This question came up on Dodger Thoughts today, and I thought it was an interesting exercise. What are the top five rotations in baseball, once you normalize for defense and park factors. I thought this would be easy, but after the Angels and the Red Sox, I couldn't really think of any truly dominant pitching staffs. Here's what I ended up coming up with:
- Angels - Bartolo Colon might not deserve a spot in this rotation once he comes back from injury.
- Red Sox - The potential to have four ace level pitchers in Schilling, Matsuzaka, Beckett and Papelbon
- Marlins - Scott Olsen and Josh Johnson had pretty amazing strikeout rates at age 22. Dontrelle Willis can be dominant if he avoids the long ball.
- Brewers - While I don't like their four and five, Ben Sheets, Chris Capuano and Dave Bush (4.36 K/BB in 2006) can stand up to anyones one two and three starters.
- Dodgers - Solid, but not elite 1-2-3 starters are backed up with some of the best rotation depth in baseball.
On paper the Padres have a pretty good rotation, but that's simply because it's built to take advantage of the Padres great defense and cavernous stadium. Only Peavy would find success on any other team. Similar story with the Tigers. What do you think?
Not much to quibble with
The only other rotations that maybe should be included are the Yankees and the Phillies. Wang/Mussina/Pettite compares pretty well with the Dodgers top 3, and Igawa/Pavano/Hughes vs. Wolf/Bills/Kuo? I guess I agree that the Dodgers look stronger, but it's close.Phi: Myers/Hamels/Garcia--very solid top 3, and Eaton/Lieber/Moyer is much better than most teams have at the back of the rotation.
I think the Red Sox and the Angels are easily the class of baseball (at least potentially for the Red Sox) and all the others could be in various order of preference.
Note: Marlins have now lost J. Johnson for at least two months.
Alfredo Griffin - March 6, 2007
Rotations
I disagree. Chris Young didn't have a road loss all last year. He's more than proven he can pitch away from petco park. You have to take bullpens into account as well.I have to give the nod to the red sox right now.
Though unproven and inconsistent in some cases, Josh Beckett, Daisuke Matsuzaka, and Johnathan Papelbon can definately bring the heat with the best of them. They are so young that they will all be good for a long time.
Toss in there Schilling and Wakefield and you have the best rotation in baseball. And Jon Lester is out of the picture at this point.
sailorguy - March 7, 2007
Re
I think Young was lucky last year, he had a .240 BABIP and the highest fly ball rate in baseball. He would have been crushed outside of PETCO given the chance.I didn't count bullpens because this question was specifically about rotations.
Andrew - March 7, 2007
Red Sox fan response
I'm very pleased with our (Red Sox) rotation, but don't forget about Wakefield. Yes he's old for a pitcher and has stretches of inconsistency, but...- He's a knuckleballer. His age is far less important than it would be for other kinds of pitchers. Look up the post-40 careers of the Nierko brothers and Hough.
- His record last year was misleading - between having to pitch to a kid catcher who was overwhelmed by the knuckler and never got the chance to adapt, and then getting hurt and never being right for the rest of the year, 2006 was an anomaly. Maybe it won't be 1995 again for Wake (his best year), but 2005 is easily attainable (he won 16, should have won 19 with even remotely adequate run support, and could have won 20. Oh yes, IIRC he's had the worst run support on the staff for a couple of years now.)
Of course, any rotation is "who knows". Beckett could continue to make us crazy, Schill might be hit by age, Paps certainly won't have as minuscule an ERA and BA-against starting as he did closing. But I got faith (and I'm looking forward to Matsuzaka in a big way.) So many things went as wrong as they could last year, we won't have that kind of luck again. (Right? Right? Oy.)
So I'm hoping for a staff of 5 aces, not 4. 20 wins each. Also a winning lottery ticket and for Jamie Bamber to come by my apartment and read me Shakespeare. (What? Next to the last two, the 5 aces looks pretty reasonable.) Also, for Nomar's third batting title, and is Loney still eligible for ROY? If not, then a ROY for Kemp. And for the Dodgers to lose the World Series to us on a walk-off HR by David Ortiz in the bottom of the 12th inning in Game 7 (score 1-0).
Casilda - March 8, 2007
You must Login with your SB Nation account and be a member of True Blue LA to post a comment.