The Yankees' Mike Mussina will be 39-years old this season.  I was wondering how many pitchers, age 39 or older, started at least 25 games for the Yankees and had good seasons.  So, I turned to Baseball-Reference.com's Play Index Pitching Season Finder and set it for "Playing for the NYY, For single seasons, From 1901 to 2007, From Age 39 to 99, (requiring GS>=25), sorted by greatest ERAp" and I found this list:

  Cnt Player            **ERA+** GS Year Age Tm  Lg  G  CG SHO GF  W  L  W-L% SV   IP   H   R   ER  BB  SO   ERA  HR  BF   AB  2B 3B IBB HBP  SH  SF GDP  SB CS Pk BK WP   BA   OBP   SLG   OPS  OPS+  Pit  Str
+----+-----------------+--------+--+----+---+---+--+---+--+---+--+--+--+-----+--+-----+---+---+---+---+---+------+--+----+----+--+--+---+---+---+---+---+---+--+--+--+--+-----+-----+-----+-----+----+----+----+
    1 Phil Niekro          123   31 1984  45 NYY AL  32  5   1  1 16  8  .667  0 215.2 219  85  74  76 136   3.09 15  916  821 35  5   0   3   5  11  23   9 12  0  0  2  .267  .327  .376  .703   98           
    2 David Wells          118   31 2002  39 NYY AL  31  2   1  0 19  7  .731  0 206.1 210 100  86  45 137   3.75 21  873  812 51  3   2   5   6   5  13  14  4  1  0  4  .259  .300  .406  .706   86 3183 2150 
    3 Roger Clemens        112   33 2003  40 NYY AL  33  1   1  0 17  9  .654  0 211.2 199  99  92  58 190   3.91 24  878  806 42  3   1   5   3   6  10  20  8  0  0  5  .247  .299  .396  .695   84 3455 2184 
    4 Randy Johnson        112   34 2005  41 NYY AL  34  4   0  0 17  8  .680  0 225.2 207 102  95  47 211   3.79 32  920  851 38  3   2  12   5   5  14  23 14  4  1  3  .243  .291  .408  .699   85 3423 2310 
    5 Tommy John           110   33 1987  44 NYY AL  33  3   1  0 13  6  .684  0 187.2 212  95  84  47  63   4.03 12  802  736 31  3   7   6  12   1  27  17  6  1  0  9  .288  .335  .387  .722   91           
    6 Tommy John           108   26 1982  39 NYY AL  30  9   2  2 10 10  .500  0 186.2 190  84  76  34  54   3.66 11  766  715 25 12   1   3   7   7  22   5  6  0  2  5  .266  .299  .380  .679   87           
    7 David Wells          106   30 2003  40 NYY AL  31  4   1  0 15  7  .682  0 213   242 101  98  20 101   4.14 24  887  846 54  3   0   8   6   7  18  16  5  4  0  3  .286  .306  .442  .748   96 3008 2126 
    8 Roger Clemens        102   29 2002  39 NYY AL  29  0   0  0 13  6  .684  0 180   172  94  87  63 192   4.35 18  768  688 43  2   6   7   5   5   9  23  5  3  0 14  .250  .317  .397  .714   89 3110 1972 
    9 Phil Niekro           98   33 1985  46 NYY AL  33  7   1  0 16 12  .571  0 220   203 110 100 120 149   4.09 29  955  829 37  6   1   2   1   3  27  22  5  1  2  5  .245  .341  .409  .750  107           
   10 Randy Johnson         90   33 2006  42 NYY AL  33  2   0  0 17 11  .607  0 205   194 125 114  60 172   5.00 28  860  777 39  3   1  10   6   7  12  21 10  1  2  3  .250  .309  .416  .725   85 3257 2136 
   11 Tommy John            89   32 1988  45 NYY AL  35  0   0  2  9  8  .529  0 176.1 221  96  88  46  81   4.49 11  776  717 43  3   4   6   5   2  29  15  4  0  5  5  .308  .354  .423  .777  118           
   12 Joe Niekro            84   25 1986  41 NYY AL  25  0   0  0  9 10  .474  0 125.2 139  84  68  63  59   4.87 15  571  505 26  4   3   1   1   0   9  23  1  0  1 10  .275  .357  .432  .789  115           
   13 Luis Tiant            80   25 1980  39 NYY AL  25  3   0  0  8  9  .471  0 136.1 139  79  74  50  84   4.89 10  588  524 28 11   3   1   6   7   7  18  7  1  0  2  .265  .326  .418  .744  104           


Seasons/Careers found: 13.

First, the obvious thing - wow, only 13 seasons where a pitcher has made 25+ starts for the Yankees, where they were age 39 or older.  And, it never happened before 1980. 

Basically, we're looking at seven pitchers here - Luis Tiant, Tommy John, Phil Niekro, Joe Niekro, David Wells, Roger Clemens, and Randy Johnson.  Mussina will become the eighth, this season, if he makes 25 or more starts.

This list shows that it's not impossible for a Yankees pitcher to be 39-or-older, make 25+ starts, and pitch well.  But, it helps if you have a good fastball, knuckler, or sinker.

Then again, there's always the Black & Decker approach too.

This entry was posted on Saturday, January 19th, 2008 at 4:47 pm and is filed under Season Finders. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.