Murph was pontificating on Thurs 9/13 towards the beginning of the show that Trachsel would be a good candidate to win tonight because Trachsel pitched in the AL East against tough Boston and NY Yankees competition (he gives credit to Stoney for this idea...)

Against the Red Sox and Yankees, Trachsel has a total of 4 starts... the same as he has against the Angels and the Indians. He has only ONE start against the Yankees all year, and that was early in the season. Hell, Odalis Perez of the AL Central Royals has as many starts against the Yankees and Boston. The simple fact is that the typical MLB rotation is 5 games in length, and the typical series lasts only 3 games... so it is pretty well randomized who you are playing against in a given year.

Also, wouldn't the quality of your pitching be more important than the teams that you've pitched against? Take any given AA club and they'll lose 90% of their games against a major league club. However, I would not magically make them a favorite when they go back to a AA schedule. The actual skill of the players is way more important.

I'm going to give Stoney the benefit of the doubt and assume he was speaking about this in regard to everyday players or possibly even the bullpen... but that logic makes no sense to me in regards to starters without looking at the actual number of times he started against them.

I don't understand how pitching against the Yankees and Red Sox has anything to do with winning a game against the Astros tonight. Did that make him a good candidate to win against the Dodgers? Is every game he pitches a winnable game because he pitched in the AL East?

If his point is that pitchers moving to the NL from the AL East might fare slightly better, I would probably agree. But to distill that general point down to a specific situation seems pretty dumb

Sure helped against the Pirates.

Stone's original point (made a long time ago) specifically concerned Lilly and how he would do over the course of the season with the Cubs. His contention (with which I concur) is that in the AL East, you are regularly facing better hitters than can be found in the NL Central. Going to an easier division would help a Lilly have a better SEASON record than he would in the AL East. I certainly didn't take it to mean that anyone coming out of the AL East would dominate whatever game they pitched in the NL Central.

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You cannot make me care about the WNBA.

I'll do one better than Steve and say if you pitch in the AL and move to the NL, in general, you'll be better off since you have to pitch against a DH in the AL and you don't have to in the NL.

How has that theory worked for Barry Zito? He went from the AL west to the god awful hitting NL west. Terrible offensive teams in that division. I think Zito's ERA is in the high 4's. Maybe even 5's

I think the theory is pretty lame since it is probably about the 34th or 34th factor in a pitcher's success when switching teams...