Flotsam and Jetsam

Miscellaneous thoughts and observations.

One thing that jumped out at me when looking at the stats for the Texas Rangers was the fact that they had just one pitcher qualify for being ranked for the ERA crown. You needed 162 IP to qualify and only Kevin Millwood among the Rangers starters qualified. Among the teams to make the playoffs in the AL - the Red Sox had three (Curt Schilling just missed making it four). The Indians had three (Jake Westbrook just missed making it four). The Angels had two (but Jered Weaver missed by one inning and Ervin "Magic" Santana missed by just 12 innings). The Yankees had two (Wang and Pettitte). As far as the NL teams making the playoffs - the Cubs had 4 qualify, the Diamondbacks had three, the Rockies had three and the Phillies just two. I guess my point is that if you want to make the playoffs you really meed at least three starters who will at the very least eat up a lot of innings for you if you want to have a sniff at the playoffs. Of course you can also pay to have an all-star at every position like the Yankees... Dr. Z has a very nice appreciation of discuss genius Al Oerter who recently passed away... Speaking of eating innings - Tom Glavine will probably decline his $13 million option to stay with the Mets probably as early as today. Over the five years he's been with the Mets - Glavine has averaged a little over 200 IP per season. That is not easily replaced. I know that Glavine faded down the stretch for the Mets but I will say that I think that if the Braves had Glavine's innings this season then the Braves would have made the playoffs. And I think that a rotation of Smoltz, Hudson and Glavine would have been tough to beat for any of the NL playoff teams. Of course hindsight is 20/20 and this is assuming that John Shuerholtz would have Glavine back..