Over at our SB Nation counterpart Bleed Cubbie Blue, Jessica wrote a diary examining who was the #1 and #2 starter for each team in the Major Leagues. She choose ERA as her metric - nothing wrong with that. While there are many others or combinations of such she could have chosen, she wanted to keep it simple. Simple is always good. But I think she made an error when evaluating the Marlins, this is what she came up with:
Dontrelle Willis was the official ERA leader of the Marlins at 3.87. Second was Scott Olsen posting a 4.04 ERA. Neither Sanchez nor Johnson, or anyone else for that matter, qualified with the required number of innings. For a player to qualify they must throw as many innings as games the team plays. In other words, 162. Willis and Olsen were the only two pitchers on the Marlins staff to achieve that level.
Sanchez and Johnson, at least until the time Johnson went down with an injury, were great but they didn't officially lead the team in ERA. Now, Jessica may be using a different minimum and that's cool - it's her choice and her post.
So why am I wasting your time with this: it's the off-season and I am scrounging for anything.
Oh, if on the very off-chance Al or anyone else from the Bleed Cubbie Blue community reads this post - that is one cool Holiday logo!