I was talking before they got Lee.
Ian Snell? Carlos Silva? Jason Vargas? Ryan Rowland-Smith? Garrett Olson?
The Nats starters are no worse.
Um....Erik Bedard. That's 15 starts that are better than the entire starting staff of the Nats combined. He's a punk, a clubhouse pariah, and a quitter, but he's fantastic when he bothers to pitch. Let's look at their pitchers, other than Felix, with 10 or more starts last year.
Rowland-Smith has been league average or better in K/9 his two of his three years, had his WHIP go 1.4, 1.37, and 1.18 in those three years, and has had a league average or better FIP each of those years. He'll be 27 at the end of January and is just hitting his stride.
Vargas, who is 27 in February, put up his highest IP total so far and had league average K/9 and WHIP.
Luke French, a 24 year old rookie, struggled.
Ian Snell was worse than league average in K/9 for the first time in his career. His WHIP and FIP were both below league average as well.
Garrett Olson, all of 25 last year, had league average WHIP but below average K/9 and FIP.
Doug Fister, a 25 year old rookie, was better than average in WHIP, slightly below average in K/9 and below average FIP.
Brandon Morrow, another 25 year old, who had primarily been a reliever up to that point, had way above average K/9 and below average WHIP and FIP.
Let's see. That gives them two potential #1 SPs until Bedard goes down. They also had Rowland-Smith develop and a couple of rookies got their feet wet at the MLB level with good numbers.
That's 2 guys clearly better than Lannan at this point, 1 who most would say is better, and a bunch of others who were given a shot. Add in a good bullpen and there's no real comparison to be made as far as what Seattle had last year compared to the Nats.
