Friday, July 27, 2007
Utley's Hand: What Does It Mean?
I was stunned to learn that Chase Utley broke his hand yesterday against the Nationals and is expected to miss up to a month of baseball. What does this mean for the Phillies?:
-Gone is Utley, arguably the best player on the Phillies roster and a legitimate MVP candidate, for at least a month. Is Utley’s season over? Hopefully not, but the Phillies can risk anything with their marquee second baseman. At the time of the incident, Utley was hitting .336 (.414 OBP), with 41 doubles, 3 triples, 17 Home Runs, and 82 RBIs. He had a fielding percentage of .984.
Utley had 17 Win Shares accumulated, ten above a bench player. He was hitting .307 BA/RISP (Runners In Scoring Position). He had 84 Runs Created, or 8.5 per game. Utley was leading the N.L. in Runs Created, in doubles, and was third in RBI. Defensively, Utley was leading the N.L. in Relative Zone Rating (RZR). I would have ranked Utley first in terms of MVP voting, although a big factor would have been how he contributed to the Phillies down the stretch.
-Pat Burrell becomes a vital component of the Phillies attack. Pat Burrell, slow-footed, weak-hitting (just a .438 slugging percentage) is now a critical piece of the Phillies attack. They need Burrell to pick up the slack and help protect Ryan Howard. Perhaps Charlie Manuel will reorder the lineup and place Jimmy Rollins third in the lineup.
-The Phillies now have to absorb the weak-hitting Abraham Nunez being in the lineup. Nunez hasn’t hit a home run all season, his slugging percentage (.311) is lower than Utley’s batting average, he doesn’t have speed, and he’s grounded into six double plays this season, a feat despite having just 198 plate appearances.
-Do the Phillies trade-deadline priorities change? It is inconceivable to me to imagine the Phillies swinging a deal for Jermaine Dye or some other disgruntled slugger, but don’t put it out of the realm of possibility. I worry about which of the Phillies pitching prospects – Carlos Carrasco, Josh Outman, Matt Maloney, Andrew Carpenter – Pat Gillick is going to part with to bring bullpen help, or add a bat to the Phillies lineup.
Monday, I promise to talk about Williamsport.
(1) comments
-Gone is Utley, arguably the best player on the Phillies roster and a legitimate MVP candidate, for at least a month. Is Utley’s season over? Hopefully not, but the Phillies can risk anything with their marquee second baseman. At the time of the incident, Utley was hitting .336 (.414 OBP), with 41 doubles, 3 triples, 17 Home Runs, and 82 RBIs. He had a fielding percentage of .984.
Utley had 17 Win Shares accumulated, ten above a bench player. He was hitting .307 BA/RISP (Runners In Scoring Position). He had 84 Runs Created, or 8.5 per game. Utley was leading the N.L. in Runs Created, in doubles, and was third in RBI. Defensively, Utley was leading the N.L. in Relative Zone Rating (RZR). I would have ranked Utley first in terms of MVP voting, although a big factor would have been how he contributed to the Phillies down the stretch.
-Pat Burrell becomes a vital component of the Phillies attack. Pat Burrell, slow-footed, weak-hitting (just a .438 slugging percentage) is now a critical piece of the Phillies attack. They need Burrell to pick up the slack and help protect Ryan Howard. Perhaps Charlie Manuel will reorder the lineup and place Jimmy Rollins third in the lineup.
-The Phillies now have to absorb the weak-hitting Abraham Nunez being in the lineup. Nunez hasn’t hit a home run all season, his slugging percentage (.311) is lower than Utley’s batting average, he doesn’t have speed, and he’s grounded into six double plays this season, a feat despite having just 198 plate appearances.
-Do the Phillies trade-deadline priorities change? It is inconceivable to me to imagine the Phillies swinging a deal for Jermaine Dye or some other disgruntled slugger, but don’t put it out of the realm of possibility. I worry about which of the Phillies pitching prospects – Carlos Carrasco, Josh Outman, Matt Maloney, Andrew Carpenter – Pat Gillick is going to part with to bring bullpen help, or add a bat to the Phillies lineup.
Monday, I promise to talk about Williamsport.
Labels: Bullpen, Burrell, Nunez, Power-Hitting, Rollins, Utley
Utley's Hand: What Does It Mean?
I was stunned to learn that Chase Utley broke his hand yesterday against the Nationals and is expected to miss up to a month of baseball. What does this mean for the Phillies?:
-Gone is Utley, arguably the best player on the Phillies roster and a legitimate MVP candidate, for at least a month. Is Utley’s season over? Hopefully not, but the Phillies can risk anything with their marquee second baseman. At the time of the incident, Utley was hitting .336 (.414 OBP), with 41 doubles, 3 triples, 17 Home Runs, and 82 RBIs. He had a fielding percentage of .984.
Utley had 17 Win Shares accumulated, ten above a bench player. He was hitting .307 BA/RISP (Runners In Scoring Position). He had 84 Runs Created, or 8.5 per game. Utley was leading the N.L. in Runs Created, in doubles, and was third in RBI. Defensively, Utley was leading the N.L. in Relative Zone Rating (RZR). I would have ranked Utley first in terms of MVP voting, although a big factor would have been how he contributed to the Phillies down the stretch.
-Pat Burrell becomes a vital component of the Phillies attack. Pat Burrell, slow-footed, weak-hitting (just a .438 slugging percentage) is now a critical piece of the Phillies attack. They need Burrell to pick up the slack and help protect Ryan Howard. Perhaps Charlie Manuel will reorder the lineup and place Jimmy Rollins third in the lineup.
-The Phillies now have to absorb the weak-hitting Abraham Nunez being in the lineup. Nunez hasn’t hit a home run all season, his slugging percentage (.311) is lower than Utley’s batting average, he doesn’t have speed, and he’s grounded into six double plays this season, a feat despite having just 198 plate appearances.
-Do the Phillies trade-deadline priorities change? It is inconceivable to me to imagine the Phillies swinging a deal for Jermaine Dye or some other disgruntled slugger, but don’t put it out of the realm of possibility. I worry about which of the Phillies pitching prospects – Carlos Carrasco, Josh Outman, Matt Maloney, Andrew Carpenter – Pat Gillick is going to part with to bring bullpen help, or add a bat to the Phillies lineup.
Monday, I promise to talk about Williamsport.
(0) comments
-Gone is Utley, arguably the best player on the Phillies roster and a legitimate MVP candidate, for at least a month. Is Utley’s season over? Hopefully not, but the Phillies can risk anything with their marquee second baseman. At the time of the incident, Utley was hitting .336 (.414 OBP), with 41 doubles, 3 triples, 17 Home Runs, and 82 RBIs. He had a fielding percentage of .984.
Utley had 17 Win Shares accumulated, ten above a bench player. He was hitting .307 BA/RISP (Runners In Scoring Position). He had 84 Runs Created, or 8.5 per game. Utley was leading the N.L. in Runs Created, in doubles, and was third in RBI. Defensively, Utley was leading the N.L. in Relative Zone Rating (RZR). I would have ranked Utley first in terms of MVP voting, although a big factor would have been how he contributed to the Phillies down the stretch.
-Pat Burrell becomes a vital component of the Phillies attack. Pat Burrell, slow-footed, weak-hitting (just a .438 slugging percentage) is now a critical piece of the Phillies attack. They need Burrell to pick up the slack and help protect Ryan Howard. Perhaps Charlie Manuel will reorder the lineup and place Jimmy Rollins third in the lineup.
-The Phillies now have to absorb the weak-hitting Abraham Nunez being in the lineup. Nunez hasn’t hit a home run all season, his slugging percentage (.311) is lower than Utley’s batting average, he doesn’t have speed, and he’s grounded into six double plays this season, a feat despite having just 198 plate appearances.
-Do the Phillies trade-deadline priorities change? It is inconceivable to me to imagine the Phillies swinging a deal for Jermaine Dye or some other disgruntled slugger, but don’t put it out of the realm of possibility. I worry about which of the Phillies pitching prospects – Carlos Carrasco, Josh Outman, Matt Maloney, Andrew Carpenter – Pat Gillick is going to part with to bring bullpen help, or add a bat to the Phillies lineup.
Monday, I promise to talk about Williamsport.
Labels: Bullpen, Burrell, Nunez, Power-Hitting, Rollins, Utley
Thursday, July 26, 2007
Farm Report: July of 2007 / How are things in the Gulf Coast League?
Ah, the joys of Rookie League baseball! With nearly all of the Phillies top draft choices signed – as I write this Brandon Workman, the Phillies third-round pick out of Bowie High School was the only one of the team’s top twelve picks not signed – the baseball seasons in Williamsport and in the Gulf Coast League (GCL) are well under way. I’ll talk a little bit about the Williamsport Crosscutters tomorrow. Today is about the GCL Phillies.
Players in rookie league ball are typically high school draft choices whose assignment to the GCL is their first taste of professional baseball. This isn’t a hard rule – Karl Bolt, the GCL Phillies First Baseman, is a graduate of Air Force Academy – but it is generally true. Travis D’Arnaud, the Phillies supplemental first round pick – thirty-seventh overall – is a graduate of Lakewood High School from Lakewood, California. Travis Mattair, the Phillies second-round pick – third overall and the eighty-third player picked overall – is a graduate of Southridge High School, Kennwick, Washington State.
Currently the GCL Phillies are 14-17 and sit in fifth place (of six teams) in the GCL North. The team began play on June 19th and their season doesn't end until August 27th, just over two months.
I’ve complained in the past that the Phillies have put too few position players in their farm system. The team needs Matt Costanzo, Greg Golson, Jason Donald or Adrian Cardenas to be a big hit in the majors in the next two or so seasons because if they fail to make it to the majors, the farm system basically has nothing after them. The 2007 draft was largely an attempt by the Phillies to restock their farm system at the position player level. Arms they have. In a year or two the Phillies will have a surplus of pitching in Triple-A ball, with future stars like Kyle Drabek, Josh Outman, Carlos Carrasco, Matt Maloney, and Andrew Carpenter in the pipeline. The Phillies need some bats to back up Chase Utley, Ryan Howard and Jimmy Rollins. Despite the fact that the Phillies took pitcher Joe Savery with their first pick, the team focused on a lot of position players in the 2007 Draft. Let's talk about a few on the GCL Phillies roster...
Confused about what I’m talking about? Here are the stats I refer to defined:
Gross Productive Average (GPA): (1.8 * .OBP + .SLG) / 4 = .GPA. Invented by The Hardball Times Aaron Gleeman, GPA measures a players production by weighing his ability to get on base and hit with power. This is my preferred all-around stat.
Isolated Power (ISO): .SLG - .BA = .ISO. Measures a player’s raw power by subtracting singles from their slugging percentage.
On-Base Percentage (OBP): How often a player gets on base. (H + BB + HBP) / (Plate Appearances)
Slugging Percentage (SLG): Total Bases / At-Bats = Slugging Percentage. Power at the plate.
Karl Bolt. You have to love Bolt, a fifteenth-round pick out of the Air Force Academy, who is an old man by the standards of the GCL Phillies are age 21. He's just the second player from the Air Force Academy drafted after Mike Thiessen in 2001. Bolt owes the U.S. Air Force duty, so I am unsure of how his committment will affect his major league career, but he's gotten an opportunity to play a little in the GCL thus far.
At the moment Bolt has six home runs, best on the GCL Phillies, to go with four triples and four doubles. He packs a lot of power at the plate - his slugging percentage is eighth in the entire GCL - and seems to hit for average decently well. In comparison to a teammate, Bolt isn't striking out a lot either: just 19 K's in 104 At-Bats. That's not too shabby. With Bolt's maturity and skills, I am confident he's a bona fide prospect and will continue in the Phillies system.
Francisco Murillo. The twenty year-old Murillo, a native of Venezuela, has played in most of the GCL Phillies games thus far. Murillo most recently played in the Venezuelan Summer League with the VSL Phillies, where he hit .299 (.402 OBP), with 10 Home Runs and 56 RBIs to go with nine steals in eleven attempts. Murillo journeyed to the U.S. this season to play ball with the Phillies and thus far has done a lot to impress people:
.290 BA (.356 OBP), 5 home runs on 22 RBI, along with 8 doubles.
For the GCL, five home runs is big stuff. Murillo’s slugging percentage is a robust .538, which ranks him eighth in the entire GCL, tied with teammate Karl Bolt. Edgar Lara leads the GCL with just seven home runs. Murillo looks to be a big-swinging slugger. He has thirty strikeouts in just 93 At-Bats. He hits the ball a mile, though it is too soon to tell if he is good at working counts and getting on base. His 37 walks in VSL play was pretty good. I like seeing ballplayers who’s OBP is a hundred points higher than their batting average.
Perhaps the Phillies have found themselves a future star in Murillo, a Latino on a team that has a disgraceful lack of talent from Latin America.
Travis Mattair. The Phillies highly touted third baseman is just eighteen years old, having been about a month old when George H.W. Bush (a.k.a., Bush 41) was sworn in as President. (Jeez, I’m getting old!) The Kennewick, Washington native is a tall (six foot five) right-handed hitter who has so far been a bust in the GCL.
To date Mattair has played in nearly every game for the GCL Phillies and is hitting .240. What is damning to me is that Mattair has drawn just four walks and has struck out twenty-eight times. That’s a seven-to-one ratio! The ability to make contact with the ball and put it into play is critical to success on the baseball diamond. This is an ability I wonder if Mattair has. As a consequence of his low walk total, Mattair’s OBP is a laughable .294.
Power-wise, Mattair has struggled. His isolated power at the plate is just .070. While power numbers are compressed in the GCL because of the pitcher-friendliness of the ballparks (and the humidity of the air in Florida, I suspect), Mattair is well behind his teammates:
ISO:
Bolt: .288
Murillo: .248
D’Arnaud: .100
Mattair: .070
Or perhaps Bolt and Murillo are doing that good of a job. I tend to think that Mattair needs to hit some more home runs and doubles to justify his place on the roster. I am very disappointed with Mattair’s performance, but I am confident that he’ll improve. Mattair is a lock to continue on to Lakewood and play on the Jersey Shore with the Blue Claws in 2008 because he was a high draft choice of the Phillies. Kyle Drabek struggled badly in 2006 in the GCL, but still moved onto Lakewood and pitched well in 2007 before an arm injury ended his season. Struggles in the GCL mean nothing for a highly touted prospect.
Travis D’Arnaud. Even younger than Mattair – D’Arnaud was born three weeks after Bush 41 took the Oath of Office – D’Arnaud is a graduate of Lakewood High School in California. A right-handed hitter, D’Arnaud is a catcher, a position that the Phillies probably will need some help with in the future. D’Arnaud has gotten off to a slow start, but shows some promise. In nineteen games he’s hit two home runs and a double to go with his eighteen hits in seventy At-Bats. Like Mattair, I don’t care for D’Arnaud’s serious inability to draw a walk – two walks to nine strikeouts – but D’Arnaud strikes me as being more of a disciplined contact hitter.
Here are the GCL Phillies top hitters:
GPA: (50 At-Bats Min.)
Murillo: .295
Rincon: .278
Bolt: .274
Quiroz: .254
D’Arnaud: .226
Mattair: .210
Warren: .176
McDonald: .164
Sanchez: .154
At this juncture players like T.J. Warren and Darin McDonald are basically done with their pro baseball careers. Both played with the GCL Phillies in 2006 and failed to advance to Lakewood, the stop GCL teammates Kyle Drabek and Adrian Cardenas took this season. Their struggles now portend omniously for their future careers.
As for the GCL Phillies pitchers, nearly all were later-round picks and none stood out to be as I evaluated their stats. No, the GCL Phillies are built around their bats. Good thing too, because we are going to need some in Lakewood in 2008.
Tomorrow: Williamsport.
(0) comments
Players in rookie league ball are typically high school draft choices whose assignment to the GCL is their first taste of professional baseball. This isn’t a hard rule – Karl Bolt, the GCL Phillies First Baseman, is a graduate of Air Force Academy – but it is generally true. Travis D’Arnaud, the Phillies supplemental first round pick – thirty-seventh overall – is a graduate of Lakewood High School from Lakewood, California. Travis Mattair, the Phillies second-round pick – third overall and the eighty-third player picked overall – is a graduate of Southridge High School, Kennwick, Washington State.
Currently the GCL Phillies are 14-17 and sit in fifth place (of six teams) in the GCL North. The team began play on June 19th and their season doesn't end until August 27th, just over two months.
I’ve complained in the past that the Phillies have put too few position players in their farm system. The team needs Matt Costanzo, Greg Golson, Jason Donald or Adrian Cardenas to be a big hit in the majors in the next two or so seasons because if they fail to make it to the majors, the farm system basically has nothing after them. The 2007 draft was largely an attempt by the Phillies to restock their farm system at the position player level. Arms they have. In a year or two the Phillies will have a surplus of pitching in Triple-A ball, with future stars like Kyle Drabek, Josh Outman, Carlos Carrasco, Matt Maloney, and Andrew Carpenter in the pipeline. The Phillies need some bats to back up Chase Utley, Ryan Howard and Jimmy Rollins. Despite the fact that the Phillies took pitcher Joe Savery with their first pick, the team focused on a lot of position players in the 2007 Draft. Let's talk about a few on the GCL Phillies roster...
Confused about what I’m talking about? Here are the stats I refer to defined:
Gross Productive Average (GPA): (1.8 * .OBP + .SLG) / 4 = .GPA. Invented by The Hardball Times Aaron Gleeman, GPA measures a players production by weighing his ability to get on base and hit with power. This is my preferred all-around stat.
Isolated Power (ISO): .SLG - .BA = .ISO. Measures a player’s raw power by subtracting singles from their slugging percentage.
On-Base Percentage (OBP): How often a player gets on base. (H + BB + HBP) / (Plate Appearances)
Slugging Percentage (SLG): Total Bases / At-Bats = Slugging Percentage. Power at the plate.
Karl Bolt. You have to love Bolt, a fifteenth-round pick out of the Air Force Academy, who is an old man by the standards of the GCL Phillies are age 21. He's just the second player from the Air Force Academy drafted after Mike Thiessen in 2001. Bolt owes the U.S. Air Force duty, so I am unsure of how his committment will affect his major league career, but he's gotten an opportunity to play a little in the GCL thus far.
At the moment Bolt has six home runs, best on the GCL Phillies, to go with four triples and four doubles. He packs a lot of power at the plate - his slugging percentage is eighth in the entire GCL - and seems to hit for average decently well. In comparison to a teammate, Bolt isn't striking out a lot either: just 19 K's in 104 At-Bats. That's not too shabby. With Bolt's maturity and skills, I am confident he's a bona fide prospect and will continue in the Phillies system.
Francisco Murillo. The twenty year-old Murillo, a native of Venezuela, has played in most of the GCL Phillies games thus far. Murillo most recently played in the Venezuelan Summer League with the VSL Phillies, where he hit .299 (.402 OBP), with 10 Home Runs and 56 RBIs to go with nine steals in eleven attempts. Murillo journeyed to the U.S. this season to play ball with the Phillies and thus far has done a lot to impress people:
.290 BA (.356 OBP), 5 home runs on 22 RBI, along with 8 doubles.
For the GCL, five home runs is big stuff. Murillo’s slugging percentage is a robust .538, which ranks him eighth in the entire GCL, tied with teammate Karl Bolt. Edgar Lara leads the GCL with just seven home runs. Murillo looks to be a big-swinging slugger. He has thirty strikeouts in just 93 At-Bats. He hits the ball a mile, though it is too soon to tell if he is good at working counts and getting on base. His 37 walks in VSL play was pretty good. I like seeing ballplayers who’s OBP is a hundred points higher than their batting average.
Perhaps the Phillies have found themselves a future star in Murillo, a Latino on a team that has a disgraceful lack of talent from Latin America.
Travis Mattair. The Phillies highly touted third baseman is just eighteen years old, having been about a month old when George H.W. Bush (a.k.a., Bush 41) was sworn in as President. (Jeez, I’m getting old!) The Kennewick, Washington native is a tall (six foot five) right-handed hitter who has so far been a bust in the GCL.
To date Mattair has played in nearly every game for the GCL Phillies and is hitting .240. What is damning to me is that Mattair has drawn just four walks and has struck out twenty-eight times. That’s a seven-to-one ratio! The ability to make contact with the ball and put it into play is critical to success on the baseball diamond. This is an ability I wonder if Mattair has. As a consequence of his low walk total, Mattair’s OBP is a laughable .294.
Power-wise, Mattair has struggled. His isolated power at the plate is just .070. While power numbers are compressed in the GCL because of the pitcher-friendliness of the ballparks (and the humidity of the air in Florida, I suspect), Mattair is well behind his teammates:
ISO:
Bolt: .288
Murillo: .248
D’Arnaud: .100
Mattair: .070
Or perhaps Bolt and Murillo are doing that good of a job. I tend to think that Mattair needs to hit some more home runs and doubles to justify his place on the roster. I am very disappointed with Mattair’s performance, but I am confident that he’ll improve. Mattair is a lock to continue on to Lakewood and play on the Jersey Shore with the Blue Claws in 2008 because he was a high draft choice of the Phillies. Kyle Drabek struggled badly in 2006 in the GCL, but still moved onto Lakewood and pitched well in 2007 before an arm injury ended his season. Struggles in the GCL mean nothing for a highly touted prospect.
Travis D’Arnaud. Even younger than Mattair – D’Arnaud was born three weeks after Bush 41 took the Oath of Office – D’Arnaud is a graduate of Lakewood High School in California. A right-handed hitter, D’Arnaud is a catcher, a position that the Phillies probably will need some help with in the future. D’Arnaud has gotten off to a slow start, but shows some promise. In nineteen games he’s hit two home runs and a double to go with his eighteen hits in seventy At-Bats. Like Mattair, I don’t care for D’Arnaud’s serious inability to draw a walk – two walks to nine strikeouts – but D’Arnaud strikes me as being more of a disciplined contact hitter.
Here are the GCL Phillies top hitters:
GPA: (50 At-Bats Min.)
Murillo: .295
Rincon: .278
Bolt: .274
Quiroz: .254
D’Arnaud: .226
Mattair: .210
Warren: .176
McDonald: .164
Sanchez: .154
At this juncture players like T.J. Warren and Darin McDonald are basically done with their pro baseball careers. Both played with the GCL Phillies in 2006 and failed to advance to Lakewood, the stop GCL teammates Kyle Drabek and Adrian Cardenas took this season. Their struggles now portend omniously for their future careers.
As for the GCL Phillies pitchers, nearly all were later-round picks and none stood out to be as I evaluated their stats. No, the GCL Phillies are built around their bats. Good thing too, because we are going to need some in Lakewood in 2008.
Tomorrow: Williamsport.
Labels: Minors
Wednesday, July 25, 2007
Farm Report: July of 2007 / How the Threshers are doing...
I thought I might direct my attention to the State of Florida and look at the Clearwater Threshers, the Phillies Advanced Single-A affiliate in the Florida State League, and the Gulf Coast League Phillies, the Phillies rookie league affiliate, and talk a little about how their seasons are progressing. Today, we’ll talk about the Threshers, an impressive collection of talent, most of whom have played in the Phillies system for two or so years.
The Threshers have been playing since April 5th and have rolled up an impressive 58-41 record in the FSL. The Threshers are doing quite nicely in a number of statistical categories, but particularly with offense:
-They rank fourth of twelve teams in runs scored with 455.
-They rank sixth of twelve teams in On-Base Percentage at .330.
-They rank fourth of twelve teams in Slugging Percentage at .382.
I’ve been impressed by Jeremy Slayden. The Phillies 2005 draft pick had previously been selected by the Oakland A’s, a team that valued his ability to mash the ball and draw walks. The Phillies selected Slayden and sent him to Batavia in 2005, where he prospered. He had an impressive season in 2006 powering the core of the Lakewood Blue Claws attack, hitting ten home runs, forty-four doubles and eighty-one RBI in 107 games. Oh, and he drew 41 walks.
Confused about what I’m talking about? Here are the stats I refer to defined:
Gross Productive Average (GPA): (1.8 * .OBP + .SLG) / 4 = .GPA. Invented by The Hardball Times Aaron Gleeman, GPA measures a players production by weighing his ability to get on base and hit with power. This is my preferred all-around stat.
Isolated Power (ISO): .SLG - .BA = .ISO. Measures a player’s raw power by subtracting singles from their slugging percentage.
ERA – Earned Run Average: (Earned Runs * 9) / IP = ERA
K/9 – Strikeouts per nine innings: (K * 9) / IP
Thus far this season Slayden got off to a swift start, clubbing four home runs and twenty RBIs in April. Then Slayden cooled off, hitting just two home runs and seventeen RBIs in 104 At-Bats (vis-à-vis 87 in April) in May. Slayden dropped off to two home runs and six RBIs in 60 At-Bats. The hot start helped Slayden selected to the FSL All-Star Game. At the moment, Slayden ranks fifteenth in the FSL in OBP.
Slayden’s stats show him to be a consistent power-hitting presence:
2007 / 2006 / 2005
GPA: .283 / .299 / .283
ISO: .162 / .200 / .196
I like what I see from Slayden, even though he appears to be one of those DH-type players that Davy Lopes was complaining about. He’s a slow-footed slugger who will probably never make it to Philadelphia because he’ll be swapped in a trade with an A.L. team for pitching talent. Maybe this year, maybe next.
Gregory Golson has been a surprise to me this season. After struggling his way to Clearwater in 2006 with a terrible performance in Lakewood (.199 GPA / .113 ISO), Golson has turned it on in Clearwater. In the more defensive-oriented FSL, Golson hit .264 GPA and finally displayed a little power, with a .208 ISO.
I was skeptical that a player with Golson’s uneven numbers could ever make the majors, and I remain unconvinced. Golson is doing a solid job this season. His .250 GPA is nothing spectacular, but what does impress is Golson’s speed (two triples and twenty-four steals on thirty-two attempts), as well as his power at the plate (twenty-seven doubles and ten home runs). But there is no way that Greg Golson is going to be a major leaguer when he strikes out 122 times and draws just 21 walks.
Jason Donald is a Thresher, which is a development that I am a little surprised at. Not that Donald is talented. That is a given. I am surprised to see Donald get a mid-season promotion that puts him in Advanced-A ball after being taken in last year’s draft.
Donald’s stats in Lakewood were terrific: .296 GPA, .137 ISO. He drew an impressive 29 walks and struck out 39 times. Donald earned a promotion to Clearwater and has hit well since joining the team: .304 GPA / .209 ISO. Donald has four home runs and three triples in just forty games. While his walk/strikeout ratio isn’t great (16 to 35), he appears to be pretty solid in terms of working the count and getting on base without having to utilize putting the ball into play. Good work, Jason.
Pitching-wise, the Threshers aren’t so impressive. Their team ERA is 3.73, good for just sixth in the FSL. They rank ninth in home runs allowed, seventh in strikeouts and tenth in walks allowed. Despite the struggles, the Threshers have major, major talent on their roster. I’ve written that the Phillies have a gaggle of young pitching in the pipeline and here it is:
Carlos Carrasco has been judged by many to be the best prospect in the Phillies system. After being part of an impressive triumvirate of pitchers in Lakewood that helped pitch Lakewood to the South Atlantic League title in 2006, Carrasco got promoted to Clearwater and went 6-2 with a 2.84 ERA. Carrasco’s work got him promoted to Double-A Reading, where he joins fellow Lakewood alumnus Matt Maloney.
Also on the Threshers roster is Andrew Carpenter, a terrific pitcher who got drafted by the team in 2006 and pitched well with Batavia last season. This season Carpenter is 11-5 with a 3.42 ERA and is the second-best hurler on the Threshers roster right now.
The pitcher who has really impressed me is Josh Outman. Part of the Lakewood triumvirate with Carrasco and Maloney last season, Outman is the unheralded member of the group, but he might end up being as good or better than Maloney and Carrasco. Here are Outman’s stats:
Win-Loss / ERA / K/9
2007: 10-4 / 2.45 / 8.97
2006: 14-6 / 2.95 / 9.32
2005: 2-1 / 2.76 / 9.51
Outman may not be as highly rated with the scouts as the rest of the Phillies minor league pitchers, but he ought to be. Those are terrific stats. He strikes out a batter per inning. He is difficult to hit and always keeps the Thresher in a game. Outman’s 2.45 ERA is second in the FSL, as are his 117 strikeouts. Keep an eye on Josh Outman.
That’s what is going on with the Clearwater Threshers. Tomorrow I’ll turn my attention to the Gulf Coast League Phillies, who finally have a roster and have gotten started right down the street from the Threshers.
(0) comments
The Threshers have been playing since April 5th and have rolled up an impressive 58-41 record in the FSL. The Threshers are doing quite nicely in a number of statistical categories, but particularly with offense:
-They rank fourth of twelve teams in runs scored with 455.
-They rank sixth of twelve teams in On-Base Percentage at .330.
-They rank fourth of twelve teams in Slugging Percentage at .382.
I’ve been impressed by Jeremy Slayden. The Phillies 2005 draft pick had previously been selected by the Oakland A’s, a team that valued his ability to mash the ball and draw walks. The Phillies selected Slayden and sent him to Batavia in 2005, where he prospered. He had an impressive season in 2006 powering the core of the Lakewood Blue Claws attack, hitting ten home runs, forty-four doubles and eighty-one RBI in 107 games. Oh, and he drew 41 walks.
Confused about what I’m talking about? Here are the stats I refer to defined:
Gross Productive Average (GPA): (1.8 * .OBP + .SLG) / 4 = .GPA. Invented by The Hardball Times Aaron Gleeman, GPA measures a players production by weighing his ability to get on base and hit with power. This is my preferred all-around stat.
Isolated Power (ISO): .SLG - .BA = .ISO. Measures a player’s raw power by subtracting singles from their slugging percentage.
ERA – Earned Run Average: (Earned Runs * 9) / IP = ERA
K/9 – Strikeouts per nine innings: (K * 9) / IP
Thus far this season Slayden got off to a swift start, clubbing four home runs and twenty RBIs in April. Then Slayden cooled off, hitting just two home runs and seventeen RBIs in 104 At-Bats (vis-à-vis 87 in April) in May. Slayden dropped off to two home runs and six RBIs in 60 At-Bats. The hot start helped Slayden selected to the FSL All-Star Game. At the moment, Slayden ranks fifteenth in the FSL in OBP.
Slayden’s stats show him to be a consistent power-hitting presence:
2007 / 2006 / 2005
GPA: .283 / .299 / .283
ISO: .162 / .200 / .196
I like what I see from Slayden, even though he appears to be one of those DH-type players that Davy Lopes was complaining about. He’s a slow-footed slugger who will probably never make it to Philadelphia because he’ll be swapped in a trade with an A.L. team for pitching talent. Maybe this year, maybe next.
Gregory Golson has been a surprise to me this season. After struggling his way to Clearwater in 2006 with a terrible performance in Lakewood (.199 GPA / .113 ISO), Golson has turned it on in Clearwater. In the more defensive-oriented FSL, Golson hit .264 GPA and finally displayed a little power, with a .208 ISO.
I was skeptical that a player with Golson’s uneven numbers could ever make the majors, and I remain unconvinced. Golson is doing a solid job this season. His .250 GPA is nothing spectacular, but what does impress is Golson’s speed (two triples and twenty-four steals on thirty-two attempts), as well as his power at the plate (twenty-seven doubles and ten home runs). But there is no way that Greg Golson is going to be a major leaguer when he strikes out 122 times and draws just 21 walks.
Jason Donald is a Thresher, which is a development that I am a little surprised at. Not that Donald is talented. That is a given. I am surprised to see Donald get a mid-season promotion that puts him in Advanced-A ball after being taken in last year’s draft.
Donald’s stats in Lakewood were terrific: .296 GPA, .137 ISO. He drew an impressive 29 walks and struck out 39 times. Donald earned a promotion to Clearwater and has hit well since joining the team: .304 GPA / .209 ISO. Donald has four home runs and three triples in just forty games. While his walk/strikeout ratio isn’t great (16 to 35), he appears to be pretty solid in terms of working the count and getting on base without having to utilize putting the ball into play. Good work, Jason.
Pitching-wise, the Threshers aren’t so impressive. Their team ERA is 3.73, good for just sixth in the FSL. They rank ninth in home runs allowed, seventh in strikeouts and tenth in walks allowed. Despite the struggles, the Threshers have major, major talent on their roster. I’ve written that the Phillies have a gaggle of young pitching in the pipeline and here it is:
Carlos Carrasco has been judged by many to be the best prospect in the Phillies system. After being part of an impressive triumvirate of pitchers in Lakewood that helped pitch Lakewood to the South Atlantic League title in 2006, Carrasco got promoted to Clearwater and went 6-2 with a 2.84 ERA. Carrasco’s work got him promoted to Double-A Reading, where he joins fellow Lakewood alumnus Matt Maloney.
Also on the Threshers roster is Andrew Carpenter, a terrific pitcher who got drafted by the team in 2006 and pitched well with Batavia last season. This season Carpenter is 11-5 with a 3.42 ERA and is the second-best hurler on the Threshers roster right now.
The pitcher who has really impressed me is Josh Outman. Part of the Lakewood triumvirate with Carrasco and Maloney last season, Outman is the unheralded member of the group, but he might end up being as good or better than Maloney and Carrasco. Here are Outman’s stats:
Win-Loss / ERA / K/9
2007: 10-4 / 2.45 / 8.97
2006: 14-6 / 2.95 / 9.32
2005: 2-1 / 2.76 / 9.51
Outman may not be as highly rated with the scouts as the rest of the Phillies minor league pitchers, but he ought to be. Those are terrific stats. He strikes out a batter per inning. He is difficult to hit and always keeps the Thresher in a game. Outman’s 2.45 ERA is second in the FSL, as are his 117 strikeouts. Keep an eye on Josh Outman.
That’s what is going on with the Clearwater Threshers. Tomorrow I’ll turn my attention to the Gulf Coast League Phillies, who finally have a roster and have gotten started right down the street from the Threshers.
Labels: Minors
Tuesday, July 24, 2007
Small Ball Index
I thought I might look at the Phillies small-ball index today …
A little while ago I wrote that a new deadball era is emerging in baseball. No, baseball isn’t going back to the days prior to World War I, when the Philadelphia Athletics were the best team in baseball and hitting twenty home runs eclipsed what most teams did in a season, but the game is being deadened a little. I credit not only the increased scrutinty on steroids, but also the backlash against the book Moneyball and the success of small-ball teams like the Anaheim Angels. Let me talk a little about the influences on the game before turning to what the Phillies are doing:
Sports Illustrated’s piece on baseball’s second-half of the season labeled the Angels as a contender for this season – noting their impressive pitching staff – and also named them as a potential powerhouse into the future – noting their aggressive and savvy owner, their robust payroll and their well-stocked minor league system. Don’t underestimate the influence that an Angels pennant this season could have on baseball’s future. Baseball is like any sport – success breeds imitators. After the San Francisco 49ers won Super Bowl XXIX in 1994, every team suddenly was enthralled with the West Coast offense and jumped to employ it in their offensive sets. Like many who read this blog, Moneyball was a major influence on my thinking, as were the writings of Bill James. I’ve always admired people who have ideas that change the world around them. Walsh has always been a hero of mine because his West Coast offense has utterly changed the way NFL teams approach the game of football. Teams adopted the 49ers short-passing style and now virtually every team in the NFL runs some sort of variation of the West Coast offense.* There isn’t a single team in the NFL who hasn’t felt the effect of the spread of Bill Walsh’s philosophy through the league.
* Moneyball author Michael Lewis has a book out entitled The Blind Side: Evolution of a Game, where he traces this evolution, which really was a product of the AFL, the upstart league that challenged the NFL in the 1960’s. According to Lewis, the true author of the West Coast offense was Sid Gillman, the coach of the San Diego Chargers, who utilized the vertical passing game to stretch the field when he coached the Los Angeles – later San Diego – Chargers. Guys like Don Coryell and Bill Walsh took Gillman’s ideas and fleshed them out. Coryell and the Chargers of the 1970’s and early 1980’s tried to stretch the field vertically, while Walsh and the West Coast offense stretched the width of the field, utilizing the short passing game to spread the defense out.
Same thing with baseball. The success of the Oakland A’s and the spread of the gospel of Moneyball has had tremendous effect. Teams moved to embrace On-Base-Percentage (OBP). The A’s philosophy to employ the home run as a team’s primary offensive tool has had tremendous effect throughout the league.
The Angels are the anti-Moneyball team. They bunt, they steal bases, they hit-and-run. They thrive on doing “the little things” that apparently Moneyball teams don't do. They draft high school players rather than college players like the A’s. An Angels triumph in 2007 will shape the thinking of teams for years to come. Suddenly, the A’s are no longer the blue-print for success.
Don’t under-estimate the anti-intellectual backlash against Moneyball. While many embraced the book and suddenly discovered the writings of Bill James, others covered their heads in the sand and embraced what was familiar, what they were taught. I’ve compared the differences between the Moneyball and anti-Moneyballers as being akin to the Protestant / Catholic split. The Protestant Moneyballers questioned the dogma of baseball’s Holy Church and the Catholic anti-Moneyballers clung more aggressively than ever to their faith. We are today at the beginning of baseball’s counter-reformation. Expect to see the writings of Bill James lose influence in the minds of baseball executives. All the counter-reformists need is a writer to crystallize their own beliefs in print. (Calling Joe Morgan?) Buzz Bissinger’s Three Days in August comes the closest, and could still becoming the bible of Anti-Moneyballers if a much-discussed movie ever gets made.
(In the interest of full disclosure I am a Catholic. Not to ignite a religious war here, but I am going to say that I’ve found that the Catholic Church, for all its faults, is a more progressive and intellectual institution than most fundamentalist Protestant Churches. I note that so that my foregoing comments aren’t perceived as being anti-Catholic.)
And steroids. I already talked about them enough yesterday in reference to Barry Bonds. Let’s move on …
I think there is ample evidence to show that the home run is in decline. According to The Sporting News, at the start of the season 33.3% of all runs scored in baseball games came via the home run, a decline from 36.9% in 2004. According to The Sporting News, home runs accounted for all of the runs scored in baseball games:
1957: 30.6%
1961: 33.7%
1967: 28.9%
1968: 27.2%
1976: 23.4%
1977: 30.8%
1987: 35.3%
1997: 33.9%
2004: 36.9%
2007: 33.3%
Notice the evolution here: ’61 was the year of Roger Maris and expansion. The home run declined in the 1960’s with the rise of the pitcher, but teams were still adjusting. In the 1970’s teams had adjusted to the end of the pitchers era with an embrace of bunting, base-stealing and the hit-and-run. Notice how home runs had declined in 1976. The rise of steroids, smaller parks and the like shows in the 1980’s and 1990’s. The year 2004 is the apex of the home run. Any coincidence that this was also the year that the Red Sox won the World Series? The year after Moneyball was published?
Now let’s look at the Phillies. If there was ever an N.L.-Moneyball team it is the Phillies of the recent past. (The availability of the DH in the A.L. helped to facilitate the rise of the Moneyball team.) The Phillies bashed home runs, worked counts, and were a powerful offensive juggernaut in their cozy little ballpark. Last season the Phillies hired Davy Lopes to be their first base coach. Don’t underestimate the impact Lopes is having on the Phillies. With the team’s current struggles placing manager Charlie Manuel on the hot-seat, Lopes would be an easy replacement option should the Phillies decide to make a change this season or next in the dugout.
Lopes was a speedster when he played baseball in the 1970’s, back when teams had reacted to the end of the home run era by emphasizing small ball. That clearly has weighed on Lopes mind as he has sought to reintroduce the Phillies to the joys of small ball. Lopes blames the Moneyball revolution for this calamity. Says Lopes:
Lopes can’t control what the team’s overall strategy is – Charlie Manuel is the manager and makes the ultimate decisions about bunting, and the like – however, Lopes clearly is having an impact in that he’s getting the Phillies to run more. Thus far in 2007, the Phillies are averaging 0.91 attempted steals a game. Last year they averaged 0.72. His encouragement has seen Michael Bourn go 14-for-14 in steals this season, Shane Victorino go 28-for-31, and J.Roll go 16-for-20.
So are the Phillies actually playing small ball? We are going to look at three major categories: stolen bases, hitting with runners in scoring position and sacrifice hits (i.e., sac bunts).
Batting Average with Runners in Scoring Position. This is not an area of the game that the 2006 Philadelphia Phillies excelled at. The ’06 Phillies had a .255 BA/RISP, below the .264 N.L. average. Only the Astros (.253), the Nationals (.250), and the Reds (.243) did worse. Naturally, defenders of Moneyball, like myself, note that this is a somewhat irrelevant stat because the Phillies led the N.L. in runs scored in 2006 with 865. When you can sting the opposition with a 400-foot home run at any moment of the game, relying on getting runners on base is pretty much irrelevant.
The ’07 Phillies are doing pretty decently at this: .266 BA/RISP, fifth in the N.L., and better than the N.L. average of .260. Aaron Rowand is leading the way at .348 (32-for-92, with 36 RBIs), followed by Chase Utley (.311) and Ryan Howard (.309). The much-maligned, much-unloved Pat Burrell is hitting .279 with 31 RBIs in 68 At-Bats. Wes Helms (.197) and Rod Barajas (.111) are, quite frankly, terrible at moving runners this season and are really dragging on the Phillies offense.
By the way, the L.A. Dodgers are once more leading the N.L. in BA/RISP at .291, which is what they did last season (.286). Over in the A.L. the Angels are hitting just .275 with runners on, only .005 better than the A.L. average. The Moneyball teams are predictably not doing well:
BA/RISP (A.L. rank of 14 teams)
Boston: .267 (9th)
Toronto: .266 (10th)
Oakland: .234 (14th)
Moving on … Sacrifice Hits. The Colorado Rockies led the N.L. in them is 2006, with 119, which is surely a shock to those who remember the 1990’s, when the Rockies had four or five guys in the lineup who could hit 40 home runs. The ’06 Phillies ranked dead-last in sac hits with 57, well off the N.L. average of 74.
The ’07 Phillies aren’t trying the sacrifice more. They have 33 sacrifice hits, which puts them in a four-way tie for eleventh in the N.L., five off the N.L. average. This is one area of the team where Charlie Manuel’s mind appears to be made up and he’s resisting change.
Stolen bases … the Phillies rank third in the N.L. with 74 steals, just behind the Dodgers (81) and the Mets (115). What is interesting to me is how successful the Phillies are: an 86% success rate. The Mets aren’t far behind at 82%. The ’07 Phillies should easily surpass the ’06 team in terms of stolen bases. The ’07 Phillies are on a pace to take 126 bases, while the ’06 team took just 92. Here is where you are seeing Lopes influence being felt.
At the end of the season I’ll be curious to see two things:
1. How the Phillies did in terms of Manufactured Runs
2. How the Phillies did in terms of base-running.
In his 2007 Handbook, Bill James tried to define Manufactured Runs and figure out which teams did it the most. James delineated between Type-1 Manufactured Runs (a run coming directly or indirectly as a product of a sac bunt, a stolen base, a bunt hit or a hit-and-run), and Type-2 Manufactured Runs (all others, including runs scored on doubles or triples, sacrifice flies). After James ran the numbers on the ’06 campaign he determined that the Phillies ranked dead-last in the N.L. in the pure small-ball Type-1 runs with 33, 1/3 that of the Chicago Cubs with 99. Overall the Phillies had 148 Manufactured Runs, enough to rank them 12th in the N.L. The ’06 Angels ranked second in the A.L. in both the Type-1 Manufactured Runs (80, four less than the Twins), and in overall Manufactured Runs (190, 34 less than the Twins).
Obviously I don’t have the ability to pour through the stat sheets and get a rough idea about how many Manufactured Runs the Phillies will have in 2007, but I strong suspect it will be greater than what they did in 2006.
James has also sought to quantify base-running in the ’07 Handbook too. Unfortunately he didn’t rank teams, but he did rank players and we got to see that while Chase Utley is terrific (James ranked him the second-best base runner in 2006), the Phillies had a lot of slow-footed plodders on the team (Ryan Howard, Pat Burrell), those DH-types of player that Lopes was complaining about.
I am very curious to see how Utley, Jimmy Rollins, Shane Victorino and Michael Bourn change the Phillies numbers. Bourn is completely new. Victorino barely played in 2006 and still ranked as one of the top base-runners. The Phillies are trying to bench Burrell more and more. The Phillies have to be a speedier team and I hope that Bill James ranks teams as well as individuals in the 2008 Handbook.
Alright, tomorrow expect a far shorter opus on the Phillies minor leaguers.
(1) comments
A little while ago I wrote that a new deadball era is emerging in baseball. No, baseball isn’t going back to the days prior to World War I, when the Philadelphia Athletics were the best team in baseball and hitting twenty home runs eclipsed what most teams did in a season, but the game is being deadened a little. I credit not only the increased scrutinty on steroids, but also the backlash against the book Moneyball and the success of small-ball teams like the Anaheim Angels. Let me talk a little about the influences on the game before turning to what the Phillies are doing:
Sports Illustrated’s piece on baseball’s second-half of the season labeled the Angels as a contender for this season – noting their impressive pitching staff – and also named them as a potential powerhouse into the future – noting their aggressive and savvy owner, their robust payroll and their well-stocked minor league system. Don’t underestimate the influence that an Angels pennant this season could have on baseball’s future. Baseball is like any sport – success breeds imitators. After the San Francisco 49ers won Super Bowl XXIX in 1994, every team suddenly was enthralled with the West Coast offense and jumped to employ it in their offensive sets. Like many who read this blog, Moneyball was a major influence on my thinking, as were the writings of Bill James. I’ve always admired people who have ideas that change the world around them. Walsh has always been a hero of mine because his West Coast offense has utterly changed the way NFL teams approach the game of football. Teams adopted the 49ers short-passing style and now virtually every team in the NFL runs some sort of variation of the West Coast offense.* There isn’t a single team in the NFL who hasn’t felt the effect of the spread of Bill Walsh’s philosophy through the league.
* Moneyball author Michael Lewis has a book out entitled The Blind Side: Evolution of a Game, where he traces this evolution, which really was a product of the AFL, the upstart league that challenged the NFL in the 1960’s. According to Lewis, the true author of the West Coast offense was Sid Gillman, the coach of the San Diego Chargers, who utilized the vertical passing game to stretch the field when he coached the Los Angeles – later San Diego – Chargers. Guys like Don Coryell and Bill Walsh took Gillman’s ideas and fleshed them out. Coryell and the Chargers of the 1970’s and early 1980’s tried to stretch the field vertically, while Walsh and the West Coast offense stretched the width of the field, utilizing the short passing game to spread the defense out.
Same thing with baseball. The success of the Oakland A’s and the spread of the gospel of Moneyball has had tremendous effect. Teams moved to embrace On-Base-Percentage (OBP). The A’s philosophy to employ the home run as a team’s primary offensive tool has had tremendous effect throughout the league.
The Angels are the anti-Moneyball team. They bunt, they steal bases, they hit-and-run. They thrive on doing “the little things” that apparently Moneyball teams don't do. They draft high school players rather than college players like the A’s. An Angels triumph in 2007 will shape the thinking of teams for years to come. Suddenly, the A’s are no longer the blue-print for success.
Don’t under-estimate the anti-intellectual backlash against Moneyball. While many embraced the book and suddenly discovered the writings of Bill James, others covered their heads in the sand and embraced what was familiar, what they were taught. I’ve compared the differences between the Moneyball and anti-Moneyballers as being akin to the Protestant / Catholic split. The Protestant Moneyballers questioned the dogma of baseball’s Holy Church and the Catholic anti-Moneyballers clung more aggressively than ever to their faith. We are today at the beginning of baseball’s counter-reformation. Expect to see the writings of Bill James lose influence in the minds of baseball executives. All the counter-reformists need is a writer to crystallize their own beliefs in print. (Calling Joe Morgan?) Buzz Bissinger’s Three Days in August comes the closest, and could still becoming the bible of Anti-Moneyballers if a much-discussed movie ever gets made.
(In the interest of full disclosure I am a Catholic. Not to ignite a religious war here, but I am going to say that I’ve found that the Catholic Church, for all its faults, is a more progressive and intellectual institution than most fundamentalist Protestant Churches. I note that so that my foregoing comments aren’t perceived as being anti-Catholic.)
And steroids. I already talked about them enough yesterday in reference to Barry Bonds. Let’s move on …
I think there is ample evidence to show that the home run is in decline. According to The Sporting News, at the start of the season 33.3% of all runs scored in baseball games came via the home run, a decline from 36.9% in 2004. According to The Sporting News, home runs accounted for all of the runs scored in baseball games:
1957: 30.6%
1961: 33.7%
1967: 28.9%
1968: 27.2%
1976: 23.4%
1977: 30.8%
1987: 35.3%
1997: 33.9%
2004: 36.9%
2007: 33.3%
Notice the evolution here: ’61 was the year of Roger Maris and expansion. The home run declined in the 1960’s with the rise of the pitcher, but teams were still adjusting. In the 1970’s teams had adjusted to the end of the pitchers era with an embrace of bunting, base-stealing and the hit-and-run. Notice how home runs had declined in 1976. The rise of steroids, smaller parks and the like shows in the 1980’s and 1990’s. The year 2004 is the apex of the home run. Any coincidence that this was also the year that the Red Sox won the World Series? The year after Moneyball was published?
Now let’s look at the Phillies. If there was ever an N.L.-Moneyball team it is the Phillies of the recent past. (The availability of the DH in the A.L. helped to facilitate the rise of the Moneyball team.) The Phillies bashed home runs, worked counts, and were a powerful offensive juggernaut in their cozy little ballpark. Last season the Phillies hired Davy Lopes to be their first base coach. Don’t underestimate the impact Lopes is having on the Phillies. With the team’s current struggles placing manager Charlie Manuel on the hot-seat, Lopes would be an easy replacement option should the Phillies decide to make a change this season or next in the dugout.
Lopes was a speedster when he played baseball in the 1970’s, back when teams had reacted to the end of the home run era by emphasizing small ball. That clearly has weighed on Lopes mind as he has sought to reintroduce the Phillies to the joys of small ball. Lopes blames the Moneyball revolution for this calamity. Says Lopes:
Those people [i.e., the Moneyball types, sabremetricians] that came into the game and said the stolen base is a negative part of the game and took the running game out of it have just made it more boring. Too many teams are sitting back waiting for the three-run homer. You’ve got a bunch of guys who are slow afoot, go one base at a time, clog up the bases, and that’s pretty much
what the game has become. A nonathletic-type game. We’ve got too many DHs.
Lopes can’t control what the team’s overall strategy is – Charlie Manuel is the manager and makes the ultimate decisions about bunting, and the like – however, Lopes clearly is having an impact in that he’s getting the Phillies to run more. Thus far in 2007, the Phillies are averaging 0.91 attempted steals a game. Last year they averaged 0.72. His encouragement has seen Michael Bourn go 14-for-14 in steals this season, Shane Victorino go 28-for-31, and J.Roll go 16-for-20.
So are the Phillies actually playing small ball? We are going to look at three major categories: stolen bases, hitting with runners in scoring position and sacrifice hits (i.e., sac bunts).
Batting Average with Runners in Scoring Position. This is not an area of the game that the 2006 Philadelphia Phillies excelled at. The ’06 Phillies had a .255 BA/RISP, below the .264 N.L. average. Only the Astros (.253), the Nationals (.250), and the Reds (.243) did worse. Naturally, defenders of Moneyball, like myself, note that this is a somewhat irrelevant stat because the Phillies led the N.L. in runs scored in 2006 with 865. When you can sting the opposition with a 400-foot home run at any moment of the game, relying on getting runners on base is pretty much irrelevant.
The ’07 Phillies are doing pretty decently at this: .266 BA/RISP, fifth in the N.L., and better than the N.L. average of .260. Aaron Rowand is leading the way at .348 (32-for-92, with 36 RBIs), followed by Chase Utley (.311) and Ryan Howard (.309). The much-maligned, much-unloved Pat Burrell is hitting .279 with 31 RBIs in 68 At-Bats. Wes Helms (.197) and Rod Barajas (.111) are, quite frankly, terrible at moving runners this season and are really dragging on the Phillies offense.
By the way, the L.A. Dodgers are once more leading the N.L. in BA/RISP at .291, which is what they did last season (.286). Over in the A.L. the Angels are hitting just .275 with runners on, only .005 better than the A.L. average. The Moneyball teams are predictably not doing well:
BA/RISP (A.L. rank of 14 teams)
Boston: .267 (9th)
Toronto: .266 (10th)
Oakland: .234 (14th)
Moving on … Sacrifice Hits. The Colorado Rockies led the N.L. in them is 2006, with 119, which is surely a shock to those who remember the 1990’s, when the Rockies had four or five guys in the lineup who could hit 40 home runs. The ’06 Phillies ranked dead-last in sac hits with 57, well off the N.L. average of 74.
The ’07 Phillies aren’t trying the sacrifice more. They have 33 sacrifice hits, which puts them in a four-way tie for eleventh in the N.L., five off the N.L. average. This is one area of the team where Charlie Manuel’s mind appears to be made up and he’s resisting change.
Stolen bases … the Phillies rank third in the N.L. with 74 steals, just behind the Dodgers (81) and the Mets (115). What is interesting to me is how successful the Phillies are: an 86% success rate. The Mets aren’t far behind at 82%. The ’07 Phillies should easily surpass the ’06 team in terms of stolen bases. The ’07 Phillies are on a pace to take 126 bases, while the ’06 team took just 92. Here is where you are seeing Lopes influence being felt.
At the end of the season I’ll be curious to see two things:
1. How the Phillies did in terms of Manufactured Runs
2. How the Phillies did in terms of base-running.
In his 2007 Handbook, Bill James tried to define Manufactured Runs and figure out which teams did it the most. James delineated between Type-1 Manufactured Runs (a run coming directly or indirectly as a product of a sac bunt, a stolen base, a bunt hit or a hit-and-run), and Type-2 Manufactured Runs (all others, including runs scored on doubles or triples, sacrifice flies). After James ran the numbers on the ’06 campaign he determined that the Phillies ranked dead-last in the N.L. in the pure small-ball Type-1 runs with 33, 1/3 that of the Chicago Cubs with 99. Overall the Phillies had 148 Manufactured Runs, enough to rank them 12th in the N.L. The ’06 Angels ranked second in the A.L. in both the Type-1 Manufactured Runs (80, four less than the Twins), and in overall Manufactured Runs (190, 34 less than the Twins).
Obviously I don’t have the ability to pour through the stat sheets and get a rough idea about how many Manufactured Runs the Phillies will have in 2007, but I strong suspect it will be greater than what they did in 2006.
James has also sought to quantify base-running in the ’07 Handbook too. Unfortunately he didn’t rank teams, but he did rank players and we got to see that while Chase Utley is terrific (James ranked him the second-best base runner in 2006), the Phillies had a lot of slow-footed plodders on the team (Ryan Howard, Pat Burrell), those DH-types of player that Lopes was complaining about.
I am very curious to see how Utley, Jimmy Rollins, Shane Victorino and Michael Bourn change the Phillies numbers. Bourn is completely new. Victorino barely played in 2006 and still ranked as one of the top base-runners. The Phillies are trying to bench Burrell more and more. The Phillies have to be a speedier team and I hope that Bill James ranks teams as well as individuals in the 2008 Handbook.
Alright, tomorrow expect a far shorter opus on the Phillies minor leaguers.
Labels: Bourn, Bunting, Burrell, Helms, Howard, Managing, Speed, Utley, Victorino
Monday, July 23, 2007
What's In a Number?
Let me lead-off by noting what a terrific series this was for the team with the Padres. I had written the Phillies off during this West Coast trip and assumed that they’d be dropping 3 of 4 to the Padres, but they actually ended up taking 3 of 4, losing only a close 1-0 decision on Thursday while on their way to outscoring the Padres 28-7. Last night’s game was a masterpiece, as rookie J.D. Durbin hurled a nine-inning shutout where he allowed just three walks and five hits. Rookie Durbin thoroughly out-pitched the Padres Cy Young candidate, Jake Peavy.
In general, the Phillies hammered the Padres vaunted pitching staff over the weekend, which is a good sign for the future, particularly given that they were hitting in the most notorious pitchers park in baseball – Petco Park. The last three wins also give the Phillies a 6-4 record since the All-Star Break. Not too shabby. Today the Phillies get an off-day before taking on some creampuffs this week – the Nationals and the Pirates.
Alright, let’s move past current events to the subject matter of today’s post … What’s in a number? Very soon, possibly tonight, or sometime later this week, Barry Bonds is going to set the all-time record for home runs hit in a career, previously held by Hank Aaron, by hitting #756. The event is going to be monumental, and the challenges it presents baseball are no less significant. Unlike the quiet, likeable Hank Aaron, Barry Bonds has an abrasive, toxic personality. Few people in the history of the game have been as loathed as Bonds.
It is a moment baseball dreads because one of their most sacred records is going to be broken by an individual who is a horrible ambassador for the game, is hatred universally by fans, and may have knowingly used performance enhancing drugs to get here. What does it all mean for the game when #756 is hit?
Whenever people at work ask me what I think about Bonds, I shrug my shoulders. Bad person and we'd like to pretend that character matters in our daily lives, but it doesn't, I'll say. People will forgive him his sins because he can kill a baseball. True, character isn’t a prerequisite to be considered great or to be elected to the Hall of Fame. Ty Cobb was a horrible human being, a mean, vicious racist who was hated by even fans and teammates. Rogers Hornsby was an angry, rude man who allegedly hit someone in an argument and explained he had done so because he wasn’t making any headway in persuading them to see his point of view. (See, Bill James Historical Abstract at 486.) Hal Chase? A lying cheat, or so say the history books. (See, Historical Abstract at 463.)
Every one of them was a great player and there is no denying that they are giants in the game. Character doesn’t exclude them from greatness, and neither does it exclude Bonds. Bonds is a terrible human being, disrespectful to fans, angry, petulant, prone to outrageous statements and wildly paranoid accusations. He’s a jerk. But that doesn’t exclude him from greatness.
Surely we’ve all heard of Game of Shadows. We know what the book’s accusations are. Personally, I am satisfied that Bonds knowingly used steroids to enhance his performance on the baseball diamond. I don’t buy his explanations that he didn’t know he was using a cream with a steroid in it. Nobody as paranoid about training and nutrition as Barry Bonds would have used something without knowing absolutely everything he could about it. My belief is that Bonds was jealous of the attention Mark McGwire got in 1998 when he broke the home run record and wanted to eclipse him. That passionate pursuit of the single-season and career home run marks are what drove him to remake his body in the freakish manner he has, and being remembered is what motivates him every day on that baseball diamond.
It is a true shame that not every baseball player can be a good person like Christy Mathewson, or Roger Maris, or Mark McGwire, who is – steroid-user or not – a genuinely likeable person who inspires respect. Barry Bonds is who he is.
I’m reminded about what Bill James wrote about Richie Ashburn in his Historical Baseball Abstract:
(Abstract at 735.) James wrote those words to compare Ashburn to Rose, a similar player in many respects to Ashburn, but they are easily transferable to Bonds. Rose was a great player like Bonds, and like Bonds, Rose was a terrible human being who cheated on his wife and bet on the game of baseball. Rose's pursuit of Ty Cobb's hits record was one he followed with rabid tenacity because it defined who Rose was, why he existed, why people remembered him. Like Rose, Bonds is a man who needs records to justify his place in the baseball realm. Bonds may or may not be a reader or a family man (I suspect he is neither), but we can say with certainty he had no restraint and he has no taste.
So what does baseball do with the record? Well, wiping away the slate and striping Bonds of the record seems silly. There are so many of baseball’s records that are already tainted by allegations of cheating and drugs. An asterisk also seems silly – it was a tool utilized by baseball to punish Roger Maris for having the temerity to be the one to break Babe Ruth’s record instead of letting Mickey Mantle.
Bonds has embarrassed himself. There already is an asterisk next to Bonds record. He just doesn’t know it yet.
Bonds is just an angry, blustering, insecure man. There is no need to ban him from baseball or to wipe his records clean or to even suggest to future generations that they are tainted by placing an asterisk nearby. Bonds has already tainted his own record, has already written his legacy, and that record and legacy are for dishonesty, fraud and contempt of the game. He’s an angry, hateful person and history is going to record that. No need then to take any steps to assail Bonds.
As for when he breaks the record and hits #756 … Baseball should let it pass quietly and without a comment, aside from a bland congratulations to Bonds. He’s not a great ambassador of the game the way Aaron was, so why even pretend that this is a proud moment for the game? Just let it happen and try to refocus the public’s attention on the pennant races and the other things that are good about the game.
Anyway, those are my thoughts. Comments?
(1) comments
In general, the Phillies hammered the Padres vaunted pitching staff over the weekend, which is a good sign for the future, particularly given that they were hitting in the most notorious pitchers park in baseball – Petco Park. The last three wins also give the Phillies a 6-4 record since the All-Star Break. Not too shabby. Today the Phillies get an off-day before taking on some creampuffs this week – the Nationals and the Pirates.
Alright, let’s move past current events to the subject matter of today’s post … What’s in a number? Very soon, possibly tonight, or sometime later this week, Barry Bonds is going to set the all-time record for home runs hit in a career, previously held by Hank Aaron, by hitting #756. The event is going to be monumental, and the challenges it presents baseball are no less significant. Unlike the quiet, likeable Hank Aaron, Barry Bonds has an abrasive, toxic personality. Few people in the history of the game have been as loathed as Bonds.
It is a moment baseball dreads because one of their most sacred records is going to be broken by an individual who is a horrible ambassador for the game, is hatred universally by fans, and may have knowingly used performance enhancing drugs to get here. What does it all mean for the game when #756 is hit?
Whenever people at work ask me what I think about Bonds, I shrug my shoulders. Bad person and we'd like to pretend that character matters in our daily lives, but it doesn't, I'll say. People will forgive him his sins because he can kill a baseball. True, character isn’t a prerequisite to be considered great or to be elected to the Hall of Fame. Ty Cobb was a horrible human being, a mean, vicious racist who was hated by even fans and teammates. Rogers Hornsby was an angry, rude man who allegedly hit someone in an argument and explained he had done so because he wasn’t making any headway in persuading them to see his point of view. (See, Bill James Historical Abstract at 486.) Hal Chase? A lying cheat, or so say the history books. (See, Historical Abstract at 463.)
Every one of them was a great player and there is no denying that they are giants in the game. Character doesn’t exclude them from greatness, and neither does it exclude Bonds. Bonds is a terrible human being, disrespectful to fans, angry, petulant, prone to outrageous statements and wildly paranoid accusations. He’s a jerk. But that doesn’t exclude him from greatness.
Surely we’ve all heard of Game of Shadows. We know what the book’s accusations are. Personally, I am satisfied that Bonds knowingly used steroids to enhance his performance on the baseball diamond. I don’t buy his explanations that he didn’t know he was using a cream with a steroid in it. Nobody as paranoid about training and nutrition as Barry Bonds would have used something without knowing absolutely everything he could about it. My belief is that Bonds was jealous of the attention Mark McGwire got in 1998 when he broke the home run record and wanted to eclipse him. That passionate pursuit of the single-season and career home run marks are what drove him to remake his body in the freakish manner he has, and being remembered is what motivates him every day on that baseball diamond.
It is a true shame that not every baseball player can be a good person like Christy Mathewson, or Roger Maris, or Mark McGwire, who is – steroid-user or not – a genuinely likeable person who inspires respect. Barry Bonds is who he is.
I’m reminded about what Bill James wrote about Richie Ashburn in his Historical Baseball Abstract:
Richie Ashburn combined the Pete Rose virtues and the Pete Rose style of play with the virtues of dignity, intelligence and style. Like Rose, he was a three-hundred hitting singles hitter who ran out every ground ball of his career, a player who got out of his body every pound of ability that the Lord had put in there. Unlike Rose, Ashburn did not extend his career beyond its natural boundaries to break any records. At the time he retired, he had only 188 hits fewer than Rose had at the same age, and had more than many of the 3,000 hit men had at the same age. He didn’t need records to tell him who he was. Ashburn was a reader, a family man, a man of restraint and taste.
(Abstract at 735.) James wrote those words to compare Ashburn to Rose, a similar player in many respects to Ashburn, but they are easily transferable to Bonds. Rose was a great player like Bonds, and like Bonds, Rose was a terrible human being who cheated on his wife and bet on the game of baseball. Rose's pursuit of Ty Cobb's hits record was one he followed with rabid tenacity because it defined who Rose was, why he existed, why people remembered him. Like Rose, Bonds is a man who needs records to justify his place in the baseball realm. Bonds may or may not be a reader or a family man (I suspect he is neither), but we can say with certainty he had no restraint and he has no taste.
So what does baseball do with the record? Well, wiping away the slate and striping Bonds of the record seems silly. There are so many of baseball’s records that are already tainted by allegations of cheating and drugs. An asterisk also seems silly – it was a tool utilized by baseball to punish Roger Maris for having the temerity to be the one to break Babe Ruth’s record instead of letting Mickey Mantle.
Bonds has embarrassed himself. There already is an asterisk next to Bonds record. He just doesn’t know it yet.
Bonds is just an angry, blustering, insecure man. There is no need to ban him from baseball or to wipe his records clean or to even suggest to future generations that they are tainted by placing an asterisk nearby. Bonds has already tainted his own record, has already written his legacy, and that record and legacy are for dishonesty, fraud and contempt of the game. He’s an angry, hateful person and history is going to record that. No need then to take any steps to assail Bonds.
As for when he breaks the record and hits #756 … Baseball should let it pass quietly and without a comment, aside from a bland congratulations to Bonds. He’s not a great ambassador of the game the way Aaron was, so why even pretend that this is a proud moment for the game? Just let it happen and try to refocus the public’s attention on the pennant races and the other things that are good about the game.
Anyway, those are my thoughts. Comments?
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