According to the Bucs’ brass, the team’s 2008 starting rotation will consist of, in likely order, Tom Gorzelanny, Ian Snell, Paul Maholm, Matt Morris and Zach Duke. Believe it or not, I’m okay with that. Clearly it’s not the best rotation in the majors, but it does have a chance to be pretty decent.
If Gorzelanny and Snell pitch about as well as they did last season, and that’s a reasonable assumption, then we have one of the better top two starter pairs in the league. Well, maybe the division. But still, that’s not bad. These two pitchers are young and they’ve been healthy. They have good control and they can get strikeouts, Snell in particular. An improvement, by both of them, is really not out of the question.
And then there’s Maholm. His final E.R.A. from last year is not impressive, but that number is seriously thrown off by his last two starts. These two starts came after he missed a few weeks with a minor injury. So, before the injury: 4.32 ERA; after the injury: 30.86 ERA, which resulted in an ERA for the season of 5.02. 5.02 looks bad, 4.32 looks respectable. I’m willing to believe that we’ll see a lot more of the 4.32 Maholm this year.
I do realize that Matt Morris is years removed from his prime. He was fantastic for a number of years in St. Louis, but those years are passed. What I did see from Morris last year was two very good months. Unfortunately for Pittsburgh, those two months were in San Francisco, as a member of the Giants. My point is, if he could do it for a little bit last year, he can do it again. For a full year? Probably not, but maybe long enough to get us some return at the trading deadline. Cynical? Me? Yeah, I hope the Pirates win this year and I think they do have quite of few very good players, but realistically they’ll trade Morris in July if they can get something in return. And Morris won’t be a part of the team’s plans for 2009 anyway, so it’s not a big loss.
So what to make of Zach Duke? We all want to see that Greg Maddux-like rookie we saw three years ago. But will we? Duke gave us a tiny glimpse with his last start of 2007. (7 innings, 8 hits, 1 run, 0 walks, 4 strikeouts) Was it a sign of things to come? Will Duke regain his pre-Tracy/Colburn mechanics? Or should we just get used to last year’s results? I seriously have no idea. But I can hope.
So, I said earlier that the starting rotation is pretty nice. And then I went and pointed out some major question marks. Well, when discussing starting pitching one must always take into account the potential for injuries. This could be a problem for Pittsburgh. After the top five, we would have to turn to Sean Burnett, Bryan Bullington, John Van Benschoten and then maybe Elmer Dessens. Burnett had a great month in the majors four years ago, but it’s been injuries and the minors since. Bullington and Van Benschoten have also had injury issues and limited time in the majors. Dessens has been around and had a little bit of success in places like Cincinnati, but that time has passed. I trust him for long relief, but if he makes the rotation at some point in 2008, we’re in trouble.
2 comments:
you may have already read this but i thought it was interesting. especially the part about the moskos/morris connection. also this article was disheartening, but worth a look.
i think the top-end of the rotation is going to be solid if not spectacular. too bad maskos is a year or two away.
The Morris/Moskos thing is odd. And as for that second article, C's are good, right?
Also, the team signed Jaret Wright today. Maybe about 4 years too late, but we'll see.
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