The Recent History of Homegrown Starting Rotations

*LHPs Steve Avery (L) and Tom Glavine (C) and RHP John Smoltz (R) of the 1991-93 Atlanta Braves were the first trio of homegrown starting pitchers to have over 2 WAR in three consecutive seasons.*

After the Braves top brass relieved former GM Frank Wren of his duties in October 2014 and handed John Hart and John Coppolella the responsibility of rebuilding an organization that had won only one division title the previous nine seasons and had the 29th-ranked farm system in the majors, all of the major players made plain how they wanted to rebuild: through homegrown pitching, just like the Braves did in the late ’80s under then-GM Bobby Cox and scouting director Paul Snyder.

And that made sense. The greatest sustained run of excellence from any organization in the free agent era after all sprouted from that philosophy. All Braves fans either remember or are told about how Tom Glavine, John Smoltz, and Steve Avery anchored the rotation for the worst-to-first ’91 Braves. The Braves added Greg Maddux in the best free agent signing in franchise history (and possibly in major league history), and the result was 14 consecutive seasons of playoff baseball, including five National League pennants and one magical World Series.

With the possibility of the Braves entering 2021 rotation with a homegrown core of Max Fried, Mike Soroka, and Ian Anderson, I wanted to see how often teams are able to put together good rotations with at least three homegrown starters performing at a high level, how long they were able to sustain it, and what were the outcomes.

Methodology and Definitions

First, what does it mean to be “homegrown”? John Smoltz for example was not drafted by the Braves. I decided that for my purposes, a player that played at least half a season’s worth of games in a team’s farm system before debuting would count. So Smoltz would count for Atlanta, but someone like Japanese import Masahiro Tanaka of the Yankees would not. Neither would Mike Foltynewicz, who debuted with the Houston Astros before being traded to the Braves, though he was still a prospect at the time.

Since I was using Baseball-Reference.com‘s Stathead search tools to filter through the players, I have used bWAR as the measuring stick for success. What I was looking for were starting rotations that included at least 3 homegrown players that all had at least 2.0 bWAR in the same season.

I narrowed my look to only the Free Agency Era of 1976 to present, guessing that it was far more common to roll with homegrown rotations before free agency was a thing. Perhaps one day I’ll go back and see if that’s actually true.

First Results

The first thing I did was check to see the last time the Braves accomplished the feat, and the answer was 2019 when Max Fried, Mike Soroka, and Julio Teheran, all homegrown Braves, finished with bWAR greater than 2.0. However, that was only one of two Braves rotations that had managed the trick since the heyday of the 14-season pennant winning streak. Here’s all of the Braves rotations that fit the criteria.

Year	Pitcher 1	Pitcher 2	Pitcher 3	Pitcher 4
1991	Tom Glavine	John Smoltz	Steve Avery	N/A
1992	Tom Glavine	John Smoltz	Pete Smith	Steve Avery
1993	Steve Avery	Tom Glavine	John Smoltz	N/A
1999	Kevin Millwood	John Smoltz	Tom Glavine	N/A
2002	Tom Glavine	Kevin Millwood	Damian Moss	N/A
2013	Julio Teheran	Mike Minor	Kris Medlen	N/A
2019	Mike Soroka	Julio Teheran	Max Fried	N/A

The 1991-93 incarnation of the rotation was one of only three that maintained that level of success for three or more consecutive seasons. The others were the 2001-03 Oakland A’s (Tim Hudson, Barry Zito, Mark Mulder) and the 2015-18 Cleveland Indians, the only team to accomplish this for four consecutive seasons (Corey Kluber, Carlos Carrasco, and Danny Salazar for 2015 and 2016, Mike Clevinger for 2017 and 2018; for good measure you can add in Cody Anderson in 2015 for a homegrown foursome). The results of those 10 seasons from those three teams were 8 playoff appearances and 3 World Series appearances.

Homegrown World Series-Winning Rotations

The next thing I checked was if any team was able to win a World Series with at least three high-performing homegrown starting pitchers. There has been exactly once, by the 2010 San Francisco Giants.

This was of course the first of three World Series championships for the Giants in the space of five years. Their other World Series wins would also feature homegrown rotations, though they did not each individually achieve the same success at 2010. In 2012, the rotation featured Bumgarner and Cain still performing well, and Lincecum who was in the middle of his steep slide, plus former farmhand Ryan Vogelsong who was traded to Pittsburgh as a rookie, then re-acquired as a free agent. The final World Series team in 2014 of course still had Bumgarner, the only starting pitcher with over 2 bWAR. Cain, Lincecum, and Vogelsong were all still on the team but on their last legs. The team had to import Tim Hudson, Jake Peavy, and Yusmeiro Petit to keep the good times rolling one more time.

Even so, that’s a three World Series stretch than can be chalked up in some part to the development of a homegrown pitching staff. If the Braves needed any positive reinforcement to the idea of rebuilding through homegrown pitching in 2015, they didn’t have to look too far in the past to see a team be successful with it.

Most Snake-Bit Homegrown Rotation

This couldn’t be anyone but the New York Mets, right?

Over the previous decade the Mets have put together perhaps the most impressive homegrown pitching staff in the National League. The homegrown threesome of Jacob deGrom, Noah Syndergaard, and Matt Harvey dragged an offense that collectively only hit .244/.312/.400 all the way to the World Series in 2015. When Harvey was effected by thoracic outlet syndrome the following season, homegrown lefty Steven Matz stepped up to help the Mets take an near equally anemic 2016 offense to a 2nd-place finish and a wild card berth (fittingly, they lost the wild card play-in game 3-0).

A torn lat muscle and a compressed ulnar nerve ruined the 2017 season for Syndergaard and Matz respectively, while Harvey continued to have issues returning from his TOS surgery and running afoul of team officials and fans for not reporting on time after a late night of partying. As a result, only Jacob deGrom finished with a bWAR over 2 and the team fell to 4th place.

The homegrown rotation rebounded in 2018 and 2019 however as deGrom won back-to-back Cy Young Awards. Syndergaard still battled injuries, including hand, foot and mouth disease, but posted up bWAR totals of 4.1 and 2.6 each season. They were joined by Zack Wheeler who finally overcame several injury-plagued seasons to produce +2 bWAR seasons. For good measure, Matz and part-time starter Seth Lugo each also posted +2 bWAR seasons in 2019. Amazingly, all of this great starting pitching didn’t lead to anything better than a 3rd place finish in 2019 as once again the Mets offense (and in 2019, the bullpen) were not able to do its part to keep New York competitive.

Here is the complete list of teams that had multiple consecutive years of rotations with at least three homegrown starting pitchers with 2+ bWAR in the Free Agency Era.

Montreal Expos, 1979-80

Los Angeles Dodgers, 1986-87

Atlanta Braves, 1991-93

Chicago White Sox, 1993-94

Oakland A’s, 2001-03

Chicago Cubs, 2003-04

Tampa Bay Rays, 2013-14

Cleveland Indians, 2015-18

New York Mets, 2015-16, 2018-19

Colorado Rockies, 2017-18