Washington Nationals: One statistical wish for the New Year

As we get ready to turn the page to the 2021 baseball season, I have one wish I’d like achieved by any member of the Nationals pitching staff.

Given a 162 game season in 2021, my wish is to see a Washington Nationals pitcher reach the 20 win plateau. I’m old school though, and while wins for a starting pitcher may not effectively measure his worth to a team, I love tracking them.

Old statistics we thought mattered have been replaced by new ones. For example a pitcher isn’t gauged by his win total or ERA per se, but more on his FIP number and his WAR.

Pitchers used to be applauded by how many completed games they pitched. As four man rotations became five man rotations, twenty wins in a season was the new bar to achieve. Now, it is how many Quality Starts a guy has.

Trevor Bauer won the Cy Young this year with a 5-4 record. He had nine quality starts in 11 tries. Not his fault he either lost or received a no decision four times when he allowed two or fewer earned runs.

In the 16 seasons the Washington Nationals have been playing baseball, they have two, 20-game winners. Gio Gonzalez did the trick in 2014 by winning 21 games. Max Scherzer completed the feat in 2016, with 20 wins.

Even though this accomplishment is possible, seems as if the deck is stacked against starting pitchers. If they stay healthy and make 32 starts in a season. They need a win in 2/3 of them to get to 20. Pitchers today rarely go over 100 pitches, rarely are allowed to face a lineup more than three times through, must give way to relievers with specific roles beginning in the 7th inning, etc.

Pitchers must also depend on their hitters providing run support. In 2013 when Jordan Zimmermann finished with 19 wins, there were five games he either lost or received a no decision, in which he allowed two or fewer runs. If his offense provides runs in just one of those games, he’s a twenty game winner.

Aside from winning twenty with the Nationals, Scherzer also accomplished it with the Detroit Tigers. Stephen Strasburg has seven seasons with double-digit wins, his high of 18 coming in 2019. Patrick Corbin has won 14 games twice in his career.

For a little frame of reference, there hasn’t been a twenty game winner in the National League since Scherzer in 2016. The American League has had only six such winners since that time.

The chances of this happening are not the best, though here is hoping for a Nationals pitcher to win twenty games in 2021.