Matt Klaassen FanGraphs Chat – 6/15/11
Matt Klaassen reads and writes obituaries in the Greater Toronto Area. If you can't get enough of him, follow him on Twitter.
Matt Klaassen reads and writes obituaries in the Greater Toronto Area. If you can't get enough of him, follow him on Twitter.
One question for anyone who can answer:
Currently, 3 Phillies starting pitchers are #1, #2, and #3 in xFIP. Has anything remotely like this ever happened before in the history of baseball? Can we start saying this might be the best starting 3 ever?
Well Glavine, Maddux, and Smoltz were a pretty formidable trio, and in the steroid era, though there is no xFIP data for their mid to late 90s runs
There’s no need for xFIP data on the ’90s Braves. Their careers are over. There’s nothing left to project. We have large enough sample sizes for all of them to know how good they were.
We’re 40% of the way through the season. I’m personally going to reserve judgment until sometime after the all-star break before declaring a best three ever. But that’s just me.
you start james shields, dan haren, jered weaver, yovani gallardo every night no questions asked unless theyre playing with an injury.
Not so sure about Gallardo. He’s awesome, but his WHIP keeps him out of the Shields/Haren/Weaver class. He’s Bud Norris with a way better offense backing him.
They were, and it’s an obvious comparison. However it is quite arguable (based on xFIP) that these 3 are literally the 3 best pitchers in baseball, and I don’t think you ever could have made that argument even during the peak of the big 3 for the Braves. I cannot for the life of me think of any rotation where you could make that argument, though I’m no baseball history expert…
This is a response to rhealy714 above…