Graphing The Mariners Starting Pitching
They say that a picture is worth a thousand words… so here are some pictures for you.
The Mariners starting pitching staff has easily been the best in the American League and it’s even giving the Phillies a run for their money.
Understand FIP isn’t the end all be all of pitching metrics and that the innings thrown doesn’t necessarily depict that they were of a high quality. That said you can certainly take away that there has been some wonderful pitching performances this year by this staff and it certainly makes on smile thinking what this staff has done and continues to do.
Looking at the graph above it would appear that Doug Fister, not Erik Bedard or Jason Vargas, would be the teams third best starter. Now I suppose you could make a case for any of the three, they all have been quiet good, what is important is that this isn’t a fluke. All five pitchers in this rotation have pitched well and while Vargas as been the most inconsistent he has pitched three, if not four or five, knock out amazing games.
If the Mariners couldn’t retain Bedard at the end of the year I wouldn’t be completely worried. If they had to the team could throw Blake Beavan every fifth day and it wouldn’t be the end of the world. This rotation is very good and the core could remain intact for the next couple of years until Paxton, Hultzen and eventually Walker are ready to take the big Major League step.