MINOR LEAGUE MILESTONES

The top 12 most significant minor league achievements of the last 40 seasons

- MATT EDDY

We don’t know when we can look forward to minor league baseball again, but that doesn’t mean we can’t look back at standout minor league performances from the past. In this case, we focus on standout performances of the Baseball America era, which dates back to 1981.

So to celebrate what would have been the beginning portion of the 2020 minor league season, we rank the most significant, astonishing and outstanding minor league achievements of the past 40 seasons.

1. DWIGHT GOODEN, 1983

300 STRIKEOUTS

While 300-strikeout seasons are rare in the major leagues, they are all but nonexistent in the minors.

Nolan Ryan, the single-season and all-time major league strikeout king, struck out 307 batters in 1966, mostly at Class A in his first full year out of the draft. Only one minor league pitcher has reached 300 since.

That pitcher was Dwight Gooden, who as an 18-year-old righthander in 1983 struck out a minor league-leading 300 Carolina League batters in 191 innings. The typical minor-league leader during this period finished north of 200 strikeouts—but well short of 300.

Since Gooden reached 300, no other minor league pitcher has topped 250 strikeouts. Tom Gordon’s 234 in 1988 is the highest total since Gooden’s feat.

Gooden, drafted fifth overall by the Mets in 1982, went 19-4, 2.50 in 27 starts for high-Class A Lynchburg in 1983 and claimed the BA Minor League Player of the Year award. One of the more interesting aspects of Gooden’s epic season was that he completed 10 games and walked 112 batters—5.3 per nine innings—which is a reminder of how player development standards have changed for pitchers through the years.