Free Pedro

Jonathan, how much does a top three of Cole Hamels, Cliff Lee, and J.A. Happ scare you?

If it does scare you, maybe it shouldn’t. I looked at the top three in the rotation for the NL playoff contenders (and the Mets) this year, and found that, even after adding Lee, the Phillies are behind the other contenders in front-of-the-rotation talent. For the data below, I found out what it would look like if you created a pitcher out of the top three in each of the rotations (weighted average) for each of the contenders and had him throw 240 innings. One obvious caveat is that Lee’s stats were compiled in the more difficult league for pitchers. He should perform better in AAAA.