Fact or Fiction

[JetsMania]

Marlins have best rotation in all the land?

 

I say fact (atleast as of right now)

[prinmemito]

If they stay healthy, fact.

[Ramp]

I might lean towards the Cubs....

[Foladar]

It's a tough one between Cubs and Marlins. I'd say Marlins due to the Cubs having some problems with Wood / Prior early in the season. They're both injury prone (Marlins / Cubs) .. but Marlins get the advantage cus I'm a homer. :thumbup

[prinmemito]

I might lean towards the Cubs....

758541[/snapback]

 

I think Wood is overhyped. Prior and Zambrano are comparable to Beckett and Burnett (they're perhaps a bit better) and D-Train is better than Wood. Wood simply has not put it together yet, and this year D-Train is better. Of course, I am a little biased in favor of the Marlins. :whistle

[dudewheresmycar9]

i think its fact, but if we can stay healthy all year...

[Flying_Mollusk]

Based on performance so far, fact.

[TSwift25]

If we're talking teams to toss up between, at least right, now it's the White Sox or Marlins. Can't argue with Garland and Buehrle's amazing starts.

 

As for the Cubs, Zambrano is very good, Prior has been good, and Wood is way overhyped...I'll take Beckett, Burnett and Willis over them (at least right now). Maddux is Maddux, and Dempster is erratic, but top to bottom (and judging on performance so far this year) I don't think you can say that the Cubs are better than the Marlins.

[AJBurnett34]

I might lean towards the Cubs....

758541[/snapback]

I wouldnt no more....

 

I was also leaning towards them last year but they have had some serious injuries with Wood and Prior. Also now that Clement has left...

[The Swede]

Fiction. Last year for the 4 innings that we had Beckett, Burnett, Pavano, Penny, and Willis on the same team and healthy, we had the best starting rotation. Truth is performance-wise we lost our two best starters from last year. Though Willis is pitching very well right now, he is not an ace...not even close. He has slightly above-average stuff and has had the benefit of facing the Nationals twice and Cincinatti and Philly at home. If you recall from last year, Willis also started the year on a tear (again facing the Expos two or three times early on), only to slow down dramatically and finish with an ERA at about 4. Willis is a fourth starter on a good team. He benefits from playing in a pitcher friendly park on a team with a great defense. He again will settle at about an ERA of 4 this year. Burnett and Beckett are aces. Then you look at the washed up, ineffective, low-stamina Leiter and a journeyman fifth starter in Valdez or Moehler and you see that the Marlins starting staff is not that good. Leiter will finish with around a 4.5 and evetually our journeyman fifth starter will start to become a liability. I like Moehler but he will not finish with a 2.5 ERA. At the top the Marlins are strong, but Beckett and Burnett will only give you 65 starts (hopefully). The other 95 starts, we are not looking that good, probably about middle of the pack in the league.

 

The Cubs and Braves have better starting staffs. Possibly the Cardinals (though not in star power in depth and consistency). The Astros are also competitive.

 

Also, to say that Willis is better than Wood is foolish. Alright the guy is starting off slow, but you are talking about a top-level well above-average starter with the potential for more. I wish the Cubs saw it that way and would trade us Wood for Willis straight up.

[Ramp]

Also, to say that Willis is better than Wood is foolish. Alright the guy is starting off slow, but you are talking about a top-level well above-average starter with the potential for more. I wish the Cubs saw it that way and would trade us Wood for Willis straight up.

758647[/snapback]

Wood isnt worth close to the $9mil he makes a year

[Accord]

Fact.

 

Cubs are overrated.

[TSwift25]

Also, to say that Willis is better than Wood is foolish.? Alright the guy is starting off slow, but you are talking about a top-level well above-average starter with the potential for more.? I wish the Cubs saw it that way and would trade us Wood for Willis straight up.

758647[/snapback]

 

You serious? That's one of the most uninformed assertions I've ever heard. Wood is, quite possibly, the most over-rated pitcher of all time, he's been living off of one 20 strikeout game from 1998...it's not even what have you done for me lately, it's more like what have you done for me ever.

 

For his career, Kerry Wood is 67-50 with an ERA of 3.63 with 1,209 K's and 512 BB in 1043.0 IP. Not bad, but when you consider that this is in a six year span in which he has been, in many respects, similar to Ryan Dempster (51-56 984.7 IP), Jaret Wright (52-45 758.0 IP), and outperformed by Livan Hernandez (95-94 1704.3 IP and 1181 K's 589 BB), his numbers don't shine. According to baseball-reference.com, Wood compares (through age 27) most favorably to Stan Williams, Ernie Broglio, and Chan Ho Park, and of the 10 players he is most similar to, not one is even a borderline Hall-of-Famer. He's totaled 14 wins in a season once (2003) and only topped 200 IP twice (2002, 2003).

 

To compare, Dontrelle in his two years is 24-17 (Wood was 21-13, but if you want to get technical 13-6) with 358 IP (Wood was at 299 or 167, again, depending how much of a hard-liner you want to be), with both winning the ROY award. Essentially, Dontrelle is on (already) a better pace than Kerry simply because Wood's sophomore season was lost to injury, and through age 22 Dontrelle compares similarly to (again, according to baseball-reference) one Hall-of-Famer (Bobby Walace), and is a mere $7,500,000 cheaper than Wood. Wood has potential, but you shouldn't be paying $8,000,000 a season for potential. Not to mention that Kid K is turning 28 in a month, you have to wonder if he's reached his ceiling after his less than stellar 1-1 start to go with a 5.79 ERA (and this is with solid run support: 4.3 runs per game, and if your "ace" can't win with more than 4 runs per start, you're in trouble). Sure, his K/9 is still high, but as we've seen with AJ this year, a strikeout pitcher can be even nastier if he gets groundball outs and goes 8 innings. Having 11 K's a game won't get you much further than the 7th, and that's if you don't get hit by the base-on-balls bug.

 

Good? Yes. Great? No. Worth $8 million a season? Certainly not.

 

http://www.baseball-reference.com/w/woodke02.shtml

http://www.baseball-reference.com/w/willido03.shtml

[MarlinGuru]

If healthy, the Cubs have a better rotation.

 

But since theirs is more injury prone ours is more likely to succeed.

[prinmemito]

Also, to say that Willis is better than Wood is foolish. Alright the guy is starting off slow, but you are talking about a top-level well above-average starter with the potential for more. I wish the Cubs saw it that way and would trade us Wood for Willis straight up.

758647[/snapback]

 

Willis has a lifetime ERA (3.56) lower than Wood (3.68), yet Willis is way younger and it is easy to argue that he still has a lot of room to improve. Willis' BB/K ratio is significantly better this year than in the past, so if he keeps that up that tells me he will continue to be successful. Dontrelle's problem last year was that sometimes he would walk a bunch of guys and thus give up a bunch of runs. But that's expected from a young pitcher.

[Dodge]

Leiter needs to win a couple before we assert such things.

[UMFan4Life7]

Leiter needs to win a couple before we assert such things.

758717[/snapback]

I agree...But I still think that we have the best rotation in baseball. According to what I heard on the radio, we have the lowest team ERA(2.22), the lowest starting pitcher ERA(2.32), and the most complete games in baseball(5)...Please bear with me on the ERA's for the team because I couldn't find a site to tell me the combined ones and I had to figure them out myself.

[Ang]

FACT

 

Cubs have nothing close to what they think they have. We have a 5th starter who isn't supposed to be our 5th starter with a 1.83 era. Our only problem is Leiter who sucks to this point. Excluding Leiter, our starting era is 1.78. With Leiter, 2.56. Still damn good.

 

Cubs-

Dempster: 5.67

Maddux: 4.20

Prior: .95

Wood: 5.79

Zambrano: 4.31

 

 

You do the math. It's still early, but it is a fact that we have the best rotation.

[rferry]

Fiction

 

They are the best prepared, atleast for the early months.

[CardsJimEdmonds15]

FACT but the Cardinals starters dont get enough credit because they dont have the stand out dominating pitchers/names that people think of. 14-5 3.41 ERA.

[Hollyberry]

At this very moment, they have the best starting rotation (ERA)

[MarlinFan10]

Fact as of right now

[WildMarlinMan2003]

Fact...Cubs? Please they havent won any big games because our pitchers OUTPITCHED them.

[TSwift25]

And almost on cue, Kerry Wood has given up 3 runs in 2 innings to the lowly Astros offense.

[The Swede]

Also, to say that Willis is better than Wood is foolish.? Alright the guy is starting off slow, but you are talking about a top-level well above-average starter with the potential for more.? I wish the Cubs saw it that way and would trade us Wood for Willis straight up.

758647[/snapback]

 

You serious? That's one of the most uninformed assertions I've ever heard. Wood is, quite possibly, the most over-rated pitcher of all time, he's been living off of one 20 strikeout game from 1998...it's not even what have you done for me lately, it's more like what have you done for me ever.

 

For his career, Kerry Wood is 67-50 with an ERA of 3.63 with 1,209 K's and 512 BB in 1043.0 IP. Not bad, but when you consider that this is in a six year span in which he has been, in many respects, similar to Ryan Dempster (51-56 984.7 IP), Jaret Wright (52-45 758.0 IP), and outperformed by Livan Hernandez (95-94 1704.3 IP and 1181 K's 589 BB), his numbers don't shine. According to baseball-reference.com, Wood compares (through age 27) most favorably to Stan Williams, Ernie Broglio, and Chan Ho Park, and of the 10 players he is most similar to, not one is even a borderline Hall-of-Famer. He's totaled 14 wins in a season once (2003) and only topped 200 IP twice (2002, 2003).

 

To compare, Dontrelle in his two years is 24-17 (Wood was 21-13, but if you want to get technical 13-6) with 358 IP (Wood was at 299 or 167, again, depending how much of a hard-liner you want to be), with both winning the ROY award. Essentially, Dontrelle is on (already) a better pace than Kerry simply because Wood's sophomore season was lost to injury, and through age 22 Dontrelle compares similarly to (again, according to baseball-reference) one Hall-of-Famer (Bobby Walace), and is a mere $7,500,000 cheaper than Wood. Wood has potential, but you shouldn't be paying $8,000,000 a season for potential. Not to mention that Kid K is turning 28 in a month, you have to wonder if he's reached his ceiling after his less than stellar 1-1 start to go with a 5.79 ERA (and this is with solid run support: 4.3 runs per game, and if your "ace" can't win with more than 4 runs per start, you're in trouble). Sure, his K/9 is still high, but as we've seen with AJ this year, a strikeout pitcher can be even nastier if he gets groundball outs and goes 8 innings. Having 11 K's a game won't get you much further than the 7th, and that's if you don't get hit by the base-on-balls bug.

 

Good? Yes. Great? No. Worth $8 million a season? Certainly not.

 

http://www.baseball-reference.com/w/woodke02.shtml

http://www.baseball-reference.com/w/willido03.shtml

758680[/snapback]

 

I think I disagree with you on almost everything you said, so I will go one by one. Before I start though, I would like to reemphasize that I didn't suggest that Wood is a hall-of-fame pitcher. I said he was well above-average and has the potential, considering his raw stuff, to be more.

 

I apologize in advance for not providing enough raw numbers but I have finals next week.

 

First, that ERA of 3.63 pitching in a very hitter-friendly park during a juiced ball era is very solid. He is averaging well over a strikeout per inning and has close to a 3 to 1 K/BB ratio. I would say that immediately qualifies him to be a top level starter. He had one year with an ERA over 3.7 and that was the year coming off tommy john. Also, even though i think that record is by the far the most meaningless statistic in baseball, for those who take it seriously he is 17 games above .500.

He was not outpitched by Dempster and Livan. But pitching is also about lasting power; what is Dempster now. Wood has staying power because of his talent.

 

Next, I think it is too soon to use Willis' numbers because of sample size, but if you want to compare we can. Willis has already had a season with an ERA above 4 in perhaps the most pitcher friendly park around. And that was with a tremendous April. He only put together back-to-back quality starts once last year. Now I don't want to rant about Dontrelle because I have done it before and I feel like this post is more about Wood.

 

To say that you are worried that he has peaked at 28 is not a good argument. Many pitchers don't come into their own until their late 20's. See AJ Burnett and Carl Pavano. Under that reasoning you would say that Willis is better than Burnett, which I think on this board wouldn't hold up. Also, the way he is pitching now, and I am not counting his first 5 starts this year, he is worth 8 million. On todays market with Milton, jared Wright, Benson, V. Zambrano, and O. Perez getting around 7 million and Derek Lowe getting 10, Wood is worth 8 million. Willis is no doubt outperforming his contract, but if Willis were 28 he'd also be getting 8 million. Besides I made that comment disregarding finances, though even if money were a factor I would still rather have wood.

 

I want to say more, but I don't have time; maybe after next week...