At some point the point of the game is to get people out. This weird thing has happened where a guy with elite spin rates to go with a WHIP of 1.8 and an ERA over 5 is somehow considered better than a guy who actually gets people out.
Ray has given up 43 HR and 130 walks in his last 225 innings over the past two years. He’s a huge project, even if his stuff is good in a vacuum.
Again - this rotation (no matter how it’s put together) has 1 guy who had an ERA under 5.50 last year. It’s a bunch of projects and hope.
It's a little disingenuous to cherry pick just 2020 stats when it was a crazy weird unprecedented year.
Robbie Ray:
career 4.26 ERA, 3.93 xFIP.
If you want to just isolate 2017-19 for a nice 3-year stretch he was 3.72 ERA, 3.81 xFIP
Ross Stripling:
Career 3.81 ERA, 3.66 xFIP.
2017-19: 3.36/3.39
Steven Matz:
Career 4.32/4.10,
17-19: 4.44/4.36
Roark:
Career 3.86/4.24,
17-19: 4.46/4.43
Roark is 34 and has trended downwards for several years. He's probably cooked and what he was last year and this year is likely who he is now.
Ray and Matz are 29, Stripling is 31. They've been inconsistent, but last year generally looks like a blip vs their usual performances prior to that season. Ray was actually only terrible with the D-Backs and evened out to about his 2019 levels once he joined Toronto. Each of them has shown mid-rotation or better capability at some point in their career, and most of their recent pre-2020 history suggests they can still do it (and ironically the one whose recent history doesn't carry that weight, Matz, is the one who had the best start to this season)
I liked what Walker did last year, but there are a lot of indicators that it was not sustainable.