If the Twins could pick their ace?

The Star Tribune did a write up over the weekend about the Twins search for an ace since Johan Santana left. I did a spin off piece this morning on my blog since I saw Tim Lincecum when I was in Arizona last weekend. The Trib listed seven pitchers in all of baseball that qualified as being aces.

This got me thinking...

If the Twins could have one of these players to build their rotation around, who would it be and why? Here are the candidates and I will let the discussion begin.

• Justin Verlander
• CC Sabathia
• Roy Halladay
• Tim Lincecum
• Cliff Lee
• Clayton Kershaw

Clayton Kershaw. He is 24. Second youngest is 3 years older

Thats like asking if you want a Mercedes or a Jaguar. Right now though you have to go with Verlander. His is the best of the best. Can't go wrong with any of them. My second choice would be Kershaw.

Verlander for me...

Verlander also.

Kershaw. This team isn't an Ace away from a championship so I go with the younger guy.

While I really like Verlander, the only reason I wouldn't take him is because of the mileage on his arm. While I do not want to get too focused on pitch counts (because going over 100 pitches isn't necessarily a bad thing), he has thrown over 120 pitches in a game 32 times in his career. Combine that with the innings pitched in recent years and you can see some of those factors taking their toll on him.

Cliff Lee. Lee and Halladay have AMAZING control (which the Twins obviously love) and Lee's a year young than Halladay. Verlander's scary because he relies a lot on his velocity, which has drop ever so slightly the last few years and will continue to drop with age. Kershaw's youth is great, but outside of last year he's struggle with control, and he's had a career of fortunate batting averages on balls in play which indicates that he could be getting very lucky.

Marquis (cough, cough)

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Ultima Ratio

Marquis (cough, cough)

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I'm sure that's only because Livan Hernandez isn't available.

I'd go with Verlander this year, but if this question gets asked again at the end of this season I'll go with Kershaw.

If this is multiple years, I would go with Kershaw, he's young and not as much wear. For this year alone, I think I would pick Halladay.

An aside: where is Felix Hernandez? I know this is from the Strib, but I feel like he should be in this conversation, especially if Lincecum is.

Dave: BABIP is not all luck based, they been able to show that there is some ability by pitchers to affect it. Greg Maddux's career BABIP was .281, don't tell me he was lucky for 22 years. Granted Kershaw still probably falls into a small sample size argument, but his only year above .275 BABIP was his rookie year where he only threw 107.2 innings. (I am in no way comparing Kershaw to Maddux just using an example that I knew what a lowish career BABIP)

Verlander. Age + durability = slam dunk.