Scherzer, Shields or Bust

Yesterday we took a look at the best of what's left when it came to the offense and came to the conclusion that the New York Yankees were done signing free agent positional players. That same statement cannot be said about the starting pitcher as two of the top five free agents coming into the winter are still on the board in Max Scherzer and James Shields. We have beaten a dead horse enough concerning Shields and Scherzer but what about the best of what's left in the starting pitching market? With a quick look at the list it may have to be Scherzer, Shields or bust.

All of these remaining free agent pitchers are interchangeable in my opinion so I didn't worry about ranking them as much as I worried about looking at their career stats. Ryan Vogelsong, Roberto Hernandez, Chris Young, Kyle Kendrick, Brandon Beachy and Chad Billingsley. All of these men are considered to be back end of the rotation type starters, especially Beachy after coming off another Tommy John surgeries, and have all made their names in the National League with the exception of Young.

I didn't want to spend too much time looking at the stats for all these men because I am not entirely sold that any of them can be any better than what we have, remember the plan for Chris Capuano is to keep the seat warm for Ivan Nova until May or June, but just for fun I did look at their WAR's. It's ugly, see below.

Vogelsong:

2014 WAR: 1.2

Career WAR: 2.1

Hernandez:

2014 WAR: -0.5

Career WAR: 5.5

Young:

2014 WAR: 0.9

Career WAR: 1.9

Kendrick:

2014 WAR: 0.4

Career WAR: 6.1

Beachy:

2014 WAR: -0.2

Career WAR: 3.4

Billingsley:

2014 WAR: 0.2

Career WAR: 16.9