Randy Johnson pitches Friday night at Safeco Field against the Mariners, needing just two victories to reach 300 for his career. Recently, Greg Maddux, Tom Glavine and Roger Clemens all hit the 300 barrier, but one wonders which pitcher will hit that milestone after Randy.

Larry Stone over at the Times has a nice discussion with Nolan Ryan regarding Randy Johnson and his achieving the 300 win milestone. His discussion got me thinking about which active pitcher has the best shot to get to that mark.

Below is a list of active pitchers closest to 300 wins, along with their ages. I've also included how many seasons they would have to play to hit 300 victories if they continued to win games at their current rate for the rest of their careers. This rudimentary analysis is just to provide a rough outline as to the difficulty facing any of these pitchers at attaining this feat. For example, if Jamie Moyer were to continue to win game consistent with his career average (which is 14 per year), he would need to pitch approximately 3.64 additional seasons to hit 300. (data from Baseball-Reference.com):

298 - Randy Johnson (45)
249 - Jamie Moyer (46) [3.64]
219 - Andy Pettitte (37) [4.76]
214 - Pedro Martinez (37) [5.06]
210 - John Smoltz (42) [7.50]
183 - Tim Wakefield (42) [9.00]
152 - Bartolo Colon (36) [9.25]
150 - Livan Hernandez (34) [11.54]
146 - Tim Hudson (33) [9.62]
146 - Kevin Millwood (34) [11.00]
143 - Mike Hampton (36) [12.07]
143 - Steve Trachsel (38) [13.08]
139 - Roy Halladay (32) [9.47]
138 - Tom Gordon (41) [18.00]
131 - Derek Lowe (36) [15.36]
131 - Jeff Supan (34) [14.08]
131 - Javier Vasquez (32) [14.08]
130 - Roy Oswalt (31) [10.00]
128 - Mark Buehrle (30) [11.47]

Others -

121 - C.C. Sabathia (28) [11.18]
115 - Johan Santana (30) [12.40]
89 - Jake Peavy (28) [14.06]
43 - Felix Hernandez (23) [19.77]


I've bolded the two Roy's, Halladay and Oswalt, as they stand-out as appearing to have the best chance to hit 300 based on their career win rate and their age. If they were to remain healthy and pitch into their early 40s, they should be able to get pretty close. You might be able to toss Mark Buehrle into that mix, as well. Of course, this analysis doesn't take into account a "decline" in pitching ability that generally occurs. Unless you're Jamie Moyer, pitchers generally don't win more games later in their careers.

Obviously, the younger guys that haven't had any major injury troubles look like the best bets at this point, but all it takes is one or two seasons of shoulder or elbow problems, or just some flat out bad years, to make getting to 300 very difficult. Still, if I had to place a bet, Roy Halladay would be my guy.