Tuesday, August 05, 2008

20-game winners Disappearing

Turns out that gorillas aren't nearly as in danger of going exstinct as previously thought. But the news isn't so hopeful when it comes to 20-game winners. Here's the number of 20-game winners for the past 12 years:
1996-3
1997-4
1998-4
1999-3
2000-4
2001-7
2002-5
2003-5
2004-3
2005-4
2006-0
2007-1

The past 2 years have produced the lowest number of 20-game winners of any years not interupted by strikes. There has alos been no pitchers with 250+ innings pitched the past 3 years, whereas 260 was still fairly common in the 1990's. That may not seem like a big difference, but pitching 6 or 7 innings instead of 7 or 8 results in a lot more no decisions for starters.

This year? Two with 15 and 3 with 14 wins so far. There could be as many as 4 or 5 20-game winners, but 1 to 3 is more likely, I predict.

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