Also, Atlanta activated right-hander Jair Jurrjens from the disabled list to start against the San Francisco Giants. Right-hander Randall Delgado, who pitched six hitless innings Tuesday, was optioned to Gwinnett.

the braves have about 9 really good major league caliber starting pitchers. but you know what's kinda funny? the phillies have 3 guys better than all of them.


you know what would really suck, though? if the braves ever trade some of these guys, they might actually have a shot at winning the division.

Well, Helms is not a guy I ever expected to see come back.

the braves have about 9 really good major league caliber starting pitchers. but you know what's kinda funny? the phillies have 3 guys better than all of them.

I get Halladay over Jurrjens, and if I squint and ignore the fact that Jurrjens numbers are hurt by his health issues, I could also see Lee over him, I just don't see Hamels over him.(of course you also have to ignore the age difference to even pretend that either Hamels or Lee is in the conversation with Jurrjens going forward)

you know what would really suck, though? if the braves ever trade some of these guys, they might actually have a shot at winning the division.

Pretty sure they'd rather win it for a few years in a row when the Phillies rotation is in walkers.

the braves have about 9 really good major league caliber starting pitchers. but you know what's kinda funny? the phillies have 3 guys better than all of them.



I get Halladay over Jurrjens, and if I squint and ignore the fact that Jurrjens numbers are hurt by his health issues, I could also see Lee over him, I just don't see Hamels over him.(of course you also have to ignore the age difference to even pretend that either Hamels or Lee is in the conversation with Jurrjens going forward)

It's funny you dismiss Hamels over Jurrjens on the basis of age, but implicitly dismiss Worley on the basis of inexperience.

Yeah, Jurrjens is younger than the better Hamels, and better than the younger Worley, but that doesn't mean he's better and younger than both.

It's funny you dismiss Hamels over Jurrjens on the basis of age, but implicitly dismiss Worley on the basis of inexperience.

I dismiss the first 9 starts of any legitimate pitching prospects career. From what I've seen it takes at least that long for the league to catch up to them. There are exceptions of course, but for the most part it seems to take about 8-11 starts for the league to catch up to a good pitching prospect so I don't begin to look at the pitcher until after their ninth start of their first full season.

I get Halladay over Jurrjens, and if I squint and ignore the fact that Jurrjens numbers are hurt by his health issues, I could also see Lee over him, I just don't see Hamels over him.(of course you also have to ignore the age difference to even pretend that either Hamels or Lee is in the conversation with Jurrjens going forward)

i'm not a huge FIP guy, but all of jurrjens's luck factors are off the chart this year. the BABIP is .264. the LOB% is 81. only 33 of the 118 hits he's allowed have been for extra bases. the HR/FB ratio is 7.5 which is low, but admittedly not unsustainably low.



just to get right to the heart of the matter, if halladay, lee, hamels, and jurrjens are all FAs, and all of them are willing to sign with your team for 5 years/90 million, which of the 4 would you laugh out of the room?

I get Halladay over Jurrjens, and if I squint and ignore the fact that Jurrjens numbers are hurt by his health issues, I could also see Lee over him, I just don't see Hamels over him.(of course you also have to ignore the age difference to even pretend that either Hamels or Lee is in the conversation with Jurrjens going forward)

Through their respective age 25 seasons, Hamels and Jurrjens totals are awfully similar, with Hamels having about a 50 IP advantage and 1 point ERA+ deficit. Jurrjens will make up the IP difference in the process of completing this season in all likelihood, of course, and may pick up another point or two of ERA+. OTOH, Hamels will have thrown two more full seasons (assuming his current shoulder problem isn't serious) at an AS level without missing any significant time at the MLB level. Hamels K and K/BB rates are also significantly better, which should bode well for his future while Jurrjens' are less so, and if Hamels HR rate this year is an indication of a real improvement rather than a fluke, he could easily be much better than Jurrjens from here on out.

Lee's actually the more interesting case, since his 2008 looks like the real outlier, and though he's been very good since, it's not impossible to imagine trajectories for Hamels/Jurrjens/Lee where Lee falls off more quickly in the future. A 5.5 K/BB and .6 HR/9 rate over the last 4 seasons probably indicates some chance of him achieving something like this, though too (era-adjusted, of course).

Well, now I want Ray King back.

just to get right to the heart of the matter, if halladay, lee, hamels, and jurrjens are all FAs, and all of them are willing to sign with your team for 5 years/90 million, which of the 4 would you laugh out of the room?

In order of the loudness of my laugh, Hamels, Jurrjens, Lee, Halladay. Of course I would need some type of health reassurance from Jurrjens since he has seemed to have health issues. When healthy he gets better results than Hamels, heck he's gotten better results than Hamels this year. Although to be fair, I doubt I laugh any of them out of the room, at that rate though.

Pretty sure they'd rather win it for a few years in a row when the Phillies rotation is in walkers.

the phillies payroll this year is 170 million. even assuming there'll be significant roster turnover between now and a few years, with a payroll that high, there's a lot of room to manuever.


also, despite the significant thinning of the minor leagues after the trades for blanton (adrian cardenas*, josh outman, matt spencer), lee (carlos carrasco*, jason donald*, lou marson, jason knapp*), halladay (kyle drabek*, michael taylor*, travis d'arnaud*), oswalt (anthony gose*, jonathan villar, ja happ), and pence (jarred cosart*, jonathan singleton*, josh zeid, domingo santana), there's still a lot of talent there. biddle is legit. trevor may looks dominant. julio rodriguez has broken out this year, as has austin hyatt.

and for as good as the back end of the braves pen is, in the next year, the phillies will be calling up phillipe aumont, michael schwimer, justin defratus, and joe savery.

on the hitting side, there's a bit less depth, but there's sebastien valle, matt rizzotti, cody overbeck, harold garcia, carlos rivero, freddy galvis, harold martinez, and various other low level toolsheds (jiwan james, brian pointer, aaron altherr, kyrell hudson) and bonus babies (kelly dugan, larry greene, roman quinn, mitchell walding, tyler green)



*i believe all 10 of these players have at one point been featured in BA's top 100 prospects. i guess that's the point. they've traded those high caliber prospects, plus a few others, in order to become this team that's winning at a pace that would put them at 105-57 over 162 games.

they could have held onto those prospects and hope that a few of them develop into 2.5-4 WAR players down the line, but instead, they've been traded for the best pitcher in baseball, another 2 pretty ####### good ones, an all star RFer, and a guy who was a core piece on two teams that went to the world series.

what's that line? flags fly forever?

i'm not a huge FIP guy, but all of jurrjens's luck factors are off the chart this year. the BABIP is .264. the LOB% is 81. only 33 of the 118 hits he's allowed have been for extra bases. the HR/FB ratio is 7.5 which is low, but admittedly not unsustainably low.

And Hamels isn't? he's traditionally been a 12% range for hr/fb and is 6.1 this year,unlike Jurrjens who is performing at around his career rate, I'm not too sure about the large difference of lob of 81% vs 77% for Hamels, and even that extra base hit comment doesn't really separate the two(not really sure why it matters) but Jurrjens is 28.9% of hits allowed are extra base hits, Hamels is 27.9%.

In order of the loudness of my laugh, Hamels, Jurrjens, Lee, Halladay. Of course I would need some type of health reassurance from Jurrjens since he has seemed to have health issues. When healthy he gets better results than Hamels, heck he's gotten better results than Hamels this year. Although to be fair, I doubt I laugh any of them out of the room, at that rate though.

when's the last time you looked at hamels' stats? if he wasn't playing with two of the other best pitchers in the league, he'd stand out ahead of really pretty much everyone else.

of the phillies' aces, hamels has really been the most consistently dominating. he throws 94 MPH, plus he mixes in a world class changeup, a very good cutter and a very good curveball.

halladay is more durable. lee is more flashy. but hamels is really, really, really good. and of the 4 (including the honkballer), hamels is the only one with a world series MVP on his resume.

the braves have about 9 really good major league caliber starting pitchers. but you know what's kinda funny? the phillies have 3 guys better than all of them.

The only funny thing is that you think anyone is interested in such a rankly fanboyish comment.

when's the last time you looked at hamels' stats? if he wasn't playing with two of the other best pitchers in the league, he'd stand out ahead of really pretty much everyone else.

of the phillies' aces, hamels has really been the most consistently dominating. he throws 94 MPH, plus he mixes in a world class changeup, a very good cutter and a very good curveball.

halladay is more durable. lee is more flashy. but hamels is really, really, really good. and of the 4 (including the honkballer), hamels is the only one with a world series MVP on his resume.

I'm not really badmouthing Hamels at all, note I did say I would probably not laugh at any of the four names mentioned if they asked for 5 for 90mil.

I'd take Hamels over Jair going forward with little hesitation much better stuff the guys with better stuff have higher upsides and last longer (on average)


But no one really knows the best guy going forward on either team may turn out to be someone who is not even in the conversation yet

I would trade Jurrjens for Hamels in a second, and I'm a Braves fan. If you have to rank the Braves starting pitching options, I would use an order of:

1) Hanson
2) Hudson
3) Beachy
4) Jurrjens
5) Minor
6) Teheran
7) Lowe
8) Delgado

Vizcaino could shoot up this list next year, but he's in the bullpen for the rest of this season.