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Ray: Everyone loves the long ball, but Starting Pitching is what brings home the hardware. Ten minutes of listening to the pundits on MLB Radio will invariably lead to the discussion that the Angels MUST make a dramatic addition to the starting rotation. Trout and Rendon won’t win squat without the arms. But, the Angels are at one extreme of the spectrum; Position-player-loaded while devoid of top pitching talent. On the other hand the Nationals are a pitching-centric franchise. If you’re going to build on a foundation of great pitching it better darned sight be really good. 2020, despite all of its weirdness only reinforced the point. The Nats’ starters were awful. The losing record is hardly a surprise. Will turning the calendar fix that on its own? Don’t bet the ranch on it. The worry beads are there in abundance.
Steve: So far I agree with everything you said. The most expensive starting rotation in baseball history at $98 million in 2020 and they sucked as a group and were statistically the worst in Nats history in ERA. That is hard to do when the Nats had a $5 million starting rotation back in the Jim Bowden years. If I told you this group was a combined 5.38 ERA with Max Scherzer, Stephen Strasburg, Patrick Corbin and Anibal Sanchez, you would ask me what drugs I’m on because that was a typo. Last year they were 3.53 so it looks like a typo and I assure you that is accurate. Continue reading
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