Fritz may be last of breed

The benchmark for pitching excellence in a single season has long been 20 victories. To be known as a 20-game winner is akin to being called successful. Even if accomplished only once, a pitcher will forever have the prefix "former 20-game winner" attached to his name.

There was a time when this club was well stocked; a time when you could pencil in several pitchers every season as potential members. But then pitch counts began to be scrutinized. Seventh and eighth-inning specialists came into vogue. And the four-man rotation went the way of the Dodo bird. It all contributed to the decline and near extinction of the 20-game winner, once as commonplace in baseball as average-sized sluggers.

While the 20-game winner can still be found occasionally in the Major Leagues -- certainly not as often as when a Fergie Jenkins or a Jim Palmer would accomplish the feat annually -- the idea of a pitcher winning 20 games in the Minor Leagues has become downright absurd. According to the Minor League Encyclopedia, this season marks the 15th anniversary of the last time a Minor Leaguer won 20 games. And it could very well be another 15 years before a pitcher is allowed to stay out of the Major Leagues long enough to rack up 20 victories in one season.

John Fritz is currently the answer to the implied trivia question. The former 27th-round pick by the Angels, Fritz went 20-4 for the Quad City River Bandits of the Midwest League in 1992. It was the high point of a successful but under-appreciated eight-year Minor League career that came to an end in 1995. Fritz was the last of 19 different 20-game winners in Midwest League history, a group that includes Hall of Famer Juan Marichal (21-8 in 1958 at Michigan City).

"I think it's great," said Fritz, who posted a 57-38 record in the Minor Leagues between 1988 and 1995, which included spending parts of three seasons at the Triple-A level. "We had a great team that year. I was 20-4 in 27 games, 25 of which were starts. To have 24 decisions in 27 games is unheard of, but I was pitching deep into games. We had a lot of stars on that team, and we scored a lot of runs. You're not going to lose too many games when you're scoring seven runs a game. So it was a fun year."

While Fritz, who now lives outside Pittsburgh with his wife, Neda, gives a great deal of credit to his teammates for his success in 1992, he did have a little something to do with it. He posted a 3.03 ERA in 172 1/3 innings and limited the opposition to a .205 batting average. He started the season by winning his first two games, had nine wins by the third week in June and wound up going 6-0 in both that month and July.

Fritz had pitched mainly out of the bullpen in 1991, going 2-5 with a 3.32 ERA in the Midwest and Florida State Leagues. But he finished up well at Quad City after eliminating some control problems, and the Angels decided to move him back into the rotation for the '92 season, a role he'd had for the first three years of his career.

The River Bandits sported a lineup that included future Major Leaguers Mark Sweeney, Orlando Palmeiro, Chris Pritchett and Chris Turner. Together, they formed the core of one of the more potent offenses in the league, finishing with the top record and easily outdistancing second-place Springfield. Fritz accounted for nearly 25 percent of Quad City's 91 wins.

"As we hit late July and got into August, I had 17 or 18 wins and I was getting close," Fritz said. "I heard the coaches talking and I knew they wanted to leave me there to continue having success and build my confidence. And we had a really good team with a chance to make the playoffs."

The River Bandits went into the MWL playoffs that season as heavy favorites but were swept by Springfield in the opening round. Fritz took the loss in one of the games, dropping a 1-0 decision after allowing an unearned run in the 10th inning. Though he won his 20th game of the season against Springfield, he says it was the loss in the playoffs that stands out the most.

"I don't think about it a whole lot, though," Fritz said. "Like I said, we had a great team, and I did take that success with me to Double-A. But I don't take any solace in being the last 20-game winner in the Minors. I never got to play in the big leagues. That would have been the ultimate goal. Knowing that you had a 20-win season in the Minors is not a big deal.

"And it doesn't surprise me any that no one else has done it. If a guy puts together a good seven- or eight- or 10-game stretch, they want to move him up faster. And you don't get that many starts any more. You used to get a lot more starts. That's why winning 20 of 27 games is pretty tough to do."

Fritz has spent the last 11 years as a financial planner, and says that he has no regrets about how his career turned out. Granted, he admits he would liked to have reached the Major Leagues, even for a brief period, but he opted for the smart move and got out of baseball while he was still young enough to embark on another career.

He's achieved success on a different level, and though it may not mean much to him, he still has a spot in the history books, at least for the time being, as the last of an all but extinct breed.