Buster Olney put out his 10 ten rotations right now (current, not all time) on an insider article. Here is his top ten:

 

1. Phillies

2. Giants

3. Athletics

4. Rays

5. Red Sox

6. Brewers

7. Tigers

8a: Braves

8b: Cardinals

10a: Dodgers

10b: White Sox

 

 

What say you MB? Agree/Disagree? Surprised to not see the Marlins?

Brewers? Tigers? Red Sox? I could go even further with the list, but those three really stick out as not being better. You also have teams like the A's who were only as good as they were last year because of the defense behind them/the park they play in.

 

The Marlins #5, Chris Volstad, gave the team 175 quality innings last year (in comparison to your league average #5's). The Marlins have a top 10 rotation, and it wouldn't surprise me at all if they ended up being top 5 when all is said and done, barring injuries.

 

Then again, this isn't surprising from a guy who apparently can't count to ten, as he listed 11 teams in his top ten...

Brewers? Tigers? Red Sox? I could go even further with the list, but those three really stick out as not being better. You also have teams like the A's who were only as good as they were last year because of the defense behind them/the park they play in.

 

The Marlins #5, Chris Volstad, gave the team 175 quality innings last year (in comparison to your league average #5's). The Marlins have a top 10 rotation, and it wouldn't surprise me at all if they ended up being top 5 when all is said and done, barring injuries.

 

Then again, this isn't surprising from a guy who apparently can't count to ten, as he listed 11 teams in his top ten...

 

 

In the article he admitted to cheating by listing 11, but yeah I think the Marlins should be on there as well.

Normally I'm not surprised when the Marlins get snubbed in a national list... BUT I think the issue here is the fact that several of those 11 clearly don't deserve to be there. And if they dont deserve to be there, the Marlins rotation can clearly be put on this list somewhere.

The Marlins could be top 5, they could be bottom 10.

 

Depends...

 

I mean, we've got some really good, really questionable pitchers. I think whatever we get from Sanchez, JJ, and Volstad is pretty static. Shouldn't change too much.

 

It's resting on Vazquez and Nolasco. If either (or both) of them can return to dominance, it's a beastly rotation. If neither of them can? Well then it'll look a ton like last season.

Oakland at #3??? I take it they have some really good young pitchers as no marquee names spring to mind. Well other than Harden but he is always injured. So Harden, Cahill and Andersen are the only ones I can think of.

Oakland at #3??? I take it they have some really good young pitchers as no marquee names spring to mind. Well other than Harden but he is always injured. So Harden, Cahill and Andersen are the only ones I can think of.

 

 

Dallas Braden and Gio Gonzales round out that rotation I think. It's a solid, top 10 rotation. But #3? Eh, that's pushing it. Especially at this stage in their careers.

The Marlins could be top 5, they could be bottom 10.

 

Depends...

 

I mean, we've got some really good, really questionable pitchers. I think whatever we get from Sanchez, JJ, and Volstad is pretty static. Shouldn't change too much.

 

It's resting on Vazquez and Nolasco. If either (or both) of them can return to dominance, it's a beastly rotation. If neither of them can? Well then it'll look a ton like last season.

 

 

I think this is rather solid analysis. Never quite thought about it like this, but I agree.

If the Marlins get something close to 2010 Vazquez, they aren't top 10 material.

 

This is hard to predict. He's no longer on the Yankees and in the AL East, but his fastball is trending downward, which most analysts seem to use to explain his recent poor performance.

It wasn't only his fastball. If you look at his PitchFX stats, you can see that his offspeed stuff was losing movement, which is why I wasn't particularly looking for him on this team.

Brewers? Tigers? Red Sox? I could go even further with the list, but those three really stick out as not being better. You also have teams like the A's who were only as good as they were last year because of the defense behind them/the park they play in.

 

The Marlins #5, Chris Volstad, gave the team 175 quality innings last year (in comparison to your league average #5's). The Marlins have a top 10 rotation, and it wouldn't surprise me at all if they ended up being top 5 when all is said and done, barring injuries.

 

Then again, this isn't surprising from a guy who apparently can't count to ten, as he listed 11 teams in his top ten...

 

 

Brewers- Any rotation with Gallardo and Greinke (2 aces) deserves to be in the top ten. Throw in Shawn Marcum and Randy Wolf and you've got yourself a very solid rotation.

 

Tigers- Very questionable. Has potential to be pretty good if Rick Porcello and Max Scherzer progress like they're supposed to. Verlander is awesome as always. Armando Gallaraga is (?) and Phil Coke is starting after being in the bullpen for years

 

Red Sox- Has potential to be the best rotation in the American League if Beckett and Lackey can return to form and Dice-K stays healthy.

Brewers? Tigers? Red Sox? I could go even further with the list, but those three really stick out as not being better. You also have teams like the A's who were only as good as they were last year because of the defense behind them/the park they play in.

 

The Marlins #5, Chris Volstad, gave the team 175 quality innings last year (in comparison to your league average #5's). The Marlins have a top 10 rotation, and it wouldn't surprise me at all if they ended up being top 5 when all is said and done, barring injuries.

 

Then again, this isn't surprising from a guy who apparently can't count to ten, as he listed 11 teams in his top ten...

 

 

Brewers- Any rotation with Gallardo and Greinke (2 aces) deserves to be in the top ten. Throw in Shawn Marcum and Randy Wolf and you've got yourself a very solid rotation.

 

Tigers- Very questionable. Has potential to be pretty good if Rick Porcello and Max Scherzer progress like they're supposed to. Verlander is awesome as always. Armando Gallaraga is (?) and Phil Coke is starting after being in the bullpen for years

 

Red Sox- Has potential to be the best rotation in the American League if Beckett and Lackey can return to form and Dice-K stays healthy.

 

 

Brewers: First off, Yovani Gallardo is a good pitcher, but he's not an ace. A guy with a career 1.32 WHIP and a season high of 185.2 innings should not be considered an ace. To be an ace, a guy should at least have a successful season of 200+ innings on his resume. Gallardo is good and has very nice strikeout #'s, but lets not pretend that he's some ace. Grienke, for that matter, has also had his inconsistencies...and if we're going to talk about Nolasco/Vazquez and their inconsistencies, the same things should be done for Randy Wolf who's basically a Javy Vazquez innings eater from the left side with lesser #'s in terms of strikeouts, etc.

 

Tigers: Porcello is overrated. Scherzer has potential to dominate, but hasn't put a full season together yet. I could easily say the same thing for Ricky Nolasco, and his potential to dominate.

 

Red Sox: That's a lot of if's. Fact of the matter is, they weren't any good last year, and they'll be pitching for basically the same team in that same park, once again. Again, I could just as easily throw out a lot of optimistic if's for the Marlins rotation and make it sound top 5.

 

A lot of these rotations listed on this "top 10" have just as many, if not more, question marks than the Marlins rotation.

I agree with Erick.

Brewers? Tigers? Red Sox? I could go even further with the list, but those three really stick out as not being better. You also have teams like the A's who were only as good as they were last year because of the defense behind them/the park they play in.

 

The Marlins #5, Chris Volstad, gave the team 175 quality innings last year (in comparison to your league average #5's). The Marlins have a top 10 rotation, and it wouldn't surprise me at all if they ended up being top 5 when all is said and done, barring injuries.

 

Then again, this isn't surprising from a guy who apparently can't count to ten, as he listed 11 teams in his top ten...

 

 

Nolasco, Volstad and Vasquez are mediocre or below. I predcit they combine to average an ERA in the 4.75 to 5.00. JJ and is great and Anibal is good. Overall this is a pretty average rotation or maybe just above that.. so not top 10 material.

Brewers? Tigers? Red Sox? I could go even further with the list, but those three really stick out as not being better. You also have teams like the A's who were only as good as they were last year because of the defense behind them/the park they play in.

 

The Marlins #5, Chris Volstad, gave the team 175 quality innings last year (in comparison to your league average #5's). The Marlins have a top 10 rotation, and it wouldn't surprise me at all if they ended up being top 5 when all is said and done, barring injuries.

 

Then again, this isn't surprising from a guy who apparently can't count to ten, as he listed 11 teams in his top ten...

 

 

Nolasco, Volstad and Vasquez are mediocre or below. I predcit they combine to average an ERA in the 4.75 to 5.00. JJ and is great and Anibal is good. Overall this is a pretty average rotation or maybe just above that.. so not top 10 material.

 

 

Nolasco and Vazquez have proven in the past that they can be well above average pitchers. You're basing this on recent ERA alone, and that's not exactly a good way to judge pitchers.

 

But even if you do want to play it like that...the same can be said for a lot of these rotations in this top ten.

I don't think that's true. Being down on Vazquez is mostly a consequence of his pitches starting to tank. That's not just ERA.

 

And Nolasco has never really been that fantastic. He's been consistent throughout his career and in his one "good" season, his peripherals seem to indicate (to me at least) that his ERA should have been higher that year. I think Nolasco is just a 4.50 ERA pitcher, with a slight bias toward the "under" side on a good year.

I don't think that's true. Being down on Vazquez is mostly a consequence of his pitches starting to tank. That's not just ERA.

 

And Nolasco has never really been that fantastic. He's been consistent throughout his career and in his one "good" season, his peripherals seem to indicate (to me at least) that his ERA should have been higher that year. I think Nolasco is just a 4.50 ERA pitcher, with a slight bias toward the "under" side on a good year.

 

 

 

Those same peripherals you speak of say otherwise the past couple of seasons.

I really don't see why he can't put up 200+ innings with an ERA under 4, but I guess we'll see. I will say that if you do believe in peripherals, I see no reason to believe that he'll be a 4.5 ERA guy. I'm not sure what you're basing that on, exactly.

 

The only reason to suggest that Nolasco is mediocre or below average is if you're basing it on recent ERA #'s. That's it. His peripherals are fine/well above average, he's still in his prime, and his stuff seems to be pretty much the same as when he entered the league, and was successful.

I'm saying that his peripherals haven't changed much, but he's had variable ERAs. On account of him on average being a mid-4s ERA pitcher, I think his 3.50 ERA season might be a bit of an outlier (as in the ERA number itself is an outlier). As I said, there is probably a slight bias toward being on the lower half of 4.50, but I don't see him being a sub-4.00 guy, mainly due to his inconsistency.

I'm saying that his peripherals haven't changed much, but he's had variable ERAs. On account of him on average being a mid-4s ERA pitcher, I think his 3.50 ERA season might be a bit of an outlier (as in the ERA number itself is an outlier). As I said, there is probably a slight bias toward being on the lower half of 4.50, but I don't see him being a sub-4.00 guy, mainly due to his inconsistency.

 

 

 

I don't really agree with this, but I can't really argue it as the results are the results, and that's all that matters. He definitely has been inconsistent; hopefully, that changes and he lives up to his better peripherals..

 

I will say that with pitchers like Nolasco and Vazquez in the rotation = another reason why this Coghlan to CF experiment is extremely risky. Both of those guys are flyball pitchers.

 

I could be wrong, but this team's biggest problem at the moment is Coghlan in CF, defensively. The outfield defense, in general, really. Logan Morrison playing LF isn't exactly exciting to think about, either.

Who cares who's in center and left field? Mike Stanton runs 120 MPH. Any pop up in the outfield and he's going to record the out.

I'm saying that his peripherals haven't changed much, but he's had variable ERAs. On account of him on average being a mid-4s ERA pitcher, I think his 3.50 ERA season might be a bit of an outlier (as in the ERA number itself is an outlier). As I said, there is probably a slight bias toward being on the lower half of 4.50, but I don't see him being a sub-4.00 guy, mainly due to his inconsistency.

 

 

 

I don't really agree with this, but I can't really argue it as the results are the results, and that's all that matters. He definitely has been inconsistent; hopefully, that changes and he lives up to his better peripherals..

 

I will say that with pitchers like Nolasco and Vazquez in the rotation = another reason why this Coghlan to CF experiment is extremely risky. Both of those guys are flyball pitchers.

 

I could be wrong, but this team's biggest problem at the moment is Coghlan in CF, defensively. The outfield defense, in general, really. Logan Morrison playing LF isn't exactly exciting to think about, either.

The way I see it is this...over 2008-2010 his peripherals are pretty similar. You seem to be saying that his 2009 and 2010 seasons are the outliers while I'm expecting the 2008 season to be atypical. Out of pure sampling size alone, I don't see 2008 to be the real Nolasco.

 

I haven't done a comparative analysis of Nolasco's BB%, HR%, Flyball%, etc with respect to the rest of the league, but I'm not satisfied yet that he's much better than he was in 2009-2010.

 

And I'm not sold on Dominguez's bat and think that the Marlins should be open to putting Coghlan/Infante at 2B/3B and Bonifacio/Cousins in CF. I think something like this will happen at some point in 2011, which should improve the OF defense (particularly range) a bit.

Who cares who's in center and left field? Mike Stanton runs 120 MPH. Any pop up in the outfield and he's going to record the out.

 

Wow. Wow. ALL wrong, Dim...

 

 

... He runs 140.

Who cares who's in center and left field? Mike Stanton runs 120 MPH. Any pop up in the outfield and he's going to record the out.

 

Wow. Wow. ALL wrong, Dim...

 

 

... He runs 140.

 

With a bad ankle

I haven't done a comparative analysis of Nolasco's BB%, HR%, Flyball%, etc with respect to the rest of the league, but I'm not satisfied yet that he's much better than he was in 2009-2010.

 

 

 

I don't know if you know it, but F(ielding) I(ndependent) P(itching) is a stat that attempts to do just that.

 

Over the last three years, his FIP is exceptionally static: 3.77, 3.35, 3.86.

 

He's also a guy who will give up home runs and XBH, so that may fluctuate, but his skillset represents a pitcher that is better than what he has been. Whether it will neutralize is another question, but there's plenty of reasons to think he can be a sub-4.00 era pitcher.

Who cares who's in center and left field? Mike Stanton runs 120 MPH. Any pop up in the outfield and he's going to record the out.

 

Wow. Wow. ALL wrong, Dim...

 

 

... He runs 140.

 

With a bad ankle

 

 

Sitting down.