Chronicles of the Lads

AS I WAS SAYING ...
Ah, the problems of blogging from work. Moving on (I've made some slight revisions to yesterday's entry, by the way) ...

Last season, Angel starters threw 928 innings and allowed 505 earned runs. So, if Angel starters all pitch at their career average, and the run environment is like last years, that's fifty runs the Angels have saved from the starting rotation alone: five wins. (I'm assuming that unearned runs is roughly a constant.)

What are the chances of the Angel pitchers pitching at their career norms? As I discussed yesterday, the chances are pretty good for Washburn. Colon should be able to; it wouldn't be hard for Escobar to be just a little bit above average, as he has been over the course of his career.

However, Ramon Ortiz may be on the greasy slide to oblivion, so he may be expected to do worse. But Lackey is climing the ladder, and I expect him to be better than league average this season. They may balance each other out.

Of course, injuries happen, trades, and you never know when the Lads may come to their senses and insert Scot Shields into the rotation. I should point out that I'm not actually predicting a five-win improvement from the rotation. But there is a lot of reason for optimism, and you can see how Bill Stoneman has put together a rotation that should handily outperform last year's incarnation.