The early 1980’s say a bit of a celebration of pitching history, with 5 different pitchers attaining the 300th victory milestone. Included in that group was Atlanta Braves‘ knuckleballer Phil Niekro – though sadly, it happened while he was a member of the New York Yankees.
But now this species of pitchers is going extinct.
The ‘Win’ stat is being de-emphasized. Overall, that’s probably a good thing – after all, pitchers don’t ‘win’ so much as they can stymie the opposition’s bats. It’s their teammates on offense that must defeat the enemy pitcher.