Padres Starting Pitching: The Best One-Two Punch in the NL

Despite the fact that Carlos Silva and Kyle Lohse are commanding multi-year contracts worth 10 million a year, there are actually some good starting pitchers out there. And even though it's been a while since we had a tandem of starters dominate in the way that Johnson and Schilling did in the early 2000's, some teams are lucky enough (or smart enough) to have a pretty dominating pair of front-line hurlers.

I'm going to take a look at which National League team has the best one-two starters as we head towards the '08 season.

As much as I like tandems like Sheets/Gallardo and Lincecum/Cain, they haven't put it all together consistently enough to be considered elite yet. Carlos Zambrano and Ted Lilly are fun to watch and truly skilled pitchers, but their walks and inconsistency scare me a little. Even John Smoltz and Tim Hudson are just a hair less dominant and durable than the pairs of starters that the D-Backs and Padres have.

Brandon Webb/Dan Haren and Jake Peavy/Chris Young are the obvious choices for the league's most dominant pair. The last two NL Cy Young Award winners are each paired with guys who have recently come into their own, and both pairs will be truly dominating next year.

That said, I'm going to have to go with Peavy and Young.

Arizona fans might take issue with this choice, since it’s not like Webb and Haren are going to be confused with Kevin Millwood and Kameron Loe anytime soon. Webb and Haren combined for 33 wins and 250+ quality innings, so the D-Backs have every reason to be excited about their starters—but they don’t dominate in the same way that their NL West counterparts do.

Peavy and Young were 1st and 4th respectively in K/9 last year, while Webb and Haren were nowhere to be seen in their league's top 10. While batters facing Webb and Haren were pathetic (OPS allowed of .630 for Webb and .692 for Haren), Peavy and Young were even less hittable (OPS allowed of .584 for Peavy and .578 for Young). 

I don't have to say much more about Peavy; he won the Cy Young because he led the NL in everything from wins to Ks to ERA to VORP. There's no question that he was the best pitcher on the planet last year, and he should continue to peak in '08.

Chris Young doesn't have Cy Young awards to his name (how appropriate would that be!) but his numbers are great. Going 9-8 with an ERA barely above 3, while making 30 starts for the 3rd straight year is amazing in itself—but his numbers become even more impressive once we get past the surface. 

After he strained his oblique muscle on July 24th, Young went 0-5 with a 5.96 ERA. Think the injury had something to do with his slide? I mean how does a guy start 9-3 with a 1.82 ERA through four months and go into complete free fall?

Now that he’s had the offseason to heal, Young looks to be a front-line starter once again. I know that he’s older than Peavy, but at age 29 and with his share of big-league experience, he should be one of the best arms in the NL.

Some might suggest that Haren’s move from the AL to the NL could spark an Arroyo-esque improvement, but we have to remember that he’s moving from a pitchers park to the hitter-friendly Chase Field. 

And in case anyone was thinking of suggesting that Peavy’s only as good as he is because of spacious Petco Park, check out these road numbers from last season: 10-1 with a 2.57 ERA.

As far as Young is concerned, his fly-ball rate makes him more valuable at Petco than he would be elsewhere, but this doesn’t mean that his great home numbers are somehow an illusion. He’s simply a perfect fit for his home park.

Though Webb and Haren are a close second to their NL West rivals, they could very well come out on top in ’08. When determining the best one-two punch in the National League, however, we cannot ignore the dominating performances that Peavy and Young had in ’07. They are the best going into 2008.

Honorable Mentions: Smoltz/Hudson, Zambrano/Lilly, Penny/Lowe (or even Billingsley), Sheets/Gallardo, Maine/Perez, Cain/Lincecum, Chico/Bacsik (just kidding).