Ironically, it's the league with the specialists that runs longer games that is killing viewership of baseball. Yet watch the AL will come up with a scheme to have 'designated runners' for catchers to 'speed up the game' so nobody has to do much of anything. That's what they wanted back in the 70s.

That's because the AL East is stupid and awful, Putin. The rest of the AL is fine.

Lol, if the MLB were actually competitive all around the league as opposed to just the teams with high payroll or the teams with competent management, and the rare combination of both that teams like the Giants and the Dodgers have now, people would actually get involved that aren't in baseball hotspots.

Baseball is a league with a surprising amount of parity considering payroll and market-size differential. Your own team and your own division is a testament to the sudden rise and fall of club fortunes.

Yeah, that's because as opposed to the NBA and NFL, the young prospects get hidden in the minors and don't get scooped up like they do in other leagues. Players actually have to prove themselves before they get paid.

I know this is responding to something on page 1, but Jason Hammel is not a number one starter. He's not even a number three on a functional team. Lester-Samarzdija-Gray-Kazmir is a nice rotation. The number five guy with that team is not going to especially matter, which is probably a good thing if a team is relying on Hammel. Of course, they're going to get murderdeathkilled in the playoffs by Detroit, because Verlander is going to be scary coming out of the pen and Detroit's rotation will be the best playoff rotation in years.

That's a bold prediction considering the A's have about 120 runs on the Tigers and the Tigers offensive production has been stagnant since the All Star break.

And it's a bold prediction I feel comfortable in making if the Kitties move Verlander to the pen for the playoffs as they should. There isn't a game they'll play in the AL Playoffs where they won't have an advantage in starting pitching. Porcello'd be the game one starter for every other team other than the A's who might make the playoffs. He'd be Detroit's number four.

Tigers have a mediocre bullpen at best. You're not going to be able to throw Verlander out there for everything. And Verlander has been sub-par (for his standards) this year.
So good luck depending entirely on the starting pitching the rest of the season, we'll see how those arms hold up in the playoffs.

Bob, you're exaggerating. The Tigers have an excellent rotation, but there are plenty of playoff contenders (Dodgers, Cardinals, Mariners for example) who have multiple starters better than Porcello. The fact is that y'all have up a good, cheap, controlled starter and a hard to replace center fielder for an upgrade at a position of strength. Not super wise.

If Hammel isn't a number one starter for any "functional team" and Rick Porcello is your top of the rotation guy for "every other team other than the As," you're a little... umm... I don't know what the right word is... delusional?

Even calling him Detroit's number four is bad. You've got Max Scherzer, David Price, and Justin Verlander, all Cy Young winners, and no matter how much Verlander is struggling he's still Justin Verlander. Then you've got Anibal Sanchez, who in my opinion is the best out of these four and maybe second in the AL behind Felix right now. Porcello is a five, and he'll be the odd man out if they go to a four-man rotation.

It's not even necessary to have a rotation during the postseason. You can have five players designated as starters, or you can have four with the fifth guy out of the bullpen. At some point, someone's going to try to go with three and have two starters turned into long relievers. It sounds crazy, but if you have the right three (maybe the Dodgers or Tigers), it's doable. Given that there's a bunch of break days during the postseason, having a rotation is at times counterproductive - if your best pitcher has it in him to throw 100 pitches at full strength on three days rest or on six days rest, whatever it takes, throw him. Adam Wainwright, Clayton Kershaw, Felix Hernandez - these guys could throw every day if you asked them to, and I'd bet a lot of money they wouldn't say no in the postseason. (I'm not advocating for that, by the way; that's a bit ridiculous.) I'm not sure why the teams with names like theirs even bother telling their other pitchers when they're going to throw next - give him a day to throw, an off day to golf, a day to run, and a day to throw again. Game 1, 3, 5, and 7.

ghug, I screwed up by omitting the Mariners. But perhaps I wasn't clear that I was limiting it to AL teams when discussing how Porcello would play on other playoff teams. I'd argue that Porcello's better than any starter the Angels, Orioles, Yankees, or Blue Jays might trot out. Shields and Felix are two AL starters, not on the A's on a reasonable playoff team, that are better than Porcello, though.

bosox, plenty of teams have done the three man rotation in the playoffs. Arizona won a title relying upon it.

But Porcello is, right now, a better starting pitcher than Justin Verlander, and bringing Verlander out of the pen might allow him to approach his old velocity.

Also, I'm a Cubs fan for nigh unto four decades now. I've watched plenty of Hammel, and he's a nice middle to back end of the rotation guy. He's had two seasons before this one where he had an ERA+ above 100, and one of those seasons was a 20 start season.

Angels - Jered Weaver > Porcello, Garrett Richards ~ Porcello
Yankees - Masahiro Tanaka (seriously, if you haven't seen this guy pitch - wow..) > Porcello
Blue Jays - Mark Buehrle ~ Porcello right now, not sure how long he's going to stay hot but he looks revitalized, and if he is, he's better
As - Shields, Lester, Samardzija > Porcello, Gray ~ Porcello
Mariners - King Felix > everyone else

Plenty of Hammel? He didn't even play one season with the Cubs.

Weaver's declining and Richards has emerged as a legitimate ace. I think you have them flipped there. Procello is probably better than Weaver too.

Buerhle's been about equal to Porcello this year, but he's also outperforming his FIP and xFIP by a considerably larger margin than he ever has before. Expect some regression.

The A's don't have James Shields, they have Scott Kazmir.

The Mariners also have Iwakuma, who's better than a lot of the other guys you've listed.

I think you're underrating Porcello. He finally put it together last year, and this year has only been an improvement. He's an excellent pitcher.

Arizona didn't. They used Randy, Curt Schilling, and if I remember right it was Miguel Batista and Brian Anderson(?) each starting one game in the World Series. Curt started three games, though, and (to use your phrase) having watched plenty of him, he would have started a fourth if necessary no matter how much his arm hurt or how much he bled from newly-sewn surgical scars he had.

The Yankees did it in 2009 with CC, AJ Burnett, and Andy Pettite. The Twins did it in 1991 with Jack Morris, Scott Erickson, and I wanna say Kevin Trapani (gonna have to look that up). That's why I'm saying the Dodgers, the Tigers (they won't but could), the As, and now the Cardinals could all pull it off. They've got the names - the stars.

Iwakuma was in the Cy Young race recently, either last year or the year before. Haven't heard of him since. I pay no attention to the NL West though.

I agree, Buehrle will likely regress, but he's a different style pitcher than he was with the White Sox anyway - more contact, but more movement gets him more ground balls. He's gone away from the power fastball/power breaking pitches and used his cutter to more success than he ever did before. Lefties have absolutely *no chance* against him. It's remarkable to watch, really. He's different now, and he's kind of like Porcello only Porcello was grown that way; he didn't have to adapt. Still, where he's going to regress is that his four-seamer is still the pitch he tends to use for strikeouts and it just doesn't have the life it used to, and that's not going to change.

Weaver may be declining but his numbers this year have been inflated by the last two months or so, and as far as I'm concerned in baseball, that's not necessarily a player declining, it's either him in a slump or him getting tired. He's still better than Porcello as long as he doesn't push over his limits, and he is certainly more of a #1 than Porcello would be were they to play for the same team.

I'm not underrating Porcello. He's improving, his numbers this year are fabulous, he might get his ERA below 3 if he has a good last two months, and I've seen him pitch in person - his sinker is probably one of the best I've ever seen in the bigs. He gets thrown to the wind behind the rest of the Tigers rotation but he is very, very good. I just don't see him as an ace over any of those guys I listed.

Iwakuma's basically Tanaka with better command and a slower fastball. Devastating splitter, lots of ground balls, weakness is homers but he's good at only giving them up when nobody's on base. He has one of the lowest ERA's among starters since he got to America.The Mariners are in the AL though.

Weaver's decline started last year. His fastball's slower, he's not getting the same number of popups, he's walking more guys, and he's giving up more homers. Watching him, he just doesn't look like the same pitcher.

I'd take Porcello over Weaver, Buehrle, and Kazmir based on talent alone. I'd add several more of those guys to the list if considering contract status too.

What's it matter that the Mariners are in the AL? The NL lineups aren't inherently better.

Weaver's fastball is losing its cut as it's losing speed, that's why the popups are down. Can't argue there.

If we were considering contract status and things like how much time they have left, then this conversation would be completely different. As far as I'm concerned, this conversation is based purely on the coming postseason. After that, all bets are off. If we're going that route, there are a few prospects I'd undoubtedly take over Porcello but not many.

You said NL West. I was just correcting it.

Oh, woops. Yeah, AL. I don't pay attention to either of the west coast (+ Houston) divisions...

Nobody does, which is sad, because the AL West is going to be the best division in baseball for a while.

Tanaka was a delight to watch pitch, but I don't really buy that he's going to be back on the bump this season.

Also, Shields is on KC. I doubt they're making the playoffs, but they've got a decent outside shot.

Either the AL West or the NL Central, yeah. But nobody broadcasts their games, especially not any of the games at Safeco, ESPN's baseball almost always involves some combination of the Yankees, Red Sox, Angels, or Dodgers, MLB Network is based out of NYC so they'll even admit that they put more resources into the Atlantic teams than they do the Midwest or West (but, to their credit, it's not like they completely neglect the rest of the teams like ESPN does), and the west coast teams only get attention from individual team networks for a short period of time each year because everyone has their long road trip out that direction at one time, which is good overall I think, but still, it's easy to forget about teams that you never see.

In most major sports in this country (NHL is the exception I think), the networks decide which teams have the most fans, which teams get the most attention, and which teams have to act extravagantly to keep that attention. People in general don't decide this stuff, and that's what's really sad.

Tanaka was throwing at Yankee Stadium tonight. They wouldn't have him tossing around in the outfield if he wasn't coming back.