Friday, May 30, 2025

Newsletter Excerpt, May 26, 2025 -- "Philadelphia Story"

 

This is a preview of the Joe Sheehan Baseball Newsletter, an e-mail newsletter about all things baseball, featuring analysis and opinion about the game on and off the field from the perspective of the informed outsider.

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Despite losing Aaron Nola to the IL, the Phillies have the best starting rotation in baseball, in fact lapping the field -- a full win, by FanGraphs -- better than the Royals. The Phillies have had a top-five rotation by this measure in each of the last five seasons, and in that time they are simply running away from the rest of the league.

TSOP (The Starters of Philadelphia)* (SP fWAR, 2021-25)

             

             IP    ERA    FIP    fWAR
Phillies   3840   3.97   3.79    75.0
Astros     3890   3.64   3.95    60.7
Dodgers    3550   3.64   3.97    58.7
Braves     3767   3.87   3.85    58.1
Giants     3405   3.85   3.58    57.3


The gap between the Phillies in first and the Astros in second is larger than the gap between those second-best Astros and the 17th-ranked Royals.