Nationals Arm Race

Scherzer’s dominant Cy Young season brings the Tigers to the top. Photo AP Photo/Paul Sancya

In January, after most of marquee FA signings had shaken out, I ranked the 2013 rotations of teams 1-30.  I was excited about the Nats rotation, speculated more than once that we had the best rotation in the league, and wanted to make a case for it by stacking up the teams 1-30.

I thought it’d be an interesting exercise to revisit my rankings now that the season is over with a hindsight view, doing some post-mortem analysis and tacking on some advanced metrics to try to quantify who really performed the best this season.  For advanced metrics I’m leaning heavily on Fangraphs team starter stats page, whose Dashboard view quickly gives the team ERA, FIP, xFIP, WAR, SIERA, K/9 and other key stats that I’ll use in this posting.

1. (#2 pre-season) Detroit: Verlander, Fister, Sanchez, Scherzer, Porcello (with Alvarez providing some cover).  Scherzer likely wins the Cy Young.  Three guys with 200+ strikeouts.  The league leader in ERA.  And we havn’t even mentioned Justin Verlander yet.  A team starting pitching fWAR of 25.3, which dwarfed the next closest competitor.  There’s no question; we knew Detroit’s rotation was going to be good, but not this good.  Here’s a scary fact; their rotation BABIP was .307, so in reality this group should have done even better than they actually did.  Detroit’s rotation was *easily* the best rotation in the league and all 6 of these guys return for 2014.
2. (#3 Preseason): Los Angeles Dodgers: Kershaw, Greinke, Ryu, Nolasco, and Capuano (with Fife, Beckett, Lilly, Billingsley and a few others helping out); The 1-2 punch of Kershaw (the NL’s clear Cy Young favorite) and Greinke (who quietly went 15-4) was augmented by the stand-out rookie performance of Ryu, the surprisingly good half-season worth of starts from Nolasco, and then the all-hands-on deck approach for the rest of the starts.  This team used 11 different starters on the year thanks to injury and ineffectiveness, but still posted the 2nd best team FIP and 5th best fWAR in the league.
3. (#8 pre-season): St. Louis: Wainwright, Lynn, Miller, Wacha and Kelly (with Garcia, Westbrook, and a few others pitching in).  Team leader Chris Carpenter missed the whole season and this team still was one of the best rotations in the league.  Westbrook missed time, Garcia only gave them 9 starts.  That’s the team’s planned #1, #3 and #4 starters.  What happened?  They call up Miller and he’s fantastic.  They call up Wacha and he nearly pitches back to back no-hitters at the end of the season.  They give Kelly a starting nod out of the bullpen and he delivers with a better ERA+ than any of them from the #5 spot.  St. Louis remains the bearer-standard of pitching development (along with Tampa and Oakland to an extent) in the game.
4. (#22 pre-season): Pittsburgh:  Liriano, Burnett, Locke, Cole, Morton (with Rodriguez and a slew of call-ups helping out).  How did this team, which I thought was so low pre-season, turn out to have the 4th best starter FIP in the game?  Francisco Liriano had a renessaince season, Burnett continued to make Yankees fans shake their heads, and their top 6 starters (by number of starts) all maintained sub 4.00 ERAs.  Gerrit Cole has turned out to be the real deal and will be a force in this league.
5. (#1 pre-season) Washington: Strasburg, Gonzalez, Zimmermann, Haren, Detwiler with Jordan, Roark and other starts thrown to Karns and Ohlendorf).   Despite Haren’s continued attempts to sabotage this rotation’s mojo, they still finished 3rd in xFIP and 5th in FIP.  Haren’s 11-19 team record and substandard ERA/FIP values drug this group down, but there wasn’t much further up they could have gone on this list.   If  you had replaced Haren with a full season of Jordan’s production, maybe this team jumps up a little bit, but the teams above them are tough to beat.
6. (#11 pre-season) Atlanta: Hudson, Medlen, Minor, Teheran and Maholm, (with rookie Alex Wood contributing towards the end of the season).  Brandon Beachy only gave them 5 starts; had he replaced Maholm this rotation could have done better.  Hudson went down with an awful looking injury but was ably covered for by Wood.  They head into 2014 with a relatively formidable  and cheap potential rotation of  Medlen, Minor, Teheran, Beachy and Wood, assuming they don’t resign Hudson.  How did they over-perform?  Teheran finally figured it out, Maholm was more than servicable the first couple months, Wood was great and came out of nowhere.
7. (#26 pre-season) Cleveland: Jimenez, Masterson, McAllister, Kluber, Kazmir.  Too high for this group?  7th in rotation fWAR, 8th in FIP, and 6th in xFIP.  This group, which I thought was going to be among the worst in the league, turned out to be one of the best.  Jimenez and Masterson both had rebound years with a ton of Ks, and the rest of this crew pitches well enough to remain around league average.  They were 2nd best in the league in K/9.  You can make the argument that they benefitted from the weakened AL Central, but they still made the playoffs with a relative rag-tag bunch.
8. (#9 pre-season) Cincinnati: Cueto, Latos, Bailey, Arroyo, Leake (with Tony Cingrani).  Cueto was good … but he was never healthy, hitting the D/L three separate times.  Luckily Cingrani came up from setting strikeout records in AAA and kept mowing them down in the majors.  Latos was dominant,  Leake took a step forward, and Bailey/Arroyo gave what they normally do.  If anything you would have thought this group would have been better.  6th in Wins, 7th in xFIP, 9th in FIP.  Next year Arroyo leaves, Cingrani gets 32 starts, Cueto stays healthy (cross your fingers, cross your fingers, cross your fingers) and this team is dominant again despite their FA hitting losses.
9. (#25 pre-season) New York Mets: Harvey, Wheeler, Niese, Gee, Hefner and a bunch of effective call-ups turned the Mets into a halfway-decent rotation all in all.  7th in xFIP, 11th in FIP.  Most of this is on the backs of Matt Harvey, who pitched like the second coming of Walter Johnson for most of the season.  Wheeler was more than effective, and rotation workhorses Niese and Gee may not be sexy names, but they were hovering right around the 100 ERA+ mark all year.  One superstar plus 4 league average guys was good enough for the 9th best rotation.
10. (#12 pre-season) Texas: Darvish, Holland, Ogando, Perez, Garza at the end.  Texas’ fWAR was the 2nd best in the league … but their accompanying stats drag them down this far.  Despite having four starters with ERA+s ranging from 114 to Darvish’ 145, the 34 starts given to Tepesch and Grimm drag this rotation down.  Ogando couldn’t stay healthy and Perez only gave them 20 starts.  Garza was mostly a bust.  And presumed #2 starter Matt Harrison gave them just 2 starts.  But look out for this group in 2014; Darvish, a healthy Harrison, and Holland all locked up long term, Ogando in his first arbitration year, and Perez is just 22.  That’s a formidable group if they can stay on the field together.
11. (pre-season #6) Tampa Bay: Price, Moore, Hellickson, Cobb, Archer and Roberto Hernandez.   Jeff Niemann didn’t give them a 2013 start, but no matter, the Tampa Bay gravy train of power pitchers kept on producing.  Cobb was unhittable, Archer was effective and Moore regained his 2011 playoff mojo to finish 17-4 on the year.  An odd regression from Price, which was fixed by a quick D/L trip, and a complete collapse of Hellickson drug down this rotation from where it should have been.  They still finished 12th in FIP and xFIP for the year.
12. (pre-season #21) Seattle: Hernandez, Iwakuma, Saunders, Harang, Maurer, and Ramirez.  Seattle featured two excellent, ace-leve performers and a bunch of guys who pitched worse than Dan Haren all year.  But combined together and you have about the 12th best rotation, believe it or not.
13. (pre-season #7) Philadelphia: Halladay, Hamels, Lee, Kendrick, Lannan (with Cloyd and Pettibone as backups).  The phillies were 13th in xFIP, 10th in FIP on the year and regressed slightly thanks to the significant demise to their #1 guy Halladay.  Lee pitched like his typical Ace but Hamels self-destructed as well.  The strength of one excellent starter makes this a mid-ranked rotation.  Had Halladay and Hamels pitched like expected, they’d have finished closer to my pre-season ranking.
14. (pre-season #17) Boston: Lester, Buchholz, Dempster, Lackey, Doubront, and Peavy: Boston got a surprise bounce back season out of Lackey, a fantastic if oft-injured performance from Buchholz, a mid-season trade for the effective Peavy.  Why aren’t they higher?  Because their home stadium contributes to their high ERAs in general.  Despite being 3rd in rotation fWAR and 4th in wins, this group was 17th in FIP and 18th in xFIP.  Perhaps you could argue they belong a couple places higher, but everyone knows its Boston’s offense that is driving their success this year.
15. (pre-season #16) New York Yankees: Sabathia, Kuroda, Pettitte, Nova, Hughes/Phelps.  Hughes and Phelps pitched as predictably bad as you would have expected … but Sabathia’s downturn was unexpected.  Are  his years of being a workhorse catching up to him?  The rotation was buoyed by unexpectedly good seasons from Nova and Kuroda.  Pettitte’s swang song was pretty great, considering his age.  Enough for them to slightly beat expectations, but the signs of trouble are here for this rotation in the future.   Pettitee retired, Kuroda a FA, Hughes a FA, a lost season for prospect Michael Pineda and other Yankees prospects stalled.  Are we in for a dark period in the Bronx?
16. (pre-season #29) Miami: Fernandez, Nolasco, Eovaldi, Turner, Alvarez, Koehler and a few other starts given to either re-treads or MLFAs.  For Miami’s rotation of kids to rise this far up is amazing; looking at their stellar stats you would think they should have been higher ranked still.  Fernandez’s amazing 176 ERA+ should win him the Rookie of the Year.  Eovaldi improved, rookie Turner pitched pretty well for a 22 year old.  The team dumped its opening day starter Nolasco and kept on … losing frankly, because the offense was so durn bad.  Begrudgingly it looks like Jeffry Loria has found himself another slew of great arms to build on.
17. (pre-season #5) San Francisco: Cain, Lincecum, Bumgarner, Vogelsong, Zito, Gaudin.  What the heck happened here?  Cain went from an Ace to pitching like a 5th starter, Lincecum continued to completely forget what it was like to pitch like a Cy Young winner, Vogelsong completely fell off his fairy-tale cliff, and Zito completed his $126M journey in typical 5+ ERA fashion.  I’m surprised these guys are ranked this high (14th in FIP, 16th in xFIP but just 27th in fWAR thanks to just horrible performances all year).  What the heck are they going to do in 2014?
18. (pre-season #10) Arizona: Corbin, Kennedy, McCarthy, Cahill, Miley and Delgado.  Corbin was 2013’s version of Miley; a rookie that came out of nowhere to lead the staff.  Miley struggled at times but righted the ship and pitched decently enough.  The rest of the staff really struggled.  I thought this was a solid bunch but they ended up ranked 23rd in FIP and 14th in xFIP, indicating that they were a bit unlucky as a group.
19. (pre-season #15) Chicago White Sox: Sale, Peavy, Danks, Quintana, Santiago and Axelrod.  Floyd went down early, Peavy was traded.  Sale pitched well but had a losing record.  The team looked good on paper (16th in ERA) but were 26th in FIP and 17th in xFIP.
20. (pre-season #14) Oakland: Colon, Anderson, Griffen, Parker, Straily, Milone, with Sonny Gray giving 10 good starts down the stretch.  This rotation is the story of one amazing 40-yr old and a bunch of kids who I thought were going to be better.   Oakland is bashing their way to success this season and this group has been just good enough to keep them going.  I thought the likes of Griffen and Parker would have been better this  year, hence their falling from #14 to #19.
21. (pre-season #19) Chicago Cubs: Garza, Samardzija, Jackson, Wood, and Feldman: Feldman and Garza were flipped once they showed they could be good this year.  Samardzija took an uncharacteristic step backwards.  Jackson was awful.  The Cubs ended up right about where we thought they’d be.  However in 2014 they look to be much lower unless some big-armed prospects make the team.
22. (pre-season #20) Kansas City: Shields, Guthrie, Santana, Davis, Chen, Mendoza: despite trading the best prospect in the game to acquire Shields and Davis, the Royals a) did not make the playoffs and b) really didn’t have that impressive a rotation.  12th in team ERA but 20th in FIP and 25th in xFIP.   Compare that to their rankings of 25th in FIP and 26th in xFIP in 2012.   But the results on the field are inarguable; the team improved 14 games in the Win column and should be a good bet to make the playoffs next year if they can replace the possibly-departing Santana and the ineffective Davis.
23. (pre-season #23) Milwaukee: Lohse, Gallardo, Estrada, Peralta, and dozens of starts given to long-men and call-ups.  I ranked this squad #23 pre-season before they acquired Lohse; in reality despite his pay and the lost draft pick, Lohse’s addition ended up … having almost no impact on this team in 2013.  They finished ranked 23rd on my list, and the team was 74-88.
24. (pre-season #13): Los Angeles Angels: Weaver, Wilson, Vargas, Hanson, Blanton, Williams: The Angels are in a predicament; their two “aces” Weaver and Wilson both pitched well enough.  But nobody in baseball was really that surprised by the god-awful performances from Hanson or Blanton (2-14, 6.04 ERA … and the Angels gave him a two year deal!).  So in some ways the team brought this on themselves.  You spend half a billion dollars on aging offensive FAs, have the best player in the game languishing in left field because your manager stubbornly thinks that someone else is better in center than one of the best defenders in the game … not fun times in Anaheim.  To make matters worse, your bigtime Ace Weaver missed a bunch of starts, looked mortal, and lost velocity.
25. (#28 pre-season) San Diego: Volquez, Richards, Marquis, Stults, Ross, Cashner: have you ever seen an opening day starter post a 6+ ERA in a cave of a field and get relased before the season was over?  That happened to SAn Diego this year.  Another case where ERA+ values are deceiving; Stults posted a sub 4.00 ERA but his ERA+ was just 87, thanks to his home ballpark.  In fact its almost impossible to tell just how good or bad San Diego pitchers are.   I could be talked in to putting them this high or all the way down to about #28 in the rankings.
26. (pre-season #27) Colorado: Chatwood, De La Rosa, Chacin, Nicaso, Francis and a few starts for Garland and Oswalt for good measure.  Another staff who shows how deceptive the ERA+ value can be.  Their top guys posted 125 ERA+ figures but as a whole their staff performed badly.  26th in ERA, 19th in FIP, 26th in xFIP.  Colorado is like Minnesota; they just don’t have guys who can throw it by you (29th in K/9 just ahead of the Twins), and in their ridiculous hitter’s park, that spells trouble.
27. (pre-season #4) Toronto: Dickey, Morrow, Johnson, Buehrle, Happ, Rogers, and a line of other guys.  What happened here?  This was supposed to be one of the best rotations in the majors.  Instead they fell on their face, suffered a ton of injuries (only Dickey and Buehrle pitched full seasons: Romero, Drabeck were hurt.  Johnson, Happ, Redmond only 14-16 starts each.  This team even gave starts to Chien-Ming Wang and Ramon Ortiz.  Why not call up Fernando Valenzuela out of retirement?  It just goes to show; the best teams on paper sometimes don’t come together.  The Nats disappointed in 2013, but probably not as much as the Blue Jays.
28. (pre-season #18) Baltimore: Hammel, Chen, Tillman, Gonzalez, Feldman, Garcia with a few starts given to Gausman and Britton.  I’m not sure why I thought this group would be better than this; they were in the bottom four of the league in ERA, FIP, xFIP and SIERA.  It just goes to show how the ERA+ value can be misleading.  In their defense, they do pitch in a hitter’s park.  Tillman wasn’t bad, Chen took a step back.  The big concern here is the health of Dylan Bundy, who I thought could have pitched in the majors starting in June.
29. (pre-season #30) Houston: Bedard, Norris, Humber, Peacock, Harrell to start, then a parade of youngsters from there.  We knew Houston was going to be bad.  But amazingly their rotation wasn’t the worst in the league, thanks to Jarred Cosart and Brett Olberholtzer coming up and pitching lights-out for 10 starts a piece later in the year.  There’s some potential talent here.
30. (pre-season #24) Minnesota: Diamond, Pelfrey, Correia, Denudo, Worley and a whole slew of guys who were equally as bad.  Minnesota had the worst rotation in the league, and it wasn’t close.  They were dead last in rotational ERA, FIP, and xFIP, and it wasn’t close.  They were last in K/9 … by more than a strikeout per game.  They got a total fWAR of 4.6 from every pitcher who started a game for them this year.  Matt Harvey had a 6.1 fWAR in just 26 starts before he got hurt.  Someone needs to call the Twins GM and tell him that its not the year 1920, that power-pitching is the wave of the future, that you need swing-and-miss guys to win games in this league.

Biggest Surprises: Pittsburgh, Cleveland, Miami and New York Mets to a certain extent.

Biggest Disappointments: Toronto, the Angels, San Francisco, Philadelphia and Baltimore to some extent.

Disagree with these rankings?  Feel free to pipe up.  I’ll use this ranking list as the spring board post-FA market for 2014’s pre-season rankings.

Matt Harvey is lucky he isn’t pitching for a contender .. Photo: Brad Penner-USA TODAY Sports

I just noticed this little report float across the wire: the Miami Marlins plan to shut down their rising star 20-yr old Jose Fernandez when he reaches 170 innings.  We’ve already seen the Mets manipulate Matt Harvey‘s pre-all-star start in an attempt to limit his innings and stretch him out as long as possible, and they too have talked about an innings limit for their new-found Ace (Editor Note: this was before his unfortunate UCL injury).  Cub’s rising Ace Jeff Samardzija was shut down on September 8th of 2012 after reaching a prescribed limit that the team had set.  And our own Jordan Zimmermann worked on a 160 inning limit and was shut down in late August of 2011 after recovering from Tommy John surgery.  And there’s more: see the following for a quick summary of Operation Shutdown 2013:

• Taylor Jordan: innings limit reached 8/19/13.
• Taijuan Walker: shutdown announced 9/9/13.
• Jarred Cosart: shutdown on 9/10/13 with apparently no prior notice that the Astros were going to do so.
• Jose Fernandez: shutdown after his 9/12/13 start.
• Zack Wheeler after he experienced shoulder stiffness on 9/21/13 (this one is relatively arguable).

So what’s the common theme here?  When the Nats shutdown Zimmermann in 2011 they were not a playoff team.  Nor were the Cubs with Samardzija in 2012.  And this year clearly the Mets and Marlins are not playoff teams.  BUT, when the Nationals in 2012 were clearly a playoff team and did a similar innings-limit shutdown with Stephen Strasburg, there was (and continues to be) national media uproar over the decision.  The Nats (and by proxy Mike Rizzo) were described as “arrogant” by more than one “anonymous GM” (aka gutless chicken-sh*t executive who wouldn’t go on the record criticizing a colleague who had to make a pretty significant, difficult decision), as dutifully and gleefully reported by bloggers and writers who go to great lengths to state their own opinions on the matter.   And it didn’t take but a few hours after the Game 5 meltdown (and in some cases even before then) for said writers to pipe up yet again with their opinions that the NLDS absolutely would have turned out differently if Strasburg was pitching.

And keep in mind, Strasburg was coming back from an injury!  Nearly every one of these 2013 Operation Shutdown guys weren’t ever hurt; they were just limited by executives who may prescribe to the Tom Verducci effect of increased workloads (whether or not you agree with the principle, which has been disproven on the macro level yet Verducci maintains an 80% successful prediction rate.  Discussion on both sides from a January 2013 post here).

Why the hypocrisy?  Because there’s a huge double standard here.  Its “OK” to shutdown your ace for health-related or longevity-related issues …. but only if your team sucks and you’re not making the playoffs.  However, if you are making the playoffs and you follow-through on your season-long stated intention to shutdown your star pitcher coming off a major arm injury … then you’re an idiot.  At least, that’s my interpretation of the media reaction in September of 2012 of Strasburg-shutdown versus Samardzija-shutdown.

Its ok to ignore doctor’s recommendations and attempt to blow out your 24-yr old’s arm again so that he can make one or two post-season starts … because, hey, Flags fly forever, and you may never get back to the playoffs.   I think this statement encapsulates the argument very simply; some people value making the playoffs for one year far above the long-term health of one particular baseball pitcher’s arm.  People with these opinions are gleefully watching our team struggle in 2013, and I’ve seen more than one opinion posted that say this is “karma” on the Nats for shutting down Strasburg last year.  Really?  Karma?  Not the 29th ranked offense in the league as being the root of all our troubles right now?

The point is this: if you were against an innings limit for Strasburg … then you should stand up and say you’re against innings limits for any pitcher.  All the “well we don’t know if shutting down a pitcher helps or hurts” arguments (which are all entirely true; we don’t have any idea if Strasburg’s career will be 3 more years or 15, and we have no idea if the 2012 shutdown will help, hurt or have no impact), shouldn’t be affected by the team’s place in the standings.  If you’re against the Strasburg shutdown on principle, then you should be equally outraged that the Mets, Cubs, and Marlins plan to “tank” games in August that their aces would have been scheduled to pitch as well.

I’m sure that we’ll continue to hear more “shutdown dates” being announced for the slew of young power arms that are making 2013 increasingly the “Year of the Rookie pitcher.”  None of these names have been mentioned yet, but rookies with decent MLB workloads such as Shelby Miller, Gerrit Cole, Zach Wheeler, Jacob Turner, Tony Cingrani, Alex Cobb, and maybe even guys like Jarred Cosart, Chris Archer and Martin Perez could all be names that teams look to protect going forward.  And some of these guys (especially Miller and Cole) are pitching significant innings for playoff contenders, and are going to blow by 2012 innings numbers by mid-August.  Will we see another Strasburg-esque shutdown media blitz in 2013?

Post Script added 7/26/13: we have announced that our own Taylor Jordan will be facing an innings limit in 2013, and it is coming up very fast.  “20-30” more innings, or roughly 5-6 more starts.  That hopefully will coincide with Ross Detwiler‘s return from the D/L but it may not, forcing the team to scramble to fill that rotation spot.  Update: this on 8/18/13 after Jordan suffered a sprain that would have made it impossible to come back anyway.  Shut down at 142 total innings for 2013.

[After the fact post addition: ESPN’s Jerry Crasnik posted about the same topic on 8/7/13, with great updated innings counts for pitchers on contending teams.  He says the same things I’m saying here.  Sept2013 I updated this post whenever a new team announced they were shutting down a player].

9/15/13 post about innings limits

http://hardballtalk.nbcsports.com/2013/09/14/are-pitch-counts-and-early-shutdowns-actually-helping-pitchers/

Strained Oblique is not the same as torn UCL. Photo credit unknown.

It didn’t take the holier-than-thou Jon Paul Morosi 10 minutes after Stephen Strasburg‘s early exit on 5/31/13 to post this “I told you so” missive to remind everyone that he thinks the Nationals 2012 Shutdown decision was stupid (oh, and just to make sure everyone knows how smart he was, he also conveniently posted a link to his own opinion posted at the time).

Of course, the fact that a “Strained Oblique” isn’t the same thing as an “Ulnar Collateral Ligament” didn’t stop him from his highly hypocritical post.  Why hypocritical?  Because teams shut down pitchers on innings limits ALL THE TIME.  When the Cubs shut down Jeff Samardzija at the end of last season, did anyone bat an eye?  No?  Why was that?  Was it because the Nats were in first place and the Cubs in last?  Is that so?  Well if you’re going to have a national debate about one guy and not a word about the other solely based on the team’s position in the standings, then something is wrong.  Because both decisions were made to protect the player, not advance the team’s best short-term interest.

I’m not going to re-hash the whole argument again.  It isn’t worth it.  Nobody’s going to listen, everyone has their opinion already formed and hardened again and again.  The reason the Nats lost the NLCS wasn’t because our bullpen leaked run after run or because our closer coughed up a 2 run lead in the 9th; it was because Mike Rizzo arrogantly shut down Strasburg!  Of course!  Never mind that Strasburg’s replacement on the roster (Ross Detwiler) gave the team its best post season start.  Never mind that the St. Louis Cardinals were a heck of a hitting team and never mind that our offense only really showed up in Game 5 (when, as it turned out, scoring SEVEN runes wasn’t enough to win).

Ok, maybe I did just rehash the issue again.

But to the point of this post; are we going to have to live with this stupid argument every time Strasburg stubs his toe or has any sort of routine strain or injury for the rest of his frigging career?  Pitchers, as a rule of course, get injured.  Throwing a baseball at max effort is hard on the body.  Guys get injured all the time.  Some guys are incredibly durable (think Justin Verlander) and other guys are just not (think about what this franchise went through with John Patterson and Shawn Hill).  Just because Strasburg had a minor injury (and by all accounts it seems to be minor at this point) doesn’t mean Rizzo’s 2012 shutdown decision is to blame.

Are we going to have this discussion every time?  I hope not.

6/3/13 update: found this Tweet from Jon Heyman who acts as the voice of reason, not only shooting down Morosi’s article by pointing out that Oblique/Lat is not the same as Arm, but shouting down Twitter followers who questioned the shutdown.  He had a very, very good point about last year’s shutdown; is it worth a 25-yr old’s career for “1 or 2 more starts?”  A sage question that few people seemed to be asking, even if it was going to probably be 4-5 more starts.  There needs to be more people coming back to the middle on this (as Will Carroll seemed to be doing), saying that we just don’t know if a shutdown helps or not, as opposed to people who vehimently and rudely state that the Nats and Rizzo were so stupid for shutting him down.  It just gets old.

6/10/13: A little late to the game but Thom Loverro of the Washington Examiner calls out specifically Morosi and an Atlanta reporter for their “gutless” criticism of the Strasburg shutdown.  He makes very good points.

Sabathia is your current Active leader in Opening Day starts. Photo wiki/flickr chris.ptacek

One of my favorite annual trivia questions amongst my baseball buddies revolves around Opening Day Starters.  With another Opening Day in the books, here’s some useless trivia related to Opening Day starters for my readers.  I’ve uploaded my little Opening Day Starters spreadsheet to Google Docs and created a link in the “Nationals Arm Race creation” section along the right.

Current Active Leaders in Opening Day Starts

Those players bolded in the list above had 2013 opening day starts and added to their totals.  Roy Halladay‘s difficult spring training cost him his shot at Opening Day and thus CC Sabathia moves into a tie for first.  Mark Buehrle has given over the reigns of opening day starter possibly for good, based on his standing in the Toronto rotation (4th starter?).

Felix Hernandez and Justin Verlander have chances to broach the all-time records (see below) based on their ages, their current counts and their new long-term contracts.

Current Active Leader in consecutive Opening Day Starts: Verlander with 6 straight.

Most ever Opening Day Starts all-time: Tom Seaver with 16 in his career.

Most ever Consecutive Opening Day Starts: Hall of Fame lightning rod Jack Morris, who made 14 straight such starts.

Number of first-time opening day starters in 2013: no less than 13 first timers this year, nearly half the league.   Some guys got deserved first-time opening day starts (Jeff Samardzija, Matt Cain, and R.A. Dickey), some guys got Opening Day starts mostly out of attrition of other worthy pitchers (Jon Niese, Bud Norris, A.J. Burnett, Vance Worley and Jhoulys Chacin) and some guys are taking over as the new big-dog of their rotations (Brett Anderson, Chris Sale).

Who seems most likely to break Seaver’s Record at this point? Sabathia, who already has 10 opening day starts, is clearly the #1 in New York, is only 32 and still has five years on his current deal.  Question is, if he renews past 2017, can he still earn the #1 spot?   Meanwhile Hernandez already has 6, just signed a deal that takes him through 2019 with a relatively easy option for 2020.   That’s 8 more seasons on his existing 6 opening day starts and he’d only be 34 years of age.   He could be the standard holder if he stays healthy and continues to pitch like an ace.

Greinke bolstered the Dodger’s already strong rotation. How much? Photo Jeff Golden/Getty Images

(Editor Note: I’ve had the bulk of this post written for weeks and have been waiting for the last couple of impact FA starters to sign.  I’m tired of waiting.  If/when guys like Kyle Lohse, Shawn Marcum or Joe Saunders signs, or if there’s another big trade that happens, perhaps I’ll re-post this).

On December 5th, awash in the after-glow of the Dan Haren acquisition, I postulated that the Washington Nationals’ 2013 rotation was the Best in the Majors.

That was before the next shoe dropped in the Los Angeles Dodger’s unbelievable spending spree in 2012: signing Zack Greinke to a 6yr/$147M contract.  This is the 2nd largest starting pitcher contract ever signed (just behind CC Sabathia‘s 7yr/$161M deal that he opted out of to sign a slightly larger deal in terms of AAV after the 2012 season).  These rankings also are updated for the highly-criticized James Shields (and parts) for Wil Myers (and parts) deal, the Ryan Dempster signing.

The larger story behind the Greinke signing remains the unbelievable payroll Los Angeles will be sporting in 2013; they’ll spend roughly $225M in 2013, breaking the  Yankees record by a 10% margin, and all boldly in the face of a dollar-for-dollar luxury tax.  And they’re likely not done yet on the FA market.  But the focus of this article is a revisiting of baseball’s best rotations, now that Greinke is in the Dodger’s fold.

Instead of trying to figure out which handful of teams are the best, why not rank all 30 rotations?  With the help of some Depth Chart websites (ESPN, rotoworld, mlbdepthcharts, and some good old-fashioned baseball-reference.com), here’s my rankings of the 30 rotations as they stand for 2013, right now.   For the sake of this ranking, I am trying to take a reasonable expectations case for each of the pitchers on each team, as opposed to a “best case” for each team (this is most important when considering San Francisco’s rotation).  I’m also not considering “depth,” just the Ace through 5th starter (this is important when judging Washington especially).

Note: a couple of other National writers have done similar analysis, with David Schoenfield‘s NL-only rankings on his Sweetspot blog back in November and Buster Olney‘s top-10 in the MLB rankings here.  By and large the rankings match up, with a couple of different .

Discussion on each rotation is below the rankings.

1. Washington: Strasburg, Gonzalez, Zimmermann, Haren, Detwiler
2. Detroit: Verlander, Fister, Sanchez, Scherzer, Porcello (with rookies Smyly, Crosby, Wilk awaiting)
3. Los Angeles Dodgers: Kershaw, Greinke, Beckett, Harang, Capuano (with Ryu, Lilly, Billingsley in the wings)
4. Toronto: Dickey, Morrow, Johnson, Buehrle, Romero with Happ/Laffey/Drabeck/Huchinson in the wings.
5. San Francisco: Cain, Lincecum, Bumgarner, Vogelsong, Zito.
6. Tampa Bay: Price, Hellickson, Moore, Niemann and one from Cobb/Archer.  Possibly Odorizzi and Montgomery now in the mix too.
7. Philadelphia: Halladay, Hamels, Lee, Kendrick, Lannan (with Cloyd/Pettibone/Hyatt as backups)
8. St. Louis: Carpenter, Wainwright, Westbrook, and probably Lynn and Garcia (Kelly/Miller if Garcia is not ready)
9. Cincinnati: Cueto, Latos, Bailey, Arroyo, Leake (possibly Chapman?)
10. Arizona: Kennedy, McCarthy, Cahill, Miley, and one from Skaggs/Collmenter
11. Atlanta: Medlen, Hudson, Minor, Maholm, and one from Beachy/Delgado/Tehran
12. Texas: Darvish, Harrison, Holland, Ogando and likely a FA pick up. (Perez for now)
13. Los Angeles Angels: Weaver, Wilson, Vargas, Hanson, Blanton (wth Richards/Cassevah for depth).
14. Oakland: Anderson, Griffen, Parker, Colon, Milone, with Straily/Blackley/Ross/Godfrey in the wings.
15. Chicago White Sox: Sale, Peavy, Danks, Floyd, Quintana
16. New York Yankees: Sabathia, Kuroda, Pettitte, Nova, Hughes/Phelps.  What about Pineda?
17. Boston: Lester, Buchholz, Dempster, Lackey, and 1 from Doubront/Morales/ De La Rosa.
18. Baltimore: Hammel, Chen, Tillman, Gonzalez, Britton (perhaps Bundy)
19. Chicago Cubs: Garza, Samardzija, Jackson, Wood, and one from Baker/Feldman/Villanueva (likely two if Garza is still injured or is traded).  They also just signed Dontrelle Willis to a minor league deal.
20. Kansas City: Shields, Guthrie, Santana, Davis, Chen (Hochevar, Moscoso?)
21. Seattle: Hernandez, Iwakuma, Ramirez, Beavan (Hultzen?).  Bonderman on a reclamation project.
22. Pittsburgh: Burnett, Liriano, Rodriguez, McDonald, Locke, McPherson
23. Milwaukee: Gallardo, Estrada, Fiers, Narveson, Rogers (with the likes of Peralta and Thornberg waiting if Narveson cannot go).
24. Minnesota: Diamond, Worley, Correia, Pelfrey (if he’s healthy), Hendricks, Duensing, De Vries (maybe Gibson or May? ).  Harden on a reclamation project.
25. New York Mets: Santana, Niese, Gee, Harvey, and who knows.
26. Cleveland: Jimenez, Masterson, McAllister, Kluber, Carrasco, Bauer (Kazmir and Myers on reclamation projects)
27. Colorado: De La Rosa, Chacin, Pomeranz, Nicaso, Francis (and newly acquired Rosenbaum perhaps?)
28. San Diego: Volquez, Richard, Marquis, Stults, Ross
29. Miami: Nolasco, Alvarez, LeBlanc, Eovaldi, Turner, Maine?
    
30. Houston: Norris, Humber, Ely, White, Harrell, Lyles (who, who and who?)

Free Agents as of 1/2/13 that could impact the above list: Lohse, Marcum, Saunders, Lowe.  Also guys like Webb, Vazquez and Pavano could be coming out of retirement but likely won’t make much of an impact.

Rumored trades as of 12/31/12 that could impact this list:  Harang, Capuano, Masterson, Smyly/Porcello.

Hmm.  I seem to favor NL teams.  The majority of my top Ten rotations are in the NL.  Is this bias?  Discussion, 1-30

1. Washington: If Dan Haren returns to 2011 form, which I’m assuming he will, this is the best rotation in the majors.  Not the deepest though; if we lose someone to injury we could struggle to repeat 2012’s win total.  But this is an exercise to determine the best 1 through 5, not to determine depth (where teams like the Dodgers and Tampa clearly have more depth).  I will say, this is a close race at the top; I can see arguments for any of the top 4-5 to be the best rotation.  I don’t want to be accused of homerism by ranking the Nats #1, but can make a man-for-man argument that shows we should be #1 above the next several competitors.
2. Detroit’s rotation in the post season was fantastic against New York, then god-awful against San Francisco.  Why?  What can they change in 2013?  They better figure it out, because upon re-signing Anibel Sanchez they’re rolling the dice on the same big 4 in 2013.  Fister and Scherzer are slightly underrated but showed how dominant they can be in the playoffs.  The #5 starter is likely where Detroit falls to Washington; Detwiler’s 12th ranked ERA+ in 2012 will trump nearly every other #5 starter in the league.
3. The Los Angeles Dodgers has an Ace in Clayton Kershaw, a near-Ace (in my opinion) in Zack Greinke, a potential near-ace career reclamation project in Josh Beckett, and then a bunch of question marks.  Two rotation stalwarts Ted Lilly and Chad Billingsley remain injury question marks for 2013, and the rest of their rotation right now are league average hurlers.   I believe their pitchers get a bump in adjusted ERA by virtue of their home park, thus I don’t believe their current #4/#5s match up as well with Washington’s or Detroit’s, putting them in 3rd place.  Plus Beckett is a question mark; is he throwing like he did at the end of 2012, or is he the Fried-Chicken eating malcontent he has been in Boston the last couple of years?
4. Toronto: Its not every day you can trade for 4 starting players, including two rotation members.  But thanks to Miami’s salary dump, Toronto finds itself with a significantly improved rotation.  If Josh Johnson returns to Ace form, coupled with Brandon Morrow’s fantastic 2012 performance and Mark Buehrle’s solid #3 stuff, they have something to build on.   The subsequent acqusition of 2012 Cy Young award winner R.A. Dickey changes things though, valulting Toronto into the discussion for best AL rotation.
5. San Francisco has won two World Series’ in three years with the same core of hurlers, and there’s no reason to think they won’t continue to be amongst the elite in the league.  The question remains though; what are they getting from Tim Lincecum in 2013?  Is the other shoe going to drop on Ryan Vogelsong‘s fairy tale career resurgence?  And, can Barry Zito continue his career rebound?   If the best-case falls for Lincecum and Zito (Lincecum returns to Cy Young form and Zito pitches even marginally ok) then I think they’re the best rotation in the game.  As it stands though, i’m assuming that both guys fall somewhere short of the best case, meaning that they’re “only” the 5th best rotation in the game.
6. Tampa Bay has well-known pitching depth, and even with the move/heist of the James Shields trade they have a ton of guys who other teams would love to have.  Expect a bounce-back sophomore campaign from Matt Moore and more excellent innings from rising hurlers Alex Cobb and Chris Archer.  They may not be the best rotation in the game, but they’re certainly the most value for the dollar.
7. Philadelphia’s big 3 are all fantastic, but are showing signs of age.  Roy Halladay only had an 89 ERA+ last year; has age caught up to him?  The drop-off after the big 3 is significant too.  But the potential of the big 3 keeps this rotation among the league’s elite.  The acquisition of John Lannan didn’t affect their ranking much; he merely replaces the Phillies heading into 2013 with a rookie in the #5 spot.  I had Philadelphia lower in the earlier drafts of these rankings, and have them this high on the assumption that their big three are all entering 2013 healthy.
8. St Louis’s 2012 rotation was rich enough this year to drop 18-game winner Lance Lynn to the bullpen.   With Chris Carpenter healthy in 2013, with Adam Wainwright recovered from Tommy John, and with the likes of hard-throwing Joe Kelly or Shelby Miller as your #5 starter, this could be a scary rotation.  And that’s if Jaime Garcia isn’t ready for the start of the season after injuring his shoulder in the playoffs.  Kelly/Rosenthal are serious arms though and give far more depth than what a team like Washington has.  Some pundits are not as high on the ability of Carpenter to return to his career form, pushing this ranking slightly lower than I initially had them.   It all comes down to the health of their 1-2 punch; if Carpenter and Wainwright pitch like Cy Young candidates, this rotation gets pushed up much higher.
9. Cincinnati’s 5 starters took every 2012 start except ONE (the back half of an August double header).  In today’s baseball landscape, that’s nothing short of amazing.  Mike Leake may not be the strongest #5, but Cincy’s 1-2-3 put up great numbers pitching in a bandbox in Cincinnati.  I’m not the biggest Mat Latos fan, but his 2012 performance spoke for itself.   Lastly, there’s rumors that Aroldis Chapman may be moving to the rotation, pushing Leake presumably to a swing-man role.  If Chapman can repeat his K/9 performance in a starter role, this rotation is even more formidable.  Should it be higher?  Perhaps; in previous drafts I had them in the top 5, but I just can’t seem to give their top guys the same “Ace” billing as other leading arms above them on this list.
10. Arizona‘s acquisition of Brandon McCarthy is a great one for me; if the Nats hadn’t bought Haren, I thought this guy would fit in perfectly.  Arizona has a solid 1-4 and (like Atlanta) has a slew of options for #5.  And, they have help in the immediate future, with Daniel Hudson coming back from July 2012 TJ surgery and a top prospect in AA.  I see them as a solid rotation 1 through 5 but without the blow-away ace that other top rotations have.
11. Atlanta’s found gold in Kris Medlen gives Atlanta enough depth to trade away starters (the Tommy Hanson for Jordan Walden deal).  They have 4 good starters and then can pick from 3 top-end prospects for the 5th starter until Brandon Beachy is back from surgery.  What pushes this rotation down in the rankings is the unknown; is Tim Hudson getting too old?  And what kind of performance can we expect from Medlen realistically?  Can he really continue to pitch like Bob Gibson in 1968?  Their 3/4/5 guys don’t scare me right now, but the potential of 1 and 2 keep them ranked decently high.
12. Texas bought an ace last off-season in Yu Darvish, has a couple of good arms developed in house in Holland and Harrison, but has been depending on one-off FAs to fill the void.   They need a full healthy year out of their two upper-end arms Alexi Ogando and/or Neftali Feliz to make the leap.  Felix is out for most of 2013 though after getting Tommy John surgery in August.  Colby Lewis is in the fold but seems like he’s out most of 2013 after elbow surgery late last season.  If they buy another decent FA this off-season (Lohse?), this rotation works its way further up.  I have a hard time seeing them at #12, but who above them on this list right now do you push them ahead of?
13. The Los Angeles Angels have a great 1-2 punch in Weaver and Wilson, but they’ve spent the off-season watching their former envious rotation erode.  Hanson is an arm injury waiting to happen, Blanton has been pitching below replacement level for 3 years, and they don’t have an established #5 right now.  Perhaps this rotation should be lower.  The shrewd trade for Jason Vargas helps keep them in the upper-half of the league, based on who their planned #4/#5 guys are.
14. Oakland’s slew of young, cost contained and quality starters is the envy of the league.  The only thing that keeps this list from greater acclaim is Oakland’s relative lack of recent success (2012 not withstanding).  Throw in a couple more playoff appearances and Billy Beane can get a sequel to Moneyball published.  Like the LA and SF rotation, they benefit from their home park, but that doesn’t take away the fact that they won the division last year.  The off-season isn’t over either; I can still see Beane flipping one or more of his rotation for more depth/more hitting and turning to his stable of youngsters again.  I’m not necessarily happy with this ranking spot and feel like it should be higher, but their collection of unknowns doesn’t inspire the confidence of the known Aces above them on this list.
15. The Chicago White Sox have a big up and coming potenial Ace in the making in Chris Sale and the engimatic Jake Peavy.  After that are some league average options.  Jose Quintana had a great 2012; can he repeat his success?  I feel like the 3/4/5 guys in this rotation are all quality, innings eater types, but nothing that really knocks your socks off.  Middle of the pack feels right.
16. The New York Yankees continue to get 95+ win teams with a smoke-and-mirror job in the rotation.  Now they set to go into 2013 with one possibly injured Ace and two guys nearly 40 as their 1-2-3.  Is 2013 the year the wheels come off the bus for New York?  A healthy Michael Pineda contributing as the #2 starter he can be would vastly improve the outlook here.
17. Boston‘s ranking may be changing significantly, depending on which arms they buy up off the FA market.  I think a new manager helps Lester and Buchholz regain their near-Ace form of yesteryear, and Dempster should give them competent innings in the middle of the rotation.  But I can’t assume anything when it comes to their 1/2; they’ve both been so good and so bad in the recent past.
18. Baltimore amazingly comes in ranked this low despite making the playoffs last year with this collection of no-name starters.  Maybe i’m underselling their 1-2-3 capabilities.  Maybe i’m just treating them like a team that had a pythagorean record of 82-80.
19. The Chicago Cubs still seem set to be in “sell mode,” so listing Garza as their Ace seems fleeting.  Behind Garza though are a collection of hard throwing, promising guys.  I like Samardzija, the Edwin Jackson acquisition gives them a solid #4.  Perhaps this rotation should be slightly higher on potential.
20. Kansas City made their big trade to acquire an “Ace” … and only got James Shields.  I mean, Shields is good .. but not that good.  He’s only got a career 107 ERA+, but he is a healthy workhorse.  Behind Sheilds is a collection of guys who mostly are #4 and #5 starters elsewhere, which means this rotation is … below average.
21. Seattle should have been higher than the teams directly ahead of them on this list just by virtue of the quality of Felix Hernandez … but then they went and traded away Vargas, and seem to have no good ideas on the back end of their rotation right now.  This team could be in trouble.
22. Pittsburgh is getting by on veteran starters who have the ability to look good, and may not deserve this high of a ranking.  AJ Burnett had a great first half but settled back down to average in 2012.  Here’s a great stat: Burnett is getting paid $16.5M a year … and has *never* made an all star team in his career.
23. Milwaukee seems like they should be higher with a guy like Gallardo leading the ranks.  But their #2 is Marco Estrada, a guy who couldn’t make Washington’s rotation in the years when we didn’t HAVE a rotation.   I know Fiers is good; perhaps this rotation should be higher.
24. Minnesota‘s rotation looks pretty poor right now; their ace is a guy whose a #3 on most teams (Scott Diamond) and they’re hoping for one of their injury reclamation projects to pan out.  It could be a long season in Minneapolis.
25. The New York Mets rotation could be better than 25th, if Santana isn’t allowed to throw 150 pitches pursuing a no-hitter and if Niese pitches up to his capability.  However, Santana hasn’t had an injury-free season since 2008, and I’m not betting on it in 2013.  They are planning on giving both the 4/5 slots to rookies, meaning there could be some long series for this team in 2013.  Their fate was sealed when they traded away their Cy Young winning Ace, and the statement was made about the direction of the franchise.

From 26-30, I honestly don’t see much of a difference between these rotations.   Really the only argument was to figure out which rotation of no-names between Miami and Houston was dead-last.  I selected Houston for the time being; if/when Miami trades Ricky Nolasco for 40 cents on the dollar, we’ll feel free to rank them 30th.

At the end of this massive posting, I can honestly say that the difference between the 5th ranked rotation and the 6th is often near nothing. Looking back, I can see anyone from the 5-8 range being listed in any order and I’d agree with it. I ranked and re-ranked these rotations over and over again from the time I started writing this post in early December to the time i’ve posted it. Perhaps it would have been easier to just have groupings of rotations instead of a pure ranking 1-30. But, that would have been a copout.

I look forward to your opinions and arguments for some rotations to be higher/lower than others.

Could Marlon Byrd be coming back to the Nats? Photo Jonathan Daniel/Getty Images via bleachereport.com

If this MLB rumor is true, then make that trade tomorrow.   If Chicago is inquiring “again,” then make the deal before they stop calling.

Marlon Byrd for John Lannan straight up.  Or even if Washington throws in some salary or perhaps a low-level prospect.  We know why this trade makes sense for Washington; we’ve done Lannan badly, we’re paying him $5M to sit in Syracuse, and he’s a tradeable asset that has asked for a trade and probably has mentally checked out of the organization.  Why does the trade make sense for Chicago?  Because their pitching is a mess right now.

Past their good 1-2 punch of Ryan Dempster and Matt Garza, the Cubs have 3 big question marks for starters penciled in right now.   Here’s the rest of their planned rotation:

3. Jeff Samardzija was a great reliever (and an even better wide receiver), but has never started in the majors.  Despite great scouting reports and good spring numbers (and April 8th’s start where he took a 3 hitter into the 9th) its a risk.  And with Kerry Wood walking 3 straight guys to spoil a fantastic start from Dempster on opening day, the Cubs probably could use some back-of-the-bullpen stability that Samardzija formerly provided.

4. Paul Maholm was decent last year, but as put up some big ERAs in the recent past and now will be pitching in a hitter’s park (though not yesterday, 41 degrees with the wind in… hey everyone looks like Cy Young when you pitch in those conditions).   On most teams he’s barely a #5 starter.

5. Chris Volstad has been awful for Florida (ahem, Miami) for the past few years, and now is a good bet to be even more awful for Chicago.

Lannan easily slots into the #4 spot and gives the team better innings than what they would have gotten from Volstad.  Or, Lannan puts Samardzija back in the bullpen until Volstad puts up a 6.00 ERA in April and the team’s hand is forced.

Chicago could put Reed Johnson in center, or call someone up.  In either case they’re patently in a rebuilding phase and don’t need a veteran playing in Center.  They’re not hurting for money, but a little pay

Make this move!  It’ll be better for everyone.  Washington gets a real CF with some offensive capabilities, moves Lannan (who’s clearly disgruntled and finished with the organization), and everyone wins.