2016 AL East Rankings by Position: Starting Pitching

The AL East rankings now turn to the starting pitchers, where the examination turns more subjective as injuries make predicting one year to the next very difficult.

As a reminder, just a few points about these rankings:

• I love being able to discuss these rankings. I don’t claim to know anything about the AL East, but I try to be as impartial as possible. If you disagree, let me have it!
• We are primarily focused on the five main starters for the rotation, although depth will come into play.

First, let’s take a look back at last year.

Here is how we ranked the rotations before the 2015 MLB season started: 1 – Baltimore, 2 – Tampa Bay, 3 – Toronto, 4 – Boston, 5 – New York.

By the end of the year, things changed dramatically, and looked like this: 1 – Toronto, 2 – Tampa Bay, 3 – New York, 4- Baltim0re, 5 – Boston.

How was I so far off? Well, I predicted the O’s rotation would improve, but it regressed. Toronto added David Price for the stretch run, and he was exactly what they needed. The Rays’ pitching was as advertised. Nathan Eovaldi was the big difference for the Yankees, while I predicted he would be bad. Luis Severino gave them a boost as well. And the Red Sox motley crew of reclamation projects failed miserably, minus Eduardo Rodriguez and Clay Buchholz.

So, now it is time to try to look at the 2016 rankings.

2016 Preseason Rankings

1. Tampa Bay Rays – Chris Archer, Jake Odorizzi, Drew Smyly, Matt Moore, Erasmo Ramirez, Matt Andriese, Blake Snell, Alex Cobb*

The Tampa Bay Rays finished 2015 as the best rotation statistically in the AL. Their final line was 52-45, 3.63 ERA, 1.21 WHIP, 851 strike outs and an opposing batting average of .240. Now, the win-loss record doesn’t look great, but that isn’t the sign of how good this staff is, because the Rays’ offense struggles to score.

Of all the team’s starters who started over 10 games, only arguably the best of those pitchers, Matt Moore, had an ERA over 4.00.  Moore was coming off surgery and had an unsuccessful 2015 season. However, Archer has shown he is a top pitcher, despite having some control issues when dealing with adversity. If Moore returns to previous form, the team will have two number one starters. Cobb won’t pitch much in 2016 as he returns from surgery late in the year. Snell is expected to be the next star starter for the Rays.

The one major issue with this team is that with the starters being so young, many of them have not gained enough experience to go deep into games. But, as they continue to gain experience, that will likely improve in 2015. There are a lot of questions from one year to the next about how good a starting rotation will be, but the Rays have so many guys who can be successful that it makes them an obvious choice for the best starting rotation.

Next: Difficult to assess...