{"id":6388,"date":"2013-04-09T13:05:56","date_gmt":"2013-04-09T17:05:56","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.nationalsarmrace.com\/?p=6388"},"modified":"2013-10-10T13:27:22","modified_gmt":"2013-10-10T17:27:22","slug":"would-you-rather-have-houston-or-durhams-rotation","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.nationalsarmrace.com\/?p=6388","title":{"rendered":"Would you rather have Houston or Durham’s rotation?"},"content":{"rendered":"

My Pitching Rotation Rankings post<\/a> (published on January 7th 2013) \u00a0ended up with poor Houston ranked as the 30th best rotation heading into the 2013 season. \u00a0They’re heading into the 2013 season with this rotation of guys:<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n<\/colgroup>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n
Rank<\/em><\/strong><\/td>\nName<\/em><\/strong><\/td>\nAge<\/em><\/strong><\/td>\n2012 Stats<\/em><\/strong><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
1<\/td>\nBud Norris<\/td>\n28<\/td>\n(MLB Hou) 7-13, 4.65 ERA, 1.37 whip, 86 ERA+, 4.23 fip<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
2<\/td>\nLucas Harrell<\/td>\n28<\/td>\n(MLB Hou) 11-11, 3.76 ERA, 1.36 whip, 106 ERA+, 3.75 fip<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
3<\/td>\nPhilip Humbel<\/td>\n30<\/td>\n(MLB CWS) 5-5 6.44 ERA, 1.54 whip, 68 ERA+, 5.77 fip<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
4<\/td>\nErik Bedard<\/td>\n34<\/td>\n(MLB Pit) 7-14, 5.01 ERA, 1.47 whip, 74 ERA+, 4.07 fip<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
5<\/td>\nBrad Peacock<\/td>\n25<\/td>\n(AAA Sac) 12-9, 6.01 ERA, 1.58 whip, 4.26 fip<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n

There’s a couple of decent possibilities here: Norris looked pretty good opening day and Harrell’s numbers last year weren’t bad. \u00a0The other three though? \u00a0Phew. \u00a0Even Nats favorite Brad Peacock isn’t that convincing right now as a starter, based on his numbers in the PCL last year.<\/p>\n

Now, here’s Tampa Bay AAA affiliate Durham Bull’s opening day 2013 rotation:<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n<\/colgroup>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n
Rank<\/em><\/strong><\/td>\nName<\/em><\/strong><\/td>\nAge<\/em><\/strong><\/td>\n2012 Stats<\/em><\/strong><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
1<\/td>\nChris Archer<\/td>\n24<\/td>\n(AAA Dur): 7-9, 3.66 era, 1.258 whip, 3.25 fip<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
2<\/td>\nJake Odorizzi<\/td>\n23<\/td>\n(AAA Oma): 11-3, 2.93 era, 1.35 whip, 4.19 fip<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
3<\/td>\nAlex Colome<\/td>\n25<\/td>\n(AA Birm) 8-3, 3.48 ERA, 1.37 whip, 2.91 fip<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
4<\/td>\nMike Montgomery<\/td>\n23<\/td>\n(AAA Oma): 3-6, 5.89 ERA, 1.67 whip, 4.95 fip<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
5<\/td>\nAlex Torres<\/td>\n25<\/td>\n(AAA Dur): 3-7, 7-30 era, 1.93 whip, 4.56 fip<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n

Tampa’s AAA rotation includes Keith Law<\/strong>‘s #53, #68 and #81 top prospects for 2013<\/a> in Archer, Odorizzi and Colome respectively. \u00a0Montgomery was Kansas City’s #1 prospect for quite a while and has struggled in AAA, but he reached AAA as a 21 year old in 2011. \u00a0Torres may switch places with a 6-year ML FA signing (the Bulls do have former Nat favorite J.D. Martin<\/strong> on their roster among other candidates) but the strength of this group is the first four guys.<\/p>\n

Given that Tampa is notoriously slow in bringing along its starting pitcher prospects, its safe to assume that most of these guys would have already matriculated to lesser team’s rotations (of them only Archer has MLB service time; he got 4 starts and 30 innings late last year). \u00a0 As it stands now, none of them can crack Tampa’s MLB rotation of David Price<\/strong>, Matt Moore<\/strong>, Jeremy Hellickson<\/strong>, Alex Cobb<\/strong> and Roberto Hernandez<\/strong>. \u00a0And this is all AFTER the big Tampa-KC trade which sent two other starters (James Shields<\/strong> and Wade Davis<\/strong>) to Kansas City. \u00a0And this doesn’t include former rotation stalwart Jeff Niemann<\/strong>, who just had season ending shoulder surgery. <\/strong>Man that’s a lot of starting pitching depth.<\/p>\n

(Side note: Roberto Hernandez is officially “Roberto (Heredia) Hernandez,” the artist formerly known as Fausto Carmona<\/strong>. \u00a0He is also the first Free Agent to start a game for Tampa Bay <\/a>since 2005! \u00a0Just an amazing statistic frankly, and an amazing tribute to Tampa’s pitching development staff).<\/p>\n

So, honestly, which of these starting 5 would you want right now? \u00a0Not on potential, but on the ability to get major league hitters out in 2013?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

My Pitching Rotation Rankings post (published on January 7th 2013) \u00a0ended up with poor Houston ranked as the 30th best rotation heading into the 2013 season. \u00a0They’re heading into the 2013 season with this rotation of guys: Rank Name Age 2012 Stats 1 Bud Norris 28 (MLB Hou) 7-13, 4.65 ERA, 1.37 whip, 86 ERA+, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[1262,1704,1705,35,1676,1263,223,1300,711,1304,49,99,237,239,110,1702,229,1305,1703,1706,240],"class_list":["post-6388","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-mlbpitching","tag-alex-cobb","tag-alex-colume","tag-alex-torres","tag-brad-peacock","tag-bud-norris","tag-chris-archer","tag-david-price","tag-erik-bedard","tag-fausto-carmona","tag-jake-odorizzi","tag-james-shields","tag-jd-martin","tag-jeff-niemann","tag-jeremy-hellickson","tag-keith-law","tag-lucas-harrell","tag-matt-moore","tag-mike-montgomery","tag-philip-humbrel","tag-roberto-hernandez","tag-wade-davis"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nationalsarmrace.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6388","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nationalsarmrace.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nationalsarmrace.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nationalsarmrace.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nationalsarmrace.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=6388"}],"version-history":[{"count":9,"href":"https:\/\/www.nationalsarmrace.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6388\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7941,"href":"https:\/\/www.nationalsarmrace.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6388\/revisions\/7941"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nationalsarmrace.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=6388"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nationalsarmrace.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=6388"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nationalsarmrace.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=6388"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}