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Piazza Polishes Whooping Stick

As everyone is aware by now, Roger Clemens has signed a one-year deal with Los Houston Astros. Personally, I've hated Clemens for a while. More specifically, since he joined the Yankees after the 1999 season in a trade for David Wells (plus Graeme Lloyd and Homer Bush).

Now that Clemens has signed with Houston (joining fellow Texan, workout buddy, devout Christian, and candidate for most overrated pitcher in baseball Andy Pettitte), I don't harbor such bad feelings for him. Much of the animosity stemmed from his multiple run-ins with Mets slugger and latent heterosexual Mike Piazza. Besides, as a baseball fan it's hard not to root for the best pitcher in the past forty years not named Tom Seaver.

Anyways, in the wake of Clemens' deal, ESPN.com's Sports Nation added a new poll asking readers which team they thought had the best rotation. Their choices look like this:

Houston Astros
Roy Oswalt (10-5, 2.97)
Andy Pettitte (21-8, 4.02)
Roger Clemens (17-9, 3.91)
Wade Miller (14-13, 4.13)
Jeriome Robertson (15-9, 5.10)

New York Yankees
Mike Mussina (17-8, 3.40)
Kevin Brown (14-9, 2.39)
Javier Vazquez (13-12, 3.12)
Jose Contreras (7-2, 3.30)
Jon Lieber (injured)

Oakland A's
Tim Hudson (16-7, 2.70)
Mark Mulder (15-9, 3.13)
Barry Zito (14-12, 3.30)
Mark Redman (14-9, 3.59)
Rich Harden (5-4, 4.46)

Boston Red Sox
Pedro Martinez (14-4, 2.22)
Curt Schilling (8-9, 2.95)
Derek Lowe (17-7, 4.47)
Tim Wakefield (11-7, 4.09)
Byung-Hyun Kim (9-10, 3.31)

Chicago Cubs
Mark Prior (18-6, 2.43)
Kerry Wood (14-11, 3.20)
Carlos Zambrano (13-11, 3.11)
Matt Clement (14-12, 4.11)
????

Florida Marlins
Josh Beckett (9-8, 3.04)
A.J. Burnett (injured)
Dontrelle Willis (14-6, 3.30)
Brad Penny (14-10, 4.13)
Carl Pavano (12-13, 4.30)

Of course, I wouldn't mind if my team sported any of these staffs. As of now, the poll results look like this:

23.7% Boston Red Sox
21.6% Oakland A's
20.2% Chicago Cubs
17.8% Houston Astros
11.4% New York Yankees
 5.2% Florida Marlins

For the record, I voted for the Red Sox. For a very elementary comparison, I am going to use Bill James' Win Shares to come up with a value for each staff. I am only going to use the top four pitchers for a number of reasons. Firstly, I don't know how many win shares ???? recorded for the Cubs last year. Also, Jon Lieber didn't pitch at all last year and only pitched 141 innings in 2002. Since A.J. Burnett only pitched 23 innings last season I will use his win shares from 2002 (thanks to baseballtruth.com).

2003 PITCHING STAFF WIN SHARES

TEAM        WIN SHARES
A's         69 (Hudson 23; Mulder 17; Zito 18; Redman 11)
Cubs        68 (Prior 22; Wood 18; Zambrano 18; Clement 10)
Yankees     67 (Mussina 19; Brown 20; Vazquez 21; Contreras 7)
Red Sox     61 (Martinez 20; Schilling 15; Lowe 12; Kim 14)
Astros      49 (Oswalt 10; Pettitte 15; Clemens 15; Miller 9)
Marlins     49 (Beckett 11; Burnett 14; Willis 14; Penny 10)

I'll admit that this comparison is crude and rudimentary. Curt Schilling, who averaged 24 win shares in 2001-2002 only earned 15 in 2003 due to injuries. Roy Oswalt and Wade Miller also missed time last season, but sported win share averages from 2001-2002 of 17 and 15, respectively.

If the Cubs end up signing Greg Maddux, this table wouldn't look much different because Maddux had only one more win share (11) than Matt Clement. However, Clement's 10 win shares are better than most #5 starters, which is what he would be on that staff. The A's, Cubs, and Yankees are the cream of the crop here, with the Red Sox very close given a full season of Shilling and Tim Wakefield's 12 win shares.