but pitching is becoming dominant now again, a combo of good and plentiful relief pitching and better PED testing maybe.
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Right on about the dominant pitching.
My grandson StL fan and I had told him early last year that the year of the starting pitcher will be gone before long, the teams will get someone to go 3 strong innings (much like a junk pitcher in HS - get through the lineup and we will take it from there) then end up with a string of 4-6 hard throwers, get a couple innings out of them every other day or so....
Will cut back on salaries for awhile.
Actually the Nationals were close to that last year, Storen 7th, Clippard 8th and Soriano 9th(UGH)..(thought that was a bad move ALSO think Lombo leaving bad)...
Then St Louis had a bunch of young Turks with strong arms, good K-BB ratio and speed.
“...that the year of the starting pitcher will be gone before long, the teams will get someone to go 3 strong innings (much like a junk pitcher in HS - get through the lineup and we will take it from there) then end up with a string of 4-6 hard throwers, get a couple innings out of them every other day or so....”
I’ve heard that idea, it sounds great on paper. Maybe it could work, pitchers sure are better the least amount of times through the line up. It could be the average relief pitcher is good enough to make it work, but the problem is that most of these flame throwing 95+ relievers are being groomed for three outs right from the get go. You don’t see many long relievers usually throwing that hard or being that effective, on the other hand they are usually only used when you have to use them as a last resort today. It would probably have to be an iffy team, like the Rockies tried to do.
Lombo was a gritty player, I really dug him. But man Fister is 9th in WAR among any starting pitcher for the last three years. That’s better than any of the Nats starters. With a 90 mph fastball. It’s that sinker and change, they just beat the ball into the ground.
FReegards