Baseball's Unbreakable Records

Roger Clemens and Greg Maddux, two of the most durable and productive pitchers of our generation are the top active wins leaders with 350 and 340 respectively. They would need to pitch eight more 20-win seasons to get close. That's pitching into their fifties. Pitching has changed significantly since Cy Young's time, which is another reason this record is untouchable. Pitchers played every other day sometimes in that era and got a decision in almost every game, which leads to more opportunities for wins. There were numerous 30-win seasons, when today there are only a select few with the chance for 20 wins in a campaign. Averaging 20 wins a year would mean a player would need to pitch from age 20 until 45 without a significant injury. 300 wins will be the crown jewel for pitchers for years to come and no one will get even close to 511.

Consecutive Games Played - Cal Ripken with 2,632.

2,632 games comes out to 16 or 17 straight seasons without missing a game. An injury like a hurt wrist, pulled hamstring or food poisoning would send the game count right back down to zero. Miguel Tejada is the active leader at 1,152 and that would mean around 10 more years of play, which he would be 41 years old at that time. With managers trying to win at all costs and only a handful of players being able to play even one season without missing a game here or there, the odds of anyone, even Tejada, getting close to Ripken's mark would be amazing.

Consecutive Scoreless Innings - Orel Hershiser with 59.

Consecutive shutouts are such a rare occurrence these days and that's only a third of the way to Hershiser's mark of 59 innings without surrendering an earned run. Errors are common to bail out a pitcher on a technicality, but a pitcher going a month without giving up a run is a monumental task. The most probable pitcher to get close to the record would be a relief pitcher going half the year without giving up a run. But that would amount to only 30 innings or so. There are so many variables that go into a pitcher's ERA that the probability of 59 scoreless innings happening again are very, very low.

Stolen Bases in a Season - Rickey Henderson with 130.

There hasn't been a player to get more than 100 stolen bases in the past 20 years and with the shift to the power game, there won't be much chance that anyone gets close to Rickey's record. Most of the top-50 list is made up of performances in the 1800s! Since the days of the St.Louis Cardinals in the late 1980s, there hasn't been an offensive philosophy that would give a player even 130 attempts in a season, let alone 130 successful stolen bases.

Career Batting Average - Ty Cobb with .367.

Tony Gwynn was the finest overall hitter in our generation and he hit .338 for his career. With defensive shifts and pitching around hitters, an average of .367 is attainable for a season, but not on a consistent basis. Ichiro Suzuki, Todd Helton and Albert Pujols are the active leaders, but they are all between .330 and .335. For them to increase their career mark to .367 it would take multiple .400 seasons, which is even more unlikely than a .367 career mark.