I noticed that Tarik Skubal, Zach Wheeler and Joe Ryan this year so far all have both 10+ SO/9IP & 2 or fewer BB/9IP. Then I wondered how often this has been done for a full season.
So I had Stathead call up all the seasons of 162+ IP with both 10+ SO/9IP & 2 or fewer BB/9IP in the AL/NL since 1900. Click here to see those results. The results were the same if I used 154 IP since no one from before 1965 did it with that IP total.
Sandy Koufax in 1965 was the 1st pitcher with 162+ IP, 10+ SO/9IP & 2 or fewer BB/9IP. The next guy to do it was Curt Schilling in 1998. Then it was done 9 times from 1998-2004 but not again until 2014 and since then it has been done 28 times.
The 1998-2004 period might not be a real trend or turning point since 7 of the 9 cases belong to just two pitchers: Curt Schilling (4) and Pedro Martinez (3).
But whether that was a trend or not, there were no cases from 2005-2013. Then in 2014 it was done by 4 different pitchers. In 2019 it was done by 6. And again, a total of 28 times from 2014-24. What changed in 2014? I don't think I have any good guesses. Maybe as pitchers innings have been going down they have been throwing harder so rate stats like this have gone up. But I don't know how to figure out if that is the case.
I also wondered if maybe things were trending upwards from 2005-13 that is not seen here if alot of guys were getting closer than before but not quite making it.
So I had Stathead call up all the seasons of 162+ IP with just 9+ SO/9IP & 2 or fewer BB/9IP from 1998-2013. I thought maybe the lower SO standard might capture a trend. Click here to see those results.
There were 11 of these cases from 1998-2004 and 10 from 2005-13. That does not look like an increasing trend. And in the latter period, 5 of the 10 cases were guys with 9.0 to 9.4 SO/9IP. So there were not alot of near misses on the 10/2 criteria. There were no 9.9s & just one 9.8. The next highest was 9.6.
So that still leaves me with the question: What changed in 2014 to give us 4 of these guys that year and 28 in total since then? The most ever before 2014 in one year was 2 yet since 2014 there have 8 seasons of 3+.