The Greatest Rotation That Never Won a World Series 

And all of them would eventually get a ring, but not with the Tigers.

2012-2014 were all stacked

DAMN

Bad year for Verlander that year. I think that was one of his 4.50 ERA years

Man I forgot about that rotation. All elite starters in their rights just to get swept in the playoffs.

Roy was awesome!

And he was on the true best pitching rotation eve, the 2011 Phillies.

Very much so. His curveball was an absolute HAMMER, and couple that with mixing an ok fastball (94 mph), change, and a slider, he used ALL 4 pitches equally, and then with his very quick pace (he was not one to waste time and would absolutely fit right in with the implentation of the pitch clock), he’d still shove today. 😊

@@nobeardthepirate9172*laughs in Cardinals devil magic*

@@CheeseMasterSports Laughs in trading Zac Gallen and Sandy Alcantra for Marcell Ozuna rental. (Im only laughing because im a cardinals fan and it prevents me from crying)

Roy O wasn’t the same in philly

Can't believe you left out vance worley. UK legend

As a Phillies fan that was a bad dream come to life watching those playoffs

@@naznas1535 You’re right! How could I forget the Vanimal?!? Minnesota Twins legend too. I’ll never forget his 79 pitch first inning against the Mets where they batted around and scored 11 runs🤣

Pretty sure they had all of them the year after too and went 81-81

He wasn’t alone, Don Sutton was an underrated pitcher that was great in the 70s and lost all WSs. He ended his career in 1988.

@@therealjaystone2344 i guess you could say the same thing about all of the Astros greats during the 70s, 80s, 90s. Crazy how you could be top of the line and never win anything. My dad legitimately thought he wouldn't live to see the Astros win a world series

That 12-6 curve of his was unhitable

I always bring up Roy Johan n Zito as forgotten greats

Honerable mention? That’s 3 first ballad hall of famers. These three aren’t really close to them

Best 3 starting rotation of all time. I’m not a Braves fan, but loved watching them in the 90s. Kind of a shame they only won one and came up short so many times, they won that division like every year.

Mayneeeeeeeee

That was mentioned in the video, yes.

I’m similarly sad as a former Cleveland Indians fan. I didn’t spend 35 years (I’m 40) idolizing the Guardians; I don’t know who that team is so I stopped caring. The Tribe getting reverse swept in the WS against the Cubs was the last thing I ever watched on TV with my dad (RIP) before he passed. Born in 1950, he never saw his beloved Browns win a Super Bowl nor the Indians win the World Series. Cleveland’s teams that lost two WS in the ‘90s were legendary teams. Vizquel, Thome, Belle, Baerga, my personal childhood idol Kenny Lofton… later on that team fielded some of the best players of the last few decades. Sizemore was a HOF talent whose reckless outfield play cut his career short. So many Cy Young winners were of course traded away. But while most baseball fans remember Sabathia as the long-time Yankees ace, he was perhaps the best pitcher ever to take the mound for the Tribe in my lifetime. So many talented rosters, magical seasons, elite pitchers, bats, fielders… and nothing to show for it. And now they’re gone forever. I dunno who these Guardian people are but they don’t mean a dang thing to me.

I think in hindsight winning in Citizens Bank Park with your pitching staff is hard. That’s not what the ‘08 team was about. Obviously Hamels was great, Brett Myers was okay, and Moyer was an aging wonder. But really it was having a great bullpen of Madson and Lidge combined with the 1-6 being gangbusters.

@@jluchette Such a bizarre overreaction to a name change. I bet A's fans would kill to have just their name change, not leave town.

​@@IcePlaysIs it? If the last team you watched with your father before he died changed their name, you might have some emotions about.

@@nobeardthepirate9172 If all the players of the team I and my family enjoy were suddenly wearing a hat with a different logo on it I don't think I'd throw a temper-tantrum.

I know he was a great SS but he was always an out. That bottom 3 of Asmus, Everett and the pitcher were guaranteed outs.

I remember voting for him a bunch on the all star team that season.

@@gbpg2016 He had a .242 career average these days thats like league average and $10 million per year

Clemens and Pettitte were all steroids. No way they'd have been very good at that age in 2005 natty. Thankfully the White Sox trashed that team.

Not to mention Ausmus's ability to call games and provide emotional support to the staff, those two were both pivotal to the success of that team, even if they were well below average ovvensively.

In the LCS, the starting pitching was so good, the Sox only used the bullpen for 2/3s of an inning... Yes I am serious.

@@SmoothCriminal12 meanwhile there hasn't been a single playoff complete game since 2017.

Manfred did ya’ll a favor.

@@plawson8577 Manfred scapegoated us lol. Tried to sweep everything under the rug, then when he couldn’t, just threw us under the bus. Screw him

​@@notsauerHe did the opposite. The fact y'all got to keep the 2017 title in itself is a slap on the wrist and was doing y'all a favor.

@@niclazzari2309 only reason he couldn’t punish the players was because baseball has the strongest players association in all of sports, and he did the max punishment allowed by the collective bargaining agreement. Also seriously, revoking a title??? The NFL didn’t do that to the Patriots for SpyGate. Edit: the rest of the league was doing it too, multiple current and former MLB players are on record saying it wasn’t only the Astros. Lucas Giolito, Steven Souza, Joey Votto, Erik Kratz, and even the original rat, Mike Fiers.

@@notsauer I'm aware that the players union is quite strong and makes it difficult for the league to punish players, and that the team fine was the maximum allowed per the rules. I didn't bring up those points for that very reason. Nonetheless the fact that he didn't take the "pieces of metal" as he puts it shows he went easy on the Astros. Literally every team would take the trade of a WS title in exchange for $5 million, a couple draft picks, and some bad press, don't act like that was much a punishment at all. Congrats on winning the division this year by the way.

You were in college in 2005? You make me feel old 😂

yeah, was gonna say. I was already 28 by the 2005 MLB postseason. But yes, Jolly Olive can make us all feel old, if that's what he wants. ;D

@@gfox9295 And you also make me feel old. I can vaguely - very vaguely - recall the 1979 World Series, when we were laughing at the one guy we knew who took Pittsburgh. After all, the Orioles were up 3 games to 1. And then the Pirates won the last three games of the World Series. I was 8 years old.

I second this, & as a rangers fan this is different cause the 05 team got beat by this white sox team IIRC

Same. I really wanted to see him get the save in that game 6 of the 2011 WS

Ironically Oliver was actually on the 04 Astros roster in the second half of the season, but ultimately didn't play in the postseason.

HEB and the Astros... name a more iconic duo... eh... on second thought, nah. ;)

Thanks! Spent some time curating the music for this one so I appreciate your comment.

At least you guys got one World Series that counted !

⁠@@LegalizeRanch69 could have been 2 had Hinch thrown out Cole in the 7th rather then waiting to (and then not using him) in game 7 of the 2019 World Series

@@fries5849 could have been 3 if Beltran hadn't left us for the Mets after 2004. You take the 2004 Astros offense and put it with the 2005 Astros pitching and you get 1 WS in 2005 (against the Chi Sox or anyone).

2019 Cole McCullers grienke Morton verlander.

​@@1TightMinuteas an Astros fan. The best single season 1-2 since Johnson Schilling and on top of that Greinke. Plus an ALCS lineup that went 1. George Springer 2. Micheal Brantley 3. Jose Altuve 4. Alex Bregman 5. Yordan Alvarez 6. Yuli Gurriel 7. Carlos Correa 8. Kyle Tucker 9. Robinson Chirinos It's baffling how good this was. Carlos Correa at 7th is just. Wow. The top 2 AL Cy Young Pitchers (#3 was Charlie Morton who was on the team the year before), 4 top 20 AL MVP finishes, Rookie of the Year.

It really was a great series despite it being a sweep. Game 2 is the greatest baseball game Ive ever seen in my life. Game 3 went likes 16 innings and Buehrle had to come in and pitch after drinking on the bench all night. And game 4 went down to the wire too. I am a Sox fan so I am biased, but that series was amazing.

I find it a bit ironic that 2005 is so overshadowed by 2004, despite the White Sox’s drought ending at 2 seasons more than that of the Red Sox. I guess the Black Sox curse was overshadowed by the Bambino and Billy Goat

Because it was an Illegitimate Title. It was FIXED for the White Sox by Bud Selig. I love the fact how majority of the WS was Extra Innings games. It was a CHEAT. The Umpires were Awful too. Complete Cheapskates.

We were sooo spoiled. Not only did we have great players, but they also put up all time great seasons while donning the H. Clemens with a 1.87 ERA, Biggio with a 50 double, 50 SB season, and Bagwell in 94 putting up one of the greatest seasons ever slugging .750 in the most extreme pitchers park in baseball history. Sometimes I feel bad when I hear fans of other teams or generations talk highly of the guys they grew up watching like a Brian Giles, or a Mike Mussina, and they’re fine players, but they never dominated the game the way our guys did during the Killer B’s era

My comment about the killer B's (Derek Bell anyone?) as a cubs fan is Kerry Woods 20K game. I hated that I liked the astros in that era. Biggio is still one of my top 3 second baseman of all time.

I think Frank Thomas is the only guy who made the HOF from that team but I don’t think he played much, if at all, due to injury.

Eh, the blue tops with the rainbow stripes under the arms is a pretty good uniform these days. But yes, I liked the dark red brick outfits as well. A lot of Astros fans seemed to hate those, tho.

@@gfox9295 I really loved the red brick and the late 90s blue and gold

go on somewhere with that 80s Astros starting pitching roll call nonsense. aint nobody got time for all that.

Uh, forgot Doug Drabek (it's his birthday today!)

All you gotta do is say... 1980, 1981, 1986. What coulda been.

I was around at the time, and it was painful. I was following along with 2003, 2004, 2005, 2006 seasons... went to more games per season than I ever had before or since in my life... lived and died with the team every week... those Octobers were on the one hand great and on the other hand crushing. In the end, settling for the first NL Pennant in team history after 44 years was... the silver lining to our stormcloud.

Why 2019 Astros?

and Isringhausen closing

Sometimes people are faced with those decisions in life.

@@SamtheBravesFanGretzky too

Fact is, George Steinbrenner had oddly decided that he didn't want Pettitte back, and offered less than Houston did. George always had a thing about knocking his own players while coveting everyone else's. True to form, he broke the bank in order to bring Pettitte back to New York after the three year Houston contract expired.

Willie Mays too. His wife wanted to move back to Harlem.

I would like to see _any_ evidence - I mean anything at all - that Pettitte's decision to sign with Houston was to save his marriage, or that Willie going to the Mets had anything to do with his own marriage. I am a baseball historian as a hobby, and have never heard either claim, nor can I find a single reference to either claim online.

Same (that I enjoyed the commercials, but also same that I remember the dropped call ad but don't remember the HEB lefty ad... funny, too, since the HEB ads of the past 6+ years are so prominent nowadays).

Game 2 is my least favorite game, ever. Jermaine Dye didn't earn Matt Holliday never touching home status because it was a sweep.

I was there for game 4. I want to forget that ever happened

@@ryanupchurch9683 you can never tell me Orlando Palmeiro wasn't safe

Fun fact: From 2005-2008, we had eight different teams in the Fall Classic, and I believe 15 different teams in the LCS.

@@ericbush4701favorite World Series game for me call it my white Sox bias fine with me but the konerko granny and then Scotty pods walking it off will forever be ingrained in my mind

I loved Biggio and Bagwell, but Berkman was my favorite hitter on the Astros in the early-mid 2000s. If only Beltran and Boras hadn't gone off to the NY Mets in the offseason... 2005 coulda been different.

​@@gfox9295also having Beltran in 06 probably puts them over St Louis for the division title and considering a mediocre pitching staff like the 06 Cards bullshitted their way to a title that year, Astros could've very easily done the same.

@@SmoothCriminal12 winning it all in both 2005 AND 2006? 2/2 in WS after not having ever been to one from the 60s to 2004? It's possible, but this Astros fan would have been happy (hell, overjoyed) with just one of the two. ;)

He got his groove back with the Phillies and won a ring.

Yep. That was the first big Astros postseason memory from my childhood, since I was too young to really remember the 1980/1981 stuff.

Cole was pretty damned good in 2019. Can't read the mind of the voters, but I think maybe Verlander's no hitter played into him coming out on top.

​@@gfox9295It might've also been to make up for screwing Verlander in 2016 when they picked Rick Porcello over him. Even as a Red Sox fan that was hilariously dumb.

Selig Hated the Astros so much. He was determined for them to lose.

@@plawson8577 and forced the Astros to move from the NL to the AL instead of his beloved Brewers having to move BACK from the NL to the AL where they started. Hey, it worked out okay in the end... kinda.

Beltran. ;_;

They were brought and paid. If they were so great then how the hell were they not able to make it to the Pennant In 2006?

​@@plawson8577Mostly a victim of the division getting better out of nowhere. In most other years, even in the one wild card spot era, 90 wins is more than enough for a playoff spot.

They had pretty solid batting Averages during that time. But this WS was a complete SHAM. And I say this as a lifelong SF Giants Fan.

Glad I'm not the only one who thought Berkman looked like Elvis. ;D

The White Sox don't get anywhere near the respect they earned that year. It's criminal how little respect they get.

winning every post season game but one. One of the most dominant seasons and postseasons ever

As a life long Sox fan that post season was magical. Everything went right.

As a Yankees fan I miss ‘98 and Tino’s grand slam

@@tomfoolery5680 11-1 in the postseason only rivaled by the '98 yankees? (One of those teams) and 4 straight complete games in the ALCS , just a ridiculous cinderella run

Yeah. Because your club can’t win without buying a Title. I’m glad they Suck.

@@poopshoes7579Ready for the 14th Year without a World Series?

Stealing signs is only cheating if they use some sort of technology to aid them. Otherwise stealing signs is just a part of the game, it's the responsibility of the pitcher and catcher to change up the signs if the other team has figured them out.

Of Course they did. Selig LET them. He didn’t care. He already allowed them to buy that World Series.

@@unkledoda420Of Course. It’s why the White Sox have been so awful for years. They truly suck. Couldn’t even make the Pennant in 2006 and have FAILED miserably in making the World Series for almost 18 years.

They didn’t win because Bud Selig was a Dirty Crook. He had a personal HATRED towards the Astros and Reds. In fact he frequently Overcrowded the NL Central to favor his Brewers. The WS was ALREADY fixed and rigged for the White Sox.

Solid bullpen does win championships not starting pitching

if verlander and max pitched like cy young candiates instead of mediocre at best pitchers this year the mets wouldn't be in the shitter.

@@tomf5823 they’re too old, knew it was a terrible idea going in but they doubled down and now 2024 will also be a lost cause

Beltran going to the Mets before the 2005 season is one of the main reasons the Astros didn't win in 2005.