Where Does the Dodgers' New Super-Rotation Rank in MLB History?
Tarik Skubal gives L.A. a superstar ace, but their truly historic advantage may be in a modern abundance of October options.
Now that we’ve had a few days to process it, the Dodgers’ blockbuster deadline trade for Tarik Skubal has elicited reactions ranging from hysteria and frustration to despair and cynicism, to defenses of the move from the Dodgers themselves (and other smart folks). This deal has become the lightning rod for virtually every debate about money in baseball: How much wealth inequality distorts competitive balance, whether a salary cap would actually address that problem — my take is that it wouldn’t, nor is that really the goal — and whether fixing any of it is worth a lockout that could threaten next season and destroy baseball’s recent momentum.
So, you know, pretty small stakes.
Lost in all the cultural hand-wringing around what the Skubal trade means, however, is the question we usually would be asking about its historical context. How does this rotation — when healthy, or not — stack up with the best in baseball history? Can Skubal, Yoshinobu Yamamoto, Shohei Ohtani, Blake Snell, Tyler Glasnow, Roki Sasaki, Justin Wrobleski, Kris Bubic and company stand toe-to-toe with the ‘90s Braves rotation or the Phillies’ Four Aces (among others) on the all-time list?
We can look at this in a few ways. One is to look at the recent résumés of the pitchers in any given team’s rotation, according to Wins Above Replacement (WAR) as a starter, adding up which rotations featured the most productive pitchers over that season + the previous two (weighted 3/2/1 for recency) to get a glimpse of a team’s established starting-pitching talent.
Doing that, we get this breakdown for the best possible 5-man rotation with these new-look Dodgers:
