Cliff Lee on his way to a record-breaking season

Teddy Ballgame pointed out to me over the phone the importance of Cliff Lee’s 2008 season.  Here we are just entering September and the Tribe hurler has already hit the 20 win mark with only 2 losses.  Teddy asked me if I knew who the last Cleveland pitcher to get 20 wins was.  I admitted ignorance. 

According to Tedd, it was the ol’ spitballer himself, Gaylord Perry.  I looked it up and Tedd was right (he always is).  The last Indian pitcher with 20+ wins before this year was Perry in 1974 when he had 21. 

As of today, Lee has the highest Win % of all pitchers with 20+ wins.  Here are the Top Five:

  1 Cliff Lee            .909   20-2 2008  CLE*  
  2 Ron Guidry           .893   25-3 1978  NYY            
  3 Lefty Grove          .886   31-4 1931  PHA            
  4 Preacher Roe         .880   22-3 1951  BRO            
  5 Joe Wood             .872   34-5 1912  BOS
*as of Sept 3, 2008

Tedd noted that Cleveland acquired Lee as a prospect which sent Bartolo Colon to the Expos. Oh, the Tribe got one other prospect in the deal.  Who would that be? 

Grady Sizemore. 

As Tedd said, "The Indians did their homework".

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.