Good post. How many playoff games has The "Big Tuna" won without Bill B.
YYM: let me see if I can get the years right this time... Bruce Chen (2005): 13-10, 3.83 ERA, 1.27 WHIP, .248 BA against. Bruce Chen (2006): 0-7, 6.62 ERA, 1.71 WHIP, .331 BA against. Three-thirty-one batting average! Chen is much, much worse. So, that's two. I said "several," and that is too strong, I'll grant you. Cabrera is worse, but not "much, much worse." Bedard is slightly better. Ponson was replaced with Benson. So, out of five starting pitchers, 2 are VERY worse, 1 is kinda worse, 1 is marginally better, 1 is N/A. Not a good percentage. As for the competition effecting Mazzone's success: I wasn't comparing his Braves staff of last year to his Orioles staff this year. I was comparing apples to apples. The Orioles' competition hasn't changed since last year. Bottom line: the Orioles staff as a whole is doing worse since Mazzone showed up, not better. Much worse. Three-quarters of a run per game worse. That's bad.
