Bleacher Bums Forum

I've never been a fan of "if you remove the first inning" type theoreticals.  The numbers are what they are.  All the innings count.

Hendricks has a 4.26 FIP and 3.89 xFIP, and those numbers aren't far out of line with last year.  He has outperfrormed his FIP stats for his career, so maybe you assume he's good enough at the "intangibles" side of pitching to do that consistently, but not enough to be a #2 type starter.  He and Lester and both probably #4s at this point, maybe optimistically one of them can pitch like a #3 the rest of the way.  Maybe Lester can get an adrenaline rush and ride his red-ass nature to a good postseason, if his tank has anything left in it.  As for Quintana, he's a complete wildcard.  Again, Darvish coming back and pitching like a TORP is really the key to any long postseason run.  It may not be likely, but if he's actually healthy he'll have a month to tune up before the playoffs, and go in with the freshest arm in the rotation.  I'd certainly bet on him doing it over Lester, Hendricks or Quintana.