R.A. Dickey is a member of the 20-win club for 2012. (AP)

As you are no doubt aware, Mets knuckle-meister R.A. Dickey on Thursday notched his 20th win of the season. 

You don't need to know that Dickey has won 20 games to know he's having a great season. His 2.69 ERA and league-leading innings total tell you that much. His league-leading quality start percentage and his 222 strikeouts tell you that. So does his 4.11 K/BB ratio. 

Yet while a pitcher's win-loss record is a deeply, deeply flawed stat that shouldn't exist in the first place (wins and losses are team measures, and assigning them to a single player is self-evidently silly), it's worth noting that Dickey has very much earned his 20 wins. It's almost always the case that a pitcher with any kind of notable win total has padded said total with a lucky victory or three. But not so with Dickey in 2012.

In fact, Dickey has logged a quality start in all 20 of his wins this season. By way of comparison, Washington's Gio Gonzalez, the other 20-game winner at present, has a quality start in "just" 17 of his 21 wins.  

This season, Dickey's ERA in games in which he's been credited with a win is 1.18 (versus a major-league average ERA of 1.95 in wins). As well, Dickey's "worst" performance in one of his wins took place against the Nationals on July 19, when he allowed four runs (three earned) over 7 1/3 innings pitched. If you're an exacting sort, you can argue -- credibly -- that Dickey shouldn't have won that game. On the other hand, three times this season Dickey has pitched a quality start and been tagged with a loss. Twice more he's gotten a no-decision despite notching a quality start. 

Let's break it down by comparing Dickey to his fellow 20-game winner (Gonzalez, with 21 to be precise) and all current 19-game winners (Jered Weaver, David Price and Johnny Cueto) when it comes to some indicators of "win merit" ... 

Pitcher Non-Quality Start Wins Quality Start Losses ERA in Wins
Dickey 0 3 1.18
Gonzalez 4 4 2.03
Weaver 2 1 1.53
Price 2 1 1.89
Cueto 3 4 1.73

As you can plainly see, Dickey's been better during the course of his alloted wins than anyone else on the leaderboards has been during theirs.

It's rare that you can eyeball a 20-game-winner's 20-plus wins and assume he's earned all of them, but with Dickey in 2012, you can do just that. He's a true 20-game winner. 

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