July 26, 200620 yr MARLINS NOTEBOOK Smoltz praises rotation BY KEVIN BAXTER kbaxter@MiamiHerald.com John Smoltz said Tuesday that the Marlins' young rotation reminds him of the Braves' pitching staff he joined as a 21-year-old in 1988, one that also featured 22-year-old Tom Glavine. And when Atlanta added Greg Maddux five years later, the Braves had one of the top rotations in baseball history, one that would produce six Cy Young Award winners in an eight-year period. ''That's why we've won,'' said Smoltz, who has played for 14 division champions in Atlanta. ``I don't know of any other reason why we won, other than that we solidified our pitching. Pitching always became the focal point.'' The difference with the Marlins, Smoltz said, is after developing their pitchers, they have let them go. In the past two years, for example, the Marlins traded Brad Penny, who started the All-Star Game this month, and Josh Beckett, who leads the majors in wins. Plus, they let A.J. Burnett and an 18-game winner, Carl Pavano, leave as free agents. ''The first thought that runs through my mind is I wonder where they're going to be in five years,'' Smoltz said of the Marlins' rotation, which entered the three-game series leading the National League in ERA at 4.21 despite having four rookies. ``Not talent-wise. But what other club are they going to be with. Because I've seen this kind of picture before. When the time comes to try to sustain something, they go somewhere else. They've developed and traded away, traded away, dumped. There has to be a point at where you've got to invest in keeping young arms.'' Despite their young age -- Florida's five starters average 22.6 years -- the pitchers already are working on improving the parts of their game that are lagging. As of Monday, the Marlins ranked 27th in the majors in first-pitch strikes, throwing them 56.1 percent of the time. (The major-league average is 58.4 percent). So the starters are fining each other $1 every time they start a batter with a ball. http://www.miami.com/mld/miamiherald/sport...ll/15121255.htm As far as Smoltz's comment on investing in the rotation, the Marlins don't have to worry about that for awhile since all our starters except the D-Train don't become arby eligible for some time. In the meantime, our staff has the next 2-3 seasons to prove whether or not they have what it takes to be strongest starting rotation in baseball for the rest of this decade.
July 26, 200620 yr So the starters are fining each other $1 every time they start a batter with a ball. That is good stuff.
July 26, 200620 yr Now I'm daydreaming about winning over a dozen consecutive division titles with great pitching...... :woot
July 26, 200620 yr Good stuff although I do feel like this is Version 6.0 of this type of article. Seems like for the past 5-6 years we've seen articles like this one from one of the Braves pitchers
July 26, 200620 yr What continues to be "the big lie" fostered and perpetuated here is that a) both firesales were by the same owner and b) that somehow the Marlins sinned by not giving Pavano $40 million and Burnett $55 million, etc. I find it so freakin' hypocritical that John Smoltz would lecture the Marlins about keeping pitching staffs together when Glavine pitches for the rival Mets, Maddux in Chicago and Kevin Millwood in texas, all of the them left for one reason, $$$. Smoltz is the one who didn't get the memo.
July 27, 200620 yr I was going to post this in a new thread, but coming on the heels of Smoltz' comments (and even thought we lost, how pleased was I we got to Johnny last night, bigtime) I thought this might be the place for it. Of course Smoltz; contention is all the rookie pitching front the Fish right now iwill be gone in a couple of years while he (in his own self-serving way) ignores the fact he's thelast sldier standing at Little Big Horn, having watched his band of merry pranksters abandon ship. Here's LA's view of the king of fast food and floozies, the never adorable Brad Penny: Bill Plaschke: Dodgers' Penny Makes a Point, and It's Wrong July 27, 2006 Disintegrating right before our eyes, the Dodgers' season has slid from hapless to helpless, and is now mere hours from hopeless. On a boiling Wednesday afternoon, it even touched upon humiliating. Brad Penny, the giant starting pitcher who has been an even bigger baby, once again publicly tried to blame someone else for his mistakes. But this time, his target tried to fight back. In a dugout encounter that looked like a schoolyard standoff, a pointing Penny and an approaching Kenny Lofton were separated and restrained before they had a chance to beat the bejabbers out of each other. Penny was mad because he felt Lofton lazily played an apparent third-inning single by San Diego's Dave Roberts into a double. Lofton was mad because Penny, as usual, decided to air this grievance in public. By the sixth inning, both guys were gone. By the seventh inning, most of the fans were gone. By the end of the afternoon, the Dodgers' season seemed gone, as they lost for the 13th time in 14 games, a 10-3 defeat to the Padres. Those Dodgers faithful who want the team to horde prospects instead of making a trade to help them now? Get ready for two months of this. Ineptitude. Indignation. Irrelevancy. Grady Little, a career winner, sat alone in the manager's office, alone in front of his locker, staring. "Never been in it this deep," he said, shaking his head. He had just scolded the team in a postgame meeting, but he should have another chat with Penny, a man desperately in need of a mirror. Earlier this year, Penny yelled at Little on the mound while being removed after an awful outing in Atlanta. Then, this month, Penny questioned his teammates' effort after another awful outing in St. Louis. And now, this, a tantrum over one base hit in a string of six consecutive base hits against him. Penny was mad because he thought Lofton, who has struggled defensively, should have held Roberts to a single on a ball that rolled in front of him. http://www.latimes.com/sports/la-sp-plasch...1&cset=true Really want him back, not at all unhappy he's gone? You betcha! Remind me to listen to the rantings of last guy standing John Smoltz, not.
July 27, 200620 yr wouldn't mind having penny back... He's a head case and a baby. He wouldn't last two weeks with Girardi. But you know what, that's your opinion and you're entitled to it, it's as valid as mine.
July 27, 200620 yr wouldn't mind having penny back... He's a head case and a baby. He wouldn't last two weeks with Girardi. But you know what, that's your opinion and you're entitled to it, it's as valid as mine. he is...i won't argue with that..i just enjoy watching him pitch. i like watching guys pitch with electric stuff (hard fastball, sharp 12-6 curve).
July 27, 200620 yr Well let's see, if we still had those 4 around that the article mentions... & their careers were going about the same as they are now (no reason to think they'd be much different), the Marlins would probably have about 40 million dollars going to: Carl Pavano wasting away on the injury list, Lord knows how many starts you get from AJ Burnett, Brad Penny, who has pitched well, and Josh Beckett, who leads all of baseball in home runs given up and has a crappy ERA for being an "ace". Think he'd have that many wins playing for the Marlins? No chance. It's easy to say this in retrospect now after we've seen the way our kids are pitching, but I'll stick with our guys, thanks anyway. His point about keeping players around is fine, but we know that other things have to come first, primarily a stadium.
July 27, 200620 yr Well let's see, if we still had those 4 around that the article mentions... & their careers were going about the same as they are now (no reason to think they'd be much different), the Marlins would probably have about 40 million dollars going to: Carl Pavano wasting away on the injury list, Lord knows how many starts you get from AJ Burnett, Brad Penny, who has pitched well, and Josh Beckett, who leads all of baseball in home runs given up and has a crappy ERA for being an "ace". Think he'd have that many wins playing for the Marlins? No chance. It's easy to say this in retrospect now after we've seen the way our kids are pitching, but I'll stick with our guys, thanks anyway. His point about keeping players around is fine, but we know that other things have to come first, primarily a stadium. I dont think that's a fair evaluation of Big Tex, or at least what his performance would be if he had not been traded away. I mean, he did switch leagues and on top of that move into a nice cozy hitters park.
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