There is no debate when you ask your buddies what team had the best pitching rotation of all time. Everybody that’s old enough to remember what Glavine Maddux, and Smoltz did during their heyday know that this new pitching trio that has just been made in Houston has nothing on the three Hall of Famers. Especially since the likes of Verlander, Cole, and the newly acquired Zach Grienke haven't even pitched together yet. However, John Smoltz himself thinks that the new trio in Houston is already better than his Hall of Fame trio, and needless to say Will did not agree.
Late in hour one of the Will Palaszczuk show Will talked about these comments made by John Smoltz, and his initial reaction to the comment was “These guys haven’t even been together for 48 hours!” Will also went on to say: “It’s a farce to me to compare eras, but before we’ve even seen them take the field Smoltz is like 'Oh they might be better than we were.'” Now Will also did bring up a good point saying that he believes Smoltz was just being very modest. Also John called Astros owner Jim Crane privately to congratulate him on putting that rotation together, so will also made the point that if Smoltz would’ve known that Astros owner Jim Crane was going to share to the public what he said then he might’ve said it differently.
Ultimately with either Glavine, Maddux, or Smoltz winning the Cy Young award from 1991-1996, and them all winning them with the Braves except for the ’92 season when Greg Maddux was with the Cubs, John Smoltz knows that right now that Astros rotation isn’t better then the three-headed pitching monster he was apart of. However, he knows they have the potential to be better, so he was being modest and nice to the team owner, but deep down he knows that ultimately rings will decide which trio was better. Right now his trio has one and the Astros’ trio has none.
