Last year Brandon Webb won 22 games of Arizona's 82 games. The year before that Webb won 18 games giving him a two year average of 20. Will he be able to do it again? Before you answer, keep a few things in mind.
The Dbacks no longer have Gold Glover Orlando Hudson. Sure Hudson was hurt towards the end of the past two seasons but he was still there for the bulk of the season. He has since been replaced by Felipe Lopez who is not as god with the glove.
The Dbacks also don't have a shut down closer which will hurt the win total. Two years ago they had Jose Valverde and last year they didn't really have that one guy but Brandon Lyon got the majority of closing opportunities. This year it looks to be Chad Qualls who has 15 Saves in his 5 year career.
The offense should be worse this year despite having young guys gaining another year of experience. This team strikes out a ton and have lost the likes of Hudson and Adam Dunn. The DBacks had five players with 100 or more strikeouts and one of them set a record with 204! Eric Byrnes' hamstring might never be healthy enough to play 100 games again and the defense is suspect in too many areas.
Webb has thrown more than 225 innings the past four years and really struggled late last year. Are all those innings catching up to him? A lot of things will have to go right for Webb to reach the 20 win plateau which leaves me to believe he will fall short of that mark. I love watching him pitch but don;t think he can carry the load another year.