R.A. Dickey is Good, Continued

Here are the pitchers who, according to baseball-reference.com, have accumulated more wins above replacement in 2010 and 2011 combined than R.A. Dickey of the Mets: Roy Halladay, Clayton Kershaw, Cole Hamels, Ubaldo Jimenez, Josh Johnson, Tim Hudson, Tim Lincecum, and Ian Kennedy. Those guys are aces, as is Matt Cain, right behind Dickey, and Cliff Lee, right behind Cain, who's only been in the NL one of those two years. Chris Carpenter, the Cardinals' ace, pitched 80 more innings than Dickey but accumulated 1.4 fewer wins than Dickey. R.A. Dickey is, in other words, an ace. And the Mets will hopefully have another, even better ace, Johan Santana, in their rotation next year. Santana/Dickey is, in other words, a nasty top of the rotation. Not quite Halladay-Lee-Hamels nasty, but pretty nasty. Meanwhile, Mike Pelfrey was worth 4 WAR in these two years, and Dillon Gee worth 2.3 in just over one year. Jonathan Niese was just worth 1 WAR in these two years, but there are reasons to think he'll improve. We could be looking at a rotation next year worth ~16 WAR, which is just 7 wins worse than the Phillies' historically-good rotation. That ain't bad.