New Faces, Same Results for AL East Pitching?

David Price and the Rays look to have the pitching advantage in the wide-open American League East. By Wknight94 (Own work) [GFDL (http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/fdl.html) or CC-BY-SA-3.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0)], via Wikimedia Commons

“Good pitching will always stop good hitting, and vice-versa.” – Casey Stengel

Much has been made of pitching in baseball over the past few seasons. The game has seen a shift from more dominant power-hitters to more shutdown pitchers since the “steroid era” “ended.”

While there are still many bona fide power hitters in the the majors (Miguel Cabrera, Jose Bautista, Matt Kemp, Ryan Braun, Robinson Cano, etc.), building a strong pitching rotation has become more of a prominent priority for successful teams. Just last season (2011), baseball had a pitcher, Justin Verlander, win both the MVP award and the CY Young award in the American League. Pitching has always been important to America’s pastime but now it’s more crucial than ever.

Especially in such a competitive division as the AL East, good starting pitching becomes even more valuable and necessary to have. Here is a breakdown of each teams potential starting rotation for the 2013 season with the average Earned Run Average (we know averaging an average isn’t scientifically sound, but we’re doing it anyway…):

New York Yankees:

1. C.C Sabathia (15-6, 3.38 ERA, 196 Strikeouts)
2. Hiroki Kuroda (16-11, 3.32 ERA, 167 Strikeouts)
3. Andy Pettitte (5-4, 2.87 ERA, 69 Strikeouts)
4. Phil Hughes (16-13, 4.23 ERA, 165 Strikeouts)
5. Ivan Nova (12-8, 5.02 ERA, 153 Strikeouts)

Average Combined 2012 ERA: 3.76

Baltimore Orioles:

1. Jason Hammel (8-6, 3.43 ERA, 113 Strikeouts)
2. Wei-Yin Chen (12-11, 4.02 ERA, 154 Strikeouts)
3. Chris Tillman (9-3, 2.93 ERA, 66 Strikeouts)
4. Miguel Gonzalez (9-4, 3.25 ERA, 77 Strikeouts)
5. Zach Britton (5-3, 5.07 ERA, 53 Strikeouts)

Average Combined 2012 ERA: 3.74

Tampa Bay Rays:

1. David Price (20-5, 2.56 ERA, 205 Strikeouts) Also was the 2012 AL CY Young Award Winner
2. Jeremy Hellickson (10-11, 3.10 ERA, 124 Strikeouts)
3. Matt Moore (11-11, 3.81 ERA, 175 Strikeouts)
4. Jeff Neimann (2-3, 3.08 ERA, 34 Strikeouts)
5. Alex Cobb (11-9, 4.03 ERA, 106 Strikeouts)

Average Combined ERA: 3.31

Toronto Blue Jays:

1. R.A. Dickey (20-6, 2.73 ERA, 230 Strikeouts) Also was the 2012 NL CY Young Award Winner
2. Josh Johnson (8-14, 3.81 ERA, 165 Strikeouts)
3. Mark Buehrle (13-13, 3.74 ERA, 125 Strikeouts)
4. Brandon Morrow (10-7, 2.96 ERA, 108 Strikeouts)
5. Ricky Romero (9-14, 5.77 ERA, 124 Strikeouts)

Average Combined ERA: 3.80

Boston Red Sox:

1. Jon Lester (9-14, 4.82 ERA, 166 Strikeouts)
2. Ryan Dempster (12-8, 3.38 ERA, 153 Strikeouts)
3. Clay Buchholz (11-8, 4.56 ERA, 129 Strikeouts)
4. John Lackey, 2011 season (12-12, 6.41 ERA, 108 Strikeouts)
5. Felix Doubront (11-10, 4.86 ERA, 167 Strikeouts)

Average Combined ERA: 4.40

The stats above are from the 2012 season and based of ERA alone, it would show that the Rays would have the best starting rotation going into the 2012 season with the Orioles a close second. For the Red Sox I only calculated four pitchers since John Lackey missed the entire 2012 season because of Tommy John Surgery and somehow they still wound up having an expediently higher ERA than any of the other teams. But just stats from don’t show or prove which team will have the best starting rotation next year.

The team that I predict will have the best starting rotation in the AL East is the Toronto Blue Jays. I think that the huge trade between Miami and Toronto will resurrect the careers of both Josh Johnson and Mark Buehrle from their down 2012 seasons. Also, any time you can land the raining Cy Young winner in a trade, that’s not too bad either. The Blue Jays rotation is greatly improved and I think will do very well in the 2013 season. However, I still don’t think that the Blue Jays will be the best overall team in the division. For that, I still have to give it to the Yankees. They were the division winners and until someone knocks them out, I am predicting that the Yankees will win the AL East again.