Another dominant regular season as we're on pace for 122 wins. No worries here.
The offense is its usual greatness but the pitching hasn't exactly been dominating this year. Looking at these numbers it's actually a little better than I thought (especially WAR-wise) but despite a good zone rating our DE and hence our BABIP are poor. Have two 70s up the middle in Frick and Morioka and a 65 CF in Crater (before he got hurt) so not sure what the issue is.
Is having 9 guys on pace for nearly 4 WAR or better (and a 10th for 3) a good thing? I think it is. If I wanted to nit-pick I'd note that reserves like Laboy and Davila have been pretty lousy so far).
Coming into the year who had Bob Riley as our best starter and Jose Morales as our top reliever? At least by WAR they are so far. Gordie Ager's homers allowed stand out like a sore thumb and I'm not sure what's wrong with Satoshi Sato. Yeah there's the .373 BABIP. But there's also the 5 homers allowed in 27 innings. One interesting guy here is Dave Rose. I've used him exclusively as a reliever and went he needed rehab at Durham the AI put him in their rotation and he made a couple of brilliant starts. Then I noticed he really does have 3 quality pitches, 70 stamina and 70 stuff as a starter. So I'm seriously considering moving him into the rotation especially with Caleb Ramos pretty pedestrian in the role after being so good in middle/long relief.
Bottom line is that this staff isn't currently filling me with confidence for getting through the playoffs. In this next month I'll maybe swing a deal (although every pretty good young starter I inquire about brings me back a "you have no player who makes this work" response) or give Rose a shot to see if the rotation can be improved.