We often see phrases like “the Pirates don’t have a number one starter”, or “Player A has the upside of a #2 starter”, with no real number attached to the rotation labels. Â The following polls present some options for ERAs from the five rotation spots. Â For each spot, pick the option that you think best fits the expectations for a pitcher in that role. Â Note that we’re looking for the major league average expectations, and not any extremes, such as super rotations like the Phillies have (Halladay/Lee/Oswalt/Hamels) or some of the poor rotations in the majors like the Pirates had last year. Â Instead, we’re looking for the expectations you would have if you said “Prospect A projects to be a (insert rotation spot here) starter”. Â Try to go off your expectations, without any research. Â I’ll be reviewing the answers tomorrow and expanding on this topic throughout the week.
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I voted based on the .5 run assumption I use. A #1 should have an ERA under 3, a #2 between 3-3.5, #3 between 3.5-4 and so on.
However looking at it with a more factual approach: There were 147 pitchers to pitch at least 100 innngs last year. So roughly 5 per team. Just look at the middle ERA of each set of 30 and you have a rough average value for each spot:
#1 : 2.92 (Mat Latos)
#2 : 3.62 (Francisco Liriano)
#3 : 4.15 (Barry Zito)
#4 : 4.63 (Jake Peavy)
#5 : 5.32 (Tim Wakefield)
So obviously my assumptions are far from the actual.
It seemsa people already have a jaded view as to what actually goes on with most MLB teams. To expect 30 no. 1 pitchers to be under 3 era is ridiculous. Anything near 3 with a decent k rate is borderline dominant and worthy of a 1.