In a short series (if you went to a 3-man rotation in the playoffs, as lots of teams do), who scares you the most?
Candidates:
- Philadelphia: Halladay, Hamels and Oswalt
- Boston: Lester, Beckett, Buchholz. tough. If they were all performing that is. Beckett seems off this year.
- NY Yankees: Sabathia, Burnett and Hughes; this was supposed to be Vazquez but once again the best rotation that money can buy, didn’t.
- St Louis: Carpenter, Wainwright and Garcia. Wow.
- San Francisco: Lincecum, Cain and Zito/Sanchez/Bumgarner; again, that’s tough.
- Tampa Bay: Price, Garza, Shields (with Sonnanstine/Hellickson thrown in there). Scary tough, which is why they’re beating out the Red Sox right now.
For my money, it has to be Philly slightly followed by St. Louis. How is that team gonna get beat this off season? Of course, they have to MAKE the playoffs for it to matter. Ironic that the 3 best rotations in the AL are all in the east. Chicago’s is decent but more veteran laden. Texas’ starts with Lee and ends with a guy who was playing in Japan this time last year (Colby Lewis). I don’t think Minnesota’s guys are scaring anyone. How scary is it that Toronto has two guys with one-hitters this year (Marcum, Morrow) but is buried in FOURTH place in the AL east. That’s a tough division.