McCutchen.

You can win without evryday impact players. You CAN'T win without pitching.

Leave poor herb alone. You realize he is just an alternate screen name for one of our most infamous trolls?

"You can win without evryday impact players. You CAN'T win without pitching. "

Neither the Rangers or the Cardinals had great pitching last year, ranked 12th and 13th. But they both had a top 5 offense. If a team scores 3, you can score 4, if a team scores 6 you can always score 7 but you can never give up negative runs

Haha, yeah.

But don't you think pitchers are a little more hit or miss ? You know Trout, Harper and McCutcheon are going to have great careers ..you can't go wrong with 1 of these 3.

That was only true once. Pitching got SF there the year before and truly won it for them, with some timely hitting it played out perfect.

STL had some good pitching but all there starters hit the DL at least once skewing that ranking too.

Pitching is vitale, and anyone down playing is offensively biased IMHO, and rightfully so. However pitching is way more important than showing up every 5 days.

A 20 game winner is at a way higher premium than is an everyday position player.

They're pitching kept them in games. I guess you're right though, the old adage, "good pitching beats good hitting" is BS.

"That was only true once"

Sure about that?

2011
St Louis-5th in offense, 12th in pitching
Texas-3rd in offense, 13th in pitching

2010
San Fran-17th in offense, 1st in pitching
Texas-5th in offense, 10th in pitching

2009
Philly-4th in offense, 8th in pitching
Yankees-1st in offense, 12th in pitching

One team in the last decade won the world series with less than 3 players with an OPS under .800(the 05 white sox). If pitching was so crucial why didn't San Fran win in 2009 or 2011 with basically the same staff? In 2010, on May 28th they were 25-22(.532) and in 3rd place and then Buster Posey came up, after that point they went 67-48(.583). So if pitching mattered that much then why did one OFFENSIVE player raise them up that much? Do you honestly believe that they would have won in 2010 if it wasn't for Posey?

"the old"

There is your key word right there. Times change, what was true back in the 70s isn't true today

That is a concern, but anyone can get injured. So, since jerm said you don't need pitching, just guys that hit, I change my pick to Albert Pujols.

I'll take the 5 best SPs and the best closer in MLB. Then piece together some solid MLB players.

You get the five best hitters in MLB, and then you get to piece together some solid pitchers.

I bet I whip your @$$ over the course of 162 games.

Yep you can skew stats all you want, CC was lights out for the Yanks, it was SF being 1st in pitching that "won" it for them, and STL was a combination of defense and pitching that got them in it last year, although the workd series turned into a slug fest.

Im not saying you can have no offense, but just like defense wins in football, pitching wins in baseball. On days when your facing the next teams ace, you have to have one of your own.

A top 5 offense and an above average pitching staff(10-12 range) has proven to make it consistently to the world series the last 3 years. That is all the fact I need

McCutcheon-rF
Cargo-LF
Tulo-SS
Votto-1B
Wright-3B
Trout-CF
Cano-2B
Ruiz-C

I will put that lineup against any pitcher in the league

Verlander
Hamels
Cain
Haliday
Price

Over 162 games against your line-up? BWAHAHAHA

"On days when your facing the next teams ace, you have to have one of your own."

Which is why we beat Johan twice with Travis wood right?

"CC was lights out for the Yanks, "

Yea, but last time I checked he didn't pitch every game, or even 4 games in the world series

"it was SF being 1st in pitching that "won" it for them"

So if Posey never comes up, do you think they still win the world series?

"STL was a combination of defense and pitching that got them in it last year"

They were average in both, it was having one of the best offenses that helped them.

Because those guys throw shutouts every game right? They have been hit numerous times by much worse lineups.