After reading Lederer's most recent piece (here) about how pitchers fared in stike-outs per 100 pitches (h/t BobR), I got the idea to look at the Rays starters from last year that are returning. I stacked up Kazmir, Shields, Garza, and Sonnanstine and compared them to a pool of AL starting pitchers that had more than 10 IP over the last three years. The sets ranged from 125 to 128. Here's how they stacked up compared the average, top 25, and bottom 25.
As you can see, all of the Rays players are generally at least average. Kazmir is consistently at the top of the list. James Shields is up there as well. As Lederer says, this is a great measure of how good a pitcher truly is. As such, it looks like the Rays pitching staff is once again near the top all the way through.