We really cant answer the OP's question till the end of the year. Otherwise, the question should be "Best Rotation Ever For A Month".
In hindsight, the 1991 rotation would have been the best on paper... if everyone was healthy and in their prime at the same time... but instead they lost 90+ games... some of this is tongue-in-cheek: Pete Harnisch x1 All-Star Jim Deshaies x1 All-Star, 1 HOF vote Darryl Kile x3 All-Star Curt Schilling x6 All-Star Mike Scott x3 All-Star Mark Portugal x1 Silver Slugger (oh I miss the NL)
I think I'd be ok with our entirle 1-5 starting rotation making the all star game, 1 inning each. no bias.
On pace for best rotation ever in WAR. Fangraphs Depth Chart Projection (which includes LMJ and Morton each missing about a third of the season, Cole missing 3 starts, and with Peacock, McHugh, Whitley filling in) has them finishing around the 15th best ever. Fangraphs depth charts thinks pretty highly of Peacock and McHugh as starters(i.e., there are about 10-11 teams without a better starter in per inning projections).
It's obviously too early to make any proclamations of this magnitude. I think Verlander and Cole are gonna be Cy Young front runner dominant, and I think DK can still end the year with a low 3 ERA. Morton and LMJ have never stayed healthy, Peacock has one awesome year, and McHugh is just decent. After Cole and Verlander, I can't for certain say any of the other guys are going to have dominant years. But the simple fact that nobody considers it a ridiculous statement is pretty f**king impressive in itself.
If Cole and Verlander are Cy Young dominant the rest of the year, it is going to be very hard for the Astros not to have the best rotation WAR ever.
Especially when you consider McCullers has our worst ERA at 3.72, and its only that “bad” because of one outing He has given up 2 earned or less in 6 of 8 starts, and 3 in one of the others Keuchel, who most say is out “5th” best now, has given up 3 or less in 7 of 8 starts himself Our rotation is ridiculous
Rotation is SICK.... True 80's Stros Offense might still repeat. Do you trust Giles ?? ____ Thread is almost One Year Old. Seems longer
I absolutely trust Giles as the everyday closer, there is no reason not to Offense is 6th in runs, 8th in OPS Not what we expected or wanted, but it only seems to be so bad because of the expectations This team is going to his a big run and will end up with 105+ wins
Nice history 90 losses.... I assume Home Offense (and Road) was an issue. I really asked tongue-in-cheek. But NO, you NOT trust Giles. Why, because there's already obvious reason NOT to. Hinch didn't TRUST him by midway through the playoffs. Now, if you meant, "We need him and his success maximizes the bullpen because of the remainders' qualites/skill-set" --- ABSOLUTELY !!!. True. 108 is still doable and it nets a TWICE as many Wins as Losses percentage --- maybe Top 20 All-Time record.
A follow up by the Ringer... https://www.theringer.com/mlb/2018/...b-no-hitter-overload-move-mound-rhombus-field Two weeks ago, I sat through an Astros homestand where there was a no-hit bid every night. I was certain Gerrit Cole had it when he kept the Angels off the board through four innings on Monday night, and I was bouncing in my seat when Nick Tropeano and Justin Verlander had dueling perfect gamesthrough three innings two days later. On Friday, Dallas Keuchel and Sean Manaea both got through the first three innings without allowing a base runner, and on Saturday Lance McCullers kept Oakland hitless through five. There was a no-hit bid worth getting excited about in just about every game. I brushed it off as the combination of a hot week from the Astros’ superb starting rotation and Baader-Meinhof effectafter Manaea no-hit the Red Sox the week before.
There are two ways to look at that. 1) In the context of Run Differential, we look very solid indeed. 2) That Run Differential is NOT a very good predictor Personally I am skeptical, because all too often, we pile up on runs in blowouts and have stretches of 10 innings or more where we struggle to score a single one. Sorta like there is high leverage pitching situations, there are high leverage hitting ones also. Scoring in tight games is a bit different than in blowouts. That said, we have trouble with the former. So one could say that our runs scored and OPS is inflated. But one could also those stats say its a indicator that we are better than we look. Could be the glass half empty or full argument.
Or it could just be that no matter how you break down how many runs they score in certain games... it all evens out over a long season.
You could make that point. But I am not sure its true, in fact I know its not always true. Remember Texas having that all season (2 seasons?) long record in winning 1 run games? Remember all year(s) long everyone predicting the law of averages eventually presides? And it didnt? The thing is, we dont know if it will even out or not. Or if it does, when. The root question is how good is our offense, really? I just looked up EXWL (Expected W/L record). 31-10. That is 6 games better than we are (25-16). Either the pendulum will swing in the direction of us winning more close games (moving towards our current EXWL), or moving away from it in the form of our EXWL diminishing (in regards to our actual WL record) as the season wheres on.
Pendelum will not swing in favor of Astros because Astros had bad sequencing already. It might out of good luck, but what has happened can't be undone. Bad sequencing is not predictive. Bad sequencing may continue. It may not. If Astros had as much good sequencing as they've had bad sequencing, they would 33-8.
The Astros have 11 games of 8 or more runs (10-1), and 12 games of 1 or less runs (1-11). That is extreme offensive polarity that is virtually a guarantee to not continue. The question then becomes will the offensive outbursts stop happening, will the zeros stop happening, or the seemingly most likely scenario that the offense falls somewhere in between more often than not. So far we are 14-4 in the games that don't have one of those polarized offensive results.
The polarity thing is what I was thinking, hadn't found the words yet. One thing ive noticed is our offense is like a gas can. Without a spark, it just sits there and smells bad, but ignite it, and everyone in the offense seems to feed off of it. Last year, this used to happen commonly, where this year its occasionally.
Order of things. Getting a walk before a homer instead of after. Winning by 10 one day. Losing by 1 the next. Outside of relief pitching, teams don't have much control over sequencing. From a sequencing standpoint, Astros are the second worst team in the majors.
