You can make what you want of this, but last year Kevin Correia and Scott Diamond had remarkably similar results.
In terms of innings pitched, Diamond ranked 80th and Correia 81st among major league pitchers.
Diamond faced 714 batters and got 173 innings pitched. Correia faced 728 batters and got 171 innings pitched.
Diamond gave up 184 hits, Correia 176.
Diamond struck out 90 and Correia 89.
The only large differences are that Correia walks a lot more batters, 46 compared to 31 for Diamond. And, probably at least partially as a result, Diamond gave up fewer earned runs, 68 compared to Correia's 80.
To be blunt, none of those differences are really very meaningful The obvious advantage Diamond has is that he is young and therefore likely to improve. The advantage Correia has is that he has a longer track record and last year was not far from his career norms. But, based solely on their performance last year, these two can be expected to produce at about the same level.
As I said at the beginning, you can make what you want of that. I think it ought to temper any certainty you have about Diamond or doubts you might have about Correia.
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One other important difference is money. Diamond came to the Twins via the Rule 5 draft and purchased his contract, which is at $480k. Correia will be making $5M for two years. I agree that both Diamond and Correia project as back-o-the-rotation starters. Your statistics bear that out. My problem with Correia is that the Twins didn't need another back-of-the-rotation guy. They have plenty of those in Deduno, Devries, Blackburn, etc... They need two or three 1,2, or 3 guys. $7-9M per year would have accomplished one half or one third of that, provided that Jackson, Dempster or someone else would have signed. Instead, they wasted $5M.
A lot of bloggers like to talk about pitchers using the number system. The Twins need a No 1 or No. 2 starter. Or perhaps they say, "His ceiling is a No. 3" or "this guy is a back of the rotation starter". The problem is pitching seldom really works that way.
Carlos Silva was generally labeled a back of the rotation starter. However, when he was with the Twins he had 2 years where(depending on which stats you used) he was among the best 50 starters in baseball. He also had a year where he was so bad he couldn't stay in the rotation. Unfortunately, most big league starters have careers like that. They have good years and bad years, sometimes wrecked by injuries, sometimes it is hard to say what caused the bad years.
What is true, is that if the Twins can find 5 starters who pitch as well Diamond did last year, they have a good chance to be competitive. Whether Diamond can repeat his year or improve on it, well that is a good question. The same with Correia. If he pitches as well as Diamond did last year, the Twins should be happy.
Personally, I don't think you have to strike out a lot of guys to be a good pitcher. A lot of these guys with "Ace Stuff" really never consistently pitch to that level. Liriano always managed to get his strikeouts, but he only had one good year since 2006. Blackburn actually had 2 years where he was pretty good.
I think Ryan will likely try to sign 2 more guys. There will be complaining, probably no matter who he signs, but they will likely be guys like Pavano. Somebody who knows how to pitch, has had some good years, and if injuries don't happen, can get deep into games and give the team a good chance to win.
I think a would prefer that to signing a back of the rotation starter like Edwin Jackson to a plus $10 mill. a year, multi year contract.
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