Stating that Roy Halladay is a really good pitcher is sort of like stating that Easter is a pretty important holiday in the world of Christianity. The statement is as obvious as that and yet is very much understated. Simply put, Roy Halladay is the bomb.
Halladay has won 67% of his games (132-66) since his first full year in 1999. In that same time frame, his team has a winning percentage of .504 (819-806). It was no surprise that in 2004, when he missed significant time with injuries and missed more than ten starts, the Blue Jays had their worst year and lost over 90 games. If you take out that one year, where he obviously wasn't himself, Halladay has won 70% of his games since 2002.
But Wins aren't the end all as we all now know when it comes to pitching statistics. Halladay's career WHIP (walks and hits per innings pitched) is 1.21. But in the last seven years his WHIP line looks like this: 1.07, 1.35 (the injury year), 0.96, 1.10, 1.24, 1.05 and 1.00 so far this year in two starts. His OPS over that time looks like the entire league was played by Juan Pierre. Since 2003, his strikeout to walk ratio is 4.19 to 1. Wow! Take out that injured 2004 and it is 4.58 to 1.
Throw into his mix of statistics that he has 40 complete games in his career in the age of the closer and eleven shutouts and you have one terrific pitcher. But because of him playing in Toronto and on the wrong side of the border, and on a team that hasn't contended in a while and he is vastly under appreciated.
The Blue Jays have started 5-1 this year and Halladay is already 2-0. He won 20 games last year and seems to be a pretty good bet to do that again this year if he stays healthy. He's only won a single Cy Young award but should have won it again last year. He had the lowest WHIP in the league despite pitching the most innings and facing the most batters. Also consider that against the division's two best teams, the Red Sox and the Yankees, they have a career OPS against him of .725 and .649 respectively.
Halladay is a horse and he is one of the gems of his generation.
1 comment:
No question about it. If Halladay had been wearing pinstripes all these years, he'd have a glow about him. But the Jays are as un-sexy a franchise/market as they come. And so he kind of flies under the radar. Knowing the Yankees, they'll probably get him when he's past his prime.
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