tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-66784972024-03-23T14:14:02.441-05:00A CITIZEN'S BLOGThis blog is dedicated to the thoughts, musings, opinions and whatnot of Michael Berquist, Attorney-At-Law, about his favorite baseball team, the Philadelphia Phillies.Unknownnoreply@blogger.comBlogger1000125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6678497.post-17559819969498886402008-12-05T14:22:00.004-05:002008-12-05T14:41:22.096-05:00Okay ... A Few More ....So here's the deal. I began this blog a looooong time ago, back in March of 2004. I did it as a lark when I was in law school to burn off a little steam. Over time it built into a bit of an obsession for me, consuming hours and hours and hours of my time. On the face of it, it seems a little silly: at best the readership of this blog is 150-200 people a day. Why do I do it?<br /><br />I love baseball and I love the Phillies and I want to share those twin passions with you, the fan. So I plugged along, writing and writing and ultimately posting 999 posts before I felt burned out last year and quit on July 7th, 2008, writing my second "this is my final post" post. (I had previously quit in August of '05 only to return to the job in February of '06.) Watching the Phillies as a fan was cathardic. It was fun. I was worried that my posts were getting boring, that I was getting to be a snore. My own sense of it was that I was turning out some turgid prose.<br /><br />So here is what I am going to do. I'm coming back. I got bit by the bug watching the Phillies win the World Series and I was kicking myself a little as I watched Brad Lidge toss the final strikeout. Wouldn't it be fun to write again? I'm betting it will.<br /><br />So I'm back. With a catch: I won't be posting anything until <span style="font-weight: bold; color: rgb(204, 0, 0);">March 2, 2009</span>. Why am I putting off my return to so far into the future? Because, my dear reader, I have decided to marshall all of my energy into writing for six months. I'll be slaving away on posts from now until then that won't even see the light of day until March because I want to write the definative account of the 2009 season, from beginning to end, which I will expand upon at the end of the season into my long-discussed, long-planned book, which I have tenatively entitled <span style="font-style: italic;">Still the Team to Beat: A Blogger's Story of the 2009 Philadelphia Phillies</span>. My 2009 posts will be, effectively, the first draft of that book. That's the plan at any rate.<br /><br />So that's it. I'll see you on March 2nd. 'Til then if you want to reach me, email me at citizensblog at gmail dot com. Enjoy!Unknownnoreply@blogger.com26tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6678497.post-60047059523515639132008-07-07T09:31:00.005-05:002008-07-07T09:59:18.645-05:00Nine Hundred and Ninety-Nine.This is my 999th post at a Citizen's Blog. It will also be my last.<br /><br />I began this blog a <span style="font-weight: bold; font-style: italic; color: rgb(204, 0, 0);">loooong </span>time ago, way back in March of 2004. Blogging was very new and interesting to me and was a terrific means of blowing off steam in a time of great stress: studying for the bar exam and helping my wife plan our wedding. Since then I've written 998 posts detailing very little thing I could think of about my favorite team. In the interim, I passed the bar exam, got married, bought a house, got my career started. But in the past few months I've been getting tired of the daily blogging grind. Recently I took on extra responsibilities at my office. More work, more time, more stress. No longer has blogging been a stress-reliever. Now I get done with a trial and I have to remind myself: it's been two days since you've posted. Better find something interesting to talk about. I've felt the quality of my work decline for some time. My prose has become more wooden and mechanical. My passion is clearly not present. Lots of people have hobbies and this was mine. Not any more.<br /><br />These ought to be exciting days to be a Phillies blogger. This team is playoff-bound and could very well play in the World Series. This team could be a champion. These are the days to be a Phillies fan. And that's what I am going to go back to being. A fan. I just want to sit on my couch and watch and not think about something interesting to write about. I just want to be. When I saw the number count on my posts this morning, I knew it was the right move to make. 999 posts. Just one short of that golden 1,000. It's like being a Phillies fan. Just one thing, one win, one player, one moment, short of greatness, of happiness, of contentment.<br /><br />That's what I plan to be from here on out. A fan. Not a blogger. Not a fan-journalist. Just a fan.<br /><br />I plan to direct my energies elsewhere. I can't get the baseball bug out of my skin. I plan to write some longer articles on topics that interest me and try to get them published elsewhere. The idea of writing a book has always appealed to me and maybe now I'll have the energy to make that happen. Let's see. But in the here and now I'm content to leave A Citizen's Blog stand alone at 999. My body of work, my legacy.<br /><br />Go Phillies.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com38tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6678497.post-69102164853564873922008-06-24T06:07:00.007-05:002008-06-24T06:07:00.954-05:00Brotherly Love: Phillies vs. A's PreviewOnce upon a time, Philadelphia had two baseball teams. They played in different stadiums, in different leagues, and had different fans. If you came from the city’s blue-collar, predominately Italian neighborhoods and were a Democrat, you went to the Baker Bowl* to root for the Phillies. If you were Irish, middle-class and a Republican, you journeyed to Shibe Park and rooted for the Athletics. While Phillies fans sat through decades of defeats – between 1918 and 1948 the team had a losing record every season but one, a 78-76 campaign in 1932 – the Athletics had a few good teams.<br /><br />* The Phillies and A’s shared Shibe Park starting in 1938.<br /><br />Owned by the mild-mannered Connie Mack, the Philadelphia Athletics won the American League pennant in 1902, 1905, 1910, 1911, 1913 and 1914, winning the World Series in ’10, ’11 and ’13. Forced to disband his team, which featured the $100,000 Infield of Home Run Baker, Eddie Collins, Jack Barry and Stuffy McInnis, due to finances after losing the ’14 World Series to the Boston Braves, Mack returned the A’s to glory in the late 1920’s. The A’s finished second to the mighty New York Yankees in ’27 and ’28 before dethroning them in 1929, featuring a team that might be one of the finest in baseball history. (Click <strong><a href="http://vault.sportsillustrated.cnn.com/vault/article/magazine/MAG1008586/index.htm">here</a></strong> for a terrific story that ran in <em>Sports Illustrated</em> a few years ago about the ’29 – ’31 Athletics and how their greatness has been lost to history.)<br /><br />The ’29 A’s repeated as champs in ’30 and won the A.L. pennant again in ’31 before returning to mediocrity. As the cross-town Phillies rose in the late ‘40s, the A’s plodded along before they joined baseball’s westward movement and left Philadelphia after the ’54 season for Kansas City, where they became the western-most franchise in baseball before the Dodgers and Giants moved to the West Coast in 1958. The A’s would sit in Kansas City for another decade, existing as a virtual farm team of the New York Yankees, selling them stars like Roger Maris and Clete Boyer, before leaving for the San Francisco Bay Area in 1967, whereupon they became the Oakland Athletics.<br /><br />Today, many Philadelphia sports fans don’t know about the A’s and their history in Philadelphia, which is too bad. Even before I read Moneyball and came to admire Billy Beane, the A’s were my second-favorite team in baseball. How could you not love Philadelphia’s other baseball team, those long-lost sons living on the West Coast? The A’s turbulent history, their decades of terrible baseball interwoven with two great dynasties (’10 – ’14 and ’29 – ’31), symbolizes how fleeting triumph and success were to Philadelphia in the early-1900s. As much as the Phillies struggles with racial issues in the latter half of the century mirror society’s own struggles with race, the Athletics symbolize how the city of Philadelphia struggled along to find success but was so frequently over-shadowed by that behemoth to the north of us: New York City.<br /><br /><br /><br />Before I dive too much into tonight's Phillies - A's preview, I want to include a link to the <strong><span style="color:#006600;"><a href="http://www.philadelphiaathletics.org/index.html">Philadelphia A's Historical Society website</a></span></strong>. I love the work that they've done. I haven't had a chance to visit their Museum, which is located in Hatboro, but I plan to one of these days. Their web site is phenomenal and is a terrific resource of information. These guys are an under-appreciated treasure.<br /><br />So the Phillies swing out to the West Coast to do battle with the Oakland A's before heading to Dallas, Texas, to take on the Rangers. The A's - Phillies matchup ought to be a good one, only the third time in history that these two teams have met. The A's, of course, are well-known throughout baseball for their pioneering Moneyball-approach to the game, which has enabled them to remain competitive despite having a fraction of the payroll of the rest of baseball. These days the A's are a different team from the walks-and-homers squad that Miguel Tejada and Jason Giambi led to division titles between 2000 and 2003. Peter Gammons forecasted this back in '04 when he noted that the market at the time was under-valuing fielding and that teams like the A's were moving to emphasize the fielding component of the game.<br /><br />Sure enough, fielding, not walks-and-homers, is the A's forte these days. At +28 Fielding Plays, the A's are the top defensive team in the A.L., a fact that helps keep the A's team ERA at 3.41, lowest in the A.L. after the White Sox. The A's ought to send their best pitcher to the mound tonight, Joe Blanton. This will be an interesting game partly because Blanton has been on the radar of a number of MLB teams as a trading prospect. I believe that the Reds were connected to Blanton at one time or another. Don't be surprised if the Phillies swing a trade for the enormously talented Blanton later this season. He would be a terrific fit for the Phillies: in 2007 he allowed just 40 walks and 16 home runs in 230 innings of work (1.6 BB/9, 0.65 HR/9).<br /><br />Offensively the A's aren't what they were in the early part of the decade. Their .330 OBP is below league average and their .378 slugging percentage is one of the worst in the A.L. This is a team that is still maturing. I'm not sure that Jack Cust (11 Home Runs, 34 RBI, .416 OBP) is the answer, but they need more bats to protect him.<br /><br />I'll comment again tomorrow, but that is all for today.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6678497.post-10784468672923562432008-06-23T06:26:00.026-05:002008-06-23T07:55:30.469-05:00'77 vs '08: Which is better?<div>Well, the Phillies pretty much got their asses kicked by the Angels and their pitching staff. This weekend's sweep at the hands of the Angels caps a five-game losing streak. The Phillies have lost seven of their last eight games since they clocked the Cardinals 20-2 on Friday the 13th of June. They need to righten ship and it will be interesting to see what they do against the A's in Oakland starting tomorrow night, which starts a six-game road trip to the Bay Area and deep into the heart of Texas for the Phillies. More on that tomorrow. Today's topic:<br /><br /><em>The Daily News</em> Bill Conlin just published a pretty good piece comparing the '77 Phillies offense to the '08 Phillies. I thought it was worth following up with my own thoughts on the subject.<br /><br />A little bit of history: the '77 team was a monster, the second consecutive Phillies team to win 101 games and was generally regarded as being better than its '76 predecessor, which got swept by the Big Red Machine in the '76 NLCS. The '77 team, which was managed by Danny Ozark, seemed fated to face-off with the Yankees in a rematch of the 1950 World Series, but the '77 team fell to the L.A. Dodgers 3-1 in the NLCS. The '78 team won 90 games and returned to the NLCS but were once more unceremoniously beaten by the Dodgers 3-to-1. Danny Ozark was dumped by the Phillies in '79 after failing to win the N.L. East and the team marched on to its climactic date with history in '80.<br /><br />The '77 team was probably the best team in Phillies history after the '80 (and possibly '81) team(s), so it is worth looking at the '08 team and wondering if we are looking at a team that will occupy the pantheon of legendary Phillies teams. Here is Conlin's article:<br /></div><br /><h1></h1><br /><div><br /></div><br /><blockquote>Bill Conlin: Phillies' 2008 offense might be better than 1977 powerhouse<br /><br /><div class="container_image_left"><a href="http://www.philly.com/dailynews/columnists/bill_conlin/"><img class="img_border" title="" alt="" src="http://media.philly.com/images/40*40/may08_dn_billconlin.jpg" border="0" height="40" width="40" /></a> </div><br /><br /><p class="byline">By Bill Conlin<br /><span style="font-style: italic;">Philadelphia Daily News</span></p>Daily News Sports ColumnistTODAY'S EXERCISE: Match up the best offensive Phillies team you've seen in days of yore with a 2008 offense that might be the best in franchise history. But first, some observations:<br /><br /><p>Psychological trauma, sports- team-collapse variety, often leaves reality gaps in our memories.</p>Black Friday of 1977 - Game 3 of the NLCS against the Dodgers - is known as "The 10-Minute Collapse." But the actual moment of truth, Manny Mota's two-out fly to the warning track in left that Greg Luzinski failed to catch, was more like 10 seconds, counting the wild relay throw that set up the rest of the inning.<br /><br /><p>A black hole of denial surrounds that loss. The Phillies had two more possible home games to atone for the baseball crimes committed while squandering that 5-3 lead. And Steve Carlton vs. Tommy John in Game 4 seemed to flip the odds back in the Phils' favor. But the veteran lefthander outpitched Lefty in a swirling mist of rain. Thirty-one years later, The 10-Minute Collapse is all that remains.</p>In Game 6 of 1993, what if Joe Carter had popped up? Was there a guarantee that Curt Schilling would have beaten the talented Blue Jays in a Game 7?<br /><br /><p>But this is about offense, the run-scoring kind, not the kind of offense that scars our souls.</p>It comes down to either a '77 team that won 101 games or the '93 upstarts who won 97 on the way to an easy NL East title. One will face off with a 21st century attack that appears headed for special status.<br /><br /><p>Each was prolific. But their approaches to offense could not have been more different. The scalawags and rascals of '93 took a grinding, relentless approach to the business of scoring 877 runs. One number tells most of it: an on base-percentage of .351, commendable for an individual, but insane for an entire team. </p>Unlike the 2008 mashers, who specialize in late-inning lightning, the 1977 team ended a lot of games early. After the Phils sent a pitcher to an early shower one night, a scout cracked, "The least this team could do is wait until the fans got to their seats." And the '77 team could longball an opponent from any spot in the lineup - even No. 9. Carlton batted .268 with three homers and 15 RBI. Larry Christenson also hit three with 13 RBI.<br /><br /><p>The 77ers hit .279 as a team, pounded 186 homers and finished with a .346 OBP and .448 slugging average.</p>But they accomplished those numbers playing in Veterans Stadium, a so-called "neutral" ballpark. The Pirates, Cardinals and Reds played in similar all-purpose yards. There was no interleague play, no Rockies or D-backs, no spate of new retro-parks, most with hitter-friendly dimensions. Suffice it to say, these Phillies would not be on the scoring and homer pace they are on playing by '77 parameters. And Mike Schmidt's Phillies might have put up epic numbers playing in Citizens Bank Park.<br /><br /><p>But the structures of both teams are similar enough for side-by-side comparisons regardless of ballpark and era gaps. In fact, some key 2008 stats are on track to wind up eerily similar. This team projects to hit a club- record 235 homers. That team hit 186, led by Greg Luzinski's 39 and Mike Schmidt's 38, and a total of seven players homered in double figures. Chase Utley, Pat Burrell and Ryan Howard are already in double figures with 97 games remaining. Pedro Feliz, Jason Werth, Geoff Jenkins and Chris Coste are on track for double-digit dongs and could make seven, as well.</p>Those Phillies scored 847 runs. These Phillies are on an 857 pace. That's close. As for the dreaded strikeouts, the '77 gang whiffed an economical 806 times. Charlie Manuel's Big Wind Machine is headed for 1,054. But . . . An amazing seven National League teams have struck out more this season than the Phils' to-date total of 423. Take away Howard's obscene 87 and you're looking at Club Contact.<br /><br /><p>In their 65th game of the 1977 season, the Phils engaged basically the same Big Red Machine that swept them in the '76 LCS (Hello, Rockies). It was 9-9 after six. Christenson gave up seven and Ron Reed gave up a pair. But the Phils scored six unanswered runs while Tug McGraw was finishing with three scoreless innings.</p>PITA (Pitchers In Traction Again) would be aghast at such abuse.<br /><br /><p>But Tugger was not the headline. My piece saluted "The Mouse That Roared." In the seventh inning, shortstop Larry Bowa pounced on a fastball from former teammate Joe Hoerner and ripped it to left-center for the only grand slam of his career. It was a grab-a-towel-and-fan-your-fainted-teammate moment.</p>Another thing stands out from that Game 65: The victory left the second-place Phils with an underwhelming 36-29 record. They trailed the Cubs by an alarming 6 1/2 games.<br /><br /><p>General manager Paul Owens had been unhappy with the production at the top of Danny Ozark's lineup. Second baseman Ted Sizemore had been a great No. 2 hitter behind Lou Brock in St. Louis, but the slap hitter didn't have a great basestealer to protect here.</p>The trade deadline in 1977 was June 15. The Phils were in Cincinnati and the press box emptied when the Reds announced they had just traded for Mets ace Tom Seaver. Owens and Minister of Trade Hugh Alexander quietly returned to the hotel the homeward-bound Phils already had checked out of and completed a far more significant deal. The Pope sent some top prospects to the Cardinals for rightfielder Bake McBride.<br /><br /><p>McBride - "Shake and Bake" - was soon leading off for a lineup that finally was stabilized. Garry Maddox, never comfortable leading off, batted No. 2. Sizemore's weak bat was moved to the back of the order. </p>McBride and Maddox put up numbers similar to those Jimmy Rollins and Shane Victorino have been putting up this season. You'll agree Mike Schmidt and Chase Utley are a fine match in the No. 3 hole. Ditto Luzinski and Howard batting cleanup. The Bull hit .309 and drove in a career-high 130 runs. Despite his troubles, Howard is on pace for 122.<br /><br /><p>Like Charlie Manuel, Ozark was blessed with a versatile bench and his reserve outfield and pinch-hitting options included Jay Johnstone, Jerry Martin and Ollie Brown. His infield reserves included unselfish Terry Harmon and walking-baseball encyclopedia Davey Johnson, a pennant-winning manager in waiting. Tim McCarver caught Lefty. Bob Boone caught everybody else.</p>The Phillies made up for a quiet 1977 hurricane season. After the All-Star Game, they were a Category 5 baseball storm. They had cut the Cubs' lead to 2 1/2 games by taking three of four going into the break. But by July 29 they had sagged to third place, three out of the lead and had been downgraded to a Tropical Fraud.<br /><br /><p>But on Aug. 23, they led the Pirates by 7 1/2 games. They had cracked the race open with the hottest stretch in franchise history, going 21-2 with a 13-game winning streak between losses to go 33 games over .500. In one stretch, they scored 10 runs in four straight games.</p>The Phillies' current 12-2 run and weekend sweep of the Braves is starting to look eerily similar to the '77 drive from chaser to chasee.<br /><br /><p>Both teams had extreme longball power. But a complementary ability to extend innings and add on runs when the longball is lacking is a shared characteristic. </p>The game has changed immeasurably since 1977, making comparisons almost pointless. But good hitters are good hitters in any era. Mike Schmidt never had the kind of so-hot-it's-silly roll Chase Utley has been on so far this year. But how many of those frequent warning-track flies No. 20 hit in the Vet and similar cookie-cutter stadiums would be into the flowers and beyond in the Money Pit?<br /><br /><p>If I had to pick the one Phillies lineup I would least like to face, it would be . . . </p>The 1977 Phillies playing in Citizens Bank Park. But that's a fantasy reach, isn't it?<br /><br /><p>Charlie Manuel's team playing in the Vet, the Money Pit or even in Yellowstone Park represents a dry-mouth game for any pitching staff. </p>You are watching the most potent Phils lineup of my time. And yours. </blockquote><br /><div><br /><br />It's a nice article and I agree with a lot, but with a few comments. I'll start with a broad overview of the Phillies lineups in '77 and in '08 and what numbers they produced. First, here is the '77 lineup:<br /><br />RF - Bake McBride (11 Home Runs, 55 Runs Scored, 149 OPS+, 27 steals in 31 tries)<br />SS- Larry Bowa (.313 OBP, 32 steals in 35 tries)<br />3B- Mike Schmidt (38 Home Runs, 101 RBI, 151 OPS+)<br />LF- Greg Luzinski (39 Home Runs, 130 RBI, 156 OPS+)<br />1B- Rich Hebner (18 Home Runs, 62 RBI, 126 OPS+)<br />CF- Garry Maddox (14 Home Runs, 74 RBI, 22 steals in 28 tries)<br />C- Bob Boone (11 Home Runs, 66 RBI)<br />2B- Ted Sizemore (.345 OBP, 25 Grounded Into Double Play)<br />Pitcher<br /><br />And here is the '08 Phillies:<br />SS- Jimmy Rollins (6 Home Runs, 33 Runs Scored, 14 steals in 14 tries, 110 OPS+)<br />CF- Shane Victorino (.347 OBP, 14 steals in 17 tries)<br />2B- Chase Utley (22 Home Runs, 62 RBI, 152 OPS+)<br />1B- Ryan Howard (19 Home Runs, 63 RBI, 105 OPS+)<br />LF- Pat Burrell (18 Home Runs, 47 RBI, 159 OPS+)<br />RF - Geoff Jenkins (<br />3B- Pedro Feliz (.316 OBP, 10 GIDP, 8 Home Runs, 33 RBI)<br />C- Carlos Ruiz (.311 OBP, 8 GIDP, 2 Home Runs, 20 RBI)<br />Pitcher<br /><br />The '77 Phillies hit 186 Home Runs, 56 Triples, 286 Doubles, 135 steals in 203 tries (66.5% success rate), and scored 847 runs (5.23 runs per game).<br /><br />The '08 Phillies are on a pace to hit 225 Home Runs, 26 Triples, 315 Doubles, 112 steals in 127 tries (88.1% success rate), and score 860 runs (5.31 runs per game).<br /><br />Obviously the '77 and '08 teams have to be viewed through the prism of their respective times. Baseball in the 1970's was a game that balanced speed with power. The '77 Pirates, for example, stole 260 bases and hit 133 Home Runs. Baseball in 2008 is gradually moving towards a greater embrace of speed (home runs are down, stolen bases ought to be more frequent soon as teams shift tactics), but right now power is still where it is at. The OPS of the N.L. in '77 was .724. The OPS of the N.L. this season is .741.<br /><br />That makes a good point of departure: how well did the '77 and '08 teams do compared with the rest of the league? How much did they exceed the league average? Well, the '08 Phillies have an adjusted OPS (team OPS / lg OPS = OPS+) of 108, which is second in the league after the Cubs (110 OPS+). The '77 Phillies have an OPS+ of <span style="font-weight: bold; font-style: italic;">114</span>, which tied them with the Cincinnati Reds. Advantage: '77 Phillies. The exceeded the league standard by a wider margin. Yes, the '08 Phillies have some nice power, but they are doing that in an era where power rules.<br /><br />Okay, let's compare various aspects of each team. Speed? Well, the obvious temptation there is to award it to the '77 team. They stole 135 bases and ran 203 times during the season and hit twice as many triples as what the '08 team is projected to hit. Obviously they were faster, right? Not so fast. First off, obviously the '07 team was a little faster than '08: Victorino and Rollins are doing a nice job this year but they lack Michael Bourn and his exceptional 18 of 19 steals. The '77 team ranked fourth of twelve teams in successful steals. The '08 team ranks sixth of sixteen teams. That's pretty comparable. What pops out is the relative success rate: 88% success rate of the '08 team. The '08 team has been caught just 7 times and are on pace to be caught just 15 times this season. The '77 team was caught 68 times, which was fifth in the N.L. Sure, Bake McBride (27 for 31) and Larry Bowa (32 for 35) were great, but the rest of the team was just 76 for 137 (55%). Ted Sizemore, who hit in the #2 slot for much of the early part of the season, was caught on 11 of his 19 steal attempts.<br /><br />The '08 team, even excluding Rollins and Victorino, has an impressive steal rate: 23 in 27 tries. Chase Utley is six-for-six. Eric Bruntlett, who filled in during J.Roll's stint on the DL, was six-for-seven. Jayson Werth? He's seven-for-eight. As for triples, both Victorino and J.Roll have missed time. I think that the speed numbers of the '08 are going to climb as the season progresses and you'll see the '08 team finish in the top three in the N.L. in triples and steals. Advantage: actually I'm giving it to the '08 team, narrowly.<br /><br />The Vet vs. Citizens Bank: there is a big difference in terms of the stadiums the two teams play in. First, there is The Vet, the massive concrete bowl that the Phillies played three and a half decades in. The general consensus of thought is that The Vet was a park that suppressed offense and made things easier for pitchers. Citizens Bank, with its short fences, is seen as a hitters park, so the '08 team gets an artificial bump here. So you'd expect the numbers to reflect that, right? Except ... </div><br /><div> </div><br />The '77 Phillies scored 5.59 runs per game at home. They are very difficult to beat at The Vet, winning 60 of 81 games there. They averaged just 4.86 runs on the road.<br /><div> </div><br /><div>So what do you think of the '08 team? Probably out-score themselves pretty heavily at Citizens Bank, right? The '08 Phillies average 5.13 runs per game at home. They average <strong><em>5.59</em></strong> runs on the road. Surprised? I was. </div><div> </div><br /><div>In the final analysis, it is a little too early to see how the '08 and '77 Phillies stack up to each other. It is just the middle of June and it is worth remembering that Bake McBride, who helped spark the Phillies to the '77 pennant, wasn't acquired until June 15th of '77. Will the Phillies swing a deal and bring in another bat? Will they be forced to deal someone to get pitching help? We'll have to see. My take on the '77 and '08 teams is that they defy easy explanations. The '08 team is a lot quicker and more balanced than they are given credit for, but the '77 Phillies were a more powerful group than they've been recognized for being. It is a close call but in the end ... I agree with Conlin and give it to the '08 Phillies. Let's see if they hold onto their title ...<br /></div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6678497.post-17303027553124980462008-06-20T08:34:00.001-05:002008-06-20T08:48:52.875-05:00Small Ball vs. Big Ball: Angels vs. Phillies Preview<div><span style="font-weight: bold; font-style: italic;">Big Ball vs. Small Ball.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold; font-style: italic;">East Coast vs. West Coast.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold; font-style: italic;">Urban vs. SoCal.</span><br /><br />Today begins a three-game series at Citizens Bank Ballpark between the Phillies and the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim, as the team formerly known as the California Angels and Anaheim Angels prefers to be called these days. I've very intrigued by the differences and contrasts provided by today's series. In terms of geography and culture, Philadelphia and Metro L.A. couldn't be further apart, the former being a gritty East Coast city featuring a fierce, blue-collar work ethic and artery-clogging cheesesteaks vs. the latter, a West Coast city with pretty people who dine on healthy cuisine and only healthy cuisine. The contrast in styles on the baseball diamond is astonishing too: the Phillies are probably the closest thing that the National League has to a <span style="font-style: italic;">Moneyball </span>team, a team that emphasizes walks and home runs over bunts and steals, while the Angels are the epitome of small ball, always fighting and clawing for runs in the dirt, a delicious contrast to SoCal's effete image.<br /><br />Trace the Angels small ball attitude back to their manager, Mike Scioscia, the former Dodgers catcher and Upper Darby native who brought a classically National League perspective to managing the Angels. Since taking over the Angels in 2000, Scioscia has guided the team to a 745-621 record (.545), four playoff berths ('02, '04, '05, and '07), and a World Series title in 2002. Scioscia's weapons have been bunting and stealing bases.<br /><br />The 2008 Angels are an interesting crew, clearly better than the rest of the A.L. West, but still just a few games ahead of the surprising Oakland A's, whom the Angels can be expected to out-spend nearly two and a half to one this season (Angels payroll: $118 million to the A's $47 million dollar payroll). The Angels are a good team, but they feel like one that is under-achieving. Offensively, the Angels rank ninth in the fourteen team A.L. in home runs and tenth in slugging percentage. That partly helps to explain why they rank eleventh in runs scored.<br /><br />What really explains the Angels struggles is this: they are really struggling at small ball this year.<br /><br />What is small ball? Generally, small ball tends to be three things: 1) Bunting, with an emphasis on sacrifice bunting to move runners over; 2) Base-stealing; and 3) Clutch hitting. The '02 Angels were masters of this approach: their .290 batting average with runners in scoring position was tied for best in the A.L.; they stole 117 bases, which was third-best in the A.L.; and they led the A.L. in sacrifice hits with 49. That's a team that successfully executes a small ball approach to baseball.<br /><br />The '08 Angels? Not so much. While they rank third in the A.L. in steals again, their 55 steals are off-set by the fact that they have been caught 22 times, so their 71% success rate means they aren't getting much benefit from running on the bases. Oh, and the Boston Red Sox, that <span style="font-style: italic;">Moneyball </span>team, has more stolen bases, with 64. Surprisingly, the Angels rank twelfth in sacrifice hits with just 11. Finally, the Angels are ninth in batting average with runners in scoring position (BA/RISP) at .268, which is just a little better than the A.L. average of .267. The Angels problem is that they aren't getting guys on base: the team OBP is an awful .318. Garrett Anderson's OBP is .287. Torii Hunter, the team's marque free agent signing during the off-season, has just nine home runs and 33 RBI. Vlad Guerrero, the team's usually reliable slugger, has really struggled in '08: ten home runs and 35 RBI. Assuming that Vlad plays in 90% of the Angels games and continues at his current pace, he ought to have 80-85 RBI this season, which is terrible production from your clean-up hitter.<br /><br />The Phillies are quite the contrast: the Phillies Isolated Power at the plate (Slugging Percentage minus Batting Average, which is basically Slugging Percentage without singles) is .187, which is very, very high. The Angels ISO is an atrocious .128. The big difference to me between the two teams is how the Phillies work the count harder than the Angels: the Angels 3.63 pitches per plate appearance were the fewest in the A.L., while the Phillies 3.8 P/PA is the N.L. average (typically in years past the Phillies finished #1 or #2).<br /><br />While the Phillies have a lot of power at the plate (103 home runs to the Angels 61 homers) they aren't entirely without speed: Jimmy Rollins is 14-for-14 in steals and Shane Victorino is 14 of 17. The Phillies are a nice blend of speed and power as compared to the Angels reliance on speed and clutch-hitting.<br /><br />The strength of the Angels is their pitching staff. The Angels have a pretty formidable rotation, although their pitching staff has been pretty average. The Angels 3.99 ERA is partly the product of really good defense. The Angels tend to pitch to contact: their 2.9 walks per game rate is one of the lowest in the American League, but their 6.0 strikeouts per game is also below the A.L. average as well.<br /><br />Tonight the Angels send Ervin Santana to the mound against Adam Eaton, which is a major mismatch. Santana has been very good this season: 8-3, 3.40 ERA. His fielding independent pitching (FIP) ERA is terrific: 3.35. Santana has a nearly 4-to-1 strikeout-to-walk ratio (3.9-to-1). He's tough to homer off of too: 0.89 HR/9. Looks like the Mets traded for the wrong Santana.<br /><br />Joe Saunders goes Saturday night for the Angels against Brett Myers. Saunders record is 10-3 with a 3.06 ERA, which obscures the fact that he's not pitching particularly well. The Angels have been converting 75.6% of the balls Saunders allows to be put into play into outs, a major reason why his FIP ERA is over a run higher (4.36) than his "real" ERA. Saunders K/BB ratio is just a pedestrian 2-to-1 and he gets 4.7 strikeouts per nine innings. He also allows many more home runs (1.12 HR/9) than his compatriots.<br /><br />Finally, Jered Weaver, the Angels ace hurler, takes the mound Sunday to finish the series against Cole Hamels. Weaver, who went 13-7 with a 3.91 ERA last season, is just 6-7 with a 4.73 ERA this season. Weaver is a nice illustration of the fact that won-loss records and ERAs are bad tools to measure pitchers performances upon. Weaver's numbers are virtually identical this year when compared to last year:<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">2007 / 2008</span><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">FIP: </span>4.14 / 4.13<br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">HR/9:</span> 0.9 / 1.2<br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">BB/9:</span> 2.5 / 2.4<br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">K/9: </span>6.4 / 6.5<br /><br />And yet the casual observer would wonder why Weaver is struggling this season after being so good last year ...<br /><br />The battle between Weaver and Hamels on Sunday is going to be worth the price of admission. Young, talented pitchers, the top aces for playoff-caliber teams ...<br /><br />Defensively the Angels are good, but not great. They've allowed just 16 unearned runs. Their defensive outfield is surprisingly below-average: Torii Hunter ranks 11th of 12 A.L. Centerfielders in Relative Zone Rating (RZR). Garrett Anderson and Vlad Guerrero likewise rank near the bottom in RZR in leftfield and rightfield. I expected such talented players to have much better skills. The Angels infield collectively ranks third of fourteen teams in RZR.<br /><br />This will be an interesting series. Is it a World Series preview? Maybe. It wouldn't surprise me in the least to see these two teams playing in October. Cheesesteaks vs. Fish Tacos.<br /><br />I like the Phillies to take two of three from the Angels.<br /></div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6678497.post-32852215457115813032008-06-19T05:41:00.001-05:002008-06-19T06:13:00.496-05:00How do you spell relief?Everyone's throats sore from booing J.D. Drew last night? I remember booing Drew back in '99 at the Vet when he hit that home run. Good times. Alas, last night's 7-4 loss to the Red Sox drops the Phillies a little back in the division race. This weekend: the Angels of Los Angeles or Anaheim or California home to town, followed by a trip to the West Coast to play the A's. I'll preview both series.<br /><br />Right now I am working on a book about the Wiz Kids, that lovable collection of young Phillies players who captured the 1950 pennant then settled into baseball obscurity after the team’s chronic refusal to sign African-American ballplayers caused the team to remain an also-ran. I ran a big series on the Wiz Kids back in ’06 and I immediately thought about relief pitcher extraordinaire Jim Konstanty, who won the 1950 N.L. MVP award on the strength of his amazing relief performances for the team that season.<br /><br />For those not familiar with the tale of the Wiz Kids, Konstanty went 16-7 with a 2.66 ERA (that’s an ERA+ of 152) and 22 saves that season. Konstanty’s 22 saves were 14 more than the Pirates Bill Werle. Konstanty also pitched in 74 of the Phillies 152 games (that’s 48% of them) and finished 62 (41%). In an era where the starting pitcher went the distance in two of every five starts (there were 498 complete games in 1236 games that season), Konstanty was the major reason why the Phillies went 30-16 in one-run games and bested the Dodgers for the pennant, the sole pennant (or division title) the team won between ’15 and ’76.<br /><br />I was thinking about Konstanty when I sat down and looked over the stats from the Phillies bullpen this season. I haven’t been watching <em>Baseball Tonight</em> of late, but I hope that the <em>Baseball Tonight</em> team has commented on the Phillies astonishing bullpen strength this season. People looking for a reason why the Phillies went 13-4 down the stretch last season and best the Mets for the 2007 N.L. East title can look at the bullpen. People looking for a reason why the Phillies are 42-31 and sit three games ahead of the Marlins (and six and a half ahead of the Braves and Mets) in the N.L. East race can look at the bullpen once more. People looking for a reason why the Phillies will win the N.L. East again in 2008 can look at the bullpen.<br /><br />How good is the Phillies bullpen? Well, they have an ERA of 2.58, the best in the National League (that’s an ERA+ of 147), to go with 20 saves in 26 opportunities (fourth in the N.L., with a 77% save percentage, which is best in the N.L.) and a sterling 17-9 record. The Phillies relief corps has the lowest OPS in the N.L. at .633.<br /><br />Want to compare that to last season? Last year the Phillies ‘pen had an ERA of 4.41 (that’s an ERA+ of 92) and an OPS of .764. The Phillies leaky bullpen blew one in every three save opportunities.<br /><br />So how are they doing it? Interestingly, the Phillies bullpen ranks below the N.L. averages in strikeouts per nine innings (7.28 K/9 vs. 7.44 K/9) and in strikeout-to-walk ratio (1.84 vs. 1.94). Initially I was tempted to dismiss the bullpen’s success on the Phillies offense: the Phillies propensity towards late-game comebacks is a big reason why the Phillies bullpen ranks second in the N.L. in run support at 4.61 (just 0.05 under than the Cubs), but that doesn’t explain why the Phillies aren’t allowing many walks or home runs. Is it good pitching? Or is it good defense?<br /><br />As Bill James noted in his final <em>Baseball Abstract</em> in 1988, much of what we think of as good pitching is, in reality, good defense. To be sure, the performance the Phillies relief corps is putting in right now is partly thanks to good defense. But most of it is because the Phillies pitchers aren’t giving guys anything to hit. Interesting thing I observed, when looking at the Phillies stats, is how the Phillies relief guys seemed to go deeper into the counts than the starters do. (I’m cautious reading too much into this because that might just be the nature of the beast: you’ve got to be careful when you inherit runners on base. More on this later.)<br /><br />Of the twelve guys who have taken the mound for the Phillies in 2008, the five starters rank second (Kyle Kendrick), third (Jamie Moyer), fourth (Brett Myers), fifth (Cole Hamels) and seventh (Adam Eaton) in fewest pitches per plate appearance. Rudy Seanez ranks sixth, Chad Durbin ranks eighth, J.C. Romero ranks ninth, Ryan Madson ranks tenth, Tom Gordon ranks eleventh, and Brad Lidge ranks twelfth in pitches per plate appearance. Here are the numbers and their rank amongst the ninety relief pitchers who have tossed 20+ innings:<br /><br /><strong>P/PA:</strong><br />Lidge: 4.00 (21st)<br />Gordon: 3.95 (28th)<br />Madson: 3.94 (30th)<br />Romero: 3.94 (31st)<br />Durbin: 3.81 (56th)<br />Seanez: 3.79 (61st)<br /><br />Confused about what I’m talking about? Here are the stats I refer to defined with respect to pitching stats:<br />Earned Run Average (ERA): Runs Allowed * 9 / Innings Pitched = What a pitcher would give up if they hurled a nine-inning game.<br />Defense Efficiency Ratio (DER): Balls Put Into Play that are converted into outs.<br />Fielding Independent Pitching (FIP): (((13 * HR) + (3 * BB) – (2 * K)) / IP) + League Factor. Basically a measure of how a pitcher would have done if he had an average defense behind him.<br />Home Runs per 9 Innings (HR/9): (HR * 9) / IP<br />Walks per 9 Innings (BB/9): (BB * 9) / IP<br />Strikeouts per 9 Innings (K/9): (K * 9) / IP<br /><br />Looking at Romero, who threw a lot of pitches per batter when he joined the Phillies last season (4.2 P/PA), I was struck about Bill James efforts to classify pitchers by types and his assessment of the Nolan Ryan-type of pitcher: the guy who never gave you anything to hit and so had a lot of walks, a lot of strikeouts, never gave up home runs and threw a lot of pitches over the course of a start. The relief corps largely seems to follow this pattern: while the average N.L. bullpen gives up 0.91 home runs per nine innings, the Phillies gave up 11 in 209 innings – or 0.47 HR/9. While the average N.L. bullpen gives up 3.89 walks per nine innings, the Phillies gave up 92 walks in those 209 innings – or 3.96 BB/9. That careful nipping at the plate is the reason why the Phillies have had a lot of success coming from their ‘pen.<br /><br />Lidge, who has converted all eighteen of his saves after blowing eight in twenty-seven tries last season, has been fantastic this season. In 29 innings of work Lidge has yet to surrender a home run and has fanned 37 hitters, or 11.48 K/9. His 0.93 ERA is absurdly low and compares well to his predecessor as the Astros and Phillies closer, Billy Wagner (2.17 ERA, five blown saves in twenty tries).<br /><br />The biggest surprise, to me, has been Chad Durbin, the former Detroit Tiger who challenged Adam Eaton for the #5 slot in the rotation before moving to the bullpen and becoming the Phillies bullpen workhorse. Durbin has surrendered just one home run in the forty and two-thirds of an inning he has worked this season. He’s pitching nowhere near as well as his 1.55 ERA indicates (his Fielding Independent Pitching, or FIP, ERA is 3.20, which is actually second-best on the team after Lidge at 1.75), but he’s pitching very well. Despite pitching in a ballpark that makes pitchers very vulnerable to home runs, Durbin has found success with a modest 1.11 groundball-to-flyball ratio (G/F), especially compared with the more groundball-oriented pitchers on the staff like Seanez (2.64 G/F), Romero (2.10 G/F), Lidge (1.38 G/F), and Madson (1.29 G/F).<br /><br />I’m sure that there are pundits and bloggers out there who dismiss the Phillies success and believe that it can’t last, but I’m reminded of how unlikely Konstanty’s success was in 1950. He had pitched just 128 innings in the majors before joining the Phillies in 1947 and had meager success. When the sportswriters compiled their list of MVP candidates in the preseason, it is safe to assume he appeared on nobody’s list, and yet there he was helping the under-manned Phillies steal the pennant with timely pitching. Konstanty was the consensus pick as the MVP by the sportswriters.<br /><br />Nobody respects the Phillies ‘pen, especially when compared with the Braves or Mets, but Chad Durbin, Ryan Madson and J.C. Romero are going to be the ones popping the champagne come October, not Billy Wagner.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com26tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6678497.post-13403819384897112542008-06-17T11:44:00.004-05:002008-06-17T12:04:56.653-05:00The Amazin' Mess and Other ObservationsShame on the Mets for their cowardly firing of coach Willie Randolph. Yes, the Mets are underachieving and yes, someone needs to be held accountable, but to fire Randolph in an email quietly at 3:00 AM? It is a cowardly move and speaks volumes about what a disorganized mess the Mets are.<br /><br />Maybe Randolph isn't the best coach in baseball, and maybe he had lost control of the Mets, that highly paid, looks-so-good-on-paper juggernaut that collapsed at the end of the '07 season and struggled to a meager 34-35 start this season. But did he deserve to be fired after a win? While the team is stuck on the West Coast? By email?<br /><br />Let me also take this opportunity to chortle, probably for the 1,531st time this season, over the Mets struggles. Click <a href="http://philliesblog.blogspot.com/2008/02/whos-afraid-of-mets.html"><span style="font-weight: bold;">here</span></a> for all of the comments from Mets fans calling me an idiot for not awarding the N.L East to the Mets at the start of the season. I'm amazed that they can spell.<br /><br />-Nice to see the Phillies bats come alive in last night's 8-2 crushing of the Boston Red Sox. Don't get too confident, Phillies fans, about tonight's game. The Phillies won Game One of the 1915 World Series, then didn't win another playoff game until 1977.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com13tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6678497.post-4798145598817515842008-06-16T10:23:00.000-05:002008-06-16T10:33:01.953-05:00Ghosts of '15: Red Sox vs. Phillies Preview<div>Few may remember, but I want to note that the Phillies and Red Sox have met before, prior to inter-league play, as the Red Sox and Phillies take to the field for a three game set that might be a World Series preview. These two teams squared off once before in the World Series, <span style="font-style: italic;">waaaay</span> back in 1915, when the Phillies were led by Grover Cleveland Alexander, and the Red Sox had a roster featuring Centerfielder Tris Speaker and an unknown pitcher / hitter named Babe Ruth.<br /><br />The ’15 World Series was played in the deadball era prior to the Roaring ‘20s. Boston won the Series four games to one, but out-scored the Phillies 12-10. The series featured terrific pitching from Alexander, who won Game One for the Phillies, but the Phillies were out-matched. In Game Two, with President Woodrow Wilson watching (the first U.S. President to watch a World Series game), the Red Sox won 2-1, and went on to win the final three games of the Series as well. The Phillies defeat in Game Two marked the beginning of an eleven-game post-season losing streak for the Phillies, who would also lose four consecutive games in the ’50 World Series and three consecutive games in the ’76 NLCS to the Reds before beating the Dodgers in Game One of the ’77 NLCS 7-5.<br /><br />Could the ’08 World Series feature the Red Sox and Phillies once more? The way both teams are playing, it wouldn’t surprise me in the least. After obliterating the St. Louis Cardinals 20-2 on Friday night the Phillies enter this series having dropped two straight to the surprising Cardinals, but still hold a three-game lead over the Florida Marlins in the N.L. East and are playing terrific baseball. The Red Sox, meanwhile, sit two and a half games ahead of the Tampa Bay Rays in the A.L. East. Two division leaders going head-to-head.<br /><br />The Red Sox are a formidable team but are lacking their big gun, DH David Ortiz (a.k.a., Big Papi), as well as pitchers Daisuke Matsuzaka and Curt Schilling. Despite the absence of so many important players, the Red Sox muscle on and currently have the second-best offense in the American League (371 runs scored, 5.15 runs per game, an American League-leading .356 OBP). Losing Big Papi's bat hurts (13 home runs, 43 RBI, .234 Isolated Power - ISO* - at the plate), but the Red Sox have a diverse offense. Jacob Ellsbury, the team's lead-off hitter, does a terrific job getting on base (.373 OBP), but has a lot of speed (33 of 36 steals attempted). Kevin Youkilis, the Greek God of Walks, plays great defense at first base and sets the table very well (.376 OBP). Right now Manny Ramirez is picking up the slack: 15 home runs, 49 RBI, .248 ISO. Mike Lowell (10 home runs, 36 RBI, .224 ISO) and J.D. Drew (11 home runs, 38 RBI, .256 ISO) are playing well too. It's a powerful, deep lineup.<br /><br />*ISO: .SLG - .BA = .ISO. Measures a player’s raw power by subtracting singles from their slugging percentage.<br /><br />The <span style="font-style: italic;">Moneyball</span>-era Red Sox aren't the Red Sox of old, stacked with bats and lacking in pitching and defense. The Red Sox play defense very well (.703 Defense Efficiency Ratio, or DER, Balls Put Into Play that are converted into outs) and they have a nasty pitching staff: 3.83 ERA (fourth-best in the A.L.). The injuries to Schilling and Matsuzaka however have stretched the Red Sox staff. This weekend they send to the mound Bartolo Colon (4-1, 3.41 ERA), rookie Justin Masterson (3-1, 2.90 ERA, 31 career innings pitched) and Jon Lester. Josh Beckett, the Red Sox best pitcher, isn't slated to take the mound in this series.<br /><br />It is a testament to the Red Sox eye for talent that they've cobbled together a staff that is really pitching nicely. Colon, seemingly washed up at the start of the season, has pitched well in his starts with the Red Sox, allowing just 7 walks in 29 innings of work. Lester, slated to pitch Tuesday night against Jamie Moyer, is just a month removed from tossing a beautiful nine-inning, two walk no-hitter against the Royals that saw him strikeout nine. Once the game gets to the bullpen, Jonathan Papelbon (2.08 ERA, 19 saves) and Hideki Okajima (3.24 ERA) are a nearly unstoppable duo.<br /><br />The Phillies, meanwhile, send Cole Hamels, Jamie Moyer and Kyle Kendrick to the mound in this series. Hamels is one of the best pitchers in the N.L. (6-4, 3.27 ERA), hurling 86 strikeouts in 99 innings (7.82 K/9). It will be interesting to see how Hamels handles the Red Sox in his first start against them.<br /><br />After Hamels, Moyer takes the mound against Lester tomorrow night, then Kyle Kendrick on Wednesday. Moyer and Kendrick might not strike observers as being pitchers who might have success against the Red Sox, but I like them in these games because both Kendrick and Moyer pitch to contact. The Red Sox love to work the count against pitchers, so guys like Moyer and Kendrick might have success coming in to them aggressively. Just a hunch, but Moyer and Kendrick might actually have more success against the Red Sox hitters than people think.<br /><br />On the Phillies side, Chase Utley (22 home runs, 61 RBI, .401 OBP) and Pat Burrell (18 home runs, 47 RBI, .425 OBP) are tearing things up. Overall, the Phillies have the second-best offense in the N.L. (381 runs scored, 5.37 per game) and do a great job mashing the ball (.188 ISO). Like the Red Sox, the Phillies have a deep roster with lots of power. Ryan Howard, meanwhile, continues to be mired in his struggles and is a notable exception. So far in June Howard's OBP is .313 with just two home runs and 16 RBI in 14 games.<br /><br />Keep your eye on Jimmy Rollins: he's had success in the past against the Red Sox (career .915 OPS against the Sox) and he's off to a nice start since returning from the D.L. So far J.Roll is 13/13 stealing bases.<br /><br />More tomorrow ...<br /></div><div> </div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6678497.post-84927876937344698022008-06-12T08:25:00.001-05:002008-06-12T08:32:48.276-05:00Odds 'N Ends reportYou might have noticed that I failed to produce a post yesterday. Sorry. Morning storm knocked out my power and kept me in bed until it was time to go to work. I had to sprint to get to work on time ...<br /><br />I have a couple of topics I want to touch on briefly today. They are ...<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">1. Chase Utley: MVP?</span> Well, right now Utley is the run-away leader in the National League voting for second base, so he'll definitely be starting at the 2008 All-Star Game for the National League. The triple crown is a long stop for him (his .311 batting average is thirteenth in the N.L.), but his 21 home runs lead the N.L. and his 56 RBI tie him for second in the N.L., just one behind Adrian Gonzalez. He's fourth in the N.L. in Runs Created per 27 Outs at 9.56, and his Isolated Power at the plate (BA - SLG = ISO, basically your slugging percentage without singles) is third in the N.L. at .339. Utley is also playing terrific defense: he's second in the N.L. amongst second basemen in Range Factor (((Put-Outs + Assists) * 9) / IP). If Chase sustains this level of production he could end up with 45-50 home runs, 40-45 doubles, 130-140 RBI, and 12-15 stolen bases.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">2. </span><span style="font-style: italic; font-weight: bold;">Sports Illustrated</span><span style="font-weight: bold;">'s Bizarro-world cover</span> from two weeks ago really didn't touch on everything that is so topsy-turvey about this baseball season. (Click <span style="font-weight: bold;"><a href="http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/2008/writers/tom_verducci/05/20/bizarro0526/index.html">here</a> </span>for the article by Tom Verducci.) Focused mainly on the Tampa Bay Rays sitting at the top of the standings while the Yankees mire in mediocrity, the article really didn't get into back I find shocking about this baseball season: the screwed up nature of the A.L. Central race, which finds the Cleveland Indians and Detroit Tigers with losing records, fighting to stay ahead of the Kansas City Royals. The Royals. The Tigers are a total mess, having shipped Dontrelle Willis to Single-A Lakeland to rehab, while the rest of their lineup groans and creaks towards a fourth-place finish. I'm tempted to blame the struggles of the Tigers on their age, but youngsters Chris Granderson has an OBP of just .297, and Jason Verlander is 3-9 with a 4.65 ERA. Gary Sheffield has just three home runs and twelve RBI.<br /><br />The Indians have issues too: Victor Martinez has zero home runs and Travis Hafner has barely played as well. The Indians pitching staff, which I actually felt was the best in the American League, has two of its three starters getting rocked: C.C. Sabathia picked an awful time to struggle (4-8, 4.34 ERA), when millions of dollars in free agency money are at stake, and Paul Byrd (3-6, 4.89 ERA) has been bad too. To me the Tigers and Indians struggles are much, much bigger surprises than the Yankees and Rays respective situations.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">3. The Phillies recent two-game losing streak</span> to the Marlins has clipped the Phillies lead in the N.L. East from 4 games to 2 games. The Braves and Mets sit six and a half games back. Oh yeah, the Mets. I harken back to all of the mocking attacks Mets fans launched on me back in spring about my belief that Johan Santana's acquisition changed nothing. (Click <a href="http://philliesblog.blogspot.com/2007/03/know-thy-enemy-2007-mets.html"><span style="font-weight: bold;">here</span></a> for some abject stupidity.) I was skeptical about the Mets rotation but they've actually been o.k. John Maine has been good (okay, Mets fans were right about him), but Oliver Perez has stunk. On offense, Carlos Delgado has been terrible and the Mets supporting cast hasn't protected Jose Reyes, Carlos Beltran or David Wright.<br /><br />We'll have more on the Mets struggles later.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6678497.post-12498241063744965872008-06-10T05:36:00.013-05:002008-06-10T05:44:21.282-05:00Farm Report: June of '08 (Part II, Clearwater & Lakewood)So we're back on The Farm Report. Currently there are four Phillies minor league teams playing baseball although two others are about to get started. The Gulf Coast League (GCL) Phillies kick off their 2008 season on June 18 with a game against the GCL Blue Jays, while the Williamsport Crosscutters play Mahoning Valley on June 17th. We'll get to see a good number of the 52 players the Phillies took in the 2008 Draft that day. The GCL team is really going to be interesting to watch.<br /><br /><br />The Phillies begin a three-game series tonight in Florida. Brett Myers vs. some guy I've never heard of. Let's turn to the minors.<br /><br />As I mentioned yesterday, the minor league system consists of a number of steps that players have to pass through in order to make their way to the major leagues. The Double-A Reading Phillies and Triple-A Lehigh Valley IronPigs are the final two stops players have to pass through in order to make the big leagues in Philadelphia. The two teams we are going to talk about today, the Advanced Single-A Clearwater Threshers and Single-A Lakewood Blue Claws, are the teams that currently hold players taken in the '06 and '07 Drafts. These players are a few years away from being MLB-ready. Guys like Adrian Cardenas won't have a shot at making the move to Philadelphia until '10. Let's start with ...<br /><br /><strong><span style="color:#cc0000;">Clearwater Threshers.</span></strong> Current record: 26-33. Standings: 6th of 6 teams in in the Florida State League's Western Division, thirteen and one-half games back of the Ft. Meyers Miracles. Players of note: Adrian Cardenas (2B/SS), Quintin Berry (OF), Joe Savery (P) and Kyle Drabek (P).<br /><br />The crown jewels of the Phillies 2006 and 2007 Drafts - first-rounders Kyle Drabek and Joe Savery, as well as Supplemental first-rounder Adrian Cardenas - are currently sunning themselves in Clearwater, Florida, waiting to move up to Reading and join the Reading Phillies. <span style="FONT-WEIGHT: bold">Kyle Drabek</span> is still recovering from an arm injury and will hopefully rejoin the team shortly. Before his injury last season he was 5-1 with a 4.33 ERA in Lakewood. After a so-so start with the GCL Phillies in '06, Drabek really seemed to have put things together in Lakewood (7.66 K/9). I'd like to see what he'll do in Clearwater. The jury is still out on him.<br /><br /><br /><span style="FONT-WEIGHT: bold">Adrian Cardenas</span>, who was picked after Drabek in the sandwich round in '06, is off to a terrific start. It is stunning that a player so talented fell to the Phillies in the sandwich round that season. At the moment Cardenas has an OPS of .909, which would rank him second in the entire FSL behind Daniel Valencia of the Ft. Myers Miracles (.938). Cardenas is also fifth in the FSL in OBP at .397. While Cardenas' has just four home runs and twelve RBIs, remember that the FSL is a very pitching-oriented league. Two things that impress me about him: in addition to the power at the plate, Cardenas is quick (4 for 4 in steals this season, 20 of 27 last season; five triples in '06 and '07 combined) and he shows good bat control (17 walks to 21 K's this season). Add in Cardenas defensive abilities ... Cardenas' skills are limitless. He's easily the best position player the Phillies have in the minors and probably their second-best prospect after Carlos Carrasco.<br /><br /><br />Phillies fans are finally getting their first extended look at <span style="FONT-WEIGHT: bold">Joe Savery</span>. The Phillies first pick in '07, he played sparringly in Williamsport last season, posting a 2-3 record with an impressive 2.73 ERA. The Phillies high command liked what they saw enough to jump Savery over Single-A Lakewood to Clearwater. So far he's off to a solid start, not that you could tell with his 2-7 record and 4.61 ERA, but his numbers are far more impressive. His strikeout rate is 7.54 per nine innings and he owns a 2-to-1 strikeout-to-walk ratio. Unlike Carrasco and Outman, two players the Phillies have elected to move along slowly, Savery appears to be MLB ready sooner rather than later. I could see the Phillies jumping Savery to Reading before the end of this season and giving him a chance at making the Phillies roster in '10.<br /><br />Finally, <span style="FONT-WEIGHT: bold">Quintin Berry </span>is really catching my eye in Clearwater. Currently he is second in the FSL in stolen bases at 19 (in 24 tries). If he could improve his ability to get on base (he currently has a .335 OBP), he'd be deadly. Let's move to the Jersey Shore and scope out the ...<br /><br /><span style="color:#cc0000;"><strong>Lakewood Blue Claws.</strong></span> Current record: 33-26. Standings: 3rd of 8 teams in in the South Atlantic League's Northern Division, two games behind of the Lake County Captains. Players of note: Dominic Brown (OF), D'Arby Myers (OF), Freddy Galvis (SS), Karl Bolt (1B), Travis Mattair (3B), and Drew Naylor (P).<br /><br /><br />Here is something that I just realized. The Blue Claws are the only Phillies affiliate right now with the winning record <strong><em>and</em></strong> not in last place. That's pretty sad.<br /><br />Now, this is just a personal opinion, but I think the Phillies 2007 Draft was pretty good and yielded a lot of talent. While the '06 Draft yielded a clear superstar in Cardenas (the jury is still out on Drabek), I think the '07 Draft will yield a greater dividend of talent in terms of depth as opposed to quality. I can't see Naylor, Savery or Mattair making the kind of contribution that Cardenas will, but each will contribute to the Phillies roster as role players or fourth and fifth starters. In the end that depth will be as important as Cardenas will be. (Can you tell I think this guy is pretty good?)<br /><br />Let's start with <strong>Dominic Brown</strong>. Brown is a player who really impresses me. Last season in Williamsport he stole 14 bases in 21 tries and posted an impressive .356 OBP while hitting 5 triples. This season he's surprised me by hitting five home runs (curiously, no triples, but 12 doubles) with an OBP of .362 and 11 steals in 12 tries. Brown is fast and shows good instinicts. I like the fact that in his last ten games he's walked 7 times and struckout just once. Discipline at the plate and speed. Brown could make a very effective leadoff hitter one day.<br /><br />Airforce grad <strong>Karl Bolt </strong>and <strong>Travis Mattair</strong> man each end of the Phillies corner infield. Bolt, a first baseman, got off to an impressive start in the GCL with 8 home runs, 4 triples and 10 doubles and 31 RBI in just 57 games, an impressive feat given how pitcher-friendly the league is. He's off to a less-powerful start in Lakewood, with three home runs and seven doubles. So far Bolt is striking out way too much: 31 times in 37 games. Add in that he draws just 7 walks and you've got a recipe for disaster. Mattair, who played with Bolt in the GCL last season, is also struggling in Lakewood. His On-Base Percentage is an abysmal .322 and he has just one home run and 21 RBI in 52 games. Like Bolt, Mattair has wiffed a lot: 51 times in 52 games.<br /><br /><strong>D'Arby Myers</strong>, who played in Williamsport in '07 and in the GCL in '06, is really struggling right now. His batting average is a beyond awful .189 and he's struckout 45 times in 50 games. Myers has speed to burn: 7 of 8 steals this season, 11 of 17 last season, but he's going to get few chances to showcase it unless he improves the OBP of .243 he has this season and the .286 he had last.<br /><br />So who is the best position player in Lakewood? Say hello to Mr. <strong>Freddy Galvis</strong>. Ignore Galvis' .288 OBP in Lakewood and his .255 OBP in Williamsport. Galvis is a defensive superstar and has a lot of speed to burn: 9 steals in 10 tries in '08, 9 steals in 13 tries in '07. Galvis's defensive abilities are so impressive that when the team talked about what to do when Jimmy Rollins went down, Galvis' name was floated around by some members of the organization. A player this talented and this raw is still figuring things out at the plate. He'll improve and become a steady MLBer.<br /><br />Finally we come to <strong>Drew Naylor</strong>. The Brisbane, Australia, native was the Phillies best hurler in Williamsport: 8-6, 3.28 ERA, 9.35 K/9, 2.70 BB/9, 3.46 K/BB ratio, 1.14 WHIP. Those are exceptional numbers and it will be interesting to see if Naylor can sustain those numbers in the long haul. So far this season he's burning up the South Atlantic League: 5-2, 2.61 ERA, 9.91 K/9, 2.18 BB/9, 4.55 K/BB ratio, 0.97 WHIP. Wow. If Naylor can keep that up, he's going to become a dominant MLB pitcher.<br /><br />So in the end, I think that the current group of players at Lakewood will produce several talents who could play important supporting roles on the Phillies. Brown and Naylor are near-locks to make it to the majors, while Galvis ought to, and between Mattair, Bolt and Myers, one of the three ought to make it to the majors. That should be four major leaguers right there. While these guys might not contribute as dramatically as I expect Cardenas to do (I expect Cardenas to be a consistent, 25-30 home run, 100 RBI, 40-50 double type of player), they will perform important roles with the Phillies in the future.<br /><br />So that's the Farm Report as I see it this first week of June, 2008. Enjoy your day. Tomorrow, I think I'll talk a little about Shane Victorino.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6678497.post-9818292883746912472008-06-09T05:35:00.011-05:002008-06-09T05:50:21.030-05:00Farm Report: June of '08 (Part I, Lehigh Valley & Reading)Let's begin with a quick recap of this weekend's Braves - Phillies series. Friday night's game, which saw the Phillies snatch victory from the jaws of defeat, might just be the moment that Phillies fans look back upon and say that was the decisive game of the season. Kelly Johnson's error in the top end of the ninth allowed the Phillies to tie the game at 2-2, then Shane Victorino hit the decisive home run and threw out a Braves base-runner trying to tie the game up. The 4-3 win was the most exciting game of the season for the Phillies.<br /><br />So as the smoke clears from the weekend, the Phillies find themselves sitting in first place, 3 & 1/2 games ahead of the Marlins at 39-26, their best record at this time of the year since '95 and probably their finest start since the '93 team went 40-25 to start the season. The Phillies also hold the second-best record in the N.L. after the Cubs and sit 6 & 1/2 games ahead of the Braves and 7 & 1/2 games ahead of the Mets.<br /><br />Hey Mets fans, reind me again: wasn't some guy supposed to gaurantee you a division title? I forget.<br /><br />The Farm Report Returns ... Inspired by the 2008 MLB Draft on Thursday and Friday, I decided that I'd revisit the Phillies minor leagues today and tomorrow with quick looks at how the Phillies minor league teams are doing and how some of our favorite players ("Phuture Phillies"?) are faring.<br /><br />First, a word on how the minors work. Looking for the players the Phillies just drafted in Lakewood and Clearwater and Reading this summer? Don't. Draftees into the Phillies system will be sent to either Clearwater to play with the Gulf Coast League (GCL) Phillies or to Williamsport to play with the Short-Season Single-A Crosscutters in the New York - Penn League (NYPL). Typically high schoolers go to the GCL while college grads go to the NYPL. So expect to see Anthony Hewitt, Zach Collier, Anthony Grose and Jason Knapp in Clearwater while guys like Vance Worley head off to Williamsport. The minors are structured as follows:<br /><br /><span style="FONT-WEIGHT: bold">Rookie League</span> (e.g. GCL Phillies) - typical entry point for High School draftees.<br /><span style="FONT-WEIGHT: bold">Short-Season Single-A</span> (e.g. the NYPL's Crosscutters) - typical entry point for College draftees.<br /><span style="FONT-WEIGHT: bold">Single-A </span>(for the Phillies, the South Atlantic League's Lakewood Blue Claws) - usually the first full season in the minors for the players who survive the GCL or NYPL.<br /><span style="FONT-WEIGHT: bold">Advanced Single-A </span>(for the Phillies, the Florida State League's Clearwater Threshers) - usually the second full season in the minors for the Phillies prospects.<br /><span style="FONT-WEIGHT: bold">Double-A </span>(for the Phillies, the Eastern League's Reading Phillies) - usually the third full season in the minors for the Phillies prospects, although some players can advance here from Single-A or some are held back for development.<br /><span style="FONT-WEIGHT: bold">Triple-A</span> (for the Phillies, the International League's Lehigh Valley IronPigs) - usually the fourth and final full year in the minors for the Phillies prospects, although oftentimes players spend extra time here developing or they advance here quickly.<br /><br />Players like Hewitt and Collier and Grose and Knapp will probably start around July 1 with the GCL Phillies and play sixty or so games until the start of September. Some in need of further development might play winter ball somewhere. In 2009 Hewitt, et al., will graduate to the Jersey Shore and play with the Blue Claws in Lakewood. Given that these guys are all high schoolers, the Phillies will bring them along slowly, sending them to Clearwater in '10, followed by Reading in '11 or '12 and Lehigh Valley in '12 or '13. That's why people like ESPN's Keith Law forecast a <span style="FONT-STYLE: italic">looong </span>development investment for guys like Hewitt. Opening Day, 2014, might be the first time we see Anthony Hewitt or any of the others wear the Red Pinstripes.<br /><br />More advanced college players like Pedro Alvarez, the Vanderbilt third baseman who the Pittsburgh Pirates took with the #2 pick of the draft, in contrast will have a quicker path through the system: likely beginning at the State College Spikes in the NYPL, followed by the Single-A Hickory Crawdads in '09, skipping to the Double-A Altoona Curve in '10, then finishing in Triple-A Indianapolis in '11 and starting at third base for the Pirates in late '11 or early '12. That's the difference between the approaches teams that need MLB-ready talent now like the Pirates and the Phillies, who can afford to take time developing talent.<br /><br />So let's start with the Phillies MLB-ready talent factory in Allentown with the Lehigh Valley IronPigs.<br /><br /><strong><span style="color:#cc0000;">Lehigh Valley IronPigs.</span></strong> Current record: 21-41. Standings: 6th of 6 teams in in the International League's Northern Division, seventeen games back of the Scranton / Wilkes-Barre Yankees. Players of note: Jason Jamarillo (C), T.J. Bohn (OF), Travis Blackley (P), and J.A. Happ (P).<br /><br /><br />The IronPigs, the Phillies brand-spanking new Triple-A affiliate in the Lehigh Valley area, got off to a less than auspicious 6-30 start this season and have clawed their way back to ... well, not respectability. Let's try "mediocrity" ... with a 15-11 record since mid-May. The IronPigs are awful and it is pretty clear that there is little MLB-ready talent currently in Allentown. <strong><span style="color:#cc0000;">Jason Jamarillo</span></strong>, the IronPigs catcher, is making little argument for the job of Chris Coste, with his meager .667 OPS and three home runs and seventeen RBI this season. Jamarillo is the most highly touted catching prospect in the Phillies system, but he's really struggling at the plate while Coste, a player who scouts routinely passed on and paid little attention to, continues to play well in Philly. As long as Jamarillo struggles through this season, Coste and Carlos Ruiz are set in Philadelphia. <strong><span style="color:#cc0000;">T.J. Bohn</span></strong> played briefly with the Phillies at the end of May but recently rejoined the team. His .522 OPS is a testament to how little talent is actually located on the IronPigs roster.<br /><br /><br />Pitcher <strong><span style="color:#cc0000;">Travis Blackley</span></strong>, whom the Phillies took in the Rule 5 Draft last season from the San Francisco Giants farm system, didn't make the Phillies roster but found his way to Triple-A to develop. Blackley is 1-3 with a 5.65 ERA and has struckout 30 hitters (7.36 K/9) and walked 22 (5.4 BB/9) in thirty-six and two-thirds of an inning. Blackley has talent but needs to figure out how to control his stuff. If you can't keep hitters from walking in the International League, you won't be able to do that in the National League.<br /><br /><br />Far and away the Phillies best player on the IronPigs roster is <strong><span style="color:#cc0000;">J.A. Happ</span></strong>. Happ's pedestrian 3-5 record masks an impressive 3.86 ERA (impressively low and doubley impressive given how little help Happ gets) and some nice stats. Happ has 81 strikeouts in 77 innings of work (9.47 K/9) and he allowed 30 walks (2.70 K/BB ratio). If anyone from the Phillies rotation goes down or if Adam Eaton needs to be pulled in August and September, Happ is the guy to take his spot.<br /><br /><br /><strong><span style="color:#cc0000;">Reading Phillies.</span></strong> Current record: 22-34. Standings: 6th of 6 teams in in the Eastern League's Southern Division, eleven games back of Harrisburg. Players of note: Jason Donald (SS), Greg Golson (OF), Jeremy Slayden (OF), Andrew Carpenter (P), Carlos Carrasco (P), and Josh Outman (P).<br /><br />There is a lot of talent on the Reading Phillies roster and I think that the '09 Lehigh Valley IronPigs are going to be a pretty decent team. I'm pretty bullish on the arms that the Phillies have coming up through their system and Reading is where the talent is at. Carpenter is just 2-7 with a 6.94 ERA but he is pitching better than that. It is also worth remembering that Carpenter pitched very well in Clearwater in '07: 17-6, 3.20 ERA, 6.40 K/9, 2.93 BB/9.<br /><br />After Carpenter, the Phillies have two other terrific talents: Carrasco and Outman. Let's start with Carrasco, who has been rated as the best prospect in the Phillies system. Currently Carrasco has been blowing away the opposition in Reading. His 4-4 record and 3.91 ERA masks some scary numbers: 72 strikeouts in 73 & 2/3 innings, or 8.80 K/9. He also possesses a 2.57 K/BB ratio. Carrasco has an exceptional arm and is clearly destined to take the place of Jamie Moyer or Adam Eaton in Philadelphia in 2009. He might actually be major-league ready right now.<br /><br />Outman is a curious case of someone who posts numbers equally good, if not better than Carrasco, and yet doesn't earn the same respect. Outman's issue right now is control: he has a 2-6 record and a 3.61 ERA but he's getting a lot of strikeouts and a lot of walks. How many players strikeout over ten batters per nine innings of work? Outman does: 10.3 K/9 (53 Ks in 46 & 1/3 innings). How many can find success despite allowing over five walks an inning? Outman does: 5.05 BB/9 (26 walks). Once Outman gains control he'll return to being the pitcher who matched Carrasco stride-for-stride in '06 and '07. I predict seeing Outman in Philadelphia in '10.<br /><br />The Reading Phillies position players are an interesting bunch. First there is Greg Golson, the talented former high schooler from Texas that the Phillies are trying to make into a major leaguer and might yet succeed, but for Golson's inability to avoid striking out again and again and again. Golson is a strikeout artist and has K'd a whopping 73 times so far this year. Sadly, the strikeouts detract from the fact that Golson is fast (16 steals in 19 tries) and has power (13 doubles and 7 home runs in just 57 games).<br /><br />Then these is Jeremy Slayden, the slow-footed slugging rightfielder from Georgia Tech who tore up the Florida State League last season. This season Slayden has struggled a little with good competition, but he's generally played well. His 5 home runs and 40 RBI aren't that impressive, but when coupled with his .355 OBP, they make a strong argument for Slayden to advance to the IronPigs in '09.<br /><br />Finally, Jason Donald. The talented shortstop from the University of Arizona is the big surprise of the Phillies system. More of a defensively oriented player, Donald has an impressive .399 OBP and has displayed a lot of speed (7 for 9 in steals, 3 triples) and power (4 home runs, 10 doubles, and a .444 slugging percentage). He's a terrific player and could be backing up Jimmy Rollins next year.<br /><br />Tomorrow: Clearwater and Lakewood. Today is an off-day for the Phillies.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6678497.post-35101368502276472082008-06-06T07:10:00.009-05:002008-06-06T10:27:13.256-05:002008 Draft Recap: Day OneThe 2008 MLB Draft began yesterday afternoon with the Tampa Bay Rays taking shortstop Tim Beckham with the #1 Overall Pick, perhaps the last time the Rays will be in that position for a long time. The Phillies were busy with nine picks in the first six rounds. Here are a few thoughts:<br /><br />In a draft that was deep on corner infielders and catcher prospects, as well as college players, the Phillies weren't afraid to be different. Their first four picks and six of their first seven, were high school players. The Phillies first three picks were high school players projected as outfielders. The Phillies chose:<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Round: </span><br />1. Anthony Hewitt (SS/OF) - Salisbury, High School<br />1A. Zach Collier (OF) - Chino Hills High School<br />2. Anthony Grose (OF) - Bellflower High School<br />2. Jason Knapp (RHP) - North Hunterdon High School<br />3. Vance Worley (RHP) - Long Beach State College<br />3A. Jonathan Pettibone (RHP) - Esperanza High School<br />4. Trevor May (RHP) - Kelso High School<br />5. Jeremy Hamilton (1B) - Wright State<br />6. Colby Shreve (RHP) - Southern Nevada Community College<br /><br />Obviously your attention is drawn to Hewitt and Collier, a pair of talented outfielders with a lot of raw tools who are anywhere from 4-6 years of development away from the major leagues. I wouldn't expect to see them crack the Phillies lineup until 2013 or so at the earliest. But both players are interesting picks in that they break with the Phillies recent focus on pitching and they also buck the trend in baseball towards drafting MLB-ready college kids who could crack lineups by 2010. The Phillies took two guys with a lot of raw talent who could anchor the Phillies outfield in the future. Hewitt looks like a future compliment to Ryan Howard and Chase Utley in the lineup as a #5 hitter, while Collier looks like a future #2 hitter who has been compared with the Angels Garrett Anderson.<br /><br />It is interesting to me that the Phillies were able to snare the two guys they really wanted, Hewitt and Collier, after it looked like the team might have to choose between them. Keith Law of ESPN thought that Collier was going to slide to the Minnesota Twins at #27, but then Collier slid out of the first round and fell to them in the supplemental first round. The focus, especially from small market teams, on college-ish MLB-ready talent really might pay dividends as the Phillies secured a pair of first-round guys who probably would have gone much higher in the draft in previous years.<br /><br />According to <span style="font-style: italic;">Baseball America</span>, second-round pick <a href="http://www.baseballamerica.com/blog/draft/?p=331#more-331">Jason Knapp had an outstanding outwork with the team</a> and the Phillies considered taking him in the Supplemental First Round at #34, but he fell to them in the second round at #71. What impresses me about Knapp is his size: six-foot-five, 215 lbs, which hopefully means that his fastball will come screaming down on hitters like Randy Johnson. Knapp and fellow-second rounder Anthony Grose are raw talents like Collier and Hewitt, which means that the Phillies are going to have a lot of work ahead of them in terms of talent development, but nearly all of these players are guys rated by the talent experts as having big upsides. Grose looks like a lead-off guy with a lot of speed and terrific defensive abilities. Some have compared him to the Dodgers Juan Pierre.<br /><br />Starting with Knapp, the Phillies took four pitchers with their next five picks. The one who really interests me is May, a Washington State High Schooler who apparently has a fastball clocked in the high-90s and a devastating knuckle-curveball. Can the Phillies keep him from attending Washington State University?<br /><br />-Generally I thought this was a very good draft for the Phillies. If their first four picks turn out well, the farm system could be dramatically restocked. This is a risky draft which could lay the foundations for great things in 2013-2014, or it could be a disaster and a wasted opportunity. We'll see.<br /><br />Look for the Phillies to stock up on some mid-level pitchers today and a few project-type players. I think you'll see the Phillies take some catchers and middle infielders in the mid-level rounds today ....<br /><br />-I thought ESPN's coverage of the Draft was pretty good but there was too much filler at the end and the failure to cover beyond the first round and supplemental first round left an incomplete picture to the viewer. In the future I'd like to see ESPN try and expand their coverage, perhaps starting the first round earlier in the day than two o'clock and following into the second and third rounds.<br /><br />ESPN's panel was good - any panel featuring Peter Gammons is going to be good - but I would have liked to have seen more of Baseball America's Jim Callis or ESPN's Keith Law. Chris Singleton did a nice job as the token player giving the draftee's perspective on the system amidst the pundits, but he seemed like he had big stretches of time where he had nothing to say. One of the reasons why the NFL Draft does so well is because Mel Kiper, Jr., is there on Draft Day to deliver the definitive word on who this guy from Central Appalachian State is. I would like to see Law, a knowledgeable and articulate presence, on the panel as the expert on all things talent.<br /><br />-Ed Wade and the Astros earned scorn for taking catcher Jason Castro with the #10 pick. I hope Wade knows what he's doing.<br /><br />-The Pirates decision to take Pedro Alvarez is a real watershed moment for the Pirates. Either the team has helped itself by laying the foundation for future success - Alvarez has been compared to Manny Ramirez and is the powerful RBI-machine that the Pirates badly need in the middle of their lineup - or they have just doomed themselves to disaster. A year removed from a draft that earned them scorn for ducking on taking a Scott Boras client because of signability issues, they stepped up to the plate and took Alvarez, a major talent who also has Boras negotiating on his behalf. Also given that Pirates GM Neal Huntington is Boras former nemesis ... well, this is a big moment for the Pirates. They need to sign Alvarez and they have little leverage in these negotiations. They are a small-market team that needs to develop talent quickly. This will be interesting ...<br /><br />Oh yeah, the Phillies played some baseball yesterday, wrapping up a four-game series with the Reds with their third win, a 5-0 shutout by Cole Hamels. The big moment in the game was Manager Charlie Manuel's decision to bench 2007 N.L. MVP Jimmy Rollins for failing to run out a pop fly that turned into a single after a silly little-league-type error by the Reds. It was a gutsy decision which could have blown up on everyone had Rollins reacted badly. Instead, the message was received by Rollins and he took it with a lot of dignity. Manuel's hold on the clubhouse was secure and Rollins displayed a lot of humility and maturity in accepting responsibility and putting team harmony first. This is the kind of moment that separates championship teams from also-rans.<br /><br />The Phillies went 8-2 on their homestand and sit two and a half games in first heading into a road trip with the Atlanta Braves. More later on today ...Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6678497.post-85145322178614079432008-06-05T16:25:00.003-05:002008-06-05T16:37:40.196-05:00Draft Update (Con't)The Draft rolls on ... Discussion has swirled around Anthony Hewitt and Zach Collier as being the Phillies targets for the Draft with the 24th pick. As fate would have it, after the Phillies took Hewitt at #24, Collier fell to the Phillies in the Supplemental First Round at #34 anyway. So with the first round nearly complete it looks like the Phillies have gotten both of their guys. Hewitt and Collier are both rated as raw projects by ESPN's Draft Day crew (Keith Law noted that Hewitt in particular struggled when forced to play with wooden bats and against more formitable competition and forecast 4-5 years of development ahead of him), with significant upsides. The video ESPN showed of Hewitt put the name "Bo Jackson" in my head and I was impressed with Zach Collier's throwing arm. The next Johnny Callison? Shane Victorino?<br /><br />Both Hewitt and Collier are likely to play in the Phillies outfield circa 2013 or so if they make it. I'm impressed that the Phillies were able to snare two such talents in the first round. Look for the Phillies next pick in the second round to be a college pitcher given that they just took two high school position players. Don't be surprised if the Phillies take a college pitcher in round three either.<br /><br />Speaking of trends: two-thirds of the first thirty picks were position players rather than pitchers, and two-thirds were college players ... 21 of 30 if you count Community College as being closer to College than High School. Stay tuned ...Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6678497.post-38177820787415462622008-06-05T15:07:00.003-05:002008-06-05T15:12:16.992-05:00Draft UpdateAndrew Cashner is off the board, falling to the Chicago Cubs at #19. The Detroit Tigers are on the clock at #21. Zach Collier and Anthony Hewitt are still on the board. I still say Hewitt.<br /><br />Pedro Alvarez went #2 to the Pirates, which will set up an interesting situation: the small market Pirates and their anti-Boras General Manager negotiating with the devil in the dark suit.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6678497.post-36388572471423907682008-06-05T10:08:00.004-05:002008-06-05T10:42:42.053-05:00Countdown to the DraftThe Draft is just over two hours away. I'm 90% convinced that the Phillies will take High School shortstop Anthony Hewitt at #24. He's an exceptional talent and benefit from grooming within the Phillies system. Adrian Cardenas, another talented high schooler in need of grooming, is doing quite well at Clearwater with the Advanced Single-A Threshers. Imagine a future Phillies infield filled with Hewitt, Cardenas, Utley and Ryan Howard ...<br /><br /><a href="http://www.baseballprospectus.com/">Baseball Prospectus</a> projects that the Phillies will pass on Hewitt <a href="http://www.baseballprospectus.com/article.php?articleid=7615">and take Zach Collier</a>, an outfielder from Chino Hills High School in California. <a href="http://sports.yahoo.com/mlb/news;_ylt=AgMzsGRHcSeWeQqrrPdxddERvLYF?slug=sh-mockdraft060308&prov=yhoo&type=lgns">Others say the Phillies will go with Andrew Cashner</a>, a six foot six relief ace from Texas Christian who almost certainly would have a shorter path to the major leagues than Hewitt or Collier. I'm banking on the Phillies being more interested in developing a player in the long-term. That's why I am going with Hewitt, whom is the person <a href="http://www.baseballamerica.com/">Baseball America</a> says <a href="http://www.baseballamerica.com/today/draft/mock-draft/2008/266117.html">is going at #24</a>.<br /><br />I really liked this article from SI's Tom Verducci about why the MLB Draft <a href="http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/2008/writers/tom_verducci/06/03/verducci.draft/index.html">is so important now that we live in the post-steroids era</a>.<br /><br />Meanwhile ... Don't be fooled by Brett Myers performance last evening. Yes, he surrendered just one hit and one run in seven and one-third of an inning. Yes, he struck eight Reds out. He also surrendered six walks. Volquez, in contrast, tossed a third of an inning less than Myers and got the same number of strikeouts. He allowed just two hits and walked just two Phillies. Even when Myers held onto the no-hitter it struck me that Volquez was still out-pitching him.<br /><br />Losing John Smoltz has to be a bitter blow to the Atlanta Braves, weakening their rotation and costing them a key veteran in their search to return to the playoffs for the first time since '05. I think Smoltz will return in '09, but it will be his final season. This loss will really hurt though. I'm not sure that the Braves will survive and catch up to the Mets and Phillies.<br /><br />Speaking of the Braves, anyone notice the extreme home/road split that the Braves have? The Braves are 24-8 at home and 7-21 on the road. Compare the winning percentages:<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">N.L. East:</span> (Home Pct / Road Pct / Diff.)<br />Atlanta: .750 / .250 / +.500<br />New York: .607 / .433 / +.174<br />Phillies: .606 / .536 / +.070<br />Marlins: .600 / .500 / +.100<br />Nats: .448 / .366 / +.082<br /><br />The only team that comes as close to matching the Braves variance is the Reds, whose .655 home winning percentage is .333 higher than their .322 road winning percentage (although last night's game helped matters). If the Braves were homebodies, they'd be unbeatable.<br /><br />I'll comment on the Draft later.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6678497.post-5250195281866022452008-06-03T05:42:00.050-05:002008-06-03T06:04:48.947-05:002008 MLB Draft FocusThis week is Draft Week in baseball as the thirty major league baseball teams attempt to build for their future by drafting high school and college talent into their rosters. We'll spend some time this week talking about the Phillies recent drafts and the players they will take this Thursday.<br /><br />This will be the second year in a row in which you can watch the draft on ESPN, which I intend to do Thursday evening off my DVR. (News I haven't broken to my wife yet ...) The MLB Draft has never held the attention of the public quite the way that the NFL Draft has for a number of reasons, some of which the MLB is trying to change. For one thing, the draft never used to actually be in a central location but was done over the intercom. No Commissioner striding to the podium to announce the next pick under the glare of the TV cameras as Bud Selig will do Thursday afternoon, and as the NFL as done for years in New York City.<br /><br />The problem with the MLB's efforts to make the Draft an Event with a capital E is that, unlike the NFL, NBA and (to a lesser extent) NHL drafts, the MLB Draft will have absolutely no immediate impact on the teams that make their selections today. The '98 Minnesota Vikings took a gamble on Marshall wide receiver Randy Moss with the 19th pick of the first round of the Draft that season and landed an impact player who helped spark the Vikings to 556 points and a 15-1 record (after going just 9-7 the previous season) thanks to his 1,313 yards and 17 touchdowns. No player taken today is going to have that kind of impact in 2008 or even 2009. David Price was taken #1 overall last season from Vanderbilt and he has played no role whatsoever in the Tampa Bay Rays success in '08.<br /><br />The players being taken today are going to be the cornerstones to their franchises in 2010 or 2011 at the earliest. Most of these players are going to make their MLB debuts in 2012, however. The lack of impact that these players will have on their teams makes the MLB Draft a spectacle for the hard-core baseball fan. The NFL Draft promises: "See tomorrow's players today!" The MLB Draft promises: "See the distant future's players today!"<br /><br />Additionally, thanks to college football and basketball being televised to prominently by ESPN, CBS, ABC and the like, many fans are familiar already with the players they see on Draft Day. College baseball is barely on the radar of most baseball fans. High School baseball? Forget about it ...<br /><br />So while I am skeptical that the MLB Draft will ever be an Event with a capital E, I applaud baseball for shaking up the status quo and attempting to make it interesting for the public. While baseball has traditionally been a sport given to tradition above all else, I enjoy seeing the powers that be attempt to grow the game and give something to get the fans fired up. This is the kind of forward thinking we typically don't see from Major League Baseball.<br /><span style="FONT-WEIGHT: bold; COLOR: rgb(204,0,0)"></span><br /><span style="FONT-WEIGHT: bold; COLOR: rgb(204,0,0)">History.</span> So where does the draft come from? The major league draft, which was adopted by baseball following the winter meetings in December of 1964, grew out of a concern that New York Yankees were dominating the game. The persistent dominance of the Yankees between 1921 and 1964 (in 44 years they won 29 American League Pennants and 20 World Series), in which the Yankees would attract and sign marquee talent like Joe DiMaggio and Mickey Mantle led Major League Baseball to institute the draft. Scouts like Tom Greenwade used to specialize in locating talent and signing them to the Bronx Bombers before other teams were aware these players existed. Suddenly the legions of scouts that the Yankees had criss-crossing the country looking for talent now longer had the ability to corner a player and lock him into a deal. Aging already, the Yankees went into an eclipse in the mid-to-late 1960's.<br /><span style="FONT-WEIGHT: bold; COLOR: rgb(204,0,0)"></span><br /><span style="FONT-WEIGHT: bold; COLOR: rgb(204,0,0)">Theory. </span>Typically teams took players in the MLB draft somewhat equally from college and high school and simply selected the players their scouts rated as the best. Scouts typically would give high ratings to high school players because they were more raw in terms of their talent and were the subject of more speculation. Speculation that oftentimes would prove erroneous. The proliferation over the last decade of sabremetric analysis in the game as well as the internet as turned the draft philosophies on its head. Bill James wrote in his <a href="http://baseballanalysts.com/archives/2005/01/abstracts_from_23.php"><span style="FONT-STYLE: italic">1988 Baseball Abstract</span></a>: "Of all the studies I have done over the last twelve years, what have I learned? ... [After listing four things, James lists as the fifth:] Players taken in the June draft coming out of college (or with at least two years of college) perform dramatically better than players drafted out of high school." The ten points listed by James, of which the foregoing was number five, became known as <a href="http://www.baseball1.com/bb-data/bbd-bj1.html">A Bill James Primer</a>.<br /><br />The split between the sabremetric pundits and the baseball establishment over high schoolers vs. college players continued into the 1990's and 2000's. In the book <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Moneyball-Art-Winning-Unfair-Game/dp/0393324818/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1212079355&sr=8-1"><em>Moneyball</em></a>, author Michael Lewis spends a lot of time dissecting the Oakland A's draft in 2002 for many reasons. The '02 Draft showcases the A's approach to the game in a nutshell: their focus on stats over scouting, their focus on proven college talent over speculative high school talent, their obsession with keeping their costs reasonable. The experience and failure of Billy Beane the ballplayer, the talented high schooler from San Diego taken in the first round of the 1980 Draft, is what drives Billy Beane the A's General Manager.<br /><br />Beane was a bust as a player because he was an unproven talent who could, in the eyes of scouts, be molded into a big leaguer. The scouts who saw Billy Beane play saw Billy Beane as the next Mickey Mantle. Billy Beane the General Manager has no interest or confidence in the capacity of minor league instructors to mold players or try and make them something they are not. Billy Beane wants proven talent, which is why the '02 A's took college players exclusively and took players that other teams took a pass on. Perhaps things <a href="http://larrybrownsports.com/baseball/moneyball-star-jeremy-brown-retiring-oakland/">didn't work out</a> with Jeremy Brown, the much maligned catcher the A's took from the University of Alabama in the first round, in the minor leagues, but the A's success from 1999 to now otherwise underscores why the A's are such a successful franchise despite owning one of the smallest payrolls in the game. Author Michael Lewis wrote about the A's preparation for the 2002 Draft:<br /><br /><br /><br /><blockquote>Billy [Beane] had his own idea about where to find future major league baseball players: inside [the computer of] Paul [DePodesta, then-Assistant General Manager] ... He'd flirted with the idea of firing all of the scouts and just drafting kids straight from Paul's laptop. The Internet now served up just about every statistic you could want about every college player in the country ... From Paul's point of view, that was the great thing about college players: they had meaningful stats. They played a lot more games, against stiffer competition, than high school players. The sample size of their relevant statistics was larger, and therefore a more accurate reflection of some underlying reality. You could project college players with greater certainty than you could project high school players. The statistics enabled you to find your way past all sorts of sight-based scouting prejudices ...</blockquote><a href="http://www.amazon.com/Moneyball-Art-Winning-Unfair-Game/dp/0393324818/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1212079355&sr=8-1"><span style="FONT-STYLE: italic">Moneyball</span></a>, pages 37-38.<br /><br /><br /><br />So what is the actual evidence for college superiority? According to <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Baseball-Between-Numbers-Everything-About/dp/0465005470/ref=pd_bbs_2?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1212435462&sr=8-2"><em>Baseball Between the Numbers</em></a> (<span style="FONT-STYLE: italic">see</span>, Table 7-1.1 on page 237), College players are much, much more likely to make it to the majors than high schoolers. The percentage of high-school players drafted between 1984-1991 who made the majors was just 41%. In that same time period, 60% of college players drafted made the majors. Amongst high schoolers drafted between 1992-1999, 39% made the majors. About 57% of college players during that same time period made the big leagues. So College players are roughly 50% more likely to make the majors than a high schooler, which validates the A's belief in drafting college players. The A's need to develop talent from their farm system and cannot afford to have their draft picks come up short.<br /><br /><br />According to <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Baseball-Between-Numbers-Everything-About/dp/0465005470/ref=pd_bbs_2?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1212435462&sr=8-2"><em>Baseball Between the Numbers</em></a> (I am referencing Chapter 7.1, "What Happened to Todd Van Poppel?" by Dayn Perry, in this post, by the way), "High school pitchers remain the riskiest selections in the first round [of the Draft]. This is mostly because, unlike college hurlers, they haven't made it through the 'injury nexus'." That is partly why high schoolers are such a risky bet for big league teams to take.<br /><br />Now, at this point, I ought to note that not every team follows the A's focus. The Anaheim Angels, for example, focus aggressively on taking high school talent and developing it. With their deep pockets and focus on small ball, the Angels are almost like baseball's Anti-A's. And the Angels have been successful in developing talent on their farm system, so there is a powerful counter-argument to be made that high schoolers are a good bet too: you get to shape and mold their development and you get to bring them aboard before they get into college and possibly suffer injuries. For teams with large payrolls, high schoolers are a good bet.<br /><br />So that's basically where the draft comes from and what some of the theories about it are.<br /><p><br /><span style="FONT-WEIGHT: bold; COLOR: rgb(204,0,0)">The Phillies position on Draft Day.</span> The Phillies own the 24th, 34th, 51st, 71st, 102nd and 109th picks in the draft, or 6 of the top 109 picks. Why so many? The Phillies were given supplemental first and third round picks (#34 and #109 respectively) for losing Aaron Rowand to free-agency and failing to sign Brandon Workman, the Phillies third-round pick in the '07 draft. The supplemental picks, particularly the first-rounder, will pay huge dividends to the Phillies in the long run and will confirm the team's wisdom of not sacrificing draft picks to re-sign pricey free agents. As James wrote in the <a href="http://baseballanalysts.com/archives/2005/01/abstracts_from_23.php"><span style="FONT-STYLE: italic">'88 Baseball Abstract</span></a>: "The chance of getting a good player with a high draft pick is substantial enough that is clearly a disastrous strategy to give up a first-round draft pick to sign a player like Rick Dempsey, Pete Falcone, or Bill Stein." (This is #6 in the 10 points to the <a href="http://www.baseball1.com/bb-data/bbd-bj1.html">Bill James Primer</a>.) </p><p>The Phillies ought to be able to leverage their large number of draft picks into a few talented players. Who will they pick?<br /><br /><span style="FONT-WEIGHT: bold; COLOR: rgb(204,0,0)">Phillies Draft History.</span><span style="COLOR: rgb(204,0,0)"> </span>The Phillies have shown a real focus on pitchers recently. Four of their last five first-round draft choices have been pitchers.<br /><br /><span style="FONT-WEIGHT: bold">First Round Picks</span><br />2007: Joe Savery, LHP<br />2006: Kyle Drabek, RHP<br />2005: No Pick (Took 3B Mike Costanzo in 2nd Round)<br />2004: Greg Golson, OF<br />2003: No Pick (Took 2B Tim Moss in 3rd Round)<br />2002: Cole Hamels, LHP<br />2001: Gavin Floyd, RHP<br />2000: Chase Utley, 2B<br />1999: Brett Myers, RHP<br />1998: Pat Burrell, 1B<br />1997: J.D. Drew, OF<br />1996: Adam Eaton, RHP<br /></p><p>Take notice of the success the Phillies have generally had too: every one of those 1st rounders taken between '96 and '02 have made the majors and, aside from J.D. Drew, is or has been on the Phillies roster. </p><p><br />Winding their way right now through the Phillies system is a slew of great pitching talent: John Outman, Carlos Carrasco, Savery, Drabek, Drew Carpenter. The future is bright for the Phillies pitching staff as Outman and Carrasco (and possibly Savery) might be in the rotation in 2009 to supplement Hamels and Myers, two other former first-round picks.<br /><br />The Phillies most recent draft does suggest, however, that the team might be moving back towards an emphasis on position players. The Phillies took position players with five of the six picks they had following their selection of Savery with the 19th overall pick. They selected seven pitchers in a row in rounds 7-13, but their focus was clearly on the position players. </p><p>It is difficult to predict who the Phillies will take in the draft, but I have heard a lot about the Phillies being interested in Anthony Hewitt, a talented high school shortstop from Connecticut. He is the name that keeps popping up in discussions with the Phillies. I tend to think that the Phillies will take a position player with their first round pick for the first time since they took Greg Golson in '04.<br /><br /><strong><span style="color:#cc0000;">Misc. Points:</span></strong> This will be the final draft Pat Gillick oversees as the Phillies G.M. You have to wonder how much imput he'll have and how much imput someone like Assistant G.M. Reuben Amaro, who is Gillick's likely heir apparant, will have on the team. </p><p>I'll post some more thoughts tomorrow and Thursday, but I thought that I might put a few things out there now ... </p>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6678497.post-89866505084207386782008-06-02T11:02:00.001-05:002008-06-02T11:05:20.674-05:00Fans Dig the Long Ball: Reds vs. Phillies Preview<div>The Phillies begin a four-game series tonight at Citizens Bank Ballpark with the Cincinnati Reds. Bring your gloves tonight kids, because you just might catch a home run when these two teams play each other. Plus you have a chance to catch some history as Ken Griffey, Jr. goes for #600. Fans dig the long ball.<br /></div><div> </div><br /><div>Since the Phillies and Reds opened Citizens Bank and Great American Ballpark both teams have played in what are probably the two most home-run oriented ballparks in the majors after Coors Field. In 2007 the Home Run Factor for Citizens and Great American was 145 and 133 respectively (i.e., the two parks are 45% and 33% more likely to see a home run hit in them), tops in the major leagues. Because their ballparks are so oriented towards home run-hitting, both teams have shaped their rosters accordingly. Check out the Home Run totals for the last five seasons (including '08) and each team's N.L. rank:</div><div> </div><br /><strong>Cincinnati / Philadelphia</strong><br /><div><strong>2004:</strong> 194 (6th) / 215 (2nd)</div><strong>2005:</strong> 222 (1st) / 194 (8th)<br /><div><strong>2006:</strong> 217 (2nd) / 216 (3rd)</div><strong>2007:</strong> 204 (3rd) / 213 (2nd)<br /><div><strong>2008:</strong> 65 (T-3rd) / 85 (1st)</div><div> </div><br />As you can see, this season is no exception. The Phillies continue to whack the ball into the cheap seats at a rate of 1.47 times per game. Extrapolated out of a 162 game season, then the Phillies are on a pace to hit 237 home runs this season. And it just became June, when the air gets a little warmer and the balls really fly out of the park. 240-250 home runs wouldn't be out of the question for the Phillies. The Reds, meanwhile, are on a pace to hit "just" 188 home runs.<br /><div> </div><br /><div>The Reds top players are the 24-year old rookie Joey Votto (10 home runs, 29 RBI), second baseman Brandon Phillips (11 home runs, 31 RBI) and outfielder Adam Dunn (14 home runs, 36 RBI, .409 OBP). All three are young (Dunn is the eldest at 28) and all three pack a whallop at the plate. The Reds biggest problem is that they continue to feature Ken Griffey, Jr., out in rightfield. Griffey has seen his once-bright, Hall of Fame future crumble into a bitter disappointment as he has struggled through nearly a decade now in Cincinnati watching from the sidelines on the D.L. Crippling injuries have stolen the prime years of Griffey's career from him. At age 38 he's a decade older than Dunn and nearly every other regular starter on the Reds roster. He's also not producing much anymore: just a .336 OBP and six home runs to go with 27 RBI. If the Reds are engaged in a youth movement, then Griffey needs to go.<br /><br />But not before Griffey becomes the sixth player to top six hundred home runs. More on that later ...<br /></div><div> </div><br />The Phillies, meanwhile, continue to kill the baseball. Chase Utley leads the N.L. with 20 home runs and 50 RBI. Pat Burrell and Ryan Howard have hit 13 and 15 home runs respectively. Extrapolated over a 162-game season, that means that these players will hit, respectively:<br /><div> </div><br /><div><strong>Home Runs:</strong></div>Chase Utley: 56<br /><div>Ryan Howard: 43<br /></div><div>Pat Burrell: 38</div><br /><div> </div>I wonder how many teams have featured teammates with 40+ home runs, let alone any that featured three players with 40+ home runs. The most exceptional part of the Phillies home run production this year is the fact that Jimmy Rollins has hit just three and the Phillies survived over a month with the light-hitting Eric Bruntlett (two home runs in 117 At Bats) in the lineup.<br /><div> </div><br /><div><strong>Pitching matchups:</strong> Of course it is up to the Phillies and Reds pitchers to make sure that the other side doesn't manage to club some home runs. More particularly, Phillies pitchers want to make sure they aren't the one to surrender #600.</div><div> </div><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Monday:</span> Kyle Kendrick vs. Bronson Arroyo. Kyle Kendrick hopefully won't be the one to surrender #600. So far this season he's done pretty good not allowing home runs: just five in 57 & 2/3 innings, or 0.74 HR/9. This is an even matchup between Arroyo and Kendrick, although they have different styles. Kendrick is a pitcher who pitches to contact. Arroyo is a strikeout artist. Kendrick gets half the strikeouts Arroyo gets (8.0 K/9 vs. 4.0), walks fewer hitters (3.4 K/9 vs. 2.7), allows fewer homers (1.05 vs. 0.74) and throws fewer pitches per plate appearance (4.0 vs. 3.6).<br /><br /><div><span style="font-weight: bold;">Tuesday:</span> Adam Eaton vs. Aaron Harang. Bring your gloves Tuesday night because if Kendrick can get past Ken Griffey, Jr. tonight, chances are Adam Eaton will go down in history as Mr. 600. Eaton has been struggling a lot this season. Not as much as last season, but he's been struggling of late. Harang has a nearly 4-to-1 strikeout to walk ratio, so this one looks like a mismatch. Harang's Achillies Heel, however is is penchant for surrendering home runs: 11 in 82 & 2/3 of an inning.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Wednesday:</span> Brett Myers vs. Edinson Volquez. I hope Myers recent strong outing (eight innings, three earned runs, just six hits and eleven strikeouts) is a harbinger of better outings to come. Volquez is a formitable hurler thus far this season. He's 7-2 with a 1.46 ERA. Don't be fooled - he isn't pitching that well - but he's still pitching very well. Like Arroyo and Harang, Volquez is a pitcher who throws a lot of pitches. Unlike guys to pitch to contact like Kendrick, pitchers like Volquez nibble around the edges of the strike zone and play coy with hitters. Volquez has K'd a phenomenal 83 batters this season (11.4 K/9) and has allowed just three home runs (0.41 HR/9), but he's walked 36 batters (5.0 BB/9) and his Fielding Independent Pitching (FIP) ERA is a run and a half higher at 2.96. This will be a very interesting game.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Thursday: </span>Cole Hamels vs. Homer Bailey. Cole Hamels gets to pitch again against the Reds for the second time this season. He won the first game 5-3, going seven innings and allowing just a single earned run. Some of Hamels most memorable starts have been against the Reds. He made his rookie debut against them in '06 and his eight inning, 15-strikeout masterpiece against them in '07 was the critical game that lifted the Phillies from their 4-11 start and got them back into the playoff race. Homer Bailey is a talented rookie who made his MLB debut in '07 for the team.<br /></div><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Intangibles:</span> the Reds are leading the N.L. in strikeouts at 8.0 K/9, which is pretty impressive. Reds pitchers have to have good stuff however, because they get no help behind them. The Reds rank fifteenth (second to last) in the N.L. in Defense Efficiency Ratio (DER) at .679. The Phillies are more willing to pitch to contact because their defense is better, although at .693 it is still below the league average of .695. I'm amazed that the fact that the Phillies have the fifth-best ERA in the N.L. is flying completely under the radar with most observers. Such a maligned pitching staff playing behind a so-so defense ... Why don't people notice?<br /><br /><div> Enjoy ... I plan to have a discussion of the '08 MLB Draft tomorrow.<br /></div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6678497.post-37955445479326872562008-05-30T06:00:00.000-05:002008-05-30T06:00:01.833-05:00Who ARE these guys? Fishstripes vs. Phillies PreviewOftentimes I don't really pay too much attention to the standings at the start of the season. I've seen too many teams come on like gangbusters in April, only to fall back to mediocrity in June and July. If you have a winning record on June 1, then we'll talk. So all during the months of April and May I've been dimly aware that the Florida Marlins, the team that unloaded nearly all of its talent (e.g., Dontrelle Willis and Miguel Cabrera) to rebuild once again, were sitting near the top of the standings. As I looked at things the other day, there are what the standings looked like to me:<br /><br /><span style="FONT-WEIGHT: bold">N.L. East</span><br />1. Florida 30-22<br />2. Philadelphia 31-24<br />3. Atlanta 28-25<br />4. New York 25-26<br />5. Washington 23-31<br /><br />I was stunned and needed to let the information sink in for a moment before I could process it. Now to all of those Mets fans who questioned my sanity in the preseason for doubting that the '08 Mets were the greatest thing since sliced bread, let me just take a moment and say this:<br /><br /><span style="FONT-WEIGHT: bold; COLOR: rgb(204,0,0); FONT-STYLE: italic">HA-HA!!!!!!</span><br /><br />That felt good ... Well let's just look at the puny Marlins, with their team payroll according to ESPN.com of $22.6 million dollars (half - <span style="FONT-WEIGHT: bold; FONT-STYLE: italic">half! </span>- that of the #29 team, the Tampa Bay Rays at $43.4 million) and the fact that have a better record that the of not-so-mighty New York Mets, spenders of $137 million dollars. Truly stunning. Now, I do intend to take a moment and devote an entire post to mocking the Mets (soon) and dissecting their struggles, but that's not going to be today. Today we are going to try and solve an important question. The Florida Marlins: Who <span style="FONT-WEIGHT: bold; FONT-STYLE: italic">are </span>these guys?<br /><br /><br /><br /><p><span style="FONT-WEIGHT: bold">Marlins Offense vs. Phillies Pitching & Fielding. </span>So far the Marlins are scoring runs off their ability to hit home runs. They've hit 76 thus far, second in the N.L. after the Phillies with 79. Dan Uggla leads the team with 16 home runs and 38 RBI. Uggla, who finished third in the 2006 Rookie of the Year Award, is a solid defensive player with a lot of power. He makes a lot of comparisons to Chase Utley because the two play the same position - second base - and hit for power and average, but Uggla isn't the great defensive player that Utley is. While Uggla is an extremely talented player, Hanley Ramirez, the 2006 N.L. Rookie of the Year, is clearly the Fishstripes best: with nine home runs Ramirez has power, but he also supplies something that the Marlins lack this season. Speed. Ramirez has 13 steals in 18 attempts, having swiped half of the Marlins stolen bases.<br /><br />While Uggla and Ramirez have been great, the big surprise to me is the play of Mike Jacobs. The unheralded Jacobs, who like Uggla and Ramirez debuted with the Marlins in 2006, has quietly hit 11 home runs and 29 RBI so far this season. The Marlins are going to need guys like Jacobs to continue to produce, lest they become a two-man show.<br /><br />Their power at the plate is the reason why they've scored 254 runs, but they haven't nearly been as efficient as the Phillies have. They've hit .242 with runners in scoring position (BA/RISP) thirteenth in the N.L. Their paltry .326 OBP is also eleventh in the N.L. While the Marlins have scored runs and have had success I believe that their long-term prospects offensively are limited: without good situational hitting or without guys setting the table for the big bats, the Marlins are going to decline offensively because after a while you stop hitting solo home runs and winning games 4-3 by hitting three home runs.<br /></p><p>The series will be an interesting test for Brett Myers, who pitches tonight. Can he stop Uggla, Ramirez and Jacobs? Thus far this season Myers has surrendered 15 home runs in 65 innings: 2.07 HR/9. Yikes. Can Myers survive the Fishstripes onslaught? Cole Hamels and Jamie Moyer, the Phillies pitchers for Saturday and Sunday respectively, matchup well with the Marlins. Tonight will be the big, critical test.<br /><br /><strong>Phillies Offense vs. Marlins Pitching & Fielding.</strong> At the moment the Phillies are doing nearly everything right. They rank second in the N.L. in clutching hitting, they are second in runs scored, first in home runs, third in doubles and fourth in On-Base-Percentage (OBP). They set the table, score runs, hit for power ... all they need is to improve their team speed which languished with Shane Victorino and Jimmy Rollins on the shelf, but seems to be making a comeback. The Phillies are doing what they are doing largely on the strength of Chase Utley (17 home runs, 46 RBI, .394 OBP) and Pat Burell (13 home runs, 35 RBI, .417 OBP) strong performances. The Phillies have done all of this despite weak play from free agent signee Pedro Feliz (7 home runs, 28 RBI, .305 OBP) and the struggles of superstar Ryan Howard (14 home runs, 38 RBI, .315 OBP). Add in the fact that speedsters Rollins (8/8 steals) and Victorino (12/14 steals) spent much of the season on the bench, and you have a Phillies offense that will only improve as the season wears on. </p><p><br />What do the Marlins send to the mound? A unit that is young (four of their five starting pitchers are younger than the age of 25) and solid, if unspectacular. The Marlins run a little behind the N.L. average in terms of getting strikeouts and allowing walks, so the team's middling 4.25 ERA is no surprise. That the Marlins team ERA is worse than the Phillies (3.99) is a shocker. </p><p>Defensively, the Marlins are basically average. There isn't a whole lot separating the Phillies and the Marlins here. Both teams are near the N.L. average of .695 in terms of Defense Efficiency Ratio (DER):</p><p>Marlins: .699 DER</p><p>Phillies: .692 DER<br /></p><br />What does the series hold? With the Phillies coming off their big sweep of the Rockies which saw them score 33 runs, the Phillies clearly have momentum. My prediction is that the Marlins get to Brett Myers tonight and win a close one, but that the Phillies win Saturday and Sunday. Have a good weekend everyone ...Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6678497.post-30445011916209450292008-05-28T06:27:00.002-05:002008-05-28T06:27:01.297-05:00The Mind of Charlie ManuelA little while ago I had done a talkback with a Chicago Cubs blogger and he asked me to give his readers a sense of what kind of a manager Charlie Manuel is. My answer was that Manuel was a near-ideal manager for the Phillies: patient (he’s got a team full of veterans), laid-back (you need to be to survive the maelstrom that is the Philadelphia media circus), and a manager who plays to his team’s strengths (power-hitting, fielding). I thought I might take a moment to take a look at what we can derive from Manuel’s strategic maneuvers as the Phillies skipper.<br /><br />Managing in baseball is a pretty tough thing to look at and evaluate. In football coaches shape their team’s actions as in no other sport and are recognized for doing such. The football coaches devise the complicated game-plans (e.g. Eagles defensive coordinator Jim Johnson), install complicated and innovative schemes (e.g., San Francisco 49ers coach Bill Walsh and his West Coast Offense or Michigan Coach Rich Rodriguez and his spread-option offense), motivate players (Bill Parcells was a genius at this). To a lesser extent coaches in the NBA and NHL shape their teams too by devising strategies to emphasize and magnify strengths and downplay weaknesses. But unlike in football and basketball and hockey, where the action is fluid and much of the action and decision-making lays in the hands of the coaches, baseball is the game where the players make the key decisions and the format of the game is fairly static. Managing in baseball is less like being at the helm of the battleship as it steams into battle than sitting as the chairman of the board at a Fortune 500 Company.<br /><br />But managers do shape their teams in far subtler ways that have real impact as the 162-game season unfolds. <br /><br />I think we can look at a number of things and see how Charlie Manuel manages. Here are a few things that are important:<br /><br /><strong>1. Charlie Manuel got his start in the American League.</strong> In Manuel’s first two seasons of managing a Cleveland Indians team in decline (the previous season, in 1999, it had blown a massive lead to the Boston Red Sox in the ALDS, flaming out from the playoffs yet again) were quite successful: the Indians went 90-72 and 91-71. In ’02 Manuel was cashiered after the Tribe got off to a 39-48 start, the beginning of the Indians rebuilding campaign. In the AL, with the designated hitter, they do thing differently. There is more of an emphasis on power-hitting and moving runners around the bases than on timely hitting and speed. Seeing how the Phillies routinely hit poorly in the clutch yet score bushels of runs thanks to their power-hitting, you can see how Manuel’s experiences shaped him when he was the Indians skipper.<br /><br /><strong>2. 2007 <em>was </em>different.</strong> The 2007 campaign represented a number of doctrinal shifts in Manuel’s thinking. The evolution of Manuel towards speed and defense – a more National League-oriented game – occurred in ’07. Let’s measure speed two ways: stolen bases attempted and pinch-runners.<br /><br />The number of stolen base attempts is pretty obvious in terms of the meaning it conveys. After ranking eighth in stolen base attempts in 2006, the Phillies jumped to second in 2007, after the Mets. Manuel did have terrific personnel to pull off the move (Jimmy Rollins, Shane Victorino, Michael Bourn) but Victorino and Rollins had been on the roster in ’06 and they hadn’t run much. Victorino had played extensively in ’06 and attempted a mere seven steals. In ’07 he attempted 41. Rollins was pretty consistent in ’06 and ’07, but he was the team’s sole base-stealing threat in ’06. In fact, he attempted 43% of the Phillies steals in ‘06, while attempting 30% in ’07.<br /><br />Not persuaded? Okay, look at the increasing number of pinch-runners the Phillies used in 2007. As the Indians coach in ’00 and ’01, Manuel used 40 and 30 pinch-runners respectively. That number increased slightly in ’05 when Manuel took over the Phillies: 36. It jumped to 42 in 2006. In ’07 Manuel used 56 pinch-runners, most in the majors. The average N.L. team, as a matter of fact, utilized such 28 pinch-runners, half what the Phillies used. I don’t think this was solely a factor of personnel – the fact that Manuel had the speedy Michael Bourn sitting on the bench – but of a real interest in utilizing speed whenever possible to stretch the defense. When Bourn was on the DL Chris Roberson, the speedy and talented outfielder whom Bourn beat-out for the fourth outfielder slot oftentimes got into the game when the Phillies needed some speed.<br /><br />Defense became much more important to Manuel. When Manuel took over the Phillies in ’05 he made 19 defensive substitutions. The next year he more than doubled that, making 49. Last year Charlie Manuel made a whopping 75 defensive substitutions, second-most in the N.L. after the Nationals Manny Acta. The average N.L. team made 48 … What that tells me was that Manuel consistently wanted to see better defensive players in the game and to do so he was willing to sacrifice some offense. Typically, the defensive switch Manuel would make would be to bring Michael Bourn into the game to play leftfield in place of Pat Burrell. If the game rolled on and Bourn came to hit, the Phillies would find themselves with a light-hitting outfielder in Burrell’s spot, costing the team plenty of offensive firepower.<br /><br />However Manuel placed such a premium on defense that he usually assumed the risk and made the switch. Again, like with stealing bases and pinch-hitters, defensive substitutions are typically a National League thing. In 2007, the average A.L. team utilized 32 defensive substitutions. The average N.L. team utilized 48. Five N.L. teams utilized more defensive substitutions than the Texas Rangers, who led the A.L. with 53.<br /><br /><strong>3. Manuel doesn’t tinker.</strong> Charlie Manuel utilized 87 different lineups in 2007, second-fewest in the N.L. after the Braves Bobby Cox with 86. The average N.L. manager utilized 115 lineups. I think there is a tendency amongst baseball managers to tinker with their lineups to show people how smart they are and how hard they are working. For example: the manager who decides to sit Person A from the lineup because he hits .001 lower against lefties than Person B. That is someone who is needlessly tinkering and fidgeting with their lineup because that what they think wins baseball games. Players want to know where they are hitting in the lineup and they want to stay there.<br /><br />Manuel was exceedingly consistent in terms of his lineup usage. His 87 lineups in ’07 is right in line with the 81 he used in ’06 and the 80 he used in ’05.<br /><br /><strong>4. Manuel is a good tactician.</strong> This is sort of a tough thing to judge because it is tempting a lot of times to engage in Monday Morning Quarterbacking and pass judgment on whether or not bringing Person A in was a better move than bringing Person B into the lineup or on the mound. It is difficult to tell, difficult to get an actual idea about which decision was the best. I am going to focus on Manuel’s decision-making where it comes to utilizing the intentional walk. The IBB is usually a maneuver teams employ to minimize damage by setting up force-outs or to avoid dangerous hitters. Oftentimes it comes back to bite teams in the butt. The Bill James Handbook started looking at whether or not their utilization of the IBB was good (no runs scored in the inning or the next guy grounds into a double play), not good (one run scored in the inning) or the bomb (two or more runs scored). Manuel utilized the IBB 62 times in 2007. 41 times the outcome was good. That’s a 66% success rate. The average N.L. manager utilized the IBB 50 times, 31 of them good. That’s a 62% success rate.<br /><br />Okay, my belief in Manuel’s tactical-decision making is partly subject to conjecture, but he really does a nice job in the dugout, in my opinion. He sets a stable lineup and plays to his team’s strengths. He’s willing to change and makes good tactical decisions. And he’s a winner. Aside from his short season in ’02, he’s had teams that contended for the playoffs each and every season. Can’t argue with that.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6678497.post-14139740190133888042008-05-27T06:01:00.000-05:002008-05-27T06:10:19.364-05:00Book Review: Hammerin' Hank, George Almighty and the Say Hey KidFirst of all, as some of you might have noticed, it has been two weeks since I posted anything on A Citizens Blog. No, I am not quitting. Between work and some other things I had a few crisis that needed to be resolved and I needed a brief break from thinking about the Phillies. Now that I'm back I am eager to make up for lost time. This week alone I'll be posting a big piece analyzing Charlie Manuel's managing style and a preview of the Phillies & Marlins series at the end of the week. My recent pieces have been short on analysis, a deficiency I hope to correct soon.<br /><br /><br />Let's start off with a book review.<br /><br />The 1970's may not have been a great era for America - Watergate, malaise, gas shortages, the Iranian Hostage Crisis, bell-bottom pants and disco - but it was actually a good era for baseball in many respects. The game had declined in the late 1950's as the public left the cities near their teams in favor of the suburbs. Football, a game uniquely suited for television, took off in popularity following the 1958 NFL title game between the Baltimore Colts and New York Giants, as the NFL-AFL rivalry in the 1960's spurred interest in the game. Baseball no longer seemed relevant in the rebellious era of the 1960's. Pitchers came to dominate the game in the '60s, great stars like Mickey Mantle retired, fans felt disconnected to the game and baseball seemed ill-suited to adapting with the changing times.<br /><br />That changed in the 1970's as baseball emerged from the dark days of the 1960's and began to embrace a more exciting form of baseball. Speed combined with power and made baseball more exciting and multifaceted than it had been in the station-to-station, wait for the home run 1950's. Dramatic personalities entered the picture, a welcome departure from the staid conformity of the 1950's. George Steinbrenner bought the Yankees, that symbol of 1950's establishment corporatism, and injected some life into a dull entity. The Oakland A's won three consecutive titles between 1972 and 1974, featuring a team that was never dull and uninteresting. Oh, and some guy out in Kansas City took out some paper and began to write about baseball in his spare time as a night watchman. It was, in many respects, a great era for baseball.<br /><br />It is with all of that in mind I sat down and began to read <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Hammerin-Hank-George-Almighty-Say/dp/1402209568/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1210305660&sr=8-1"><span style="FONT-STYLE: italic">Hammerin' Hank, George Almighty and the Say Hey Kid</span></a>, the story of the 1973 baseball season. Written by John Rosengren, Hammerin' Hank has a lot of material to move through and I wanted to see what the author did with it. I was very impressed with Rosengren's approach. He really tries to move the reader to get a feel for the season as it unfolded, practically day-by-day. As the story moves along we get to see how the '73 season unfolded, but we also hear about Nixon and Watergate and how events outside of the game drove the public and impacted the game.<br /><br /><br />Some things about the '73 season that Rosengren reminds us:<br /><br /><br />-Hank Aaron made his run on Babe Ruth's record of 714 home runs in the 1973 season before falling a little short and breaking the record early in the '74 season. Aaron's story is pretty dramatic: the virulent racism hurled at the quiet man whose sin was that he was black and exceptionally talented. Aaron made his run on Babe Ruth's record amid exceptional hatred and intimidation. Rosengren's book is worth reading alone for the discussion about Aaron's season from hell.<br /><br /><br />-The novel Designated Hitter Rule began in '73, an innovation which would dramatically alter the game. It would seperate the American League from the National League and be an excellant example of how innovations to the game in the '70s helped bring fans back.<br /><br /><br />-What a colorful and exciting group the 1970's Oakland Athletics were. Reggie Jackson, Jim "Catfish" Hunter, Joe Rudi, Dick Williams and Owner Charlie Finley - I doubt that baseball will ever see such an interesting and diverse collection of personalities to grace the game ever again. The A's feuded and fought and argued and won again and again and again. Aside from the Yankees, no other franchise has won three consecutive World Series as the A's did from '72 to '74. If Charlie Finley had the financial resources of Steinbrenner, who purchased the Yankees in '73, the A's of the 1970s might have stayed together and done terrific things. Sadly, we'll never know.<br /><br /><br />I loved every page of <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Hammerin-Hank-George-Almighty-Say/dp/1402209568/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1210305660&sr=8-1">Hammerin' Hank, George Almighty and the Say Hey Kid</a> and couldn't put it down once I picked it up. That's what a good book should do for you ...Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6678497.post-54433532955883402802008-05-13T14:49:00.001-05:002008-05-13T14:54:56.688-05:00Phillies - Braves Series PreviewSorry for the late afternoon post, but I've been busy. Better late than never, right? Alright, five things to keep in mind about the Braves & Phillies series tonight ...<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold; font-style: italic; color: rgb(204, 0, 0);">1. The Braves are a lot better than their 19-18 record suggests.</span> I like to follow teams Pythagorean Win-Loss records and compare them to their 'real' records to predict which teams are lucky and due for a fall or resurgence. Looking at records so far this season I'm seeing the Braves as a team that is poised to make a resurgence. As of this morning, this is where the N.L. East standings sit:<br /><br />1. Florida: 23-15<br />2. Philadelphia: 21-18<br />3. New York: 19-17<br />4. Atlanta: 19-18<br />5. Washington: 16-23<br /><br />Here are the Pythagorean Win-Loss records:<br /><br />1. Atlanta: 23-14<br />2. Philadelphia: 21-18<br />3. Florida: 20-18<br />4. New York: 19-17<br />5. Washington: 16-23<br /><br />The Mets, Phillies and Nationals are all hitting their pythagorean win-loss records right on the mark, but the Marlins are over-performing by three games and the Braves are under-performing by four. Why is that? Well, the Braves have a terrible record in close (i.e., games decided by two runs or less) games at 4-10. When they start getting those break landing their way, I think that the Braves will start winning and will validate my prediction that they'll win the N.L. East in 2008.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold; font-style: italic; color: rgb(204, 0, 0);">2. The Braves have a darn good pitching staff.</span> Of the Phillies five starters, four boast ERAs of 4.93 or above:<br /><br />Cole Hamels: 3.36<br />Kyle Kendrick: 4.93<br />Jamie Moyer: 5.02<br />Brett Myers: 5.33<br />Adam Eaton: 5.40<br /><br />lower than 3.00. Compare that to the Braves starters: Tim Hudson (2.54) and John Smoltz (2.00) have ERAsJair Jurrgens, who tossed just thirty innings in relief for the Tigers last season, is 4-3 with a 3.10 ERA. Braves pitchers rank fourth in the N.L. in strikeouts per nine innings (7.26), while the Phillies rank twelfth (6.09). The Braves also rank first (or last, depending on how you view it ... let's just say "best") in OPS against at .664.<br /><br />Bizarrely, Phillies starters have turned in slightly more (19 to 18) Quality Starts (a start where a pitcher tossed six or more innings and surrenders three or fewer runs) than the Braves. Go figure.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold; color: rgb(204, 0, 0); font-style: italic;">3. The Braves field well.</span> Their fielding percentage is just seventh in the N.L. to the Phillies fourteenth, but they were also second in Defense Efficiency Ratio (DER), meaning that Braves fielders converted balls put into play into outs 71.8% of the time, second to just the Cubs at 72%.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold; font-style: italic; color: rgb(204, 0, 0);">4. The Braves can hit. </span>They have a better OPS than the Phillies (.789 to .755), a slightly better batting average with runners in scoring position (.250 to .249 BA/RISP), and have scored more runs per game (4.89 to 4.74).<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold; font-style: italic; color: rgb(204, 0, 0);">5. The Braves are going to sweep this series. </span>Sorry, Phillies fans, but the Braves are a sleeping giant.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com13tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6678497.post-59086989341092416022008-05-12T06:01:00.001-05:002008-05-12T06:17:08.414-05:00The Need for SpeedThe Phillies emerge from a so-so trip out to the West which saw the team drop four of even games against the Diamondbacks and Giants with an off-day before starting up a three-game series with the Atlanta Braves tomorrow. I’ll preview the Phillies – Braves series tomorrow.<br /><br />Despite losing two of three to the Giants over the weekend, I<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg0sckmhoHkohyphenhyphen_H0bvudp4aVR9WUl-SqIItVKjLZZyKCJc9FISpfue1tdKa6Zydlnzbk-ROBeBvCB5XggXKh9xpS_MFXH5_6id8Rm2l-pW-XNXqUkiUZz_gY5bXFH03zdRE3G_/s1600-h/Bourn.jpg"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5197683843731186834" style="FLOAT: left; MARGIN: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; CURSOR: pointer" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg0sckmhoHkohyphenhyphen_H0bvudp4aVR9WUl-SqIItVKjLZZyKCJc9FISpfue1tdKa6Zydlnzbk-ROBeBvCB5XggXKh9xpS_MFXH5_6id8Rm2l-pW-XNXqUkiUZz_gY5bXFH03zdRE3G_/s320/Bourn.jpg" border="0" /></a> think the Phillies are returning a stronger team than they left Philadelphia as. Jimmy Rollins has returned to the roster and extended trips to the West Coast have to be draining on the Phillies. Up next: the Braves and then an inter-league series with the Toronto Blue Jays, a rematch of the 1993 World Series …<br /><br />I wanted to talk a little about speed and the Phillies … There are basically two things we look at to measure speed in baseball: stolen bases and triples. The stolen base is a measure of speed because the player attempting to steal has to traverse the area from first to second while the ball is still within the baseball diamond area. You have to be fast to go from a dead-stop to a run and accomplish that. We also look at triples because players need to be quick to leg out the extra 90 feet to take this from a double to a three-bagger. We usually don’t count doubles because usually doubles are the product of hard-hit balls to distant portions of the ballpark rather than speed.<br /><br />As those who read sabremetric publications like The Hardball Times or<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiGWw1WBvvEDbiUs3e_DjKhBpBKm98XgKO5mIhD49yggW_uOh6DxBWNh4eVCBD8jwrTpObdJqcY2xz7_wngdNVER7fB6LZkGilY1NnUgaL_OJ9PlZDe75kWcHgdZfvw2nr584wy/s1600-h/Victorino.jpg"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5197684037004715186" style="FLOAT: left; MARGIN: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; CURSOR: pointer" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiGWw1WBvvEDbiUs3e_DjKhBpBKm98XgKO5mIhD49yggW_uOh6DxBWNh4eVCBD8jwrTpObdJqcY2xz7_wngdNVER7fB6LZkGilY1NnUgaL_OJ9PlZDe75kWcHgdZfvw2nr584wy/s320/Victorino.jpg" border="0" /></a> Baseball Prospectus, or who read Michael Lewis’ <em>Moneyball</em>, know the stolen base isn’t typically a strategy held in high esteem by the sabremetrics community. I’ve often argued that where you stand on the stolen base is a pretty good indication about whether or not you stand on the Catholic or Protestant divide of baseball, the old schoolers or the sabremetricians. To the old school, Small Ballers, the argument for the stolen base is basically this: you’ve got to be aggressive and do little things like bunt, hit-and-run and, yes, steal, to get that extra base to get into position to score and to claw out those runs.<br /><br />The counter-argument is basically that base-stealing is counter-productive because the penalty for being caught stealing out-weighs the benefits. Better to play safer station-to-station baseball, advancing runners with singles, doubles and the mighty home run. Consider this …<br /><br />According to Baseball Prospectus’ Run Expectancy Matrix (see, Table 4-1.1 of <em>Baseball Between the Numbers</em>), a team with a runner on first and no outs can expect to score 0.9259 runs in an inning. Let’s say that runner attempts to steal second base. There are two possible outcomes:<br /><br />If he’s safe, the run expectancy matrix improves to 1.1596, an improvement of 0.2337 …<br />If he’s out, the run expectancy matrix declines to 0.2866, a decline of 0.6393 …<br /><br />Your position can increase by a quarter of a run, or it can decline by two-thirds of a run. The guys at Baseball Prospectus ran the numbers and determined that a stolen base adds 0.1593 runs to a team’s total, while a caught stealing subtracts 0.3687 runs from a team’s total.<br /><br />If you play the numbers, the BP guys argue, then stealing bases is a losing strategy unless you can be successful around 73% of the time.<br /><br />The 2007 Phillies were a remarkable successful team in this respect, successfully stealing 138 bases in 157 tries, for a 88% success rate. Applying the<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEii3m6p1zykRTdglxT4uzjWaYuqbwxEaMoXkInXN643u1FZf15qIsCr_sbGp_NovREF7HBwjp18nX_WP0ikCN9NAgjtROxiMHpzdQC9Ga02m0s-k7gSoE7kC4mLiV8PvBd3iDC4/s1600-h/steal.jpg"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5197684178738635986" style="FLOAT: left; MARGIN: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; CURSOR: pointer" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEii3m6p1zykRTdglxT4uzjWaYuqbwxEaMoXkInXN643u1FZf15qIsCr_sbGp_NovREF7HBwjp18nX_WP0ikCN9NAgjtROxiMHpzdQC9Ga02m0s-k7gSoE7kC4mLiV8PvBd3iDC4/s320/steal.jpg" border="0" /></a> numbers above, the Phillies added 22 runs to their offense with base-stealing though they lost 7 runs with the caught stealings. Total net gain: 15 runs. The New York Mets, the Phillies competition last season, led the majors with 200 stolen bases, but their aggressive base-running only netted them an extra 15 runs as well because they were caught stealing 46 times (in fact, they were actually a tenth of a run behind the Phillies). While it isn’t conventional sabremetric wisdom, I think that the stolen base was a successful strategy and helped the Phillies improve their offense in ‘07. I think that most of the credit for that belongs to First Base Coach Davey Lopes, who was brought onto the team last season to help Charlie Manuel. Taking players like Jimmy Rollins, Shane Victorino, Michael Bourn and Chris Roberson aside, he made them all into aggressive base-runners who stole bases by the bushel. J.Roll and Victorino finished fifth and sixth respectively in terms of stolen bases in the N.L. in 2007, with J.Roll swiping 41 in 47 tries (87.2% success) and Victorino taking 37 of 41 (90.2%). Michael Bourn, in limited playing time, stole 18 of 19 bases (94.7%).<br /><br />Applying BP’s numbers, that meant that J.Roll’s running added 4.32 runs, Victorino added 4.42 runs, and Bourn added 2.50 runs. Compare those totals to that of the Mets Jose Reyes, who led the N.L. in steals with 78 in 99 attempts (78.8%), but whose manic base-running only added 4.68 runs.<br /><br />Lopes also helped press Jimmy Rollins in the basepaths to leg out more triples. J.Roll, who had previously led the N.L. in triples three times, led the N.L. in triples once again, but he hit 20 in ‘07, eight more than his previous season highs in ’01 and ’04. With Lopes counsel, the Phillies went from eighth in stolen bases in 2006 to second last season, and from sixth in triples to first last season.<br /><br />Now, one thing that I thought when I looked at the Phillies base-stealing totals was that Lopes tutelage helped the Phillies run the bases well. Well … the Phillies base-running stats yield some interesting facts. While the Phillies over-all gained +104 bases in 2007 with their aggressiveness on the bases, they gained 100 of those 104 via base-stealing. The Phillies rated a +4 based on pure running on the bases according to the <em>2007 Bill James Handbook</em> … As an aside, I’ll note that the Mets likewise struggled, posting an MLB-best +111, of which all but three were a product of base-stealing … It is kind of an interesting thing: that the two fastest teams in baseball were actually average base-running teams. The best MLB in running the bases in 2007 was, of all teams, the Kansas City Royals at +60. The best team in the N.L. was the Atlanta Braves at +40.<br /><br />What else? The Phillies made 24 base-running outs, which was pretty average (the N.L. average was 22.6) … Phillies base-runners scored about 29% of the time, a little bit better than the MLB average of 28%.<br /><br />One way of looking at what Lopes did was to look at the improvements Victorino and Rollins made in ’07 over their ’06 stats. (Not enough data to look at Bourn.) Unfortunately, while there is data on Victorino, there isn’t much. Victorino made a base-running out and was +14 in base-running in ’06. Last season he made four base-running outs and was +36, but James sub-divides base-running (+7) from base-stealing (+29). Looking at Victorino’s numbers, I cannot say that there is anything to support m theory that Lopes influence made the team better, more aggressive base-runners or improved the team in any better.<br /><br />The numbers are much different with Rollins: in ’06 Rollins was a mere +9 in base-running and made four base-running outs. In ’07, Rollins was a whopping +61. While +29 of that was base-stealing, even more – +32 – was honest-to-goodness base-running. Additionally, Rollins didn’t make a single base-running out. It is difficult to draw conclusions from numbers relating to one player, but it seems likely to me that Lopes influence made Rollins a better threat running the bases and helped make him the 2007 N.L. MVP. Given how critical Rollins play was to the Phillies success last season, then Lopes – it could be argued – played a vital role in securing the Phillies the N.L. East title by making J.Roll into an aggressive base-runner.<br /><br />The Phillies have had numerous set-backs this season and I wondered how the setbacks were affecting the Phillies totals. First, the Phillies dealt Michael Bourn to the Astros in the Brad Lidge deal, thus losing their fourth outfielder and their primary defensive replacement / pinch-runner. Then Lopes was diagnosed with cancer and took a leave of absence from the team. Finally, Rollins and Victorino both went down during big portions of the month of April. Rollins only just made his return to the lineup Friday night against the San Francisco Giants.<br /><br />At th<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgurY_56HMan_0tErvTzjsxoXk9rJqB_cCKYSMzaEFfL9BzylQhh-lXXQnfMnpBIr7i2EjV50gsvbVYkXT5x-PmlcA6665QetuPgkgARsRLxlX-Ev2dSXc6zGNXQmxp8IULlYwH/s1600-h/Victorino1.jpg"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5197684105724191938" style="FLOAT: left; MARGIN: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; CURSOR: pointer" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgurY_56HMan_0tErvTzjsxoXk9rJqB_cCKYSMzaEFfL9BzylQhh-lXXQnfMnpBIr7i2EjV50gsvbVYkXT5x-PmlcA6665QetuPgkgARsRLxlX-Ev2dSXc6zGNXQmxp8IULlYwH/s320/Victorino1.jpg" border="0" /></a>e moment the Phillies top base-stealer is – surprise, surprise – Jayson Werth with six steals in seven tries. Victorino is right behind him with five in six tries, while J.Roll has swiped just two. Collectively the Phillies have 21 steals in 26 attempts (80.7%). The Phillies have also only hit five triples so far this season. Astonishingly, Ryan Howard (1) has out-tripled Jimmy Rollins (0). That will change …<br /><br />Overall, the Phillies rank ninth in stolen bases and eleventh in triples. The Phillies poor showing in both categories is largely a product of Rollins and Lopes being away from the team. Rollins is already back in the lineup and Davey Lopes ought to re-join the team shortly. I’d expect to see the Phillies get much, much more aggressive on the bases and start to really stretch opposing defenses. It is worth noting that despite the Phillies injuries the team has emerged from April with a winning record and sits, at 21-18, just three games out of first place at the moment. With J.Roll back, look for the Phillies to start positing some big speed numbers to balance their awesome power stats.<br /><br /><strong>Phillies – Braves tomorrow.</strong>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6678497.post-57352304966644134402008-05-07T11:52:00.013-05:002008-05-07T12:00:25.410-05:00The Bourn Trade<div>This is a late post, but a late post is better than a never post ... Last night's 6-4 loss to the Diamondbacks evens the series at 1-1 and saw Randy "Big Unit" Johnson post his 286th career victory, good enough to tie former Phillies great <a href="http://www.baseball-reference.com/r/roberro01.shtml">Robin Roberts</a> at 27th all-time. Good work, Randy Johnson. It is unfortunate that Adam Eaton notched his first loss of the season after beginning the year quite well.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold; color: rgb(204, 0, 0);">Tonight:</span> Micah Owings (4-1, 4.41 ERA) vs. Kyle Kendrick (2-2, 5.01 ERA). Good luck, Kyle.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold; color: rgb(204, 0, 0);">Prediction:</span> Diamondbacks 8, Phillies 2. Kendrick is done is three innings or less.<br /><br />Today's topic will be a brief evaluation of the Michael Bourn - Brad Lidge trade between the Phillies and Astros from this off-season and how the trade looks from one month plus into the 2008 season. A little recap: back on November 7 of last year the Phillies and Astros struck up a deal wherein the Phillies shipped Michael Bourn, their fourth outfielder in 2007, to the Astros along with prospect Mike Costanzo and middle reliever Geoff Geary in exchange for Closer Brad Lidge and Infielder Eric Bruntlett. The Phillies, jammed with Jayson Werth, Shane Victorino and Pat Burrell in the outfield, had no room for the speedy Bourn, who had wowed Phillies fans with 18 steals in 19 attempts in 2007. What they needed as a closer to get Brett Myers back into the rotation, thus improving the Phillies pitching staff in a two-for-the-price-one deal.<br /><br />Reaction was generally mixed. <a href="http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/2007/baseball/mlb/11/08/bp.lidgetrade/index.html"><span style="font-weight: bold;">Click here</span></a> for a piece by Baseball Prospectus' Nate Silver blasting the Phillies for making the deal.<br /><br />Well, I thought I might take a few moments to discuss how the deal is shaping up at the moment.<br /><span style="font-weight: bold; font-style: italic;">What the Astros Got:</span><br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold; color: rgb(204, 0, 0);"><a href="http://www.hardballtimes.com/thtstats/main/player/?lastName=bourn&firstName=">Michael Bourn</a>:</span> currently the Astros starting centerfielder. So far this season he's wowed observers with 13 steals in 13 attempts. That means he's stolen 31 bases in 32 attempts the last two seasons combined. At his current pace of base-stealing, Bourn will steal 70-75 bases this season, a pretty nice total. Additionally, Bourn is one of the best defensive centerfielders in the National League. According to Relative Zone Rating (RZR), Bourn is the third-best in the N.L. with an RZR of .965. Bourn is also leading the N.L. in assists with three.<br /><br />Before you get too impressed by Bourn's stats, let me just print a number that tells you all that you need to know about Bourn's abilities as a lead-off hitter:<br /><br />.275<br /><br />That's not Bourn's Batting Average. That's Bourn's On-Base Percentage. .275 ... At the moment Bourn is hitting .194, an absurdly low total with brings down his respectable .100 walks per plate appearance. I think Bourn's problem is that he strikes out waaaay too much: 28 times in 120 plate appearances. This might be a fluke: Bourn's Batting Average on Balls Put Into Play (BA/BIP) is just .234, nearly one hundred points lower than what he did last season with the Phillies: .330. He's going to have to hit better to be a more viable threat to steal bases and score runs. Despite those 13 steals, Bourn's scored just 14 runs, a pretty small total in my opinion. It is too soon to liken Bourn to <a href="http://www.baseball-reference.com/c/colemvi01.shtml">Vince Coleman</a>, the speedy outfielder who was the 1985 Rookie of the Year with the St. Louis Cardinals when he stole 110 bases but posted an anemic .320 OBP. Coleman was a fast player (he led the National League in stolen bases six consecutive seasons from 1985 to 1990), but he was hampered by his inability to get on base. His career OBP was just .324. Bourn is shaping up to be a speed demon who doesn't get on base enough.<br /><br /><span style="color: rgb(204, 0, 0); font-weight: bold;"><a href="http://www.hardballtimes.com/thtstats/main/player/index.php?lastName=geary">Geoff Geary</a>: </span>Geary is having a solid season with the Astros, having tossed 14 innings with a 0-1 record and an ERA of 1.93. Geary's numbers are interesting because he's struck 15 batters out and walked eight, both are high numbers. Can a relief pitcher continue to keep giving batters free passes and then blow fastballs past them? I am skeptical, but at the moment Geary is the biggest part of the Lidge deal to actually be contributing to the Astros.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold; color: rgb(204, 0, 0);"><a href="http://www.minorleaguebaseball.com/milb/stats/stats.jsp?n=Mike%20Costanzo&pos=3B&sid=milb&t=p_pbp&pid=453068">Mike Costanzo</a>: </span>this part of the deal is a little tough to evaluate because Costanzo was shipped back east to Baltimore as part of the Miguel Tejada deal. We'll start with Costanzo, who is currently playing with the Triple-A Norfolk Tides in the International League, and has struggled a little this season, with three home runs and nine RBI. His OPS is just .696. This is a big drop-off from the 27 home runs and 86 RBI he had in Double-A Reading last season. Costanzo's future potential is considerable, however, so don't be surprised to see him produce for the Orioles in 2008 and beyond.<br /><br />Tejada, if you want to include him in the deal, has hit five home runs and 25 RBI and is powering the Astros offense. Costanzo's addition, which helped to bring Tejada's, might be the biggest part of the deal for the Astros, though Geary's impact clearly seems to be the most significant.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold; font-style: italic;">What the Phillies Got:</span><br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold; color: rgb(204, 0, 0);"><a href="http://www.hardballtimes.com/main/stats/players/index.php?lastName=lidge">Brad Lidge</a>:</span> has been quite good as the Phillies closer since he returned from his pre-season knee injury. Lidge is currently 1-0 with an ERA of 0.00 and seven saves in seven tries. Naturally, Lidge's performance isn't sustainable, but he's gotten quite a few strikeouts (13 in 15 innings of work, or 7.8 K/9) although his walk rate (6 walks, or 3.6 BB/9) is very high as well. Lidge should save 35-40 games for the Phillies and give the team the reliable closer it needs to make a push on the N.L. East.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold; color: rgb(204, 0, 0);"><a href="http://www.hardballtimes.com/thtstats/main/player/index.php?lastName=bruntlett">Eric Bruntlett</a>: </span>since Jimmy Rollins went down, Bruntlett has filled in as the Phillies starting shortstop and has done a decent job. Sort of a throw-in piece to the deal to give it some balance, Bruntlett has been pressed into service as the Phillies starting shortstop with 2007 N.L. MVP Jimmy Rollins on the D.L. Bruntlett's performance initially was bad (four errors in the field, an On Base Percentage of just .296), but he's improved of late. In games 1 & 2 of this series with the D-Backs, Bruntlett has two runs score, six RBI and a double, a triple and a home run on four-for-ten hitting.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold; color: rgb(204, 0, 0);">Analysis: </span>Time will tell how <span style="font-style: italic;">Bourn, et al. </span>for <span style="font-style: italic;">Lidge, et al.</span> impact the Phillies and Astros. Will Lidge be in a Phillies uniform in 2009? Will Bourn turn around, post a .300+ batting average and get on base enough to steal 100 or more bases? Will Geary struggle? Will Bruntlett turn into an effective middle-infielder? Will Costanzo get to Camden Yards, go on a tear and ultimately make the Orioles the real winners of this deal? Time shall tell.<br /></div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6678497.post-83828580834251203162008-05-06T11:11:00.000-05:002008-05-06T11:23:48.168-05:00The Diamondbacks Series & Jeremy Slayden<div>From my perspective here is the remarkable thing about last night's 11-4 victory over the Arizona Diamondbacks in the desert of the American Southwest: the Phillies didn't hit a single home run.<br /><br />For those too bleary-eyed to stay up last night (or are too fixated on the Flyers impending series against the Pittsburgh Penguins) the Phillies defeated the Diamondbacks, the best team in the majors right now, 11-4 thanks to 17 hits and a nice outing from Jamie Moyer (seven innings pitched, two runs allowed, five strikeouts and zero walks). The victory kept the Phillies in first place and gave them a win to lead off their seven game road stand. As of this morning the Phillies own the N.L. East by a game:<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold; color: rgb(204, 0, 0);">N.L. East</span><br />1. Phillies: 19-14<br />2. Florida: 17-14 (1.0 Games Back)<br />3. Mets: 16-14 (1.5 Games Back)<br />4. Braves: 15-15 (2.5 Games Back)<br />5. Nationals: 14-18 (4.5 Games Back)<br /><br />As I noted, the Phillies clocked 17 hits and not one was a home run. You know it is a good night at the plate when your pitcher (Moyer) goes 2-for-3 with a double and an RBI. Even more remarkable: Ryan Howard and Pat Burrell combined to go 1-for-9. Yes, it was a <span style="font-weight: bold; font-style: italic;">good </span>night in the desert.<br /><br />Tonight it is Adam Eaton vs. Randy Johnson. Read my post from yesterday to gain a better sense of the quasi-remarkable season that Eaton is having. Eaton will be hard-pressed to notch his first win of the season though against the Big Unit, who is pitching a lot better than his stats suggest: 1-1, 4.79 ERA. Johnson's DIPS ERA is 3.84, which is nearly a run better. The simple problem is that the D-Backs aren't playing good enough defense behind him. They've converted just 68.3% of the balls Johnson has allowed to be put into play into outs. Johnson is, as always, a formidable strikeout pitcher: 22 strikeouts in 20 and two-thirds of an inning of work. This is a mismatch that heavily favors the D-Backs.<br /><br /><a href="http://www.philly.com/philly/blogs/phillies_zone/May_5_-_Phillies_vs_Diamondbacks.html">Nice post</a> on yesterday's game from the <span style="font-style: italic;">Inquirer</span>'s Todd Zolecki.<br /><br />Quick look at a minor-leaguer of note: <span style="font-weight: bold; color: rgb(204, 0, 0);">Jeremy Slayden</span>. An eighth round pick in the 2005 Draft out of Georgia Tech, Slayden hasn't caught the attention of publications like <span style="font-style: italic;">Baseball America</span> or has really registered in the minds of most fans. That's a shame because Slayden is a real talent:<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">w/ Double-A Reading ('08):</span> OPS: .903 / HR: 3 / RBI: 20 / Doubles: 7 / OBP: .386 / ISO: .197<br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">w/ Single-A Clearwater ('07):</span> OPS: .834 / HR: 14 / RBI: 73 / Doubles: 24 / OBP: .376 / ISO: .171<br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">w/ Single-A Lakewood ('06):</span> OPS: .891 / HR: 10 / RBI: 81 / Doubles: 44 / OBP: .381 / ISO: .200<br /><br />Even in the pitching-friendly Florida State League (FSL), Slayden mashed the heck out of the ball. He's one of those players who doesn't get a lot of ink because he wasn't highly drafted, he isn't flashy and pro scouts likely have a low opinion of his abilities. "Slow-footed slugger" is probably the most commonly written description of Slayden in the notebooks of scouts.<br /><br />Slayden's rise through the Phillies system is a testament to the idea that a player's performance trumps the assumptions made. Perhaps Jeremy Slayden is a slow-footed slugger, but he wields a powerful bat. You'll see him in Philadelphia later this year, or early next.<br /></div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6678497.post-18187629803767433282008-05-05T06:50:00.001-05:002008-05-05T06:50:01.725-05:00Adam Eaton Rocks & Phillies vs. DiamondbacksOkay, the title is a little tongue-in-cheek, but it is partly true. Don’t look now Phillies fans but Adam Eaton, the disaster who had a 6.29 ERA last season, the guy who was pitching so bad that the Phillies left him off their playoff roster with the Colorado Rockies despite the fact that the Phillies are paying him $24 million dollars over the next three seasons … Isn’t pitching half bad this season.<br /><br />Let’s take you back to a year ago. In the 2006-2007 off-season the Phillies signed Eaton, a former Phillies draft pick the team had sent west to the San Diego Padres in a trade years earlier, to a three-year, $24 million dollar deal (someone correct me if the numbers are off on that figure). In a pitching-thin marketplace, Eaton was one of the better talents out there, having gone 7-4 with a 5.12 ERA the previous season with the Texas Rangers. Eaton, who had spent the previous six seasons with the Padres after breaking in during the ’00 season, had started just thirteen games for the Rangers and had given up 11 home runs. He struggled, but had put up good numbers from ’00 – ’05 for the Padres and the Phillies desperately wanted to augment their leaky pitching staff. So the red pinstripes cut a check and Eaton came back to the team that saw enough in him to take him in the draft.<br /><br />Confused about what I’m talking about? Here are the stats I refer to defined with respect to pitching stats:<br />Earned Run Average (ERA): Runs Allowed * 9 / Innings Pitched = What a pitcher would give up if they hurled a nine-inning game.<br />Fielding Independent Pitching (FIP): (((13 * HR) + (3 * BB) – (2 * K)) / IP) + League Factor. Basically a measure of how a pitcher would have done if he had an average defense behind him.<br />Defense Independent Pitching Statistic (DIPS): The more sophisticated version of FIP developed by Voros McCracken that takes into account park factors and other considerations.<br />Home Runs per 9 Innings (HR/9): (HR * 9) / IP<br />Walks per 9 Innings (BB/9): (BB * 9) / IP<br />Strikeouts per 9 Innings (K/9): (K * 9) / IP<br /><br />The end result was disaster. A 10-10 record that was largely the product of run support, as it was built on an ERA of 6.29. Eaton walked 71 hitters (3.95 BB/9) and gave up 30 home runs (1.67 HR/9). Opponents grounded into 19 double plays against him, more a product of them having so many runners on base than Eaton’s skills. Eaton’s 97 strikeouts in 161 and two-thirds of an inning (5.4 K/9) were respectable, but when coupled with his walk rate, they gave him a strikeout-to-walk ratio of 1.37 (K/BB). Eaton was so bad that he earned just one Win Share in 2007, two below what a bench player would have earned. (In contrast, Cole Hamels earned 15 in 2007.) The Phillies, in the playoffs despite Eaton’s struggles, took no chances and left Eaton off the team’s playoff roster against the Rockies. In the off-season the team tried everything they could think of to scrap together pitching talent on the cheap, taking Travis Blackley from San Francisco in the Rule 5 Draft, and signing Chad Durbin from the Detroit Tigers. Neither Blackley nor Durbin could oust Eaton from the job, however, and Eaton returned to the Phillies rotation for 2008.<br /><br />The numbers don’t really reflect it, but Eaton’s been pretty good this season: yeah he doesn’t have a win yet, but he also doesn’t have a loss. His six starts were all no-decisions. There are a few things that impress me though once you look inside of the numbers:<br /><br />First off, Eaton’s average Game Score for this season has been 48. His average Game Score in 2007 was 42. Game Score is a stat devised by Bill James where a pitcher begins with a score of 50 and then is awarded or subtracted points for various events: add a point for a strikeout, subtract one for a walk, subtract four points for a run allowed, etc.<br /><br />Second, four of Eaton’s six starts have been Quality Starts. A Quality Start is a start where the pitcher allows three or less runs and makes it six innings or more. Eaton tossed just 9 of those in 30 starts last season.<br /><br />The reason for Eaton’s success this season has been that he’s cut down on the extra-base hits. Eaton’s slugging percentage allowed is just .402, far less than the .520 he allowed in 2007. So far this season he’s allowed three home runs in 34 and one-third of an inning (0.79 HR/9). As a result, Eaton’s Fielding Independent Pitching (FIP) ERA has dropped this season to 4.09, nearly two runs better than last season’s 5.93 FIP. Incidentially, Eaton’s 4.09 FIP is just behind the 4.00 FIP posted by a certain Mets pitcher who we’ll call Johan S. … And Eaton's FIP is better than the Mets John Maine (4.71), the much-vaunted pitcher who Mets fans acted like I was crazy for believing wasn't the Second Coming.<br /><br />What about DIPS, you ask? Well, Eaton's DIPS is a little worse: 4.35. Still, that's better than his real ERA and takes park factors into account. Additionally, Eaton's DIPS is better than Oliver Perez (4.38), Maine (4.86), Jamie Moyer (4.82) and the Giants Matt Cain (4.63).<br /><br />It is a little too soon to hand out the Cy Young award to Eaton, however. He needs to improve his strikeout and walk ratios before he can be called out of the woods. His K/BB ratio this season is 1.46, barely improved over last season.<br /><br />The inability to get strikeouts is where Eaton has struggled over the last few seasons. In Eaton’s first six seasons with the Padres his strikeouts per nine innings rate was 6.00 or better:<br /><br /><strong>K/9:<br /></strong>2000: 6.00<br />2001: 8.41<br />2002: 6.75<br />2003: 7.18<br />2004: 6.91<br />2005: 7.00<br /><br />Since then he’s been sub-6.00:<br /><br /><strong>K/9:<br /></strong>2006 (Rangers): 5.95<br />2007 (Phillies): 5.40<br />2008 (Phillies): 5.34<br /><br />He needs to improve that, and soon.<br /><br />Here’s a little-known fact about Adam Eaton: there probably isn’t a pitcher in baseball tougher to get a steal off of. In 2007 fifteen baserunners tried to steal a base off Eaton. Nine failed, a success rate of just 40%. The previous season, in Texas, two in seven were successful. So far this season: one successful steal in three tries.<br /><br />I had almost forgotten, but the Phillies begin a big four-game series with the Arizona Diamondbacks tonight in the desert of Arizona, the start of a week-long roadtrip that will take the Phillies to the Bay Area to play the Giants again. Cole Hamels and Tim Lincecum are set to rematch Friday Night after last night’s 6-5 Phillies win netted a no-decision for both pitchers.<br /><br />I would consider a 2-2 split of the Phillies – Diamondbacks series to be a major victory for the Phillies. The 21-10 D-Backs are clearly the best team in baseball right now and boast the best pitching staff in the majors. How good is the D-Backs 1-2 punch of Brandon Webb (7-0, 2.49 ERA, 3.00 DIPS) and Dan Haren (4-1, 3.12 ERA, 3.34 DIPS)? Fortunately for the Phillies, they miss Haren and have to face just Webb in this series. Adam Eaton squares off with the Big Unit (1-1, 4.79 ERA, 3.84 DIPS) tomorrow night. The D-Backs are second in the N.L. in runs scored and lead the N.L. in slugging percentage and triples. Not surprisingly, their team ERA is also best in the majors. They have a number of talented players who are really producing well and they rely on no one person to be successful. While the D-Backs have hit 36 home runs, nobody has hit more than 7. They are balanced and deep. Young, fast, aggressive, the D-Backs are built to be a powerhouse for a long time to come. This will be a tough series for the Phillies to win. If I had to bet on which game the phillies could win, I’d bet on tonight’s Jamie Moyer vs. Max Scherzer matchup.<br /><br />Tomorrow: I’ll talk a little about last night’s game and a little about the Reading Phillies Jeremy Slayden.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com3