2015 Washington Nationals Pitching Staff vs other great staffs

Last year I compared the 2014 Detroit Tigers to the 2011 Philadelphia Phillies and the 1998 Atlanta Braves pitching staffs.  Given the hype surrounding the 2015 Washington National's pitching staff, I thought I'd do the same comparison.

The 2015 Washington Nationals are quite scary, with Max Scherzer, Stephen Strasburg, Gio Gonzalez, Jordan Zimmermann, and Doug Fister leading the charge.  They were widely considered the best starting rotation even before signing Max Scherzer in the off season.

Lets add the 2015 Nationals to the same tables in created in the prior post.  I also updated the tables for the Tigers 2014 staff to be through the year 2014.

Cy Young Voting Place	Braves 1998 staff through 1998	Phillies 2011 staff through 2011	Tigers 2014 staff through 2014	Nationals 2015 staff through 2014
1st	7	3	3	1
2nd	2	2	2	0
3rd	4	3	1	1
4th	2	4	1	0
5th	1	4	2	2
6th or lower	1	3	3	3

Compared to the 2011 Phillies and 2014 Tigers, the Nationals staff doesn't compare on this chart.  While all of the pitchers are really good, most haven't yet appeared to have made a mark of "elite" and been in Cy Young contention.  As a relatively young staff, they all still have that potential, but it's not there yet.

Of course, Cy Young votes aren't the best indicator.  Lets look at WAR.

WAR	Braves 1998 staff through 1998	Phillies 2011 staff through 2011	Tigers 2014 staff through 2014	Nationals 2015 staff through 2014
3.0 <= WAR < 4.0	7	5	3	7
4.0 <= WAR < 5.0	6	5	8	8
5.0 <= WAR < 6.0	6	5	1	0
6.0 <= WAR < 7.0	3	6	4	2
7.0 <= WAR < 8.0	3	1	1	0
8.0 <= WAR	4	3	1	0

While they seem to lack some of that "greatness" that some of the staffs had, with Cy Young wins and high war seasons, all five of their pitchers for the Nationals have been consistently very good.  No pitcher on the pitching staff had fewer than atleast two 3.0 WAR seasons.  That's incredible depth and there's a lot of potential for the group.  The above doesn't even include Tanner Roark, their 5.0 WAR pitcher from 2014 that has now been put into the bullpen.

If this pitching staff sticks together, the chart above would look very insane for the Nationals.  Unfortunately, that's unlikely given Doug Fister and Jordan Zimmerman are free agents after 2015.