Baseball Musings
Baseball Musings
March 26, 2008
Rotation Evaluation, Seattle Mariners

The series looking at team pitching rotations using the Marcel the Monkey projections continues with the Seattle Mariners. Their starters posted a 5.16 ERA in 2007, twelfth in the American League.

Note that in figuring ERAs, I'm using Marcel's mIP and mER columns. The ERA listed in the spreadsheet uses the average of mER and bsrER. I wanted to avoid posting 1/2 runs in the table. Pitcher order is taken from the CBSSportsline depth chart.

Felix Hernandez

Felix Hernandez
Photo: Icon SMI

Marcel predictions for the Seattle Mariners top five starters for 2008.
StarterInningsERERA
Erik Bedard171703.68
Felix Hernandez174773.98
Miguel Batista166844.55
Jarrod Washburn176864.40
Carlos Silva177914.63
Totals8644084.25

Faced with a truly bad rotation, the Mariners made two moves to improve their starters. They traded the future for another ace, Erik Bedard. They also signed Carlos Silva, a master of putting the ball in the strike zone. Silva doesn't walk many, but his pitches in the zone can be hittable. However, he's a very good back of the rotation pitcher, which is all the Mariners need. After competing despite two horrible starters in the rotation, the Mariners look a lot stronger this year.

One question that needs to be answered is can Felix Hernandez be effective and healthy at the same time. He was off to an amazing start before an injury shelved him. Can he pitch like that again without putting his arm at risk? It's a similar question the Twins have with Liriano.

I like this rotation. The front end might be great, and the back end isn't terrible. Not too many teams can say that. With the injuries in Anaheim, the Mariners look like they have the best staff in the AL West.

Previous posts in this series:

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Posted by David Pinto at 10:03 PM | Team Evaluation | TrackBack (0)
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