2017 MLB season might not feature a 20-win pitcher for first time in nearly 10 years

This has only previously happened twice in history in non-strike seasons

With just two weeks left in the 2017 Major League Baseball season, we can start to take a look at some of the stats and have a good idea where things will end up. On that front, let's glance at the MLB leaderboard for pitcher wins. 

17 - Corey Kluber, Clayton Kershaw, Zack Greinke, Zach Davies
16 - Chris Sale, Carlos Carrasco, Drew Pomeranz, Trevor Bauer, Jason Vargas

As noted by Twitter friend Matt Harvey (@halladayfan32), the chances of a pitcher reaching the 20-win mark seems pretty low. 

Kluber won his 17th game of the season with another gem on Sunday, but he only has two scheduled starts left. Greinke and Davies also only have two starts left. As such, each of these three can obviously only get to 19 wins, max. 

Not surprisingly, none of the guys with 16 wins are going to be making four starts in two weeks, so they are out, too. 

Kershaw is the only chance. He starts Monday against the Phillies and then has starts remaining against the Giants and Rockies. If he can win all three games -- assuming the Dodgers keep him scheduled during the final series, which is no sure thing -- he'll end up 20-3 on the season in 27 starts. 

If Kershaw can't pull it off, there will be zero 20-game winners for the 2017 season. If that seems rare, it is. In MLB history prior to this season, there have only been five seasons without a 20-game winner: 1981, 1994, 1995, 2006 and 2009. 

Any years stick out in there? Three of them should. The 1981, 1994 and 1995 seasons were strike-shortened. That means that this season has the chance to join just 2006 and 2009 as the only full seasons in MLB history to not produce a 20-game winner. 

Now, the pitcher win is a very overrated stat these days with so much bullpen specialization. The stat is very team-oriented and shouldn't be used as a primary indicator in judging pitchers' personal performances. Moving forward, we're bound to start seeing more and more seasons without a 20-game winner as starters are asked to carry a much lighter load than they did decades ago. There's really no huge takeaway here, aside from this just being an interesting nugget of information. 

Still, it's a fun nugget. In fact, if Kershaw doesn't get to 20 wins, we'll have ourselves a nice little trivia question.