FSU Baseball: Single stat sums up greatness of Mike Martin’s tenure

FSU baseball had another season of over 40 wins, but a deeper look at that number showed something that was mind boggling for their now former head coach.

Wednesday night, the one final ride for the FSU baseball team came to an end when the Seminoles dropped their second straight game in the College World Series – a location that not many people thought the Noles would get to just a few months before in the last season under legendary head coach Mike Martin.

When it was all said and done, Martin’s 40th and final season in Tallahassee as head coach finished with a record of 42 wins on the year – continuing what has been the longest streak in the country for over four decades and isn’t even close.

For the last 42 seasons, the FSU baseball team has won at least 40 games each and every year. That’s right, it’s a stat that goes back two seasons before Martin was even the head coach of the team and continued the entire time he was in charge. It’s a stat that is insane when you consider the next closest team in the country is Louisville…at eight straight seasons.

Florida State Seminoles

But that’s not even the most mind boggling stat when it comes to the number of wins the Seminoles have put together over the last four decades of baseball.

A look at the win totals from Martin’s 40 seasons shows an interesting stat: more often than not, 40 wins was just the start of the Seminoles over a majority of his career as in 24 of his seasons the FSU baseball team had 50 wins or more each year.

That’s right…the 40 win mark was made a big deal about because the Seminoles had just one 50 win season in the last 11 campaigns on the field, but breaking down Martin’s 2,029 total career wins as head coach shows his average was nearly 51 wins each year.

In 18 of Martin’s first 20 seasons with the Seminoles, they had more than 50 wins each season that included an insane 61 wins during the 1986 season that ended as runners up in the College World Series (the Noles would get to the 60 win total again in the 2002 season despite losing in the Super Regional round).

I mean, 40 wins in a season is hard enough for many teams and getting to that total for over 40 seasons is amazing – but 50 wins a season is something that Martin should be praised more for and should be the opening line of his monumental era leading the Seminoles.

Whoever replaced No. 11 next season is going to have quite the pressure on them to keep the streak going – but what might even be more impressive is if he can get anywhere close to Martin’s resume for FSU baseball about getting 10 more wins.