What's the Nationals' starting five for 2012?

And that led to two conclusions:

First, buehrle is a lot better than i had realized. Eleven seasons of 200+ innings and double digit wins, a 120 career era+, career k/bb ratio of about 2.5/1, doesnt walk people, totally shuts down the running game – the guy’s been good. Still, i’m not sure i’d want to give him – or any FA pitcher – more than two years.

But here’s the second thing. Tommy Milone looks an awful lot like the next Mark Buehrle. Buehrle came up at age 21 – became afull time starting pitcher at age 22- with less minor league experience than Milone has now, but with the same 86-87 mph “heater” coupled with superb control. You look at Milone’s milb stats the last 3 seasons, and you would certainly consider him a prime candidate for the major league rotation ( hs’s got a much better milb record than detwiler, for example). The only reason most folks dont consider him that way is that 87 mph thing. Which is why i find the buehrle comp so instructive. Buehrle’s fasrball last year was 85.6 (per fangraphs) and at age 22 it was still under 87. But i imagine he’ll be getting 10+M a year from someone, and we’ve got Milone for mlb minimum.

My main point is just that of our 3 lefty options – lannan, detwiler, and milone – milone is the buehrliest of them all, so I would really like him to get a full shot at the 5th slot in the rotation.

As for the starting five: Strasburg, JZimm, anvd Wang have three slots; I assume Rizzo will take a serious run at buehrle or Oswalt. If he lands one of them, then my prediction is that Lannan is traded, and the 5th spot goes to one of the young guys – my vote is for Milone, with Det going to the pen and Peacock waiting in Syr – but I am not terribly confident that’s how it works out.

If they sign someone and Lannan isn’t traded (and they’re not just going to give him away), then Detwiler goes to the bullpen. He’s actually been extremely effective out of the bullpen, and that may end up being his destination. In that case the rotation would be Zimmermann, Strasburg, FA, Lannan, Wang, with Stammen and Detwiler in the long man roles and Storen, Clippard, Rodriguez, Mattheus and Burnett in the bullpen. If they sign a FA I think Gorzelanny is the odd man out, and gets non-tendered. Even if they go with 13 pitchers (unlikely, I think Davey would want an extra bat on the bench) I doubt that they would go with three LHP (Detwiler, Burnett and Gorzelanny) in the pen.

Let me introduce you to Stephen Strasburg and Jordan Zimmermann. Both were impact performers last year, and both should be pitching significantly more innings in 2012 than they did in 2011. That’s not a good rotation in and of itself, but it’s a heckuva start. I’m not sure that “cheap good free agent pitchers” really exist. Every year a couple of reclamation projects do well on the cheap (Freddy Garcia in 2011) but most don’t (Brad Penny). If you knew who was going to do well, they wouldn’t be cheap.

What pitchers are you recommending they Nationals go after?