[hiaspire]

Finding that elite young ace makes such a huge difference with pitching being so valued. How do the Rox shape up with #1 or #2 type pitchers on the near horizon? And hopefully that humidor keeps working for their sake.

Francis and Morales potentially seem to fit the bill and would give us two LHP to build the rotation around with Hirsh, Cook, and Reynolds/Jimenez. We score pretty highly both in terms of 5 man depth as well as a strong 1-2 punch possibility. The only problem in ranking the Rox amongst other teams, however, is that most teams have a pretty good 1-2 punch that would seem to be in place for 2010 if things go as expected.

These guys are probably better than us at the top of the young rotation:
MN - Santana, Liriano, Garza
DET - Bonderman, Verlander, Miller
FLA - Willis, Sanchez/Olsen/Johnson
SF - Cain, Zito, Lincecum/Sanchez
LAD - Schmidt, Billingsley, Kershaw, Elbert, Penny
BOS - Matsuzaka, Papelbon, Beckett
CLE - Sabathia, Miller/Lofgren
LAA - Weaver, Adenhart, Lacky

These other guys are similiar to us but a stronger proven #1:
HOU - Oswalt, Jennings, Patton
TOR - Halladay, Burnett, Romero
SD - Peavy, Young, Carrillo
STL - Carpenter, Wainwright/Reyes/Garcia
MIL - Sheets, Gallardo, Capuano
CHC - Zambrano, Veal/Samardzija
TB - Kazmir, Niemann/McGee
SEA - F.Hernandez (at least in terms of talent), Morrow/Butler

These guys are pretty strong:
CHW - Buehrle, Danks/Gonzalez/Broadway/Garland
OAK - Harden, Haren
AZ - Webb, Davis, Owings/Nippert
BAL - Bedard, Loewen
CIN - Bailey, Harang, Arroyo
NYY - Hughes, Wang, Sanchez/Betances/Chamberlain

NYM - Pelfrey, Humber
PHI - Hamels, Myers/Carrasco
TEX - McCarthy, Hurley/Volquez/Diamond
ATL - Davies, Harrison, tons of depth but maybe not a strong 1-2 unless Hudson gets back
PIT - Lincoln, Snell/Duke

We're certainly better than a couple of teams that really need to focus more on young arms:
KC - Hochevar, Meche, Greinke
WAS - Balester, Willems

Having Francis and Morales emerge as front-of-the-rotation pitchers to build around certainly seems like a very strong step forward for this organization and a strength that could show more muscle than we've ever had potentially, however, it doesn't look all that different from the 1-2 punch you see around baseball for the most part unless Francis truly becomes one of the best aces in the league like some other teams have to bolster the front of the rotation with a true ace.

The Rox are probably lower top 15-20 in this list, but deserve some credit for developing potential aces like they haven't before. I would have thought they deserved an A previously before looking around the league, but looking at the overall development picture I think it is more like a B- for this team at best, and that is mostly based on improvement from previous years of being at the bottom of such ace lists. Morales is just in his first season of being a top 100 type prospect with much to prove still, and Francis did it last year certainly but isn't as established and reliable as most other aces just yet.