. One of the things it does is both force starters to throw more strikes and enable them to.

I was at the game in Cincinnati when Mike Harkey ruined his arm. Terrible thing to watch. In a day when 3rd & 4th starters made $10K it was OK to handle them as cannon fodder, it costs too much to do it today.

Bill James rates the breakability of records on the basis "years of top performance". He averages the top performance in a category over the prior three years and divides that number into the record. According to James the most unbreakable career record in baseball is Cy Young's 749 complete games, which would require over 50 years of current top performance to beat.

By the way Jason Starks pointed out the other night that Pedro and Babe Ruth are tied right now in career complete games.

One amazing thing is that Nolan Ryan came darn close to breaking Cy Young's loss record...

Jeff:

Actually, pitching them every fourth day and reducing their pitch counts would be better for their arms. Damage comes from throwing too much on the day you pitch, not from pitching too much.

A four-man rotation sounds pretty good for the Red Sox right now... if they could find four.

The Sox could easily go to four when Wells is healthy. It would especially help Beckett and Schilling.

I also think Cy Young's record is impossible these days; heck, after Maddux I didn't think anyone would get 300 in the next 20 years. Now I do think Glavine will get there, he is around 280+ now.

If this list had been done five years ago, where would Hack Wilson's 256 hits in a season stand? Does the fact that a long standing record gets broken recently and so is demoted mean it was never all that great to begin with?

johnny vander meers back to back no hitters,

Owen Wilson hit 36 triples in 1912 - has anyone hit over 25 since? I don't think so.

George Sisler had the 257 hits - Hack Wilson the 190 RBIs. People thought that was unbreakable until Manny got around 175 a few seasons ago.

Has any outfielder ever played an entire season (120+ games) and not made an error?

Cristian Guzman, a terrible hitter, had 20 a couple years ago. Some fast guy who isn't using steroids so can't reach the fence will break that one.

Another record that won't fall is the 5 Series in a row the Yankees won (49-53). The A's won 3 in row (72-74) and might conceivably have won in 1975, but that was it. The recent Yankee teams didn't do it, with all their money and stars (and feeble opposition in the Series), so nobody else is going to come close, either.