Spammers get a hold of e-mail addresses in roughly a zillion ways. When you buy something at a small, lesser-known online store there's a decent chance they will sell your address to spammers. Even if it's a big, reputable store that gets your cash, the store's records could still be stolen or leaked. Sign up for a newsletter? Your address could certainly get sold. Ever write comments in blogs or discussion forums that display your e-mail address? Spammers have tools that "scrape" those addresses. That is, they process the text on the page and strip out anything that looks like an e-mail address.
In any of the above scenarios—and plenty more—it doesn't matter what your address is. The one technique your number idea could foil is what is called a "dictionary attack." The spammers get a list of common first names, a list of common last names, and a list of ISP e-mail domains they want to try. Then they generate all possible combinations and fire off a gazillion messages (at next to no cost). Anyone unwary enough to respond gets moved to a list of "live" addresses that can be sold to other spammers. Yes, an address like Joe142857Blow@domain.com would be more resistant to this attack than plain JoeBlow@domain.com.
In general, when you change your e-mail address, it takes the spammers a while to catch up. So any change, with or without a number, will bring temporary relief. If you also change your habits to guard this new e-mail address more carefully, it will take the spammers longer to get you back on their lists. But sooner or later they always seem to find us.
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