
Brandon Webb goes for what would be a major league leading nine wins tonight at home against the Colorado Rockies. First of all, nine wins on May 15 would be absolutely insane. As it stands today though, regardless of the outcome, he is on pace for a 30+ win season. Obviously that's not possible.
Well, actually, it's possible. But it is certainly unlikely. Vegas Watch did the math on the possibility that Webb gets 30 wins this season. Bear in mind that is something that was done a lot back in the day (147 times before 1920). However, it's only been pulled off three times since 1920, the latest by Denny McLain, with 31 wins in 1968.
So clearly it's rare. But VW points out that he has two things going on this year -- as opposed to say, 2006, -- that could help him in his historical (kind of luck based) quest.
The first is that this year he's gone 8-0 in 8 starts, while two years ago it took him 11 to reach that mark. This means, assuming he makes 34 starts, he's "on pace" to go 34-0, rather than 25-0. More relevantly, he has 8 wins with 26 starts left, rather than with 23.The second, to me, makes the biggest difference. If you've followed Webb's starts this year, you'll see that he has "struggled" at times, but the D-back offense bailed him out. Still, they can mash all they want, but don't expect to see Webb notching 30 dubyas.
The second is Arizona's offense. In '06, they averaged 4.77 R/G. So far this year they've scored 216 runs in 39 games, which works out to 5.54 R/G. They are unlikely to keep up that pace, but the offense is certainly better than it has been in years past. PECOTA had them at 5.07 R/G before the season started, and AEQR has them at 5.03 R/G so far. So, going forward, PECOTA's 5.07 is probably as good a guess as any.
Jacob has him picking up 20 wins clocking in at an 89.1% chance, and there's a 52.3% probability he picks up 23 wins, which is pretty crazy in and of itself. (Not quite as crazy as only getting 4.3:1 as real odds of him picking up 25 wins.) The odds of getting thirty though? Not so good, at a mere 0.2% probability, or 453:1. In other words, it would not behoove you to gamble on it happening, should the odds arise. Just don't tell tell John Kruk it's as hard as it sounds.


Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
5-19-2008 @ 11:56PM
George B Vieto said...
The only other way that Brandon gets thirty wins in a season is if he does some relief work during the season. I am sure he will get around 20-25 wins this season.
Reply