Twins' Phil Hughes Sets MLB Record for Strikeout-to-Walk Ratio in a Season

Having finished his season with Wednesday's outing against the Arizona Diamondbacks, Phil Hughes of the Minnesota Twins now owns the MLB record for the best strikeout-to-walk ratio in one season, per the Star Tribune's LaVelle E. Neal III.

Hughes, the only pitcher in major league history to record 200 or more innings and 16 or fewer walks in the same season, finishes his bounce-back 2014 campaign with 186 strikeouts and 16 walks, good for the record-setting 11.63 ratio.

According to Baseball-Reference.com, the previous record of 11.0 was set by Bret Saberhagen of the New York Mets in 1994, when he recorded 143 strikeouts and just 13 walks.

Second place belongs to Philadelphia Phillies left-hander Cliff Lee, who had a 10.28 ratio during the 2010 season as a member of the Texas Rangers and Seattle Mariners.

The only other pitcher to record a ratio of 10.0 or better is Jim Whitney, who owns the fourth- and fifth-place seasons of 10.0 (1884) and 9.86 (1883), respectively.

Though the strikeout-to-walk record is impressive, Hughes mostly gained attention after Wednesday's game for falling just one-third of an inning shy of a $500,000 bonus.

Said bonus would have kicked in at the 210-inning mark this season, and Hughes reached 209.2 at the end of the eighth inning in Wednesday's game. With his pitch count for the afternoon at just 96, the right-hander was set to make a bid at the complete-game shutout.

Unfortunately for Hughes and his wallet, a 65-minute rain delay ended the 28-year-old's outing just one-third of an inning before he could reach 210.

The bonus would have merely been icing on the cake, as Hughes is undoubtedly pleased with his 2014 season, which stands as the best campaign by a Twins starter since at least 2010, when Carl Pavano and Francisco Liriano won a combined 31 games.

If Hughes puts together a couple more seasons like this one, he'll land a deal after the 2016 campaign that will make $500,000 look like peanuts.

In the meantime, the Twins will be happy to have him under contract for just $16 million over the next two years.

All stats courtesy of Baseball-Reference.com unless specifically noted otherwise. Salary information courtesy of Spotrac.