Our NL East rankings continue by looking at the starting pitchers in this division.
Throughout the month of February, we have been looking at which team has the best players at each position. We only have two categories left on our list before we reveal our staff collaborative rankings. Today, we go the mound and look at the starting rotations around the NL East.
Heading into last season, the Washington Nationals were thought to have one of the best rotations in the last few years after they signed Cy Young Award winner Max Scherzer to go with Stephen Strasburg and Jordan Zimmermann. However, the Nats’ starters ended up having a 3.70 ERA (sixth in the National League).
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This season, the Nats have Tanner Roark and Joe Ross/Bronson Arroyo filling out the back of the rotation in place of Zimmermann and Doug Fister. There weren’t many notable free agent pitchers joining the NL East this winter, but the one that did is Wei-Yin Chen, who signed a five-year deal with the Miami Marlins to be the number two starter behind Jose Fernandez.
By far, the story of last season was the New York Mets’ starting rotation. With all of their young pitching, they were able to have a 3.44 rotation (fourth in the NL) with talented young arms such as Matt Harvey, Jacob deGrom, Noah Syndergaard, and Steven Matz.
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As for the Braves and Phillies, they will look to their young pitching to help speed up the rebuilding process. Both teams did make small free agent acquisitions as Atlanta signed Bud Norris and the Phillies signed Jeremy Hellickson and Charlie Morton.
Last year, our top five rotations before the season began from 5-1 were the Phillies, Braves, Marlins, Mets, and Nationals. How do we rank them before 2016?
Next: Number 5