http://www.philly.com/mld/philly/sports/co...lin/7943881.htm

Bill Conlin | NL will be knee-deep in good pitching

 

FOR AT LEAST the last quarter century, pitchers and global warming have had something in common. They get blamed for almost everything.

 

If climatologists can't pin a reason on something - droughts, floods, El Ninos, La Ninas,

 

increases or decreases in landfalling hurricanes - pin the

 

offending anomaly on good, old global warming.

 

And if people who devote much of their lives agonizing over the decline in the national pastime (despite precipitous increases in attendance, payrolls, revenues and international interest) are unable to assign blame on why the game has gone to hell, well...

 

Blame the pitching, the thing nobody ever has enough of... the thing that has been 75 percent, 80 percent or 95 percent

 

of the game since Connie Mack, Branch Rickey or Terry Francona first said it.

 

Offense explodes? The pitching bleeps, right? Offense declines? Hard to believe, Harry, so few runs when the pitching is so dreadful.

 

Then you channel surf from

 

7 o'clock starts on the East Coast to the 10 o'clock starts on the West Coast, and all the starts in the time zones in between. The trend you catch on to right away is that the starting pitchers all throw low- to mid-90s, unless some are among the handful of real studs throwing mid- to high-90s. And while the lefthanders don't all feature that kind of super-unleaded, their fastballs are alive. The righthanders all throw hard breaking balls and splitters that bottom out like the grandfathered spitballs aging pitchers threw in Babe Ruth's era. But these things are legal.

 

The hot buzz as we inch

 

toward the magic days when pitchers and catchers take an ice pick to this cruel winter is the

 

deconstruction of the Yankees, who watched free agents Roger Clemens and Andy Pettitte take a staggering 38 victories to the Astros. It's been about the reconstruction of the Boston Red Sox, who led the world in offense last year and added Curt Schilling to an already formidable pitching staff. Maybe boy-genius general manager Theo Epstein hired Francona just to make it look like a fair fight.

 

The buzz has been about the National League East losing Vlad Guerrero (Angels) and Gary Sheffield (Yankees) at the same time that the-time-is-finally-up Braves were adding the 2004 loss of Greg Maddux to the 2003 losses of Kevin Millwood and Tom Glavine. At the same time that the Mets did almost nothing to play catch-up, that the Expos also lost Javier Vasquez to the Yankees' extreme makeover, and that Ed Wade went the good kind of nuts for a second straight offseason - adding Triple Digits Billy Wagner to close, Todd Worrell to set up and some solid back-of-the-lineup additions that will make both bench and clubhouse better places.

 

I'm here to tell you the real buzz - and it will become a roar as the season unfolds - is the National League Year of the Pitcher, which is about to revolve around what should be three incredible rotations and two, maybe three, more not too far behind them.

 

It is fashionable in baseball

 

circles to gripe that there is a shortage of true No. 1's. That

 

perception will remain accurate as long as winning 20 is the gold standard for top-of-the-rotation guys. But in an era of five-man starting staffs, pitch-count

 

obsession, six- and seven-inning starts, cruelly efficient setup

 

specialists and ninth-inning executioners, the 20-game winner

 

is a dying breed. Only innings-eaters with rubber arms need

 

apply, horses like Schilling.

 

In an era when most managers would kill to have three solid starters, the Phillies, Astros and defending World Series champion Marlins are going to spring training with starting rotations that go five deep. And you can

 

excuse the Cubs for having only four at the moment, because the top of Dusty Baker's staff is supermanned by Super-K's Kerry Wood and Mark Prior. All they did in 2003 was strike out 511 hitters in 422 2/3 innings. Prior's 245 K's came during an 18-6, 2.43 bust-out. Matt Clement and

 

talented Carlos Zambrano are behind them. With that kind of firepower, you don't worry about who winds up No. 5.

 

Pitching at the back end was more of an Astros strength last season than the starters, especially when ace Roy Oswalt had some leakage. So how do you

 

improve a team that pounds the baseball lopsided? You acquire Hall of Famer Clemens (17-9, 3.91) and smooth lefthander

 

Pettitte (21-8), and run them out there with Oswalt, who won 19 in 2002, Wade Miller and Tim Redding. Ah, but Wagner's 44 saves now belong to Admin Bowa. Can deluxe 2002 setup man Octavio Dotel and talented Brad Lidge close the deals for Houston?

 

We'll see.

 

Trader Jack McKeon's scrappy lineup has been shot at and hit, but the Marlins still will come at you with the young and potent quintet of Josh Beckett, Brad Penny, Carl Pavano, Dontrelle Willis and rehabbing A.J. Burnett - who might not be ready by Opening Day. Oops,

 

did I mention Jack's closers are Armando Benitez and Braden Looper, hardly a grouper-in-the-oven combo?

 

The Phillies, you know about. Five of the reasons they are

 

listed at 3-1 to win the National League pennant at a Las Vegas sports book are Kevin Millwood, Randy Wolf, Vicente Padilla, Eric Milton and Randy Myers. Cynics might shrug that's little more than a quintet of around .500 pitchers - Millwood and Padilla were 14-12 last season; Wolf was 16-10 - but conventional wisdom says the deepest bullpen since the days of Ron Reed, Gene Garber and Tug McGraw will turn those guys into 18-8 or better guys.

 

Am I kissing off the Braves of Russ Ortiz (21-7), Mike Hampton, Horacio Ramirez and John Thomson? Not as long as John Smoltz throws three 90-plus pitches. And don't forget the punchless Dodgers, who had the majors' lowest ERA last season, featuring Cy Young Award

 

reliever Eric Gagne.

 

National League Year of the Pitcher? Book it.

 

couple mistakes in this article

I think it is un poco viejo

si

we still have Braden?

how should i know, i am a waggoner...

I think it is un poco viejo

Has to be, doesn't it? We don't have Looper, and this guy sounds like a reporter for elementary school. I need some money--maybe I could make an article like that, too.

 

-J

Ah, good ole' Bill Conlin....I remember him from 'Sports Reporters' on ESPN, always swingin' that coffee cup around....

Doesnt anyone check anything? This guy writes about the NL East and doesnt know that Looper went from one NL East team to another NL East team?

Well Bill is getting up in years, but he can still write a colorful, if not totally accurate column.

 

But, I enjoy reading how other writers talk about us-especially when they write for a team in our division. To his credit, last year he was on the Marlins bandwagon in June, and stated that their organization was way better than the Phillies.

 

Yet, despite it all, he concisely told it like it is about the Fish- a bit weaker in the lineup, shaky pen, but 5 very talented starters.

 

The pen is scary awful right now. :

I was wondering if the guy had an LSD flasback while he was writing it?

I didn't realize Randy Myers had made a comeback and is starting for the Phillies.

 

HA!

Forget the writer, his editor is the bigger moron http://smilies.jeeptalk.org

Wow...that is a rather dumb mistake. I mean seriously how do you miss that one. I can't believe that actually got published. OOPS. I guess baseball isn't his fav sport? Ah hes from philly anyway...

The biggest mistake is that the Marlins' scrappy offense' dominated the Phillies.

This article is off. This guy don't much about what he's talking about.