Roy Halladay is in a position to have the highest win total in 20 years. Photo: Icon SMI

I was going to write about Roy Halladay’s potential for a big win number this year, but WCBias beat me to it. I do have one quibble with his analysis, however:

Both Welch and Halladay also understand that strikeouts are Fascist. Welch earned a decision in an incredible 33 of his 35 starts in that 1990 season, which is only possible by consistently pitching deep into games. To consistently reach the 8th inning against patient, modern-era lineups requires an efficient use of pitches. Although Halladay has much better stuff than Welch did, he shares the same aversion to walks, and has never come close to striking out a batter per inning in his 11 previous big-league seasons in Toronto. That pitch-to-contact approach is part of what has enabled Halladay to rack up 25 complete games in the last three seasons. No middle relievers ever vulture away wins from Doc.

For his career, Roy’s strikeout rate is 6.6 K per 9 IP. Since the start of 2008, however, it’s up to 7.7 K per 9 IP. He embraced the strikeout more and had his best run of complete games, 19 over the time frame. Strikeouts only raise pitch counts if the pitcher also walks a lot of batters, or nibbles for strike three. Halladay goes right after hitters. Higher K rates make thing easier on a team’s fielders, too. It should be no surprise, then that Roy’s best stretch of his career came when he upped his K rate.

I also think WCBias thinks too small. Why not 30 wins for Roy? Note that the Phillies aren’t afraid to skip the fifth starter to get Roy an extra turn, as his third start game in game 10, not game 11, If they do that often enough, he might get 35 starts instead of 33. The Phillies are a very high run scoring team, which means Roy should get the support he needs. He goes deep in games, meaning he keeps the bullpen from getting decisions. Firday night’s game is a great example of both points. The Phillies scored eight runs. Roy gave up two over eight innings of work. The bullpen gave up four runs in one inning. The offense gave Roy a huge cushion, and Roy kept the bullpen from having enough time to blow the game.

For those new to the site, I have a Game Score analysis page at the Day by Day Database. Game Score is a stat invented by Bill James to compute a number which indicates the quality of a start. The formula is constructed so that an average start will be 50, a superlative start 100, and a truly horrible start 0. The game score team analysis averages both the final game score and the components for teams, so you can see where they have strengths and weaknesses.

The Phillies starters have a below average game score. I’ve shown that game scores are correlated with winning, yet the Phillies starters are 7-0. They have three quality starts as a unit, all by Halladay. If the Phillies offense is capable of putting wins in the hands of below average pitchers, they should be able to drop a ton in the basket of Roy Halladay.

With an average game score of 70 this season, the model predicts he should win around 70% of his starts. If he gets 35 starts, that’s 24.5 wins. Since the Phillies offense is better than the average team in the model, that percentage is likely an underestimate. He might win 80% of his starts with the support he’s getting, and that’s 28 wins. All it takes is a little luck to move 28 to 30.