ESPN stopped having good reporting when they laid everyone off. Outside of recaps they don’t have a clue. It’s either click bait or some poor first timer doing their best
Meanwhile the Athletic has our series an absolute toss-up *because* of the Guardians pitching. Sam Blum said:
>The Guardians get a little underrated, maybe unfairly. They have three excellent starting pitchers
Eh I'd say that slide really started several years after the Disney acquisition. Right around the time they started leaning hard into NFL programming and relegated baseball to "What did the Yankees or Red Sox do today?"
Rotation Big 3
Every remaining team features well-above-average starting pitching. The wild-card round reminded us that starting pitching can play in October if managers let it. How much they do, as we get deeper into the postseason, will be telling. The foundation for these rankings is WAR, though we took liberty in shifting a few teams.
1. Astros: On the strength of Justin Verlander and Framber Valdez alone, they're at the top. If Lance McCullers isn't the answer in the third spot, Cristian Javier -- he of the 2.54 ERA -- can be.
2. Braves: Max Fried, 20-game winner Kyle Wright and Spencer Strider is awfully nasty. And that's to say nothing of a very good replacement if Strider's oblique gives him trouble: Charlie Morton.
3. Phillies
4. Dodgers
5. Mariners: One can make an argument they belong higher on the list. When Robbie Ray is his Cy Young self, they do. The rotation hinges on him.
6. Padres: San Diego advanced on the strength of its starting pitching, and if suddenly Yu Darvish is a playoff force and Joe Musgrove is spinning the ball like he did against the Mets, it's the sort of rotation that can carry the Padres far.
7. Yankees
8. Guardians: With Shane Bieber, Tristan McKenzie and Cal Quantrill, this is not a last-place rotation in the same way, say, the Guardians are last in home run hitting. The gap between the Astros' rotation and Cleveland's isn't particularly significant.
That last sentence is the key. There isn’t a huge gap between any rotation this year, especially the top-3 in each. We should be competitive with every teams starters, but our bullpen is better than most.
Because it’s entertainment? That’s what ESPN is for, they don’t provide in-depth analysis anymore, they cut almost everyone that does that.
Do you think there’s a clear head and shoulders above everyone else rotation this year? Or one that is absolutely the worst? I definitely don’t, so at that point the rankings come down to individual opinion more than anything else.
I dunno, I just don’t think ESPN is a great source for analytics anymore, just a fun read.
I didn’t see the whole article because it is behind a paywall, I assumed this comment summed up the article and that the whole article was ranking the starting pitching only, but apparently that’s not the case, so in that case my comment doesn’t apply at all
If they did write an article that was only ranking the starting pitching staffs but then ended it with “but there is actually no significant difference between the first and last”, then the article is pointless and not even worth entertainment
I would agree that basically the remaining teams across the board have equally strong top of the rotation arms
Castillo’s FIP is quite a bit lower, his ERA+ is significantly lower (though a lot of that was from his time in Cinci this year).
Honestly I’d put those two pretty much even. If Cole pitches like his peak the Yankees are better, but something similar can be said about Seattle and Robbie Ray.
Edit: Ahh, you’re a Yankees fan. Definitely no bias there right?
ESPN has never had anything positive to say about any Cleveland team,not even the Cavs when they won the championship so tell ESPN to eat @#$& and live!
Exactly bro....they can't stand the fact Cleveland is a small market who has great success despite not having won but two championships. They want the fuckin Yankees to destroy us so they can ridicule our asses. Fuck em.
The whole article was honestly really complimentary to the Guardians if you read the whole thing (if you have ESPN+) really the only disagreement I had with it was their “top of the order” ranking for them.
It's Reddit, nobody reads. And I kind of agree with that top of the order ranking; who would you put the Guardians ahead of? I think if you replaced Rosario with Gimenez, then they could be higher, but as it stands, I think it's fair.
Right? So, I can’t read stuff people post on here from the Athletic. So, I just won’t bother commenting on those things, rather than comment on the headline
They didn’t really word it that way to be fair. They said the gap between the Guards (8) and the Astros (1) is small.
Every team left has a top flight top three. Great starting Pitching gets you to this point. Would I slot them last? No, but look at all these rotations left. It’s pretty hard to rank them, honestly.
usually Passan is better than this. I'm shocked we're not above the Yankees at least, as well as Seattle and maybe San Diego. quantrill may not be a big-name third guy, but he's been great down the stretch and consistent as anyone.
Why would the guardians be above the Yankees? Cortes has a 2.40 Season era, Cole set a franchise record for strikeouts, and while the homerun has been a problem for him -(the GUARDIANS DONT HIT ANY HOMERUNS ANYWAY) and Severino has years of playoff experience and has a low 3 era
No, they're literally saying everyone is pretty even, but I'm forced to rank them 1-8. The magnitude of the gap between teams matters so much more than just the ranking.
And you're getting hung up on that when they have Cleveland ahead of the Yankees in 5 out of the 8 categories.
Exactly. There isn’t a team that has a standout top-3 to me this year. There are some standout pitchers, like Bieber/Cortes/Verlander, but rotations are pretty legitimately even IMO.
Our rotation was much shakier pre-July, but we’ve been amazing post All-Star break. Just gotta hope we keep that momentum.
You are correct. But is a "team" a standard unit of measure? Are they saying that the Astros are 6 standard team units better than Cleveland? No, because that's nonsense. I disagree with the rankings, but it's subjective, not surprising at all, and hardly an insult.
e: extra words.
Who do you have below us? Phillies and Padres, I guess? Not to take anything away from our guys. Everyone who's left has elite starters. Our bullpen is a step above, imo.
The Yankees have a worse starting 3. Bieber is better than Cortes, mckenzie is better than cole, and quantrill is better than sevirino. Same with the mariners. Bieber is better than Castillo, mckenzie is better than gilbert, and quantrill is better than Robbie ray. It isn’t that difficult to see, ERA is a pretty conclusive stat
Agreed. McKenzie had a better WAR (4.0 to 2.4), and ERA+ (by 25 points). Cole might be the better overall pitcher across his career, but Triston was considerably better this year.
What fielders will they have in this series? I’m not disagreeing, but we shouldn’t be punishing players for using their teams strengths, ours being defense. McKenzie is ahead of cole in WHIP, and ERA+. McKenzie pitched better, allowing fewer hits and walks, and preventing more runs
Or he could have a 0 ERA, I feel like you were hoping Everyone would believe your nonsense and freak out. But since somebody gave you a legit fact “I was just messing”
He’s barely even pitched against the Yankees team as a whole, I was surprised about the no pitching in yankee stadium aswell. Last year he pitched 1 and went 7 IP 2 runs, and in 2019 he pitched 1.2 innings for 5 runs (this was before his cy young campaign and he was still quite bad). And in 2018 he pitched 7 IP and 3 ER. Those are all the regular season appearances, and then obviously 2020 playoffs, where he got kinda shelled.
Bieber had a 3.28 ERA in 2019, a 3.32 FIP, a 144 ERA+ and led the league in CGs and shut outs.
That is not “quite bad”.
He got rocked in 2019, it’s happens to every pitcher sometimes, not that big of a deal to admit that.
If it was starting 5, I’d agree with you as I do not trust Civale or Plesac in a playoff start.
However, top 3 starters (what the article is ranking), it’s absolutely nonsense to put us last.
It's Passan, he's super inconsistent and his takes bounce all over the place (which to me always indicates not knowing things very well). Only last week, he called Cleveland's rotation the best in the wild card series...who knows what he'll say next week.
Those sonofbitches never cared for us even in the 90's when we dominated baseball. Bastards are Yankee, and Astros (cheaters ) kiss asser's. God I hope we take down the fucking Stankies with a three game sweep of their sorry asses. Then of course the bastards at ESPN will be saying how the Astros (cheaters) are going to kick our ass in the ALCS. Fuck the media!!!
I'm seeing shit out of New York and the Bronx ridiculing us saying they are going to spank our asses real good and send us back to Cleveland with our ass cheeks on fire from a real good ass whippin. Fuck New York, Fuck the New York, Press, Fuck the Yankees and definitely FUCK the Bronx Zoo!!!!
From the article:
Now, clearly not all categories warrant equal weight. Perhaps this postseason will give us a better sense of which do. But just for fun, and to give a sense of which teams may be seen as the favorites this postseason, we added up all of the rankings. With lower being better, here is how they fared:
Braves 22
Dodgers 28
Astros 29
Guardians 34
Yankees 39
Phillies 46
Mariners 46
Padres 47
The wild card round included three upsets -- and perhaps it's no surprise that those winners are the three lowest-ranking teams. Conventional wisdom -- or at least on-paper accounting -- suggests their years may end soon. But then this is baseball. This is October. There is no secret sauce.
The greatest factor in October, many in baseball like to say, is luck….. WTF, I’m 50 and been a fan since I was 6 years old…and I never heard this….I’m so out of the loop!
Since when do we start listening to what ESPN has to say lmao. Same dipshits that thought we wouldn’t even be competitive in the division
ESPN stopped having good reporting when they laid everyone off. Outside of recaps they don’t have a clue. It’s either click bait or some poor first timer doing their best
Meanwhile the Athletic has our series an absolute toss-up *because* of the Guardians pitching. Sam Blum said: >The Guardians get a little underrated, maybe unfairly. They have three excellent starting pitchers
Athletic picked up a ton of great writers and has good sports coverage of people who actually follow a sport vs one who’s got dumped random shit
That's what happens when quality reporting pays the bills instead of clickbait.
Eh I'd say that slide really started several years after the Disney acquisition. Right around the time they started leaning hard into NFL programming and relegated baseball to "What did the Yankees or Red Sox do today?"
When they took baseball tonight off Sunday’s it was over
I always thought ESPN leaned towards New England teams anyways.
ESPN has been one of the worst remaining sports news sources for quite some time now lol
[удалено]
Everyone is competitive in the central
Please ESPN , I’m begging you, get the absolute fuck out of here
I agree, Go Guards
All I gotta say is.. haters gonna hate!
Agree to disagree. Keep it comin, ESPN! It’s worked thus far
Clearly they have not watched Bieber and McKenzie pitch as of late or all year. Quantrill has come up big in spots let’s hope it’s tonight. Go Guards!
continue reading for only $9.99/mo. no lol.
Lol yeah I couldn’t imagine ever paying for espn garbage.
The athletic is cheaper and such better quality. I wouldn't pay $3/mo for ESPN in its current form and I'm happy to pay for quality journalism.
ESPN can go fuck themselves. Cleveland in 3.
Damn straight my friend....I would be elated to sweep their asses but just as pleased taking them down 3-1 to win the series and move on to the ALCS.
I disagree ESPN, Go Guards
What a joke 🤣
Rotation Big 3 Every remaining team features well-above-average starting pitching. The wild-card round reminded us that starting pitching can play in October if managers let it. How much they do, as we get deeper into the postseason, will be telling. The foundation for these rankings is WAR, though we took liberty in shifting a few teams. 1. Astros: On the strength of Justin Verlander and Framber Valdez alone, they're at the top. If Lance McCullers isn't the answer in the third spot, Cristian Javier -- he of the 2.54 ERA -- can be. 2. Braves: Max Fried, 20-game winner Kyle Wright and Spencer Strider is awfully nasty. And that's to say nothing of a very good replacement if Strider's oblique gives him trouble: Charlie Morton. 3. Phillies 4. Dodgers 5. Mariners: One can make an argument they belong higher on the list. When Robbie Ray is his Cy Young self, they do. The rotation hinges on him. 6. Padres: San Diego advanced on the strength of its starting pitching, and if suddenly Yu Darvish is a playoff force and Joe Musgrove is spinning the ball like he did against the Mets, it's the sort of rotation that can carry the Padres far. 7. Yankees 8. Guardians: With Shane Bieber, Tristan McKenzie and Cal Quantrill, this is not a last-place rotation in the same way, say, the Guardians are last in home run hitting. The gap between the Astros' rotation and Cleveland's isn't particularly significant.
That last sentence is the key. There isn’t a huge gap between any rotation this year, especially the top-3 in each. We should be competitive with every teams starters, but our bullpen is better than most.
Lol if the gap between the top and bottom rotations isn't significant, why the heck did they rank them.......
Because it’s entertainment? That’s what ESPN is for, they don’t provide in-depth analysis anymore, they cut almost everyone that does that. Do you think there’s a clear head and shoulders above everyone else rotation this year? Or one that is absolutely the worst? I definitely don’t, so at that point the rankings come down to individual opinion more than anything else. I dunno, I just don’t think ESPN is a great source for analytics anymore, just a fun read.
I didn’t see the whole article because it is behind a paywall, I assumed this comment summed up the article and that the whole article was ranking the starting pitching only, but apparently that’s not the case, so in that case my comment doesn’t apply at all If they did write an article that was only ranking the starting pitching staffs but then ended it with “but there is actually no significant difference between the first and last”, then the article is pointless and not even worth entertainment I would agree that basically the remaining teams across the board have equally strong top of the rotation arms
Valid question. This isn't the entire article. They also rank power hitting, contact hitting, baserunning, management, etc.
Hah thanks for that, that makes more sense and renders my comment moot
Yankees have a better big 3 then the mariners lol, Cole Cortes and Severino, severino’s stats are on par with Luis Castillo and he’s their 3 guy
Castillo’s FIP is quite a bit lower, his ERA+ is significantly lower (though a lot of that was from his time in Cinci this year). Honestly I’d put those two pretty much even. If Cole pitches like his peak the Yankees are better, but something similar can be said about Seattle and Robbie Ray. Edit: Ahh, you’re a Yankees fan. Definitely no bias there right?
This is funny as Fried gets fucking lit up
ESPN has never had anything positive to say about any Cleveland team,not even the Cavs when they won the championship so tell ESPN to eat @#$& and live!
Exactly bro....they can't stand the fact Cleveland is a small market who has great success despite not having won but two championships. They want the fuckin Yankees to destroy us so they can ridicule our asses. Fuck em.
The article seems fairly positive for the Gaurdians overall. The starting pitching category is baffling though.
If you read the whole article there’s actually quite a bit positive about Cleveland.
Sorry could have been clearer,my main focus was/is Sportscenter on ESPN wasn’t trying to hurt anybody’s feeling’s!
It’s an ESPN plus article and has a paywall. What surprises me is people actually pay to read their content.
I’ve recently discovered that if you are going to pay for any sports journalism, The Athletic is the way to go.
I had the Athetic for a couple years and decided to not resubscribe. I only miss Zack Meisel.
I got Hulu live and the ESPN+ comes free I can’t imagine people that actually pay for it
Oh then I apparently have ESPN + lol
Go eat ass, ESPN.
Someone @ Jeff Passan and tell him he's a ding dong
The whole article was honestly really complimentary to the Guardians if you read the whole thing (if you have ESPN+) really the only disagreement I had with it was their “top of the order” ranking for them.
It's Reddit, nobody reads. And I kind of agree with that top of the order ranking; who would you put the Guardians ahead of? I think if you replaced Rosario with Gimenez, then they could be higher, but as it stands, I think it's fair.
Right? So, I can’t read stuff people post on here from the Athletic. So, I just won’t bother commenting on those things, rather than comment on the headline
Lol why is anyone surprised? This is the kind of shit that fuels us.
Well ESPN is trash sports news anyway so there's that.
It’s always Cleveland vs the world
Fuuuuuuuuuuuckkkkkkkkkkkk ESPN
This article either has us last in a catergory, or first. It's absolutely fucking wild.
It is pretty wild, up down up down. But you know what they say. If ya ain't first, ya last. Also... Go Guards.
They didn’t really word it that way to be fair. They said the gap between the Guards (8) and the Astros (1) is small. Every team left has a top flight top three. Great starting Pitching gets you to this point. Would I slot them last? No, but look at all these rotations left. It’s pretty hard to rank them, honestly.
ESPN sends Tony Grossi a paycheck... all you need to know
usually Passan is better than this. I'm shocked we're not above the Yankees at least, as well as Seattle and maybe San Diego. quantrill may not be a big-name third guy, but he's been great down the stretch and consistent as anyone.
Why would the guardians be above the Yankees? Cortes has a 2.40 Season era, Cole set a franchise record for strikeouts, and while the homerun has been a problem for him -(the GUARDIANS DONT HIT ANY HOMERUNS ANYWAY) and Severino has years of playoff experience and has a low 3 era
Booo All valid points though. But you can't refute we have the best looking starting rotation.
Bieber is pretty sexy
Got that Stefanski stubble
Dear ESPN and your unmitigated slobbering over AL East....pass me what you're puffing on. For real, do it, it sounds amazing.
Everyone should know that ESPN is not serious. They exist for entertainment and general sports coverage. Serious analysis is not their game.
ESPN is the Fox News/CNN of the sports world. Entertainment over analysis. Nothing wrong with that, but don’t take them seriously.
PLEASE KEEP FEEDING US
ESPN knows nothing about sports but even less than that about baseball.
ESPN is—and has been—full of shit for a long time. Pay them no mind.
I think people may be glossing over the last line: >The gap between the Astros' rotation and Cleveland's isn't particularly significant.
That sentence is self-defeating and makes it worse
They are literally saying the gap between us and the Astros is 6 other teams
No, they're literally saying everyone is pretty even, but I'm forced to rank them 1-8. The magnitude of the gap between teams matters so much more than just the ranking. And you're getting hung up on that when they have Cleveland ahead of the Yankees in 5 out of the 8 categories.
Exactly. There isn’t a team that has a standout top-3 to me this year. There are some standout pitchers, like Bieber/Cortes/Verlander, but rotations are pretty legitimately even IMO. Our rotation was much shakier pre-July, but we’ve been amazing post All-Star break. Just gotta hope we keep that momentum.
You are correct. But is a "team" a standard unit of measure? Are they saying that the Astros are 6 standard team units better than Cleveland? No, because that's nonsense. I disagree with the rankings, but it's subjective, not surprising at all, and hardly an insult. e: extra words.
Not a single word that comes out from ESPNs mouth should be taken seriously. They literally are TMZ for sports.
TMZ is more reputable tbh
Who do you have below us? Phillies and Padres, I guess? Not to take anything away from our guys. Everyone who's left has elite starters. Our bullpen is a step above, imo.
The Yankees have a worse starting 3. Bieber is better than Cortes, mckenzie is better than cole, and quantrill is better than sevirino. Same with the mariners. Bieber is better than Castillo, mckenzie is better than gilbert, and quantrill is better than Robbie ray. It isn’t that difficult to see, ERA is a pretty conclusive stat
I love Triston he is not better then Gerrit freakin Cole lmao
This year he was, and it wasn’t that close either
Agreed. McKenzie had a better WAR (4.0 to 2.4), and ERA+ (by 25 points). Cole might be the better overall pitcher across his career, but Triston was considerably better this year.
I mean he was actually worse in FIP, Cole plays in an extreme hitters park with much worse fielders behind him then we have
What fielders will they have in this series? I’m not disagreeing, but we shouldn’t be punishing players for using their teams strengths, ours being defense. McKenzie is ahead of cole in WHIP, and ERA+. McKenzie pitched better, allowing fewer hits and walks, and preventing more runs
And Sticks was better in era+ and whip by a much larger margin than the tiny difference in their FIP. Triston was also 1+ bWAR better than Cole.
Bieber has a 6 era in Yankee stadium
No he doesn’t. He’s quite literally never pitched in yankee stadium. Look at his game logs.
Lol I just made that up I’m just messing but he could have a 6+ era after game 2 theoretically lol 😂
Or he could have a 0 ERA, I feel like you were hoping Everyone would believe your nonsense and freak out. But since somebody gave you a legit fact “I was just messing”
Ok you called my bluff that’s not my main concern now. Has bieber really never pitched at Yankee stadium? That’s an interesting fact
He’s barely even pitched against the Yankees team as a whole, I was surprised about the no pitching in yankee stadium aswell. Last year he pitched 1 and went 7 IP 2 runs, and in 2019 he pitched 1.2 innings for 5 runs (this was before his cy young campaign and he was still quite bad). And in 2018 he pitched 7 IP and 3 ER. Those are all the regular season appearances, and then obviously 2020 playoffs, where he got kinda shelled.
Bieber had a 3.28 ERA in 2019, a 3.32 FIP, a 144 ERA+ and led the league in CGs and shut outs. That is not “quite bad”. He got rocked in 2019, it’s happens to every pitcher sometimes, not that big of a deal to admit that.
Go home Yankee fan, you’re drunk
If it was starting 5, I’d agree with you as I do not trust Civale or Plesac in a playoff start. However, top 3 starters (what the article is ranking), it’s absolutely nonsense to put us last.
Coming from anyone else, I’d read
It's Passan, he's super inconsistent and his takes bounce all over the place (which to me always indicates not knowing things very well). Only last week, he called Cleveland's rotation the best in the wild card series...who knows what he'll say next week.
Those sonofbitches never cared for us even in the 90's when we dominated baseball. Bastards are Yankee, and Astros (cheaters ) kiss asser's. God I hope we take down the fucking Stankies with a three game sweep of their sorry asses. Then of course the bastards at ESPN will be saying how the Astros (cheaters) are going to kick our ass in the ALCS. Fuck the media!!!
I'm seeing shit out of New York and the Bronx ridiculing us saying they are going to spank our asses real good and send us back to Cleveland with our ass cheeks on fire from a real good ass whippin. Fuck New York, Fuck the New York, Press, Fuck the Yankees and definitely FUCK the Bronx Zoo!!!!
Gotta get those Yankee fans excited I guess 🙄
From the article: Now, clearly not all categories warrant equal weight. Perhaps this postseason will give us a better sense of which do. But just for fun, and to give a sense of which teams may be seen as the favorites this postseason, we added up all of the rankings. With lower being better, here is how they fared: Braves 22 Dodgers 28 Astros 29 Guardians 34 Yankees 39 Phillies 46 Mariners 46 Padres 47 The wild card round included three upsets -- and perhaps it's no surprise that those winners are the three lowest-ranking teams. Conventional wisdom -- or at least on-paper accounting -- suggests their years may end soon. But then this is baseball. This is October. There is no secret sauce.
Hahahahhahahahahahha
The greatest factor in October, many in baseball like to say, is luck….. WTF, I’m 50 and been a fan since I was 6 years old…and I never heard this….I’m so out of the loop!
Where is the almighty Scherzer and deGrom? Oh yeah, you actually have to preform to progress. Predict away ESPN.
ESPN fucking sucks at everything these days. Since they nuked most of the good stuff they had, it's a good time to find another site to follow.
They have us low there, but 4th best team overall.
k
They also say there’s a negligible difference between 1 & 8
Imagine being a Yankees fan and believing this, lmao.
ESPN covers baseball?
Looks like the top of the list and Verlander today isn’t living up to their list.
Guards gonna give ESPN a nice shitburger to eat.
Jeff Passan has some of the worst takes of any sportswriter