This year’s MLB trade deadline was crazy. \u00a0Never before have so many big-time names moved teams. \u00a0And certainly I cannot remember so many big-time pitchers relocating mid-season as well.<\/p>\n
Lets look at the playoff contender rotations as they stand right now, with Trade deadline acquisitions highlighted in blue<\/span>.<\/p>\n NL<\/p>\n St. Louis clearly did the most in the NL, acquiring two mid-rotation guys to help cover for the injured\u00a0Michael Wacha<\/strong> and\u00a0Jaime Garcia<\/strong>, but it is hard to look at their rotation and say they’d have the advantage over some of their potential playoff rivals.\u00a0 San Francisco lost its ace (thought he hasn’t pitched like an Ace since signing his new deal)\u00a0Matt Cain<\/strong>, and his replacement was not inspiring confidence (Yusmiero Petit<\/strong>), so they added former Cy Young winner Peavy (who is pitching better than his 1-11 W\/L record .. but not a lot better). \u00a0Otherwise the NL playoff contenders mostly stood pat. \u00a0There was some small surprise that the free-spending Dodgers wouldn’t try to improve upon the suddenly underperforming\u00a0Josh Beckett<\/strong> and\/or the “fool-me-once”\u00a0Dan Haren<\/strong>. \u00a0They’ll struggle to get through the #3 and #4 starts of their planned playoff rotation to get back to their co-aces Kershaw and Greinke (who was good but not shut-down in last year’s playoffs). \u00a0The home-town Nats may find themselves with an uncomfortable decision to make if they make the playoffs; which starter to send to the pen? \u00a0Roark<\/strong> is the least renound and the least tenured … but he has clearly been more effective than other rotation members.<\/p>\n It continues to amaze that the Braves are competing, given the losses they’ve faced in their rotation. \u00a0They are missing (arguably) their planned #2, #3 and #5 starters in\u00a0Kris Medlen<\/strong>,\u00a0Brandon Beachy<\/strong> and\u00a0Gavin Floyd<\/strong>\u00a0but are getting by thanks to two mid-spring acquisitions (Santana and Harang) and the surprise performances of youngsters Wood and\u00a0David Hale<\/strong> (who didn’t merit his demotion to the bullpen).<\/p>\n AL<\/p>\n I didn’t include fringe playoff contenders such as Cleveland or Tampa Bay here; both of those rotations were purged and weakened, and their odds of catching one of these listed WC contendors is long. \u00a0Oakland completely re-made their rotation here, attempting to keep up with Detroit, who now features the last three AL Cy Young winners to go along with\u00a0Sanchez (who finished 4th last year in a season where he led the league in both ERA and FIP). \u00a0That’s quite a lineup. \u00a0Meanwhile Seattle likely finishes 10 games back of the Angels and could end up facing them in the coin-flip wild-card game … and could end up throwing the best pitcher in the AL at them (which has been noted as a significant down-side to the 2nd wild-card matchup; who wants to see a team lose out to a divisional rival that they bested by so many games in a play-in game?).<\/p>\n New York is the “Atlanta” of the AL this year; they currently have four planned rotation members on the D\/L and (likely) out for the year (CC Sabathia, Ivan Nova, Michael Pineda<\/b> and\u00a0Masahiro Tanaka<\/strong>). \u00a0 Their 4th and 5th starters were a 14th and 15th round pick respectively. \u00a0They’ve been outscored by nearly 30 runs on the year yet somehow have a winning record. \u00a0It seems like just a matter of time before their luck runs out and they settle back below .500.<\/p>\n Who would you rather go to war with, Detroit or Oakland’s rotation? \u00a0 Probably Detroit’s rotation, given its depth one to four. \u00a0But the ALCS could be one heck of a series.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" This year’s MLB trade deadline was crazy. \u00a0Never before have so many big-time names moved teams. \u00a0And certainly I cannot remember so many big-time pitchers relocating mid-season as well. Lets look at the playoff contender rotations as they stand right now, with Trade deadline acquisitions highlighted in blue. NL Washington: Strasburg, Gonzalez, Zimmerman, Fister, Roark […]<\/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":[345,346,1912,222,777,230,387,1676,47,2020,2019,1039,349,53,426,983,2031,2304,1040,223,241,2579,2576,1024,407,1910,2581,1932,385,2063,340,2055,892,2018,412,785,324,1022,2230,49,1036,1334,2022,839,406,2030,2575,890,770,221,43,50,1913,2026,44,1788,970,231,897,894,2319,339,2166,586,317,131,2582,1037,408,1953,1038,893,775,781,266,2583,2577,477,2549,1333,2580,38,77,219,316,429,1029,1867,2232,2380,2313,254],"class_list":["post-9655","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-mlbpitching","tag-aaron-harang","tag-adam-wainwright","tag-alex-wood","tag-alfredo-simon","tag-anibal-sanchez","tag-brandon-beachy","tag-brandon-mccarthy","tag-bud-norris","tag-cc-sabathia","tag-charlie-morton","tag-chris-capuano","tag-chris-tillman","tag-chris-young","tag-cj-wilson","tag-clayton-kershaw","tag-dan-haren","tag-danny-duffy","tag-david-hale","tag-david-phelps","tag-david-price","tag-doug-fister","tag-drew-hutchinson","tag-edin","tag-ervin-santana","tag-felix-hernandez","tag-francisco-liriano","tag-garrett-richards","tag-gavin-floyd","tag-gio-gonzalez","tag-hector-santiago","tag-hiroki-kuroda","tag-hisashi-iwakuma","tag-homer-bailey","tag-hyun-jin-ryu","tag-ivan-nova","tag-ja-happ","tag-jaime-garcia","tag-jake-peavy","tag-james-paxton","tag-james-shields","tag-jason-hammel","tag-jason-vargas","tag-jeff-locke","tag-jeff-samardzija","tag-jered-weaver","tag-jeremy-guthrie","tag-jimmy-nelson","tag-johnny-cueto","tag-jon-lackey","tag-jon-lester","tag-jordan-zimmermann","tag-josh-beckett","tag-julio-teheran","tag-justin-masterson","tag-justin-verlander","tag-kevin-gausman","tag-kris-medlen","tag-kyle-lohse","tag-lance-lynn","tag-madison-bumgarner","tag-marcus-strohman","tag-mark-buehrle","tag-masahiro-tanaka","tag-mat-latos","tag-matt-cain","tag-matt-garza","tag-matt-shoemaker","tag-max-scherzer","tag-michael-pineda","tag-michael-wacha","tag-miguel-gonzalez","tag-mike-leake","tag-mike-minor","tag-ra-dickey","tag-rick-porcello","tag-roenis-elias","tag-ryan-vogelson","tag-scott-kazmir","tag-shane-greene","tag-shelby-miller","tag-sonny-grey","tag-stephen-strasburg","tag-tanner-roark","tag-tim-hudson","tag-tim-lincecum","tag-vance-worley","tag-wei-yin-chen","tag-wily-peralta","tag-yordano-ventura","tag-yovanni-gallardo","tag-yusmeiro-petit","tag-zack-greinke"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nationalsarmrace.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9655","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=9655"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.nationalsarmrace.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9655\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9657,"href":"https:\/\/www.nationalsarmrace.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9655\/revisions\/9657"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nationalsarmrace.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=9655"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nationalsarmrace.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=9655"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nationalsarmrace.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=9655"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}\n
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