Moon Unit

What can be expected from Randy Johnson's left arm over the next couple of years? 

According to Bob Melvin,

"You get a guy who's going to give you 200 innings of work and about 17 wins."

That could be, but in today's Arizona Republic, an astute (and from what we hear, devilishly handsome) fan observes that no 43 year old pitcher (excl knuckleballers & spitballers), has ever won more than 13 games in a season. Randy is certainly the kind of athlete who could break that "ceiling", having set the seasonal wins mark(24) amongst all 38 year olds a few years back, and his 17 wins in each of the past two seasons (with, as is often pointed out, the Yankees) places him amongst the all time leaders at ages 41 and 42 as well.

Diamondhacks tends to side, however, with this particular fan's caution and sees Manager Melvin's "17 win guy" remark as overly cheerful. As everyone knows, back or no back, the capacity of human bodies to perform at the highest levels of athletic competition deteriorates over time, in terms of stamina, muscle strength and perhaps most acutely, reflexes, and this degradation seems to have understandably manifested itself with Johnson over the past several years, especially looking beyond the Wins to the broader, underlying measures of pitching performance. RJ's extraordinary ability and conditioning help hold this inexorable, biological wolf at the door, but at 43 the wolf will only disappear for one reason - so he can come back for a bigger bite with some of his friends. Reparation of the disc should help, but to expect a genuine "comeback", something akin to 200 innings, 17 wins (which may presume an ERA in the middle threes in Arizona), stretches reason and contradicts personal and more general pitching history.

On an encouraging note, everyone seemed genuinely excited to have Randy back. He appeared relaxed, happy even, and that's a good sign. He did let an odd comment slip out though, when asked about 300 wins. He said that it would be difficult to attain in 2007, even if he was healthy.

We know what he was trying to say.

At least we hope so.