Twins 2013 ERA

[John Bonnes]

Here are the Twins pitching staff's ERA since 2006, except I'm going to skip one year:

 

2006 - 3.95

2007 - 4.15

2008 - 4.16

2009 - 4.50

2011 - 4.58

2012 - 4.77

 

That is a shockingly consistent trend. (The year I left out was 2010, which matched 2006's 3.95 ERA because Carl Pavano, Francisco Liriano and Brian Duensing all put up fantastic numbers in the rotation.)

 

That suggests that the meltdown in the Twins starting rotation that we experienced last year was a long time coming, which I would say was verified when they turned to the minors last year and found an assortment of non-prospects and waiver wire pickups.

 

(I also suppose the 2010 season could also suggest that a team can overperform considerably from what should be expected.)

 

But my question is, what do we expect this year? What ERA is reasonable?