Who Owns the Best Rotation in Baseball?

I'm really itching for the baseball season to start up this year, and I've been looking at depth charts and rosters for far too long now but it's given me the ability to judge who I think is a contender this year. I fully believe a team can win the World Series behind pitching more than offense, so the contenders this year will be the teams with the top rotations.

#5: Seattle Mariners: Felix Hernandez, Cliff Lee, Ryan Rowland-Smith, Ian Snell, and Doug Fister (with Erik Bedard waiting on the DL). This rotation has gotten a lot of publicity this offseason and a 1-2 combination of Hernandez and Lee is as intimidating as it gets. That being said they do have question marks behind those two that prevents them from being higher. If Rowland-Smith can pitch like he did at the end of the season and Ian Snell can put together some of the outings that made him decent in Pittsburgh, this rotation should be able to hold together until Bedard comes off the DL and can claim the 3 spot and bump the other two down. It's not clear when Bedard will be ready to pitch this season, but he is certainly the x-factor of the rotation this season for the Mariners.

#4: Philadelphia Phillies: Roy Halladay, Cole Hamels, Joe Blanton, J.A. Happ, and Jamie Moyer. The Phillies made one of the bigger moves this winter by trading for Roy Halladay who should be simply dominant in the NL this season. I expect Cole Hamels to bounce back from a mediocre 2009 campaign and from all accounts out of Spring Training he's on track to do just that. Blanton and Happ are probably interchangable for this rotation but I think Blanton will be the #3 due to his service time in the bigs. Jamie Moyer continues to reinvent himself as a pitcher and can still be effective while barely touching 84 mph.

#3: New York Yankees: CC Sabathia, AJ Burnett, Andy Pettitte, Javier Vazquez, and Phil Hughes. The one question that Joe Girardi has to answer is who will be the #5 starter for this season for the defending champs. I think Phil Hughes is the better choice over Joba Chamberlain who is better served as the set-up man and heir to Mariano Rivera's closer role. 1-3 this rotation is outstanding, Vazquez is the x-factor for the Yankees this season, he has a $10 million arm and a 10 cent brain when it comes to pressure situations. New York is a big stage where Vazquez has pitched before with a little success, if he can find that success again the Yankees will be right back in the World Series in 2010.

#2: Chicago White Sox: Mark Buehrle, Jake Peavy, John Danks, Gavin Floyd, Freddy Garcia. When Jake Peavy first turned down the White Sox last season, I was devastated (maybe part of it had to do with the 20-1 loss I witnessed first hand to the freaking Twins that same day). So you can imagine my excitement when I found out that Peavy was coming to the South Side. Danks experienced circulation issues in his fingers last season that made him at time unproductive, but those have been worked out. The key for the rotation this year is for Floyd to continue to improve on his 2009 campaign, where he won 11 games. If Floyd can take another step and the rest of the rotation pitches to its ability they will easily be able to overcome the shortfalls that may occur with the offense this season.

#1: Boston Red Sox: Josh Beckett, Jon Lester, John Lackey, Daisuke Matsuzaka, and Clay Buchholz. Going into this season I think the Yankees, White Sox, and Red Sox are very close in terms of the best rotation. That being said the Red Sox get the nod because the talent is very high for all 5 of their pitchers. All 5 guys have the ability to dominate a game, they just have to show that ability every night which is the biggest question for Matsuzaka heading into 2010. You can imagine that if Matsuzaka continues to struggle that Terry Francona will hand the ball to Tim Wakefield to fill the 5th spot in the rotation. The depth this rotation has and the potential that is present makes the Red Sox very dangerous heading into 2010.

All this being said, baseball isn't played on paper and we could very likely see all 5 of these teams struggle on the hill this year. We just have to wait till April 4th to get this thing rolling.


[Upon further review, I want to put the Giants in the five spot. It was a complete oversight on my part but Lincecum and Cain are greater than Hernandez and Lee and the rest of the Giants rotation has far less question marks than the Mariners do]

Top Free Agents Available

With pitchers and catchers reporting to Spring Training in just a few weeks I thought it'd be a good idea to highlight some of the free agents that are shockingly still available:

1. Orlando Hudson: I'm really surprised he is still available. Granted the O-Dog was lost playing time at the end of last season, but he was still productive with an OPS of .774. He is probably overvaluing himself right now which is why some teams aren't eager to sign him because he is 33. I still think he could be productive and unfortunately I see his destination being Washington.

2. Johnny Damon: Damon hit a career high 24 home runs and had a career high .854 OPS last season, so on the surface it's hard to see why he doesn't have a job yet. But when you look a little deeper, the question has to be asked how much help did Damon receive from the new Yankee Stadium being a launching pad for home runs? Is he worth his desired $13 million? No, but he definitely deserves a pretty good pay day because he isn't showing signs of breaking down and being unproductive. I see Damon and the Yankees striking a deal in the near future.

3. Jermaine Dye: Jermaine Dye doesn't want to DH full time yet, but his defense is declining so he's put in a tough situation. The Cubs have called and seem interested in him as a 4th outfielder, I don't see Dye taking that unless there are no other options. I think he's better suited to be a DH/4th Outfielder type, a logical choice would be the White Sox, but I don't see it happening.  I don't really have a clue where he could wind up, but I'll just guess that it's the White Sox or the Cubs.

4. Erik Bedard: If you're like me, you'll notice that you probably haven't seen much on Bedard this offseason since he had surgery in August and won't be ready for the the first half of the season it looks like. When healthy, Bedard is a very good starter and could have a Pedro Martinez like impact this season for the club that signs him. I have nothing to suggest this will happen but my guess is that Bedard ends up in St. Louis, he just seems like a Cardinals like signing to sure up the back of the rotation down the stretch.

5. Ben Sheets: Sheets has been throwing for clubs recently and looks to be close to signing somewhere with a lot of interest. Sheets is a lot like Bedard in that he can be filthy when healthy, he's just never healthy. The Mariners have been touted as the winner of the off-season and I think they really think they can win it all and will look at Sheets to fill the rotation out after King Felix and Cliff Lee. The Mariners are my guess but the Dodgers or Mets might not be far behind.