Top 5 Starters in Baseball

If a playoff team had him this season, don't you think they'd shelve him now and bring him back in September? If I managed a playoff team I'd find away to get him into the 3 or 4 man playoff rotation in 2010.

 

No love for Verlander eh?

 

Do you really think Verlander is one of the top 5 starters in baseball? Career ERA just under 4 and a playoff flop to boot?

 

Verlander is good. Real good. Just not top 5.

Strasburg won't be a top 5 guy in my mind until he can pitch 6-7 innings without throwing 100 god damn pitches. I know it's not his fault batters keep swinging and missing, it's just frustrating seeing his pitch count hover in the 80s and 90s in the fifth and sixth innings.

In no order...Halladay, Jiminez, Johnson, Lincecum, Sabathia/Lee.

 

That sounds right to me

 

I can dig that.

 

Unless you are judging by weight - CC Sabathia is not one of the top 5 starters in baseball

 

1. Ubaldo Jimenez
2. Josh Johnson
3. Stephen Strasburg
4. Roy Halladay
5. Phil Hughes

 

Unless you're a blatant Red Sox fanboi, Jon Lester is not among the Top 5 starters in baseball.

 

I mean, is Jon Lester in the top 10 even? I never once thought of him when thinking about the top 5. Not once.

 

Maybe not at any given moment. But if I'm constructing a starting staff, he's on there. He's good for 35 starts a year, like clockwork, and 230-250 innings a year, also like clockwork. Plus, an ERA right around 3. No drama with this guy, over the long haul, and you want a guy like that around.

 

The guys on this list are not exactly that old, and you have players like Latos, Hernandez and Kershaw about to really break through.

Amazing how baseball has changed after a few hearings in D.C.