Being a Mets fan (yes feel sorry for me) I was contemplating how much better the acquiring of Roy Halladay makes the Phillies (who were already a darn good team.) Quickly looking at win shares Halladay had 23 which is darn good but Cliff Lee (the man he’s replacing in that rotation) had 25 win shares in 2008 his last full year in the AL. So, while Halladay is a great pitcher he is replacing another great pitcher therefore the Phils shouldn’t be that much improved in 2010. The thing that struck me about Halladay is that he lead the league in complete games with 9.
That got me thinking, “Nine? Nine? Complete games leads the league? Heck back when I was a kid in the 70s I remember guys like Carlton and Seaver having 17 and 18 complete games. That was in the national league with no DH and only four man rotations.
Just for fun (and to satisfy my own curiosity) I looked up the complete game leaders from 1979 and they were, Phil Neikro 23, JR Richard 19, Steve Carlton 13, Steve Rogers 13, Burt Hooton 12, Joe Neikro (those Neikro boys!) 7, and a bunch others with 10. Looking up last year’s NL complete game leaders: Matt Cain 4, Tim Lincecum 4, a bunch of others with 3. So that’s it, the two bay area boys lead the league 4!
That makes me ask, why has the role of the starting pitcher changed so much in the last 30 years? Have hitters evolved so much that pitchers can no longer finish a game unless they have their super best stuff on a positive biorhythm days? My guess is players haven’t really changed that much just the mentality of the game has. Somehow the magic number of 100 pitches has crept into the game. Now coaches hate to risk their pitchers arms by having them go much over that threshold. That just doesn’t seem right to me.
