Here's a fun list via Baseball-Reference.com's Play Index Pitching Season Finder - Since 1956, the most seasons where a pitcher had 25+ GIDP turned behind him:

                   From  To   Ages Seasons
+-----------------+----+----+-----+-------+
 Tommy John        1965 1988 22-45      13
 Claude Osteen     1963 1973 23-33       8
 Walt Terrell      1984 1991 26-33       7
 Mike Torrez       1972 1980 25-33       7
 Gaylord Perry     1967 1980 28-41       7
 Mel Stottlemyre   1965 1973 23-31       7
 Bob Friend        1956 1964 25-33       7
 Kenny Rogers      1998 2008 33-43       6
 Mike Hampton      1997 2002 24-29       6
 Scott Erickson    1992 1999 24-31       6
 Geoff Zahn        1977 1984 31-38       6
 Mike Caldwell     1974 1983 25-34       6
 Jack Billingham   1973 1979 30-36       6
 Phil Niekro       1971 1985 32-46       6
 Mike Cuellar      1969 1975 32-38       6
 Jim Kaat          1962 1976 23-37       6
 Whitey Ford       1956 1965 27-36       6
 Andy Pettitte     1997 2007 25-35       5
 Orel Hershiser    1985 1997 26-38       5
 Mike Flanagan     1977 1984 25-32       5
 John Denny        1976 1985 23-32       5
 Rick Reuschel     1975 1988 26-39       5
 Paul Splittorff   1972 1980 25-33       5
 Jerry Reuss       1971 1988 22-39       5
 Steve Carlton     1970 1982 25-37       5
 Dave McNally      1969 1974 26-31       5
 Frank Lary        1956 1961 26-31       5

Funny.  I would have thought that Tom Glavine would have been higher on this list.  But, he only has 3 seasons like this, to date, in his career.  And, seeing Mike Torrez so high on the list was a surprise too.

So here is the graph that will explain it all:

The red line is the same one we've seen already--fraction of decisions gonig to starters. The blue line is the fraction of innings pitched by the starters. So you can see that it's a very direct correlation. Starters get slightly more decisions than their fair share based purely on innings, and that's because they are automatically the pitcher of record when they start the game. Relievers are only automatically the pitcher of record when they enter into a tie game, more or less. So, in 1988, starting pitchers suddenly picked up a lot more decisions, and it's because starters pitched a lot longer that particular year. For some reason, both complete games and average innings per start were way up that one year.

I'll post some more data related to this stuff on Monday.

So this graph is very similar to yesterday's:

The dashed line is exactly what was on yesterday's graph, showing the fraction of decisions going to starters. Today's graph has a little more data, breaking it out my wins and losses. So the red line shows fraction of wins by starters (versus the total number of wins going to both starters and relievers) and the blue line shows the same for losses. You can see that starters have historically picked up more of the losses than the victories, but that gap has closed to nothing in recent years. (This is the same conclusion drawn from my post two days ago where the starters' historical win percentage has climbed from 48% to 50%.)

Check out the 3-year period of 1986-1988. Going from 1986 to 1987, starters picked up more losses and fewer victories. I think this was due to the increase in offense that saw more starters get blitzed in games without any significant change in bullpen usage by managers. In 1988, when the baseball returned to normal, the fraction of wins picked up by starters skyrocketed, as did their average innings per start (as you'll see tomorrow.)

So I'm going to ease into a more detailed discussion of pitching decisions and innings.

First off, here's a basic plot of the percentage of all decisions that go to the starting pitchers:

This was calculated by using a bunch of Pitching Game Finder searches and then adding up all the wins and losses for starters, as well as all the wins and losses for relievers, then calculating a simple fraction for starters.

So this tells us that in the early 1950s, starters were getting about 75% of all the decisions while last year they got only about 69% of all decisions.

The reason for this should be pretty obvious: starters are pitching fewer and fewer innings, on average, per start. When they are around for a smaller fraction of the game, they have less of a chance of picking up the decision.

I'll back this up with more data tomorrow. For now, just soak this in.

Some of our discussions from last week spurred me to dig a little deeper into some numbers.

Using a few Pitching Game Finder searches, I determined the total number of wins and losses registered by starters and relievers in each year since 1956. For any individual year, you can get this data from league-wide splits, such as the splits for 2008. From that link, you can see that both starters and relievers were nearly .500 during last season: starters went 1682-1671 and relievers went 746-757. But what does it look like for the last 50 years?

Here's a plot:

(click the image for a larger version)

So, wow, we can see that things have changed dramatically and quite consistently. Back in the 1950s, starting pitchers won only about 48% of the time while relievers won about 56% of the time.

First, a point of explanation. In case you wonder why the starters' and relievers' W-L% numbers don't average to exactly .500, it's because the starters have many more decisions than the relievers. (Remember above when I told you that starters had about 3300 decisions in 2008 while reliever had about 1500.)

Anyway, we see that the numbers have trended pretty steadily towards a 50/50 split. 2008 was very different from 2007, and I wonder whether 2009 will see another reversal or not.

The biggest questions are: what do these numbers mean, and why have they changed?

I think that generally, the numbers determine a rough sort of league-wide efficiency of pitching. The corollary is that they show how much offense there is. When offense has something to do with a graph, I always notice two things: an aberration in 1987 (which this graph shows) and different behavior in the period of 1993 to 2005 (also known as The Steroids Era.)

Notice that in 1993, starters' W-L% jumped up to 49.7%, the 4th-highest value between 1956 and 1993. Then, other than slight drops in 1995 and 1996, we see a long run of numbers very close to 50%, capped by the first cross over 50% in 2005. As for what has happened in the last few years, I think we'll need another 5-10 years to understand that trend.

So why is this happened? Why has more offense led to starters winning more games?

For our explanation, let's go back to the 1950s. Back then, most starters' victories were complete game wins. Even many starters' losses were complete games. But think about how relievers were used during this era. For the most part, they came into games when the starters had been knocked out and their team was losing. This means that, generally at least, relievers usually came in when their team was already behind, making it more likely that they'd earn a win (if their team rallied while they were the pitcher of record) than they'd earn a loss (which would require their team to rally, and then for the reliever to blow that lead.) I think this clearly explains why relievers had a higher W-L% during earlier periods. The really simplified way of looking at it is like this: each starting pitcher throws a complete or nearly-complete game, meaning that they'd get 1 win and 1 loss between them, for a .500 record. But sometimes, the starter on the losing end would get taken out, and then his team would rally against the other team's starter. This earns the starter who was in the lead a LOSS, the starter who was training a NO DECISION, and the reliever a WIN. This is why the starters' numbers are a little below .500 and the relievers' a bit above .500.

Over time, relievers have been used more and more. They come in when games are tied, or often times when their team is in the lead but the manager has decided to pull the starter after a certain number of pitches or innings. This means that these days, relievers enter games more often when the outcome is less certain. So, their average W-L% has gotten closer to 50%.

We can also look at this from an offensive standpoint. When more runs are scored, it means that games can be decided at different times with less predictability. These days, it's not too rare to see a team put up 8 runs in the first 3 innings and win a game. It's also not that rare to see a team rally for 6 runs in the 7th and 8th inning and come back to win a game. More offense means that more rallies are happening and therefore it's more random as to whether it's a starter or reliever pitching at the time. More randomness tends to even things out, which is why we've seen the push towards 50%. This increased randomness also comes forth from the fact that starters are pitching fewer and fewer innings per start. Whatever forces kept the starters' W-L% all the way down at 48% are lessened by virtue of them going shallower and shallower in games.

Over the next couple of days, I'm going to post more graphs with related data and we'll tease apart these issues in more detail.

When I was a lad in 1988, I recall reading a blurb about a Cory Snyder plate appearance against Roger Clemens. I don't recall where I read it--perhaps in the newspaper. It said that in a recent game, Snyder hit a routine fly ball out against Clemens but when he returned to the dugout, Snyder received high fives from his teammates. The reason? Snyder apparently had struck out in every career plate appearance against Clemens prior to the fly ball.

The batter-vs-pitcher logs prove it:

  Car# Year Date          Tm   Opp Score       Inn RoB Out Cnt Pit Play Desc.
+-----+----+-------------+---+----+-----------+---+---+---+---+---+-------------------------+
     1 1986 1986-08-30    CLE @BOS tied   0-0  t 2 ---   1  -      Strikeout
     2                             down   0-4  t 5 ---   0  -      Strikeout Looking
     3                             down   2-7  t 7 -2-   0  -      Strikeout

  Car# Year Date          Tm   Opp Score       Inn RoB Out Cnt Pit Play Desc.
+-----+----+-------------+---+----+-----------+---+---+---+---+---+-------------------------+
     4 1987 1987-05-27    CLE @BOS tied   0-0  t 2 ---   2  -      Strikeout
     5                             tied   0-0  t 5 ---   1  -      Strikeout
     6                             down   0-1  t 7 ---   2  -      Strikeout
     7      1987-08-30    CLE  BOS down   0-3  b 2 12-   0  -      Strikeout
     8                             down   1-4  b 4 1-3   0  -      Strikeout
     9                             down   3-6  b 6 ---   0  -      Strikeout

  Car# Year Date          Tm   Opp Score       Inn RoB Out Cnt Pit Play Desc.
+-----+----+-------------+---+----+-----------+---+---+---+---+---+-------------------------+
    10 1988 1988-06-29    CLE @BOS ahead  1-0  t 2 ---   1 0-0   1 Flyball: RF
    11                             down   1-4  t 5 ---   0 0-0   1 Flyball: LF
    12                             down   1-4  t 7 ---   2 1-2   4 Strikeout Looking
    13      1988-09-30    CLE  BOS ahead  1-0  b 1 -2-   1 1-2   4 Strikeout Swinging
    14                             ahead  3-0  b 3 ---   2 0-2   3 Flyball: 2B
    15                             ahead  3-1  b 5 1-3   2 1-2   4 Foul Flyball: 1B
    16                             ahead  4-2  b 8 ---   0 2-2   5 Strikeout Looking

That's 9 strikeouts in the first 9 PAs until he finally hit that fly ball. Only 4 pitchers struck Snyder out more than Clemens, and they all had more PAs in which to do it. And while Clemens and Bert Blyleven both struck Snyder out 12 times, look at the difference in stats. Off Clemens, Snyder managed only 2 singles for a .087 SLG. Off Blyleven, Snyder hit 4 HR, 1 2B, 1 3B, and had 7 RBI and a .821 SLG. Geez.

Sorry I haven't posted for a couple of days. I'm working on one of my big graph posts. That will hopefully go up Monday.

Anyway, if you're a longtime reader of my posts here, you know I like two things: playing games with names (like my name chain posts here) and baseball cards.

Here's a combination of the two: picking the best starting lineup where all players have the same first name. One example is here of an all-Greg team. (Incidentally, if you're a Dodgers fan, that's a truly excellent blog.)

I love that the B-R.com search engine makes it so easy to search for player names.

Here's my all-Andy team (not even considering Andrews, Andres or, heh, Andruws.)

C: Andy Seminick

1B: ?

2B: ?

3B: Andy High

LF: ?

CF: Andy Van Slyke

RF: Andy Kosco

SP: Andy Messersmith

SP: Andy Pettitte

SP: Andy Benes

SP: ?

SP: ?

RP: Andy McGaffigan

CL: ?

bench: Andy Pafko

Hmm, I couldn't even get a full team. I couldn't bring myself to put Andy Stankiewitcz or Andy Fox in the infield, or Andy Ashby on the mound. Andy Sonnenstine hasn't pitched long enough yet and Andy Hassler wasn't good enough.

Can you help me fill out my team, or make one of your own?

Following on from yesterday, here is a list of the most decisions in a season with 30 to 35 game starts. I had to limit it to a more recent era (I chose 1970-present) since CGs and total number of game starts were so much higher in earlier days of baseball.

  Cnt Player            **Dec**  GS Year Age Tm  Lg  G  CG SHO GF  W  L  W-L% SV   IP   H   R   ER  BB  SO   ERA  ERA+ HR  BF   AB  2B 3B IBB HBP  SH  SF GDP  SB CS Pk BK WP   BA   OBP   SLG   OPS  OPS+  Pit  Str
+----+-----------------+-------+---+----+---+---+--+---+--+---+--+--+--+-----+--+-----+---+---+---+---+---+------+----+--+----+----+--+--+---+---+---+---+---+---+--+--+--+--+-----+-----+-----+-----+----+----+----+
    1 La Marr Hoyt         34    32 1982  27 CHW AL  39 14   2  2 19 15  .559  0 239.2 248 104  94  48 124   3.53  114 17  995  932 51  8   3   2   6   7  22  24  9  1  0  4  .266  .301  .393  .694   89
    2 Bob Welch            33    35 1990  33 OAK AL  35  2   2  0 27  6  .818  0 238   214  90  78  77 127   2.95  126 26  979  886 42  6   4   5   6   5  25  10  7  0  2  2  .242  .304  .391  .695   96
    3 Frank Tanana         33    35 1974  20 CAL AL  39 12   4  2 14 19  .424  0 268.2 262 104  93  77 180   3.12  109 27 1127 1028 41  3   4   8  10   4  25  15 13  3  2  4  .255  .311  .379  .690  103
    4 Luis Tiant           33    35 1973  32 BOS AL  35 23   0  0 20 13  .606  0 272   217 105 101  78 206   3.34  121 32 1096  991 45  4   3   7  11   9  13  13  8  3  0  2  .219  .278  .369  .647   76
    5 Tom Seaver           33    35 1972  27 NYM NL  35 13   3  0 21 12  .636  0 262   215  92  85  77 249   2.92  115 23 1060  960 33  6   2   5  13   5  12  10 15  0  0  8  .224  .284  .343  .627   85
    6 Roy Oswalt           32    35 2005  27 HOU NL  35  4   1  0 20 12  .625  0 241.2 243  85  79  48 184   2.94  144 18 1002  927 48  8   3   8  12   7  22   3  4  1  1  5  .262  .302  .389  .691   84 3600 2436
    7 Dontrelle Willis     32    34 2005  23 FLA NL  34  7   5  0 22 10  .688  0 236.1 213  79  69  55 170   2.63  151 11  960  878 45  9   3   8  14   5  23   1  5  1  1  2  .243  .292  .352  .644   77 3552 2313
    8 John Smoltz          32    35 1996  29 ATL NL  35  6   2  0 24  8  .750  0 253.2 199  93  83  55 276   2.94  149 19  995  922 45  2   3   2  12   4  13  10 13  1  1 10  .216  .260  .331  .591   55
    9 Jack McDowell        32    34 1993  27 CHW AL  34 10   4  0 22 10  .688  0 256.2 261 104  96  69 158   3.37  125 20 1067  981 43  4   6   3   8   6  19  10 15  6  1  8  .266  .314  .379  .693   87
   10 Kevin Brown          32    35 1992  27 TEX AL  35 11   1  0 21 11  .656  0 265.2 262 117  98  76 173   3.32  115 11 1108 1007 40  1   2  10   7   8  29   7 12  2  2  8  .260  .316  .335  .651   85
   11 Frank Viola          32    35 1990  30 NYM NL  35  7   3  0 20 12  .625  0 249.2 227  83  74  60 182   2.67  141 15 1016  938 36  2   2   2  13   3  17  25 15  1  0 11  .242  .288  .333  .621   75
   12 Greg Swindell        32    33 1988  23 CLE AL  33 12   4  0 18 14  .563  0 242   234  97  86  45 180   3.20  128 18  988  928 35  7   3   1   9   5  12  14  8  2  0  5  .252  .286  .363  .649   79
   13 Orel Hershiser       32    35 1987  28 LAD NL  37 10   1  2 16 16  .500  1 264.2 247 105  90  74 190   3.06  131 17 1093 1000 40  7   5   9   8   2  30  12  9  1  2 11  .247  .304  .352  .656   81
   14 Mark Langston        32    35 1987  26 SEA AL  35 14   3  0 19 13  .594  0 272   242 132 116 114 262   3.84  124 30 1152 1015 45  6   0   5  12   6  20  26 11  5  2  9  .238  .317  .383  .700   80
   15 Fernando Valenzue    32    34 1986  25 LAD NL  34 20   3  0 21 11  .656  0 269.1 226 104  94  85 242   3.14  110 18 1102  998 40  2   5   1  15   3  16  15 11  1  0 13  .226  .287  .325  .612   79
   16 Geoff Zahn           32    35 1980  34 MIN AL  38 13   5  0 14 18  .438  0 232.2 273 138 114  66  96   4.41   99 17  993  903 45  6   3   2  11  11  37   9 10  2  1  3  .302  .347  .422  .769  103
   17 Paul Splittorff      32    35 1979  32 KCR AL  36 11   0  0 15 17  .469  0 240   248 137 113  77  77   4.24  101 25 1026  924 39  9   1   5   9  11  23  21  4  1  0  1  .268  .324  .411  .735   95
   18 Jim Colborn          32    35 1977  31 KCR AL  36  6   1  0 18 14  .563  0 239   233 106  96  81 103   3.62  113 22 1023  914 47  3   2  13  10   3  21  12  5  1  3  8  .255  .323  .385  .708   90
   19 Luis Tiant           32    35 1975  34 BOS AL  35 18   2  0 18 14  .563  0 260   262 126 116  72 142   4.02  103 25 1080  992 51 10   0   4   7   5  20  19 11  5  0  2  .264  .315  .411  .726   96
   20 Fritz Peterson       32    35 1972  30 NYY AL  35 12   3  0 17 15  .531  0 250.1 270  98  90  44 100   3.24   91 17 1042  980 41  8   5   5  10   3  33   3  3  0  1  7  .276  .309  .386  .695  115
   21 Rick Wise            32    35 1972  26 STL NL  35 20   2  0 16 16  .500  0 269   250  98  93  71 142   3.11  110 16 1089  998 48 11  13   1  13   6  26  16 11  0  0  4  .251  .299  .369  .668   96
   22 Denny McLain         32    32 1971  27 WSA AL  33  9   3  1 10 22  .313  0 216.2 233 115 103  72 103   4.28   77 31  931  828 37  4   8   3  16  12  22  15  9  0  1  4  .281  .337  .448  .785  133
   23 Pat Jarvis           32    34 1970  29 ATL NL  36 11   1  1 16 16  .500  0 254   240 110 102  72 173   3.61  119 21 1062  973 41  7   5   0   9   8  16  18  3  0  2  5  .247  .296  .368  .664   79
   24 Jim Merritt          32    35 1970  26 CIN NL  35 12   1  0 20 12  .625  0 234   248 114 106  53 136   4.08  102 21  984  917 64 10  12   1  10   3  17   4  7  4  0  4  .270  .310  .431  .741  100

Not all these decisions came as starters, as is immediately obvious with #1 La Marr Hoyt, who ended up with more decisions than he did game starts. It comes as no surprise that most of the guys on this list were very good or excellent pitchers. In most cases here, the pitchers racked up a lot of wins, plus some close losses, and got lots of decisions. They made lots of starts because they were good. Of the 24 seasons on here, we have 11 seasons with 20 wins, and 16 with at least 18 wins.

But check out the weighted ERA+ for this group. It's 117.6, as compared to 108.6 for the group we saw yesterday (fewest decisions with at least 30 starts.)

What does this all mean? It's tough to draw really detailed, meaningful conclusions from what is pretty circumstantial data. However, in general, you have to be a pretty good pitcher to make at least 30 starts, and within that group, the better pitchers have at least a small tendency to register more decisions. Earthshattering? No.

Here are the fewest total decisions a pitcher received in a season with at least 30 starts since 1901:

  Cnt Player            **Dec**  GS Year Age Tm  Lg  G  CG SHO GF  W  L  W-L% SV   IP   H   R   ER  BB  SO   ERA  ERA+ HR  BF   AB  2B 3B IBB HBP  SH  SF GDP  SB CS Pk BK WP   BA   OBP   SLG   OPS  OPS+  Pit  Str
+----+-----------------+-------+---+----+---+---+--+---+--+---+--+--+--+-----+--+-----+---+---+---+---+---+------+----+--+----+----+--+--+---+---+---+---+---+---+--+--+--+--+-----+-----+-----+-----+----+----+----+
    1 Odalis Perez         13    31 2004  27 LAD NL  31  0   0  0  7  6  .538  0 196.1 180  76  71  44 128   3.25  126 26  787  721 35  5   4   3  16   3  25  14  5  2  2  2  .250  .294  .420  .714   90 2819 1833
    2 Kenny Rogers         14    31 1999  34 TOT ML  31  5   1  0 10  4  .714  0 195.1 206 101  91  69 126   4.19  108 16  845  749 36  1   1  13   7   7  24   6  8  9  1  4  .275  .344  .390  .734   92
    3 Elmer Dessens        15    30 2002  31 CIN NL  30  0   0  0  7  8  .467  0 178   173  70  60  49  93   3.03  142 24  737  673 33  1   8   7   7   1  19   8  8  1  1  3  .257  .314  .416  .730   92 2690 1667
    4 Dave Mlicki          15    30 1998  30 TOT NL  30  3   1  0  8  7  .533  0 181.1 188 102  92  63 117   4.57   89 23  789  704 43  3   5   7   8   7  10  10  8  0  0 10  .267  .330  .435  .765  108
    5 Joey Hamilton        15    30 1995  24 SDP NL  31  2   2  1  6  9  .400  0 204.1 189  89  70  56 123   3.08  132 17  850  767 22  5   5  11  12   4  22   8  8  3  0  2  .246  .305  .355  .660   80
    6 Matt Chico           16    31 2007  24 WSN NL  31  0   0  0  7  9  .438  0 167   183  96  86  74  94   4.63   91 26  747  652 38  4   3   5   6  10  12   9  6  2  0  7  .281  .354  .471  .825  122 2819 1740
    7 Chris Young          16    31 2006  27 SDP NL  31  0   0  0 11  5  .688  0 179.1 134  72  69  69 164   3.46  117 28  735  649 20  5   4   6   8   3   8  41  4  1  1  6  .206  .287  .382  .669   82 3024 1923
    8 John Patterson       16    31 2005  27 WSN NL  31  2   1  0  9  7  .563  0 198.1 172  71  69  65 185   3.13  130 19  817  738 33  1  11   5   5   4   8  26 11  2  1  9  .233  .298  .358  .656   80 3174 2047
    9 Elmer Dessens        16    30 2003  32 ARI NL  34  0   0  1  8  8  .500  0 175.2 212 107  99  57 113   5.07   92 22  781  708 43  2   6   4   9   3  18   7  4  0  2  3  .299  .354  .459  .813  109 2903 1783
   10 Rick Reed            16    30 2000  35 NYM NL  30  0   0  0 11  5  .688  0 184   192  90  84  34 121   4.11  108 28  768  721 31  5   3   5   3   5  17   9  4  0  1  2  .266  .302  .440  .742   93 2756 1836
   11 Scott Kamieniecki    16    30 1997  33 BAL AL  30  0   0  0 10  6  .625  0 179.1 179  83  80  67 109   4.01  109 20  764  686 38  3   2   4   1   6  15  25  4  6  0  5  .261  .328  .413  .741   95
   12 Omar Olivares        16    31 1997  29 TOT AL  32  3   2  0  6 10  .375  0 177.1 191 109  98  81 103   4.97   91 18  794  691 42  3   4  13   2   7  22   3  4  1  0  5  .276  .360  .424  .784  106
   13 Doug Drabek          16    30 1996  33 HOU NL  30  1   0  0  7  9  .438  0 175.1 208 102  89  60 137   4.57   85 21  786  699 35  6   5   7  12   8  16  19  7  0  0  9  .298  .355  .455  .810  125
   14 Oil Can Boyd         16    31 1990  30 MON NL  31  3   3  0 10  6  .625  0 190.2 164  64  62  52 113   2.93  125 19  774  702 39  2  10   3  12   4   9  25  6  0  3  3  .234  .288  .376  .664   90
   15 Jay Tibbs            16    31 1986  24 MON NL  35  3   2  2  7  9  .438  0 190.1 181  96  84  70 117   3.97   94 12  797  706 36  6   3   3  13   4  18  11 13  2  2  7  .256  .324  .375  .699   98
   16 Wayne Twitchell      16    30 1977  29 TOT NL  34  2   0  3  6 10  .375  0 184.2 166  98  88  74 130   4.29   90 21  776  678 29  7   4   5  13   5   8  15 11  0  0  7  .245  .322  .401  .723   98

It's interesting to consider why these guys got so few decisions. I suspect it varies from case to case. In general, a pitcher fails to get a decision when he either leaves the game with a lead and his bullpen blows it, or he leaves the game with a deficit and his offense comes back and wins. So, if you look at individual guys on that list, you'll probably find some from teams with bad bullpens as well as some on very good offensive teams.

One thing to notice, though, is that if you read down the column of ERA+, these were mostly average pitchers. Only 7 of the 16 have ERA+ values below 100, and only 2 are below 90. Similarly, only 5 guys are above 120, and only 3 above 130. Of course, it's to be expected that a guy allowed to make 30 starts in a season must be pretty decent--in other words, if his ERA+ had been 70, he probably would have been pulled from the rotation before making 30 starts. However, my larger point is that these guys probably pitched in relatively low-scoring games since their ERAs were fairly good. It's much easier for a bullpen to blow a 1-run lead, or for your own team to come back from a 1-run deficit, than it is to lose or erase a 4-run differential. So I think that's why the guys on the list with the fewest decisions tend to be pretty decent pitchers.

I calculated a weighted average ERA+ of these guys and it's 108.6. We'll compare that to anotehr group of players tomorrow.

In 2008 25 players had more RBI than Carlos Lee's 100. Yet, when it came to driving in runners with 2 outs, there was no one better, as Lee tied for the major league lead with  56.  Similarly, Mike Jacobs only had 93 RBI for the season, but 45 of them came with 2 outs.

Here are the 2008 major league leaders in 2 out RBI (season totals are in parentheses).