I want you to prove that rotation is mediocre. You've said it repeatedly, you are wrong, and I'd like for you to produce some sort of evidence that Zambrano, Harden, Lilly, Marquis, Marshall is a mediocre rotation. Here's what those five guys' career ERAs as a starter are, and how many starts you can anticipate them making (based on history): Zambrano 3.47 32 Lilly 4.34 28 Harden 3.38 17 Marquis 4.47 32 Marshall 4.67 17 That leaves 36 starts to be absorbed by other members of the pitching staff -- relievers, minor leaguers, whatever. We'll give that group of fillins a collective ERA of 5.00. Run the numbers and your starting rotation as a whole puts up an ERA of 4.27. Here's how a 4.27 starters' ERA would rank amongst NL clubs in the last 5 years: 2008 8 2007 5 2006 4 2005 10 2004 10 That's an average ranking of 7.4 out of 16. Looks mediocre to me. FWIW, Philly's starters' ERA in '08 ranked 7th in the NL; St. Louis's starters' ERA in '06 ranked 12th. Hope this helps. good job with the numbers, now you can impress the masses