Baseball players today are MASSIVE.
Will Sabathia and Colon make history tonight?
USA TODAY Sports
Compared to football players? No. But compared to their historical forebears? Yes.
I knew this already, but the point was driven home after I saw this ...
CC Sabathia vs. Bartolo Colon in Oakland tonight. Have there ever been two starting pitchers in one game who combined to weigh more?
— King Kaufman (@king_kaufman) June 11, 2013
... and stuck my nose into Baseball-Reference.com’s Play Index, which lists 54 pitchers in major-league history weighing more than 250 pounds.
Of those 54 pitchers, 52 have pitched in the last 10 seasons.
The only exceptions are Garland Buckeye and Walter “Jumbo” Brown, both listed at just 255.
Granted, players’ weights fluctuate and so we’re at the mercy of whatever someone reported at a single point in time. But listed weights are pretty good at showing us trends, and the trend here is clearly for much bigger pitchers.
Anyway, getting back to Kaufman's question ... Yes, there probably have been two starting pitchers in one game who weighed more than Sabathia (290) and Colon (265), according to listed weights. Because while Sabathia has never been matched against Jeff Niemann (285), there's also Seth McClung (280) and Carlos Zambrano (275). Anybody want to check all the other possible match-ups?
Of course, we might guess that Sabathia and Colon have faced off before. And it’s hard to say they weigh more now, together, than they did then.
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