{"id":3516,"date":"2012-03-08T10:40:48","date_gmt":"2012-03-08T15:40:48","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.nationalsarmrace.com\/?p=3516"},"modified":"2013-10-10T13:02:46","modified_gmt":"2013-10-10T17:02:46","slug":"nl-east-rotation-preview","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/nationalsarmrace.com\/?p=3516","title":{"rendered":"NL East Rotation Preview"},"content":{"rendered":"<div id=\"attachment_3555\" style=\"width: 310px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><a href=\"http:\/\/www.nationalsarmrace.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/12\/strasburgstephen_back-free-extras-allansgraphics.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-3555\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-3555\" title=\"strasburgstephen_back free-extras allansgraphics\" alt=\"\" src=\"http:\/\/www.nationalsarmrace.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/12\/strasburgstephen_back-free-extras-allansgraphics-300x192.jpg\" width=\"300\" height=\"192\" srcset=\"https:\/\/nationalsarmrace.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/12\/strasburgstephen_back-free-extras-allansgraphics-300x192.jpg 300w, https:\/\/nationalsarmrace.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/12\/strasburgstephen_back-free-extras-allansgraphics.jpg 450w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/><\/a><p id=\"caption-attachment-3555\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Remember this guy? He&#8217;ll be 100% for next spring and may spell a changing of the guard in the division. Photo via AllansGraphics.com<\/p><\/div>\n<p>With major moves being made this off-season for the rotations of the NL East teams, we seem set to be in store for some serious pitching duels intradivision in 2012.\u00a0 How do the rotations stack up, right now?\u00a0 If the season started tomorrow, here&#8217;s what we&#8217;d be looking at for rotations:<\/p>\n<table width=\"682\" border=\"0\" cellspacing=\"0\" cellpadding=\"0\">\n<colgroup>\n<col width=\"94\" \/>\n<col width=\"105\" \/>\n<col width=\"93\" \/>\n<col width=\"118\" \/>\n<col width=\"140\" \/>\n<col width=\"132\" \/> <\/colgroup>\n<tbody>\n<tr>\n<td width=\"94\" height=\"20\"><\/td>\n<td width=\"105\"><em><strong>Philadelphia<\/strong><\/em><\/td>\n<td width=\"93\"><em><strong>Atlanta<\/strong><\/em><\/td>\n<td width=\"118\"><em><strong>Miami<\/strong><\/em><\/td>\n<td width=\"140\"><em><strong>Washington<\/strong><\/em><\/td>\n<td width=\"132\"><em><strong>New York<\/strong><\/em><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<tr>\n<td height=\"20\"><em><strong>#1<\/strong><\/em><\/td>\n<td>Halladay<\/td>\n<td>Hudson<\/td>\n<td>Johnson<\/td>\n<td>Strasburg<\/td>\n<td>Santana?<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<tr>\n<td height=\"20\"><em><strong>#2<\/strong><\/em><\/td>\n<td>Lee<\/td>\n<td>Jurrjens<\/td>\n<td>Buehrle<\/td>\n<td>Gonzalez<\/td>\n<td>Dickey<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<tr>\n<td height=\"20\"><em><strong>#3<\/strong><\/em><\/td>\n<td>Hamels<\/td>\n<td>Hanson<\/td>\n<td>Sanchez<\/td>\n<td>Zimmermann<\/td>\n<td>Pelfrey<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<tr>\n<td height=\"20\"><em><strong>#4<\/strong><\/em><\/td>\n<td>Worley<\/td>\n<td>Beachy<\/td>\n<td>Nolasco<\/td>\n<td>Jackson<\/td>\n<td>Niese<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<tr>\n<td height=\"20\"><em><strong>#5<\/strong><\/em><\/td>\n<td>Pineiro<\/td>\n<td>Delgado<\/td>\n<td>Zambrano<\/td>\n<td>Wang<\/td>\n<td>Gee<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<tr>\n<td height=\"20\"><em><strong>In the mix<\/strong><\/em><\/td>\n<td>Blanton,\u00a0Kendrick, Willis?<\/td>\n<td>Minor, Teheran<\/td>\n<td>Vazquez?Volstad, LeBlanc<\/td>\n<td>Lannan, Detwiler, Gorzelanny<\/td>\n<td>Young? Schwinden?<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n<p>By team, some observations:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><em><span style=\"color: #0000ff;\"><strong>Philadelphia<\/strong> <\/span><\/em>plans on replacing <strong>Roy Oswalt<\/strong>&#8216;s 2011 starts with a call-up who looked pretty good last year in <strong>Worley. <\/strong> <strong>Joe Blanton<\/strong> looks like the odd-man out and his $8.5M salary may be wasted by virtue of an underrated but saavy acquisition of <strong>Joel Pineiro<\/strong>.\u00a0 The Oswalt trade didn&#8217;t give the team what it seeked (a World Series title) but it didn&#8217;t cost them a ton in prospects either (<strong>JA Happ<\/strong> didn&#8217;t exactly light it up for Houston).\u00a0 They&#8217;ve signed <strong>Dontrelle Willis<\/strong> for rotation depth.\u00a0 Still, you can&#8217;t argue with three Cy Young candidates at the top of your rotation, and this team remains the team to beat in the division despite injuries (<strong>Ryan Howard<\/strong>) and aging (every single projected starter not named <strong>Hunter Pence<\/strong> is 30 or older, and Pence will be 29).\u00a0\u00a0 The pitching staff was #1 in ERA in the NL and I can&#8217;t imagine them dropping far from that. \u00a0 \u00a0If Worley performs like he did in 2011, and if Pineiro returns to his St. Louis form, then this is just as tough a 1-5 as last year.<\/li>\n<li><em><span style=\"color: #0000ff;\"><strong>Atlanta<\/strong> <\/span><\/em>should have won the wild card last year and seems set to roll out a rather similar rotation this year.\u00a0 They&#8217;ll replace their worst starter <strong>Derek Lowe<\/strong> with starts from one of three up-and-coming rookies (I&#8217;ve got Delgado slated there now but likely <strong>Mike Minor<\/strong> wins the #5 spot in spring training) and should be improved.\u00a0 Hudson is a year older and hasn&#8217;t missed a start in 2 years, but is slow coming back from off-season back surgery and may or may not be ready for opeing day. \u00a0The staff was #4 in the NL in team ERA and should do nothing but improve &#8230; but there&#8217;s some serious injury question marks. \u00a0Their incredible SP minor league depth should get them through.<\/li>\n<li><span style=\"color: #0000ff;\"><em><strong>Miami<\/strong> <\/em><\/span>has a some major question marks, despite acquiring <strong>Mark Buehrle<\/strong> to slot into their #2 spot.\u00a0 They will cross their fingers on <strong>Josh Johnson<\/strong>; if he&#8217;s not healthy this team will be really hurt. \u00a0<strong>Nolasco<\/strong> can be brilliant or awful from start to start. \u00a0 We still don&#8217;t know if <strong>Vazquez<\/strong> is retiring or returning; my initial guess would have been that he was too good in 2011 (3.69 era, 106 era+) and too young (reportedly 34 but i&#8217;ve never heard of any age-questioning here) to retire. \u00a0To provide cover though, the team traded for the volatile but possibly still talented <strong>Carlos Zambrano<\/strong> to slot in at #5. \u00a0Which Zambrano will they get? \u00a0And will his notorious clubhouse antics gibe with new hot-head manager <strong>Ozzie Guillen<\/strong>? On paper, a 1-5 of Johnson, Buehrle, Nolasco, Sanchez and Zambrano spells an awful lot of power and a lot of Ks.\u00a0 They could be tough.\u00a0 They should improve on last year&#8217;s #10 team ERA ranking.<\/li>\n<li><span style=\"color: #0000ff;\"><em><strong>Washington <\/strong><\/em><\/span>just got a lot better, replacing 29 mostly awful <strong>Livan Hernandez<\/strong> starts with a healthy <strong>Stephen Strasburg<\/strong> and likewise replacing 35 combined mediocre starts out of <strong>Jason Marquis<\/strong> and <strong>Tom Gorzelanny<\/strong> with newly acquired power lefty <strong>Gio Gonzalez<\/strong><strong> <\/strong><strong>and power righty<\/strong><strong> <strong>Edwin Jackson<\/strong>.<\/strong> They were 6th in the NL in team ERA, have mostly the same bullpen in place (5th best in the league in ERA in 2011) and seem set to improve. \u00a0 <strong>Chien-Ming Wang<\/strong> seems set for the #5 spot, leaving <strong>John Lannan<\/strong> potentially being the most expensive pitcher in Syracuse. \u00a0\u00a0The jeopardy the team now has is an utter lack of starting pitching depth; <strong>Peacock <\/strong>and <strong>Milone <\/strong>WERE our 2012 rotational safety nets; now we have just <strong>Detwiler<\/strong>, <strong>Gorzelanny<\/strong> and a couple guys who clearly seem to be AAA starters. \u00a0For this reason the team probably keeps Lannan around with the eventual goal of having him provide cover until our next wave of high-end pitching prospects develop. \u00a0Either way, this rotation and bullpen look to be improved from 2011.<\/li>\n<li><span style=\"color: #0000ff;\"><em><strong>New York<\/strong><\/em><\/span> faces a grim 2012, not only in the rotation but also in the front office.\u00a0 We&#8217;re hearing reports that <strong>Johan Santana<\/strong> is still too hurt to make opening day (though he&#8217;s since spelled some of these concerns with his first spring training outing). \u00a0Converted knuckleballer <strong>R.A. Dickey<\/strong><strong> <\/strong><strong>spent his off-season in<\/strong><strong> <\/strong>a nasty fight with management over his <a href=\"http:\/\/content.usatoday.com\/communities\/dailypitch\/post\/2011\/12\/mets-warning-wont-deter-ra-dickey-assault-on-kilimanjaro\/1?csp=34sports&amp;utm_source=feedburner&amp;utm_medium=feed&amp;utm_campaign=Feed%3A+UsatodaycomSports-TopStories+%28Sports+-+Top+Stories%29&amp;utm_content=Google+Reader\">charity climb of Mt. Kilimanjaro<\/a>.\u00a0 All their other starters posted ERAs in the mid to upper 4&#8217;s (or worse) with ERA+ figures in the 78-82 range.\u00a0 And there doesn&#8217;t seem to be help coming on the Free Agency front (since the team can&#8217;t afford to keep operations running without bank loans) or on the prospect front (a quick glance at their AAA and AA starting talent resulted in ONE starter who had a minor league era in the respectable range, an 18th rounder in AA).\u00a0 I think this team is finishing dead last in 2012 and may lose 100 games despite their payroll. \u00a0And to add insult to injury, the owners were just forced to cough up $83 million in a pre-trial settlement over their Madhoff scandal involvement. \u00a0Tough times are ahead for the Mets.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>What do you guys think?\u00a0 In terms of Washington, more than a few pundits have stated that the addition of Gonzalez makes the Nats a wild card contender, right now, and that was before the Jackson move finally brought some plaudits from typically cynical national baseball writers when considering signings by this franchise.<\/p>\n<p>Do you think the Nats have now supplanted the Braves as having the 2nd best rotation in the division (as ESPN&#8217;s <strong>Buster Olney <\/strong>is <a href=\"http:\/\/insider.espn.go.com\/mlb\/blog\/_\/name\/olney_buster\/id\/7389540\/mlb-10-best-starting-rotations-mlb\">opining<\/a>?) \u00a0I think they have; I think Atlanta&#8217;s starters may be taking a slight step back while our quintet looks to be a solid, young but relatively experienced core.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>With major moves being made this off-season for the rotations of the NL East teams, we seem set to be in store for some serious pitching duels intradivision in 2012.\u00a0 How do the rotations stack up, right now?\u00a0 If the season started tomorrow, here&#8217;s what we&#8217;d be looking at for rotations: Philadelphia Atlanta Miami Washington [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[777,35,230,363,132,37,779,349,246,247,787,784,773,253,385,786,785,427,42,341,213,344,348,39,783,43,776,1913,772,41,339,775,782,282,781,778,51,119,297,675,38,219,176,774,34,429,780],"class_list":["post-3516","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-mlbpitching","tag-anibal-sanchez","tag-brad-peacock","tag-brandon-beachy","tag-buster-olney","tag-carlos-zambrano","tag-chien-ming-wang","tag-chris-volstad","tag-chris-young","tag-cliff-lee","tag-cole-hamels","tag-derek-lowe","tag-dillon-gee","tag-dontrelle-willis","tag-edwin-jackson","tag-gio-gonzalez","tag-hunter-pence","tag-ja-happ","tag-jair-jurrjens","tag-jason-marquis","tag-javier-vazquez","tag-joe-blanton","tag-joel-pineiro","tag-johan-santana","tag-john-lannan","tag-jon-niese","tag-jordan-zimmermann","tag-josh-johnson","tag-julio-teheran","tag-kyle-kendrick","tag-livan-hernandez","tag-mark-buehrle","tag-mike-minor","tag-mike-pelfrey","tag-ozzie-guillen","tag-ra-dickey","tag-ricky-nolasco","tag-ross-detwiler","tag-roy-halladay","tag-roy-oswalt","tag-ryan-howard","tag-stephen-strasburg","tag-tim-hudson","tag-tom-gorzelanny","tag-tommy-hanson","tag-tommy-milone","tag-vance-worley","tag-wade-leblanc"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nationalsarmrace.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3516","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/nationalsarmrace.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/nationalsarmrace.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nationalsarmrace.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nationalsarmrace.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3516"}],"version-history":[{"count":14,"href":"https:\/\/nationalsarmrace.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3516\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7924,"href":"https:\/\/nationalsarmrace.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3516\/revisions\/7924"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nationalsarmrace.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3516"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nationalsarmrace.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3516"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nationalsarmrace.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3516"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}