Quote:
Originally Posted by burgbasher
As far as second on the team i disagree : war
Gio= 3.3
Stras=3.0
jordan=3.2
Jackson=2.2
Detwiler=2.1
As far as filthy i would agree.
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Well, I stand corrected. Updated WAR on baseball-reference.com this morning:
1. Cueto (CIN) 6.0
2. Dickey (NYM) 5.0
3. Kershaw (LAD) 4.5
4. Miley (ARI) 4.0
5. Hamels (PHI) 3.7
Gonzalez (WSN) 3.7
So with yesterday's start, Gio has worked himself into that second-tier mix. I honestly thought Zimmerman was closer to those guys, but it looks like he's worked his way out of the discussion with some especially poor outings as of late. Moral of the story: don't go off of what you think you know from three weeks ago
That said, I think this brings up an interesting discussion point on Strasburg. I love WAR as much as the next fanboy, and I've used it to defend Trout to death for the AL MVP race. But in Strasburg's case, I don't think it quite tells the full story. In the end, he'll be shut down and not a contender from a WAR perspective, but shouldn't he get some votes? In any event, I still think -- and you won't convince me otherwise -- that Stephen is the ace of this staff. I still expect Gio and Jordan to end the year with similar WAR numbers, which was the basis for my "second-best on his OWN team" comment.
In any event, all the Nationals pitchers have a lot of work to do to be legitimate contenders. WAR suggests that Cueto has a very good hold on it, but a lot can happen over the next few weeks. Los Angeles is clearly going for it this year, but their pitching continues to be a cause for concern. If they're still a few games back in the wildcard at the end of September, do they try to throw Kershaw out on fewer days' rest? I'd expect Dickey to finish strong, as well.
It should be a very exciting race down the stretch
