This past Friday, Roy Oswalt won his 100th game as a starting major league pitcher. His career record of 100-47 puts him amongst the best in baseball as far as winning percentage (.680) and victories before age 30. Despite his gaudy stats, Roy is doubtlessly overlooked by journalists and fans alike. Pitching his best seasons while being a teammate of Roger Clemens and Andy Pettitte virtually necessitate a comparative anonymity. His story is not a provocative one, either. Almost all of his contemporaries offer a better read, or a more interesting expose. Chris Carpenter, Johan Santana, Barry Zito and Roy Halladay are four pitchers who have similar years of major league service, similar rates of success, yet all of them are better known than the Wizard. The attention is well deserved for all these men, as they have been adorned with Cy-Young awards, All-Star game starts and humongous contracts. That is all well and good, but in light of his milestone win, it would be prudent to take an objective view of Roy’s career in comparison to not only his contemporaries, but to those who paved the way for the kind of success he’s had.
While defining a starter’s career in terms of wins vs. loses is difficult in this era of abbreviated starts and elongated bullpens, it may offer the best starting point for this journey through Oswalt’s tenure as an Astro. Roy has recorded two straight 20 win seasons, in 2004 and 2005. No pitcher has achieved that feat since Curt Schilling in 2001 and 2002. Before Roy turns 30, he also has a very good chance of winning 115 games. If he is able to accomplish this, Roy would be ahead of the pace that someone like Tom Glavine is currently on. The same Glavine who is chasing 300 wins. This is not to say that Roy is going to pitch long enough to pursue that sort of milestone, but it is something worth thinking about. Does Roy’s career look as favorably compared to someone from his own baseball generation? Someone like Roy Halladay is as close to Roy Oswalt in age (turns 30 on May 14) and games started (194), as any pitcher who is worth mentioning. While Halladay did win the Cy Young in 2003, while logging an astronomical 266 innings, it cost him, in that the following two seasons he was able to start only 40 games for the Blue Jays as compared to the 36 he toed the rubber for in the ’03 campaign. Durability aside, the career statistics for the two are pretty revealing, and on some levels surprising:
ERA (Career): Oswalt: 3.05----Halladay: 3.60
Strikeouts: Oswalt: 1029 in 1223 IP----Halladay: 955 in 1359.3 IP
WHIP: Oswalt: 1.178----Halladay: 1.226
Strikeout/Walk: Oswalt: 3.80----Halladay: 2.83
It is worth mentioning that Halladay has played his entire career in the AL East, which has been exponentially more difficult to traverse, pitching wise, than the NL Central, but this fact cannot overcome all of the statistics that Oswalt has the comparative advantage. What Roy Oswalt has done thus far in his Astros career deserves a bit of recognition, and the Dome Dog boys would be remiss if we were not to pay special attention to his most recent accomplishment. Good luck to Roy in his start today against the Marlins. Every Astros fan is looking forward to watching you collect another hundred victories, while displaying the class, modesty and grit you have come to personify as our ace.
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