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What team has the best rotation in baseball?
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Jayson Stark of ESPN.com examines this question and picks the Cubs. For good reason, I think, although let's not use Carlos Zambrano's performance yesterday as evidence. Bottom line, no other ball club can consistently match up with Big Z, Ryan Dempster, Rich Harden, Ted Lilly and Jason Marquis.
Stark then tweeks the question a bit, asking instead which team has the best postseason rotation, but I think (and he agrees) that the answer is still the Cubs. The difference in these two questions lies in the fact that during October, most teams only start the top three or four pitchers in their rotations, rarely if ever using the fifth starter except for middle relief.
When Zambrano, Harden and Dempster are pitching well, there is almost no stopping them. The Cubs have a .700 winning percentage when one of these three start the game and each (with some exceptions) have been pretty unhittable recently, especially Harden.
Stark also makes a case for the Diamondbacks (probable Cy Young winner Webb, Dan Haren and Randy Johnson are a pretty formidable trio), the Angels (with the best AL three of Lackey, Saunders and Santana) and the Red Sox (Beckett and Wakefield's injuries have lessened their strength) but only lists the Brewers under "others in the debate" which surprised me. Sheets, Sabathia and Parra are almost as good as the Cubs and Diamondback starters and I can only imagine that this slight was made for the sake of NL/AL parity...
I also wonder if the Ray's top three guys aren't better right now than the Red Sox's three, but that may be only splitting hairs at this point.
Regardless, his pick for the team with the best postseason rotation remains the Cubs. Stark notes that "they're the only team in baseball that has three starters in the top 27 in opponent OPS [and] the only rotation that has three starters in the top 20 in strikeout ratio..." Further, these three have the best ERA among starters and the lowest opponent batting average in this same group.
Seems like a no-brainer. And since it's been proven time and time again that the postseason is won on pitching, I'm liking our chances as the season winds down.
