Ranking NL East starting rotations: Braves have work to do
By James Kunkle
The entire month of March, we here at Tomahawk Take have ranked the entire National League East teams by strength at each position.
Today we take a shot with the starting rotations and of course that includes the Atlanta Braves.
The first thing you will notice is the NL East is loaded with ridiculously good starting pitching. With that said, we have tried to sort it out by both depth and the quality of each team’s starting five.
With that said, let’s jump right into it.
5. Miami Marlins
Once again, the Miami Marlins find themselves at the bottom of a ranking. However, I still say the Marlins have improved the entire team since the end of last year, and that includes the starting rotation.
The rotation will be anchored by the team’s lone All-Star from 2019 and that, of course, is Sandy Alcantara who quietly had a very nice 2019 season and ended the year with a 3.88 ERA.
Following Alcantara will be the likes of Jordan Yamamoto and Atlanta Braves old pal Jose Urena.
Yamamoto, in particular, came out of the gate in his rookie year last season and was throwing the ball very nicely before he hit the proverbial wall towards the end of the campaign. It will be interesting to see if he can put together a full good year whenever we get started in 2020.
Atlanta Braves know all too well what Urena is and brings to the table. Hopefully he can just control his pitches a tad better this year, especially when he is facing the Braves in particular.
The Miami Marlins will round out their rotation throwing out pitchers like Pablo Lopez, Caleb Smith, and Elieser Hernandez.
As I said above, the Marlins surely look to be a better team on paper as we head into the start of the 2020 season, but even still, they look to have the least enticing starting rotation group within the National League East as we head into the 2020 season.