Tuesday, January 29, 2008
Adios, Mike Lieberthal
Mike Lieberthal announced the other day that he was going to hang it up after fourteen years in the major leagues instead of trying to hook up with another MLB team. Lieberthal was the Phillies first-round pick in the 1990 draft, the third player selected overall … As an aside, do you know what players were drafted ahead of Lieberthal? The first player chosen in the draft was Chipper Jones, selected by the Atlanta Braves number one overall after the team mulled the possibility of selecting Todd Van Poppel, the highly-touted Texas high schooler whom the Braves passed on because of signability issues. Van Poppel, who was a bust, was taken by the Oakland A’s with the fourteenth pick. The second player picked was Tony Clark by the Detroit Tigers. Players that the Phillies passed on in favor of Lieberthal include Carl Everett (tenth overall pick by the Yankees), Mike Mussina (twentieth overall pick by the Orioles), Andy Pettite (a 22nd round selection) and Jorge Posada (26th rounder) … Lieberthal debuted with the Phillies in 1994 and spent several seasons backing up Darren Daulton before getting a chance when Daulton joined the Florida Marlins.
From 1997 to 2006 Lieberthal was the Phillies primary catcher and, to a certain extent, its blue-collar soul. From ’97 to ’06 he started 1,035 games for the Phillies, catching 8,993 innings, squatting in the dirt. In his career with the Phillies Lieberthal hit .275 on his way to smacking 150 home runs and 609 RBIs in a Phillies uniform. An All-Star in ’99 & ’00, Lieberthal’s best season was probably 1999, when he caught a whopping 143 games (winning a gold glove along the way), hitting 31 home runs, 96 RBI and had a .300 batting average (.363 OBP) and an adjusted OPS of 123. Lieberthal had 100 Runs Created that season, a career high.
Sadly, the life of a catcher is typically brief and Lieberthal’s ended with the Phillies after he played in just 67 games for the Phillies in 2006. Largely being evicted in favor of the younger Carlos Ruiz and free agent Rod Barajas, Lieberthal went to the West Coast to join the Los Angeles Dodgers in 2007. The move to L.A. was a homecoming for the Glendale, California, native.
Lieberthal barely played in 2007, catching thirty-one games behind the astonishingly durable Russell Martin.
Good luck, Mike. We'll never forget your years of digging fastballs out of the dirt of Veterans Stadium.
(2) comments
From 1997 to 2006 Lieberthal was the Phillies primary catcher and, to a certain extent, its blue-collar soul. From ’97 to ’06 he started 1,035 games for the Phillies, catching 8,993 innings, squatting in the dirt. In his career with the Phillies Lieberthal hit .275 on his way to smacking 150 home runs and 609 RBIs in a Phillies uniform. An All-Star in ’99 & ’00, Lieberthal’s best season was probably 1999, when he caught a whopping 143 games (winning a gold glove along the way), hitting 31 home runs, 96 RBI and had a .300 batting average (.363 OBP) and an adjusted OPS of 123. Lieberthal had 100 Runs Created that season, a career high.
Sadly, the life of a catcher is typically brief and Lieberthal’s ended with the Phillies after he played in just 67 games for the Phillies in 2006. Largely being evicted in favor of the younger Carlos Ruiz and free agent Rod Barajas, Lieberthal went to the West Coast to join the Los Angeles Dodgers in 2007. The move to L.A. was a homecoming for the Glendale, California, native.
Lieberthal barely played in 2007, catching thirty-one games behind the astonishingly durable Russell Martin.
Good luck, Mike. We'll never forget your years of digging fastballs out of the dirt of Veterans Stadium.
Labels: Catchers, Lieberthal
Monday, September 03, 2007
Speed Kills
Before my vacation I wanted to write something about the Phillies that pin-pointed what the big story of the 2007 campaign was, the reason why the ’07 team has been in contention all of these months and why it is playing much better than the ’06 team ever did. Pitching? No, the Phillies pitching has been a mixed bag all year, full of problems (bullpen), and disappointments that have failed to live up to their billing (Adam Eaton & Freddy Garcia). Fielding? The ’07 team is as bad on defense as the ’06 team, which was horrible, awful and terrible compared with the teams that Phillies had earlier in the decade. Hitting? The ’07 team is hitting about the same as the ’06 squad, although it is relying a little less on Ryan Howard than last year. No, the big difference, the big thing that separates the 2007 Philadelphia Phillies from the year in 2006, in 2005 and in 2004, has been speed. The team with the cramped little ball park tailor-made for 450-ft home runs has learned how to be quick and fast on the base-paths and that has made all of the difference this season.
I’ve spent a good deal of the season mulling over the impact speed has had on the 2007 Phillies and on the game in general. I wary of sounding like a broken record, but I think it bears repeating that speed is the BIG THING this season. We’re going to discuss that a little here …
First, like many people influenced by Moneyball, I discounted the importance of speed. Base-stealing is an unnecessary risk teams take that end up costing them runs in the long … er, run. The Oakland A’s and their station-to-station, walk, walk, walk and wait for the three-run home run style was something that I eagerly embraced. The Phillies, playing in the cozy confines of Citizens bank Ballpark, were ideally tailored for such an approach. The ’06 team seemed to achieve perfection, hammering 216 home runs on their way to scoring 865 runs, best in the N.L. They worked counts, got on base and waited for Ryan Howard to blast them home.
How could anyone do any better?
I noticed, however, that the ’06 team was pretty inconsistent, scoring runs in droves and failing to drive them in at key moments. Not batting well with runners in scoring position will do that. They didn’t run much, despite having one of the best stolen-base threats in baseball, Jimmy Rollins, leading off, attempting just 117 steals, compared to the New York Mets 181. Running the bases was an issue as well. The ’07 Bill James Handbook contains some ground-breaking work on base-running (an area, along with fielding that Bill James has stated in the past he feels needs some work on) and comes to the conclusion that while the Phillies had excellent base-runners like Chase Utley (second in baseball at +27 bases), Rollins (+9), Aaron Rowand (+13), and Shane Victorino (+14) on the roster they also had some, plodding dinosaurs like Howard (-21), Pat Burrell (-20), Mike Lieberthal (-10) and Sal Fasano (-10). The Phillies were an American League-style team, the Oakland A’s East, a collection of slow, plodding DH-type hitters.
Another thing I noticed, in my reading over the last year, that Bill James doesn’t have much nice to say about the current trend in the game towards the power game. Looking back on James comments about baseball in the 1950’s, you can see why he doesn’t much care for power: James wrote of 1950s baseball in his Historical Baseball Abstract, “[t]he baseball of the 1950s was perhaps the most one-dimensional, uniform, predictable version of the game which has ever been offered to the public. By 1950, the stolen base was a rare play, a ‘surprise’ play.” Historical Abstract at 220. James approvingly notes that teams began to move away from power baseball to embrace speed. The changes that enveloped baseball in the late 1950’s and early 1960’s dramatically changed the game of baseball. Speed began to become a viable option for teams offensively. Once Roger Maris broke Babe Ruth’s record in 1961, the powers that be elected to shrink the strike-zone. The next year Maury Wills stole 104 bases for the Dodgers and the balance of power in baseball shifted dramatically towards speed and base-stealing. Teams slowly began to respond by shifting to speed (moving out of their old cozy ballparks and into more spacious digs with artificial turf like Pittsburgh’s Three Rivers Stadium or the Vet helped too) to a point where every team had to have a speed threat. James approvingly writes of baseball in the 1970s: “It was a game that put the full athletic ability of the players on display in a way that was very satisfying, very exciting. Attendance boomed.”
About the modern game, James writes: “I think a consensus has been developed among baseball people that [the home run era] is beginning to grow tiresome, and that something will soon need to be done to make baseball look more like baseball … I would be in favor of deadening the baseball a little bit.” Historical Abstract at 324-325. I think that teams are turning away from the power game and are moving to embrace speed. Why? Well, in another column I credited things like the scrutiny about steroids and the me-too aspects of sports – by me-too I mean the habit teams have of embracing ideas that work for other teams. The proliferation of the West Coast offense in the NFL in the 1990’s is an excellent example of this. The embrace of Moneyball tactics after the book was published in 2003 will be something that will be more apparent as time goes by and we get a little historical perspective on baseball in the twenty-first century. Now I think the tide is turning and I credit the simple fact of success – the Anaheim Angels are poised to win the World Series this season and emerge as a dominant teams for years and years in advance thanks to their young rotation and their owner’s deep pockets. The Angels pitching, defense and small-ball tactics are going to emerge as the new template for building a winner in the coming years.
So too, I expect to see the Phillies change directions and move towards a running game. I credit the hiring of Davy Lopes, the former L.A. Dodger, as the Phillies first base coach.
-Lopes influence: Lopes has improved the team’s base-running and has made them much, much more aggressive on the base-paths. Already we can see the results of Lopes work: last season the Phillies were seventh in triples with 41. This season they are tied for first with 32 already. Last season? Eighth in stolen bases with 92. This season? Second with 114. Think about that. It took the Phillies 162 games to steal 92 bases in 2006. They have stolen 114 in just 136 games in 2007.
Sadly, we won’t have base-running data until the end of the season when Bill James publishes it, but I already suspect that the Phillies are going to have a lot of terrific base-runners thanks to Lopes. Guys like Rowand, Rollins, Utley and Victorino are also going to have guys like Bourn and Roberson on there too and I bet that they all will have lots of plus numbers for how many bases they took in 2007. Aside from slow players like Burrell, Howard and Helms, the Phillies don’t have many weak base-runners.
The embrace of speed has made the Phillies a more consistent and thrilling team to watch. Just look at the Phillies 11-10 win over the Mets last week and see. Trailing 10-9 in the bottom of the ninth, Jayson Werth proceeds to steal second and third, thus allowing Iguchi to single him home easily to tie the game. Then Iguchi steals second, forcing the Mets to walk J.Roll and set up a force play at second and third. Chase Utley’s single wins the game when Iguchi rolls in from second base. That victory was the product of speed and intensity that the 2006 team never had.
Other major factors in the Phillies embrace of speed:
-Turning Shane Victorino loose … The biggest surprise for me this season has been Victorino. He got caught three of the seven times he tried to steal in 2006, so I didn’t expect much. His terrific +14 on the bases … one of the best in baseball, despite not playing much … should have clued me in that Victorino was going to fly on the bases. Thus far this season he’s 34 for 37 in steals, a phenomenal percentage that really blows your mind. Factor in that Victorino has lost nearly a month to injury and you get an idea about what he can do … Despite losing all of that time, Victorino ranks fifth in the N.L. in steals! …
-The emergence of Michael Bourn … I don’t mean to beat a dead-horse here, but Bourn’s stolen-base-a-thon against the Giants in May was a sight to behold. Entering the game for Pat Burrell as a pinch-runner, Bourn proceeds to steal second and third, then beats the throw home when Wes Helms taps a weak grounder to short. Helms may have gotten an RBI, but he plainly didn’t deserve it. Bourn scored that run all by himself.
Thus far, Bourn is 18 of 19 in terms of steals. He’s done a nice job and will be a terrific centerfielder for the Phillies next season when Aaron Rowand leaves.
-Consistently solid play from Jimmy Rollins and Chase Utley … You’d probably forget Utley here, but he’s been very good this season. He doesn’t steal much – seven of eight tries – but he’s a solid base-runner who doesn’t make mistakes and takes the extra base when he can. According to Bill James Utley was the second-best base-runner in baseball in 2006. I believe it, and I expect to see him up there in 2007 as well … Jimmy Rollins skills aren’t just base-stealing. Almost single-handedly J.Roll is reviving the lost art of the triple. In addition to swiping 28 of 34 tries, J.Roll has stretched 16 doubles into triples. At the moment J.Roll is leading the N.L. in triples with 16, five more than the Mets Jose Reyes, who gets a lot of ink because he plays in New York City.
Alright, that’s it for today’s post. I’ll be back next Monday. I’m spending the week in Western New York on vacation.
(0) comments
I’ve spent a good deal of the season mulling over the impact speed has had on the 2007 Phillies and on the game in general. I wary of sounding like a broken record, but I think it bears repeating that speed is the BIG THING this season. We’re going to discuss that a little here …
First, like many people influenced by Moneyball, I discounted the importance of speed. Base-stealing is an unnecessary risk teams take that end up costing them runs in the long … er, run. The Oakland A’s and their station-to-station, walk, walk, walk and wait for the three-run home run style was something that I eagerly embraced. The Phillies, playing in the cozy confines of Citizens bank Ballpark, were ideally tailored for such an approach. The ’06 team seemed to achieve perfection, hammering 216 home runs on their way to scoring 865 runs, best in the N.L. They worked counts, got on base and waited for Ryan Howard to blast them home.
How could anyone do any better?
I noticed, however, that the ’06 team was pretty inconsistent, scoring runs in droves and failing to drive them in at key moments. Not batting well with runners in scoring position will do that. They didn’t run much, despite having one of the best stolen-base threats in baseball, Jimmy Rollins, leading off, attempting just 117 steals, compared to the New York Mets 181. Running the bases was an issue as well. The ’07 Bill James Handbook contains some ground-breaking work on base-running (an area, along with fielding that Bill James has stated in the past he feels needs some work on) and comes to the conclusion that while the Phillies had excellent base-runners like Chase Utley (second in baseball at +27 bases), Rollins (+9), Aaron Rowand (+13), and Shane Victorino (+14) on the roster they also had some, plodding dinosaurs like Howard (-21), Pat Burrell (-20), Mike Lieberthal (-10) and Sal Fasano (-10). The Phillies were an American League-style team, the Oakland A’s East, a collection of slow, plodding DH-type hitters.
Another thing I noticed, in my reading over the last year, that Bill James doesn’t have much nice to say about the current trend in the game towards the power game. Looking back on James comments about baseball in the 1950’s, you can see why he doesn’t much care for power: James wrote of 1950s baseball in his Historical Baseball Abstract, “[t]he baseball of the 1950s was perhaps the most one-dimensional, uniform, predictable version of the game which has ever been offered to the public. By 1950, the stolen base was a rare play, a ‘surprise’ play.” Historical Abstract at 220. James approvingly notes that teams began to move away from power baseball to embrace speed. The changes that enveloped baseball in the late 1950’s and early 1960’s dramatically changed the game of baseball. Speed began to become a viable option for teams offensively. Once Roger Maris broke Babe Ruth’s record in 1961, the powers that be elected to shrink the strike-zone. The next year Maury Wills stole 104 bases for the Dodgers and the balance of power in baseball shifted dramatically towards speed and base-stealing. Teams slowly began to respond by shifting to speed (moving out of their old cozy ballparks and into more spacious digs with artificial turf like Pittsburgh’s Three Rivers Stadium or the Vet helped too) to a point where every team had to have a speed threat. James approvingly writes of baseball in the 1970s: “It was a game that put the full athletic ability of the players on display in a way that was very satisfying, very exciting. Attendance boomed.”
About the modern game, James writes: “I think a consensus has been developed among baseball people that [the home run era] is beginning to grow tiresome, and that something will soon need to be done to make baseball look more like baseball … I would be in favor of deadening the baseball a little bit.” Historical Abstract at 324-325. I think that teams are turning away from the power game and are moving to embrace speed. Why? Well, in another column I credited things like the scrutiny about steroids and the me-too aspects of sports – by me-too I mean the habit teams have of embracing ideas that work for other teams. The proliferation of the West Coast offense in the NFL in the 1990’s is an excellent example of this. The embrace of Moneyball tactics after the book was published in 2003 will be something that will be more apparent as time goes by and we get a little historical perspective on baseball in the twenty-first century. Now I think the tide is turning and I credit the simple fact of success – the Anaheim Angels are poised to win the World Series this season and emerge as a dominant teams for years and years in advance thanks to their young rotation and their owner’s deep pockets. The Angels pitching, defense and small-ball tactics are going to emerge as the new template for building a winner in the coming years.
So too, I expect to see the Phillies change directions and move towards a running game. I credit the hiring of Davy Lopes, the former L.A. Dodger, as the Phillies first base coach.
-Lopes influence: Lopes has improved the team’s base-running and has made them much, much more aggressive on the base-paths. Already we can see the results of Lopes work: last season the Phillies were seventh in triples with 41. This season they are tied for first with 32 already. Last season? Eighth in stolen bases with 92. This season? Second with 114. Think about that. It took the Phillies 162 games to steal 92 bases in 2006. They have stolen 114 in just 136 games in 2007.
Sadly, we won’t have base-running data until the end of the season when Bill James publishes it, but I already suspect that the Phillies are going to have a lot of terrific base-runners thanks to Lopes. Guys like Rowand, Rollins, Utley and Victorino are also going to have guys like Bourn and Roberson on there too and I bet that they all will have lots of plus numbers for how many bases they took in 2007. Aside from slow players like Burrell, Howard and Helms, the Phillies don’t have many weak base-runners.
The embrace of speed has made the Phillies a more consistent and thrilling team to watch. Just look at the Phillies 11-10 win over the Mets last week and see. Trailing 10-9 in the bottom of the ninth, Jayson Werth proceeds to steal second and third, thus allowing Iguchi to single him home easily to tie the game. Then Iguchi steals second, forcing the Mets to walk J.Roll and set up a force play at second and third. Chase Utley’s single wins the game when Iguchi rolls in from second base. That victory was the product of speed and intensity that the 2006 team never had.
Other major factors in the Phillies embrace of speed:
-Turning Shane Victorino loose … The biggest surprise for me this season has been Victorino. He got caught three of the seven times he tried to steal in 2006, so I didn’t expect much. His terrific +14 on the bases … one of the best in baseball, despite not playing much … should have clued me in that Victorino was going to fly on the bases. Thus far this season he’s 34 for 37 in steals, a phenomenal percentage that really blows your mind. Factor in that Victorino has lost nearly a month to injury and you get an idea about what he can do … Despite losing all of that time, Victorino ranks fifth in the N.L. in steals! …
-The emergence of Michael Bourn … I don’t mean to beat a dead-horse here, but Bourn’s stolen-base-a-thon against the Giants in May was a sight to behold. Entering the game for Pat Burrell as a pinch-runner, Bourn proceeds to steal second and third, then beats the throw home when Wes Helms taps a weak grounder to short. Helms may have gotten an RBI, but he plainly didn’t deserve it. Bourn scored that run all by himself.
Thus far, Bourn is 18 of 19 in terms of steals. He’s done a nice job and will be a terrific centerfielder for the Phillies next season when Aaron Rowand leaves.
-Consistently solid play from Jimmy Rollins and Chase Utley … You’d probably forget Utley here, but he’s been very good this season. He doesn’t steal much – seven of eight tries – but he’s a solid base-runner who doesn’t make mistakes and takes the extra base when he can. According to Bill James Utley was the second-best base-runner in baseball in 2006. I believe it, and I expect to see him up there in 2007 as well … Jimmy Rollins skills aren’t just base-stealing. Almost single-handedly J.Roll is reviving the lost art of the triple. In addition to swiping 28 of 34 tries, J.Roll has stretched 16 doubles into triples. At the moment J.Roll is leading the N.L. in triples with 16, five more than the Mets Jose Reyes, who gets a lot of ink because he plays in New York City.
Alright, that’s it for today’s post. I’ll be back next Monday. I’m spending the week in Western New York on vacation.
Labels: Base-Stealing, Bourn, Burrell, Fasano, Howard, Lieberthal, Rollins, Rowand, Speed, Utley, Victorino
Thursday, June 28, 2007
X-Files, Part III
Bad night for the Phillies as they fall to the Cincinnati Reds 9-6, which drops them to 3 & 1/2 games behind the Mets and ties them with the Braves. For my prediction of first place for the Phillies on Monday to come true, they need to beat the Reds tonight and hope that the Mets lose to the Cardinals.
It was, on the other hand, a good night forRyan Howard, who became the fastest player to get to 100 Home Runs, about sixty or so games quicker than Ralph Kiner. Well done, Ryan.
We wrap up our X-Phillies series today with 2006 alumni. First, Bobby Abreu – the decision to deal Abreu to the Yankees will, in the long run, never result in the Phillies having acquired any significant talent. However, the decision to deal Abreu was unquestionably the correct one – there was no way that the Phillies could continue to pay Abreu his salary. This season the Yankees will pay him $15 million dollars, far too much for the Phillies to afford. The deal was a straight salary dump and it was the best thing to happen to the Phillies. Yes, they lost a key player in their lineup, but they gained valuable salary to spend on pitching, and got younger in the outfield. Shane Victorino, Abreu’s replacement in right field, is six years younger than Abreu and is a far better defender.
Abreu was a stalwart on the Phillies roster for years and helped power the ’06 Yankees to the A.L. East title: 9.4 Runs Created per 27 Outs (RC/27), .339 Batting Average with Runners in Scoring Position (BA/RISP), .177 Isolated Power (ISO) …
Thus far this season Abreu is off to a slow start … 5.6 RC/27, .109 ISO, .267 BA/RISP … His On-Base Percentage (.368) is well below .400 for the first time in years (.393 in 2001), and his slugging percentage is also a career low (.379, compared to his career average of .499). I think that Abreu’s struggles right now are simply the inevitable byproduct of him getting older and not seeing the same results he did when he was younger. It is worth comparing Abreu and Victorino so far this season:
Victorino / Abreu
RC/27: 5.5 / 5.6
BA/RISP: .257 / .267
ISO: .138 / .109
Not only did the Phillies get younger, shed some salary (they are paying Victorino $410,000, or 1/36th what the Yankees pay Abreu), but they also got better. Victorino might not outplay Abreu statistically this season, but the gap between them is pretty slight.
One other odd thing I noticed: Abreu has ground into 9 double plays thus far this season. In 2006 he hit into a total of 13 with the Phillies and Yankees in 686 plate appearances. If he gets to 686 PA’s in 2007, he’s on a pace to hit into 20 GIDPs. That’s a big increase for a player who’s career high is 13.
The Phillies let David Dellucci walk to the Cleveland Indians, a decision that I opposed and felt was a mistake, but proves that Pat Gillick is a much smarter man than I. After hitting 13 home runs, 39 RBIs and 6.2 Runs Created in 2006 with the Phillies, Dellucci is off to a terrible start with the Indians, with just 4 home runs, 19 RBIs and 3.7 RC/27. Dellucci was a terrible clutch hitter with the Phillies – .185 BA/RISP – and he isn’t doing too much better with the Indians: .167. In short, the Phillies have really made out under the deal, acquiring a draft pick as compensation and allowing deadwood to get out of town. That’s a win.
Mike Lieberthal, another long-time Phillies stalwart, is harder to evaluate. The Phillies couldn’t retain the oft-injured Lieberthal and needed to let him leave so that Carlos Ruiz could step into the role as the Phillies #1 catcher. Thus far Lieberthal has played sparingly with the Dodgers (just 35 plate appearances), so it is difficult to evaluate his performance.
Sal Fasano, Lieberthal’s replacement for much of 2006, likewise is a tough one to figure out: he had just 57 plate appearances in 2006 with the Yankees, and has just 49 with the Blue Jays.
Which brings us to Randy Wolf. Boy, couldn’t the Phillies use Randy Wolf’s arm right now? The Phillies let Wolf leave and sign with the Dodgers in the off-season after most of Wolf’s 2005 and 2006 campaigns were lost to Tommy John arm surgery. Wolf started 12 games in 2006 and went 4-0 with a 5.56 ERA. I suppose the team didn't want to take a risk on him after his crippling injury in 2005. At the moment, however, Wolf is turning in a dominating performance with the Dodgers: 8-5, 4.24 ERA. Impressively, Wolf's Fielding Independent Pitching (FIP) ERA is 3.42, nearly three runs lower than it was last season (6.39). Very quietly, Wolf is keeping runners off the base-paths (2.7 BB/9), getting strikeouts (8.5 K/9, 3.1 stikeouts to walks), and isn't surrendering many home runs. He's a dominating pitcher right now and an important part of the Dodgers. Wolf's departure, not Abreu's, is the one that the Phillies might one day come to rue.
Tomorrow, a look at the Mets & Phillies.
(1) comments
It was, on the other hand, a good night forRyan Howard, who became the fastest player to get to 100 Home Runs, about sixty or so games quicker than Ralph Kiner. Well done, Ryan.
We wrap up our X-Phillies series today with 2006 alumni. First, Bobby Abreu – the decision to deal Abreu to the Yankees will, in the long run, never result in the Phillies having acquired any significant talent. However, the decision to deal Abreu was unquestionably the correct one – there was no way that the Phillies could continue to pay Abreu his salary. This season the Yankees will pay him $15 million dollars, far too much for the Phillies to afford. The deal was a straight salary dump and it was the best thing to happen to the Phillies. Yes, they lost a key player in their lineup, but they gained valuable salary to spend on pitching, and got younger in the outfield. Shane Victorino, Abreu’s replacement in right field, is six years younger than Abreu and is a far better defender.
Abreu was a stalwart on the Phillies roster for years and helped power the ’06 Yankees to the A.L. East title: 9.4 Runs Created per 27 Outs (RC/27), .339 Batting Average with Runners in Scoring Position (BA/RISP), .177 Isolated Power (ISO) …
Thus far this season Abreu is off to a slow start … 5.6 RC/27, .109 ISO, .267 BA/RISP … His On-Base Percentage (.368) is well below .400 for the first time in years (.393 in 2001), and his slugging percentage is also a career low (.379, compared to his career average of .499). I think that Abreu’s struggles right now are simply the inevitable byproduct of him getting older and not seeing the same results he did when he was younger. It is worth comparing Abreu and Victorino so far this season:
Victorino / Abreu
RC/27: 5.5 / 5.6
BA/RISP: .257 / .267
ISO: .138 / .109
Not only did the Phillies get younger, shed some salary (they are paying Victorino $410,000, or 1/36th what the Yankees pay Abreu), but they also got better. Victorino might not outplay Abreu statistically this season, but the gap between them is pretty slight.
One other odd thing I noticed: Abreu has ground into 9 double plays thus far this season. In 2006 he hit into a total of 13 with the Phillies and Yankees in 686 plate appearances. If he gets to 686 PA’s in 2007, he’s on a pace to hit into 20 GIDPs. That’s a big increase for a player who’s career high is 13.
The Phillies let David Dellucci walk to the Cleveland Indians, a decision that I opposed and felt was a mistake, but proves that Pat Gillick is a much smarter man than I. After hitting 13 home runs, 39 RBIs and 6.2 Runs Created in 2006 with the Phillies, Dellucci is off to a terrible start with the Indians, with just 4 home runs, 19 RBIs and 3.7 RC/27. Dellucci was a terrible clutch hitter with the Phillies – .185 BA/RISP – and he isn’t doing too much better with the Indians: .167. In short, the Phillies have really made out under the deal, acquiring a draft pick as compensation and allowing deadwood to get out of town. That’s a win.
Mike Lieberthal, another long-time Phillies stalwart, is harder to evaluate. The Phillies couldn’t retain the oft-injured Lieberthal and needed to let him leave so that Carlos Ruiz could step into the role as the Phillies #1 catcher. Thus far Lieberthal has played sparingly with the Dodgers (just 35 plate appearances), so it is difficult to evaluate his performance.
Sal Fasano, Lieberthal’s replacement for much of 2006, likewise is a tough one to figure out: he had just 57 plate appearances in 2006 with the Yankees, and has just 49 with the Blue Jays.
Which brings us to Randy Wolf. Boy, couldn’t the Phillies use Randy Wolf’s arm right now? The Phillies let Wolf leave and sign with the Dodgers in the off-season after most of Wolf’s 2005 and 2006 campaigns were lost to Tommy John arm surgery. Wolf started 12 games in 2006 and went 4-0 with a 5.56 ERA. I suppose the team didn't want to take a risk on him after his crippling injury in 2005. At the moment, however, Wolf is turning in a dominating performance with the Dodgers: 8-5, 4.24 ERA. Impressively, Wolf's Fielding Independent Pitching (FIP) ERA is 3.42, nearly three runs lower than it was last season (6.39). Very quietly, Wolf is keeping runners off the base-paths (2.7 BB/9), getting strikeouts (8.5 K/9, 3.1 stikeouts to walks), and isn't surrendering many home runs. He's a dominating pitcher right now and an important part of the Dodgers. Wolf's departure, not Abreu's, is the one that the Phillies might one day come to rue.
Tomorrow, a look at the Mets & Phillies.
Labels: Abreu, Dellucci, Howard, Lieberthal, Wolf
