I was thinking about baseball, as I normally do, and I was wondering to myself who are the best five starting pitchers in today's game? I am not going to base this purely on numbers, because with pitchers more than hitters a lot of their numbers are deceptive, and with pitchers more than hitters injury concerns are also always more of a risk. But still, I came up with this list.
5. Roy Oswalt- Undeniably he is losing his stuff a bit, and he may not have the stuff of a number 1 any more. But he also hasn't really had the benefit of a very good team behind him. But I want him for one reason. This guy will battle you each and every pitch. He is a bulldog, and his attitude towards pitching will spread to all on the staff. As a long term investment I don't like him as pitchers under six feet that are right handed do not have a very good history of having long careers.
4A.Tim Lincecum- Yea I cheat, 4A and 4B. This guy is young, and has lights out stuff and he is just purely hard to hit. There is no question he has the potential to be great for many years to come. On the other side he is very short and as a short right handed power pitcher the odds say he will have some injury troubles.
4B. David Pryce-Not much of a track record yet, but many I don't know if there is a left handed pitcher who looks harder to hit than David Pryce. 97 with movement and a slingshot wide up, if he can stay healthy and keep it in the strikezone he will have some Cy Young type seasons.
3. Johan Santana-Best changeup in baseball + knowing how to pitch= lots of unhappy NL East batters.
2. Roy Halliday- Consistently he is one of the best pitchers each year. He has a killer slider and pin point control with his 94-95 fastball. I wouldn't want to be in the box against him.
1. Chris Carpenter- I would not have put him in until this year. There is something about this guy, he can be out for a year and half and then just show up and throw a shutout. He has given up two earned runs this year in his 28 innings, and both of those shouldn't have been, since they were Chris Duncan missplays. This tells me that he has something beyond stuff. This man knows how to pitch. Even if he goes out there and has his D grade stuff he is going to get guys out. And when he has his A grade, or even B grade stuff, teams don't score runs, period.
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Anyon notice an NL bias?
ReplyDelete2 of them are American Leaguers. And Santana pitched most of his career in the American League. 2 of 6 isn't that bad, and really I am basing much more of what I have seen on Santana on his American League experience, so I really count't it as 3 of 6. Unless my math is wrong, which is possible, thats 50/50.
ReplyDeleteCut and paste this link for an interesting list of the best 50 pitchers to have for the next five years:
ReplyDeletehttp://bases.newsvine.com/_news/2009/05/29/2878316-50-pitchers-for-five-years-nos-10-1?category=sports
I think he has a clear Braves bias (34-year old Hudson and 36-year old Derrek Lowe? really?), but an interesting list nonetheless.
I think I'd go Santana, Halladay, Lincecum, Carpenter, and Cole Hamels.
For my next five year rotation, I'd go Lincecum, Santana, Price, Halladay, and either Hamels or Clayton Kershaw.
For my exotic name rotation, I'd go Fausto Carmona, Wandy Rodriguez, Jimmy Gobble, Horacio Ramirez, and that Bastardo kid that just got called up.