Let's take a brief moment to mention a few of the hurlers from the previous table on page 1.

Roy Oswalt leads the QS start list with 25, not a surprise considering his excellent overall season that included an NL leading 2.98 ERA. What might surprise some is the fact that he was tied for the league lead by Chris Capuano who won only 11 games in 2006, a year after totaling 18 victories. However, Capuano had nearly identical ERAs in both seasons (3.99 and 4.03), saw his WHIP go down (1.38 to 1.25) and greatly improved his command (91 to 47 walks) resulting in a drastically improved K/BB ratio of 3.70 (up from 1.93 in 2005). He should be on all sleeper lists this year. John Smoltz finished with 24 QS, tied for third overall with the best pitcher in baseball, Johan Santana who led the AL in QS. Other pitchers of note include:

Tom Glavine (22 QS) – You shouldn't count on Glavine winning another 15 games this year, but his ERA has been under 3.85 for three straight years and he had 131 Ks last year, his highest total since 2000.

Vincente Padilla (20 QS) – After back-to-back 14 win seasons in 2002-03, Padilla recorded only 16 wins in 2004-05. Last year, he won a career best 15 games for the Rangers.

Nate Robertson (20 QS) – This guy kinda slips through the cracks with all the arms the Tigers have, but his ERA and WHIP have both improved in each of the past three seasons.

Jason Jennings (20 QS) – Jennings moves to Houston after his best big league season though he was actually a better pitcher in Colorado last year (5-5, 3.56 ERA, 1.43 WHIP) than he was on the road (4-8, 3.97 ERA, 1.32 WHIP).

Dontrelle Willis (20 QS) – Even in a season where he won 10 less games than 2005, Willis still pitched well enough to give his team a chance to win more times than not (20 QS in 34 starts).

So there are the Quality Start leaders. However, there is more to this story than just what you can see on the surface, and that is what I will discuss in PART II.

PART II – QUALITY START PERCENTAGE

After spending the previous section detailing the ins and outs of the Quality Start (QS), I will spend PART II describing to you that while knowing QS numbers are valuable, it's the context in which these outings were earned that really speaks to the value of the number listed.

QUALITY START PERCENTAGE

If you look at Kelvim Escobar, at the bottom of the QS list above with 20 such outings, you will notice that he started only 30 games in 2006 for the Angels. Near the top of the list is John Smoltzwho had 25 QS, but notice that he started 35 games for the Braves. Doesn't it stand to reason that Smoltz would have more QS than Escobar since he had five more starts? And that is where Quality Start Percentage (QS%) comes in.

To determine QS% we take the pitchers QS total and divide it by his total games started (GS).

QS / GS = QS%

Therefore we can determine Escobar's QS% by the following simple equation:

20 QS / 30 GS = 0.667.

This means that 67% of Escobar's starts were considered a QS based on the established rules of QS%.

How does QS% change our "raw" QS leaderboard totals? Well, here is our revised QS table which lists the hurlers by their QS% (minimum 15 Quality Starts).

PITCHER	GS	QS	QS%
Roy Oswalt	32	25	0.78
Chris Capuano	34	25	0.74
Mike Mussina	32	23	0.72
Johan Santana	34	24	0.71
Brett Myers	31	22	0.71
Brandon Webb	33	23	0.70
John Lackey	33	23	0.70
John Smoltz	35	24	0.69
Tom Glavine	32	22	0.69
Carlos Zambrano	33	22	0.67
Kelvim Escobar	30	20	0.67
Bronson Arroyo	35	23	0.66
Jake Peavy	32	21	0.66
Kevin Millwood	34	22	0.65
C.C. Sabathia	28	18	0.64
Nate Robertson	32	20	0.63
Jason Schmidt	32	20	0.63
Jason Jennings	32	20	0.63
Vicente Padilla	33	20	0.61
Erik Bedard	33	20	0.61
Curt Schilling	31	19	0.61
Justin Verlander	30	18	0.60
Kris Benson	30	18	0.60
Derek Lowe	34	20	0.59
Barry Zito	34	20	0.59
Dontrelle Willis	34	20	0.59
Roy Halladay	32	19	0.59
Chris Carpenter	32	19	0.59
Clay Hensley	29	17	0.59

Roy Oswalt, the overall leader in QS, still leads in QS% with 78% of starts being of the "quality" variety. Remember the lefty who we gushed about above, Chris Capuano? According to QS%, Capuano was the second best pitcher in baseball last year. Mike Mussina and Johan Santana finish in the top-5 on both lists, while the aforementioned Smoltz falls from third in QS to 8th in QS%. Other pitchers worth mentioning include: