The NL Central Rotations

In this afternoon’s impromptu chat session, I was asked which team I thought had the best rotation in the National League Central. This question was clearly inspired by the Brewers recent acquisitions of Zack Greinke and Shaun Marcum, giving them three formidable starters to match up with the group down in St. Louis. However, I didn’t choose either of those rotations as my pick for the best in that division. Instead, I went with the Reds, with the caveat that Aroldis Chapman ends up starting for them. Am I nuts? We’re somewhat lucky in that Dan Szymborski has already unveiled his 2011 ZIPS projections for these three clubs, so we can use his system to stack up their starters side by side. Let’s start off with the Reds, while keeping in mind that ZIPS is not projecting playing time for a given roster – it is just estimating what a player would do if he was given the allotted amount of innings in the big leagues next year. For reference, league ave...