Their starting pitching has more question marks than ours, with less upside in the prospects than ours, and they play in a division 453 million times more difficult than ours. They're not getting .500 this year.
I absolutely agree their SP has more question marks than a Riddler costume. The question is, was their three SPers turnaround that coincided exactly with Showalter's arrival a matter of coaching, or are they just highly unreliable and it was a coincidence? If those three can pitch to the numbers they did post Showalter, what, something like a 3-3.5 ERA by the three combined during the month and a half Showalter was there? If they can come even close to that, they are definitely a .500 team. If they pitch like they did before Showalter, they're lucky to be a .333 team.
I personally feel like they are a strong candidate to finish above .500. Likewise, they might not. But I think it's foolish to say they definitely aren't a .500 team at this point in the game. Right now all we have to go on is their offseason, which was unquestionably pretty decent. And then we can also go on how they performed after Showalter arrived, which was spectacular all things considered. If those two things hold up, there's no way they aren't a .500 team. But if Showalter was a fluke, and the leftover talent from last year performs even remotely close to the pre-Showalter era, despite their improvements, they are a guaranteed last place in the AL East, .400ish team. I just don't think the massive upswing we saw when Showalter arrived, that lasted for over a month, was a fluke that'll totally revert come April.
