The Wild Card Race--the Marlins, cont'd

On Friday we compared the Nationals' and Marlins' position players. Today we'll compare their pitching staffs.

WASHINGTON

Pitcher	H/9	BB/9	K/9	HR/9	VORP
Patterson	7.14	2.92	8.71	0.61	45.60
Hernandez	9.82	3.15	5.39	0.61	36.80
Loaiza	9.14	2.30	6.78	0.83	34.40
Armas	8.08	4.24	4.93	1.28	13.70
Drese	9.86	3.40	3.88	0.32	1.20
Ayala	9.98	1.69	4.64	0.84	16.90
Majewski	9.00	4.00	4.83	0.17	13.60
Carrasco	6.99	3.88	5.63	0.97	14.90
Eischen	9.45	4.05	7.65	0.00	3.50
Stanton	10.80	1.35	2.70	0.00	3.20
Cordero	6.68	1.89	7.40	0.58	24.60

FLORIDA

Pitcher	H/9	BB/9	K/9	HR/9	VORP
Willis	8.25	1.91	6.50	0.38	49.00
Burnett	7.69	3.18	8.04	0.52	34.30
Beckett	7.32	2.76	8.22	0.62	29.30
Moehler	10.58	2.51	4.95	0.61	28.70
Vargas	5.56	3.97	7.54	0.00	7.30
Mecir	8.54	2.54	6.92	0.46	8.30
de los Santos	10.23	4.91	6.55	1.64	-1.30
Messinger	8.22	8.22	5.28	0.59	2.50
Mota	8.82	4.14	7.74	0.72	4.10
Kensing	17.47	4.76	6.35	3.18	-3.50
Jones	6.10	2.09	7.32	0.17	24.20

The Marlins have a core of very good young pitchers. Willis, Burnett, and Beckett all are top flight pitchers who should be with the Marlins for a very long time. We say "should" because they all may not be there for long; for salary reasons the Marlins tried to deal Burnett before the trade deadline. Brian Moehler has been effective as a fourth starter, and in a limited showing Jason Vargas has been good so far. That's a very good starting five, assuming that Vargas can continue to be effective.

The Marlins' bullpen has some significant weaknesses. They have an effective closer--Todd Jones--and a fairly effective set-up man--Guillermo Mota, but they don't have a whole lot of depth in the bullpen. Indeed, it's pretty hard to pull together from their roster a list of four middle relievers you'd want for the long term. As you can see from some of those statistics, the Marlins have to shudder when they turn the ball over to the relief core in the sixth and seventh innings.

As a set, the Marlin's starters are better than the Nationals' because of the comparison of the fourth and fifth starters. Tony Armas and Ryan Drese are not as good as Moehler and Vargas, although, again, we're making some assumptions about Vargas given his limited appearances to date.

The teams' closers are both good, and it's hard to pick one over the other.

Where the Nationals outclass the Marlins is in their middle relievers. The Nationals have a depth to their bullpen that the Marlins just don't have. For that reason, we'd call the comparison between the two teams' pitching staffs pretty close, with the Marlins perhaps having a slight edge because of the strength of their fourth and fifth starters.

Given that the Marlins have the better hitting lineup, we'd have to say that they have the better team, although it's a lot closer than one would have thought going into the season. We're a little puzzled as to why the Marlins aren't doing better this season given their very good young talent. Perhaps it's because the talent is young, but the Marlins should have challenged the Braves for the title this year. Despite their relative mediocrity this season, this is a team that should be very good for a very long time.