Starting Rotation

[Bay_Areas_Finest]

PEORIA, Ariz. -- Mariners manager Eric Wedge finalized his pitching rotation Monday, and the group includes top prospect Michael Pineda, who'll be Seattle's No. 5 starter to open the season.

The rotation will be Felix Hernandez, Jason Vargas, Doug Fister, Erik Bedard and the 22-year-old Pineda, who erased any doubts about his readiness with a strong spring, in which the 6-foot-7, 260-pounder posted a 2.12 ERA in 17 innings, with 15 strikeouts.

"It was wide open coming in," Wedge said. "You saw what I saw, a guy that was very consistent and kept getting better. And as we lengthened him out, he handled that very well. There were situations we thought he handled very well that he'll have to go through in the course of the regular season. All that enters into it."

So what do you guys think?

To me, the rotation has the potential to be EXTREMELY GOOD, or EXTREMELY POOR (or mediocre).

We know what Felix brings, but the rest is very unknown. We've seen Fister domiante games, so hopefully he regains that pre-injury form. I'm not sold on Vargas, especially after he slumped near the end of the season. I see his ERA upping to the mid to high 4's. Bedard still has the ability to give you a low 3.00 ERA with a ton of strikeouts, and he says he hasn't felt so good in a while. We will see.

I'm excited about Pineda though, and I've been on his bandwagon for a while. I think the kid has electric stuff and will end up the #2 behind Felix. He'll have some growing pains, but so much talent there.

Just a lot of "IF's" when it comes to the rotation. With our still weak offense, they have to be awesome this year for us to contend on any level.

[TTown]

Fister's pre and post-injury splits are astounding. I'd love to find a happy medium there. He got in a groove in July/August again, allowing 3 runs or less in 6 of 8 starts before faltering in September. When he's bad he's bad, but you can't teach 6'7 and his release point seems to give opponents fits.

Vargas rocks at home, but he scares the hell out of me in road starts. A lot was made of Vargas taking on Cliff lee's approach to games last year, but you're right, he really seemed to forget the lessons down the stretch. I don't know. As a #4, I like him a lot. As a #2, not so much. He seems to coast through a lot of innings, but when he gets in trouble everything goes to hell. The damage rarely seems to get limited to a run or two.

All I know about Erik Bedard is that he gave us 15 starts in '08 and 15 more in '09, and he was outstanding. Then July hits, and his shoulder shuts him down. When he's on the mound, he's highly productive. Can he stay there? Lost in our surprisingly solid '09 season was that we had four months of Felix, Bedard, and Wash all below 3 in the era department. Our pitching was sick, and he were able to score just enough to win a lot of series. We know Felix is going to rock our socks off, but Bedard is entirely capable of doing it, too. If nothing else, hopefully he'll keep us from the obligatory 4 game losing streaks in-between Felix starts.

Kudos to Pineda for winning the final spot... not that his competition was really stacked against him. I think he'll start off well, the trick will be to see how he responds once the film gets broken down and his tendencies get around the league. He's got the stuff. Any preliminary words on initial pitch counts?

[Bulltalk]

Hernandez...best in the game. Vargas...competent pitcher, winning pitcher with an above average lineup behind him. Fister...we'll see, but a .500 pitcher is fine. Bedard...if he can come back from injury, he could be a great 4th starter. Pineda...our new golden boy.

I'm okay with this staff. And we have some more good arms down on the farm.