There are certain milestones in baseball that automatically qualify a player for legendary status: 500 home runs, 3,000 hits and 300 wins have always been worth an automatic ticket to the Hall of Fame. But these days, some numbers aren't what they used to be.

For instance, as of the beginning of the 2007 season, only 20 players in Major League history have reached the 500 home-run plateau, and five of those 20 have reached that mark fairly recently.

Since 1999, Barry Bonds, Sammy Sosa, Mark McGwire, Rafael Palmeiro, and Ken Griffey Jr. have all claimed a place in the 500 Home Run Club. At the moment, there are only a few active veterans that have a legitimate chance to join them before the end of their careers: Frank Thomas (487 HR), Jim Thome (472), Manny Ramirez (470), Alex Rodriguez (464), Gary Sheffield (455), Carlos Delgado (407), Andruw Jones (342) and Vladimir Guerrero (338).

So although from the origins of the game up until 1998, there were a mere 15 players that had hit 500 homers, by the middle of the next decade there will likely be 15 more that have joined them. The once-prestigious list will have swelled to double the size.

This realization puts those numbers into perspective. Five hundred home runs is simply not the feat it used to be.

The same can be said for 300 wins, but in a different vein. Whereas it now seems like every All-Star is a 500 home-run hitter, 300 wins is becoming more and more difficult to reach. In today's modern game, it is quickly nearing the point where 300 wins will be practically unattainable. Today's young pitchers, no matter how good they may be, probably shouldn’t even dream of approaching the elite 300 mark.

Roger Clemens and Greg Maddux are the two most recent pitchers to enter the 300-win club. Two active pitchers will begin the 2007 season with an outside chance to join them, namely Tom Glavine (290 wins) and Randy Johnson (280). Eventually, Mike Mussina (239) and Pedro Martinez (206) may have a shot to get there too.

Glavine and Johnson seem like safe bets, although as age and injury problems increase, neither are guarantees. But after this current crop, it's possible that there will not be another pitcher to approach 300 victories for a very, very long time.

There are two main reasons for the recent trend of fewer victories for starting pitchers. First of all, bullpens are used more now than ever before. More frequent use of relief pitchers detracts from the number of decisions that would otherwise go to the starters.

Bullpens are taking both more wins and losses away from the starters. In the grand scheme of things, this is a relatively new situation. The prominent use of closers, set-up men, middle relievers and left-handed specialists didn't take off until 20 or 30 years ago.

In the past decade, this system has been established to the point where it's an accepted part of the game, and it's not going away any time soon. Hall of Fame pitchers with 300 victories from the 1960s and earlier didn't have to contend with middle relievers appearing in nearly every single game and stealing a significant portion of their decisions.

The second reason is that pitchers don't start nearly as many games as they have in years past. As recently as the 1970s, most teams still used four-man rotations. This allowed the average starting pitcher to make nearly 40 starts per season.

Today, every team uses a five-man rotation, and some have even flirted with six-man rotations. Instead of using off-days to their advantage by allowing their best pitcher to throw every fifth day even if it means altering the rest of the rotation, most of today's managers simply stick to the rotation and the result is that aces sometimes end up pitching every sixth day.

 Every pitcher's arm is so carefully protected and pitchers are given ample opportunity to rest throughout the season. These changes to the way pitchers are handled have had a direct effect on their statistics.

In each of the last 10 seasons, each league leader in games started has made either 35, or on a few occasions, 36 starts. The last time a pitcher started more games than that was in 1991, when Greg Maddux led the National League with 37. No pitcher has started more games in a season since then, but from 1952-1989, the league leader always started at least that many.

The last pitcher to start 40 games in a season was Charlie Hough back in 1989. But, 40 starts used to be a normal occurrence 30 years ago. The Major League leader in games started in every season during the 1970s always started at least 40 games. In 1972, Wilbur Wood actually started 49 games, a number that's unfathomable by today's standards.

The point is that modern pitchers are starting fewer games than ever before. So if it was difficult for a pitcher in the '60s or '70s to win 300 games when they had the benefit of starting 40 times per season, imagine how hard it is for current pitchers to do it when there's no chance that even the most durable arms will ever get more than 35 starts.

It may not seem like a big deal, but those starts add up over time. If a pitcher starts an average of 32 games per season for 15 years, as opposed to someone who gets 39 starts each year, that first pitcher is missing out on over 100 starts. That's a lot of opportunities for victories that today's pitchers will never have and it may cost the better ones roughly 50 wins over the course of their careers.

It is no coincidence that from 1982-1990, six pitchers (Gaylord Perry, Steve Carlton, Tom Seaver, Phil Niekro, Don Sutton and Nolan Ryan) reached 300 wins. Each of those pitchers played the majority of their careers in the '60s and '70s. Clemens and Maddux are the only two pitchers to win 300 since; a clear indication that the way pitchers are now treated is directly affecting their win totals.

It's a matter of simple mathematics. Pitchers in every previous era had more chances to compile victories by starting more games. If a pitcher wins 20 games in 38 starts, he's won 52.6 percent of his starts. But, if he wins 20 games in 32 starts, that's 62.5 percent, a significant 10 percent differential.

Yet for some reason, nobody seems to acknowledge that 20 win seasons are tougher to come by now than ever before. The number is treated the same as it's always been, even though its meaning has clearly changed.

From a percentage standpoint, 25 wins in 40 starts (62.5%) is no more of an achievement as 20 wins in 32 starts (62.5%). Yet today, 20 wins is somehow treated just as it was in the '60s and '70s, when in actuality, a 20-win season in this decade is more equivalent to a 25 win season back then.

With fewer starts, a 17 win season these days is more like a 20 win season from past eras. But because nobody recognizes this, nobody takes the time to applaud 16- and 17-game winners for their (equivalent) accomplishments.

To win 300 games, a pitcher must average 15 victories per season for 20 years or 20 wins per season for 15 years. Those numbers are the same. But with limited opportunities, that's harder to do in today's game than ever before.

For example, Tom Seaver is regarded as one of the greatest pitchers of all-time and he played most of his career in the '60s and '70s when it was common for pitchers to start more games. He debuted in the big leagues when he was young, at age 22, and stuck around until he was nearly 43. He maintained the necessary longevity to reach 300 wins by pitching for 20 years without ever missing significant time due to injuries. He won 20 games five times. And with all those factors on his side, he still barely reached 300 wins, retiring with 311.

Seaver started 647 games in his career. He never led the league in games started and finished in the top five only twice. To accumulate that many starts in this era, a pitcher would consistently have to be at or near the top of the league leaders list in games started for 19 or 20 seasons.

Few pitchers these days start 33 games in any given season, but in order to start enough games to have a decent shot at 300 wins, they would have to start that many games every season for 20 years.

Longevity has obviously always played a major factor in career win totals, but the numbers are starting to become unrealistic. Thirty or 40 years ago, it may have taken pitchers 15 or 16 healthy years to start 600 games. Now it takes 20. That discrepancy is going to lead to a significantly fewer amount of 300 game winners in the future.

Just as the Hall of Fame is going to have to raise the bar for future offensive candidates because the once-sturdy number of 500 home runs is now skewed, they should also lower the bar when it comes to evaluating pitchers.

Based on simple mathematics and the way the game has changed, 250 wins is a far more realistic mark for current pitchers to strive for in the game today.