A CITIZEN'S BLOG

Shame 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.

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?

Let me also take this opportunity to chortle, probably for the 1,531st time this season, over the Mets struggles. Click here 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.

-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.

Labels: Mets

The 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 ...

Baseball Prospectus projects that the Phillies will pass on Hewitt and take Zach Collier, an outfielder from Chino Hills High School in California. Others say the Phillies will go with Andrew Cashner, 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 Baseball America says is going at #24.

I really liked this article from SI's Tom Verducci about why the MLB Draft is so important now that we live in the post-steroids era.

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.

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.

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:

N.L. East: (Home Pct / Road Pct / Diff.)
Atlanta: .750 / .250 / +.500
New York: .607 / .433 / +.174
Phillies: .606 / .536 / +.070
Marlins: .600 / .500 / +.100
Nats: .448 / .366 / +.082

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.

I'll comment on the Draft later.

Labels: Braves, Cardenas, Marlins, Mets, MLB Draft, Nationals

First of all, let me lead off by noting that I haven't been posting for a week. I got kind of burned out from thinking about the Phillies last week and I needed a quick break. This week ahead prepare for a solid, five-post week on the Phillies. Sometimes I just need a quick break to get re-inspired.

Well, the Phillies managed to escape the month of April with a winning record for the first time since they went 16-12 in April, 2003. Their 15-13 record won't make Mets and Braves fans weep, but it is - combined with yesterday's 3-2 win over the Padres - enough to give the Phillies sole possession for first place in the N.L. East this morning, a half-game better than the Mets and Florida Marlins. The Braves sit three back at 12-15.

Last April the Phillies really survived a major crisis when they got off to the 4-11 start and saw the team come close to imploding: they lost their closer, suffered catastrophic injuries and their manager had a major meltdown. This April has been another crisis averted: Brad Lidge went down before the season started, the Phillies saw the 2007 N.L. MVP miss nearly the entire month with injuries, and starting center fielder Shane Victorino missed time too. Still, the team has survived and found itself sitting in first place, displaying real grit and determination.

What of the mighty Mets? Well, Jose Reyes is struggling badly with a .307 OBP and three caught stealings in nine tries. Carlos Delgado has an OPS of .620. On the pitching side, while Johan Santana has been as good as advertised - although his Fielding Independent ERA is 4.00, partly a product of the surprisingly high number of home runs he's allowed this season - the rest of the Mets pitchers are struggling badly. Oliver Perez and John Maine have allowed nearly as many walks as strikeouts and Pedro has made just one start. Looks like the Phillies are still the team to beat.

Keep an eye on the Braves, despite their sub-.500 record. John Smoltz and Tom Glavine have ERAs below 3.00 (2.00 for Smoltz and 2.60 for Glavine) and Tim Hudson is pitching well. As soon as Chuck James (7.62 ERA) works out his issues and the Braves get a little more solid at the plate, they'll start winning and outdistance the Mets. The key, I think, for the Braves is Mark Teixeira. The Braves need him to step up his performance and get more extra-base hits. Once Teixeira begins to produce, the Braves will finally have an offense to match their pitching staff.

The return of Shane Victorino to the Phillies lineup is welcome. As a team the Phillies are really struggling to steal bases and hit triples. At the moment they've stolen just 12 bases in 17 tries and they've hit just three triples. Once J.Roll returns and Victorino gets his groove on, the Phillies will finally have the speed to challenge the opposition. They've already hit an astonishing 42 home runs, but they cannot continue to rely on the long ball exclusively to score runs. One of the keys to the Phillies success in 2007 was that they were ruthlessly efficient in stretching the defense with a lot of successful steals and triples.

Here is a scary thought, Mets and Braves fans: the Phillies success in hitting home runs is partly because Chase Utley (11) and Pat Burrell (8) are on a major tear. Ryan Howard has hit just 6 this season, a low total. Once Howard begins hitting home runs the Phillies could have three 40+ home run guys on their roster. Yikes.

Giants vs. Phillies. The Phillies continue the second half of their six game homestand against N.L. West teams with a three game series against the San Francisco Giants. This will be the first time the Phillies have faced off with former Phillie center fielder Aaron Rowand. The 13-16 Giants are playing well in Year One of A.B. (After Barry.) These are going to be some rough years for Giants fans. They have an old team built around the idea of making a last run on the World Series for Bonds and nearly zero talent in their farm system. Right now they are riding their pitching staff and they are lucky to have some real talent there. Sunday is going to feature a terrific pitching duel between Cole Hamels (3-3, 2.70 ERA) and Tim Lincecum (4-1, 1.73 ERA). Lincecum and Matt Cain (Brett Myers foe Saturday night) are very good hurlers and will help keep the Giants competitive while they rebuild.

Offensively the Giants have moved far, far away from Barryball. They've hit just 16 home runs, but they've stole 33 bases so far. Interestingly, their top base-stealer has just six, so they really run a balanced speed game. As for Rowand: he's hitting .326 but his OBP is only .366. He's also hit just 2 home runs and 14 RBI. His production is going to fall off as the season progresses and he gets less and less lucky in putting the ball into play. The Phillies may miss his intensity, but they won't miss his bat. At all.

Minors Update. The Lehigh Valley IronPigs, the Phillies Triple-A affiliate, is off to a 3-24 start - yes you read that right: three wins and twenty-four losses - in International League play. As a team the IronPigs are dead-last in the IL in OPS (at .573 they are over one hundred points worse than the next-worst team, the Columbus Clippers) and in ERA. Travis Blackley is 0-3 with a 6.64 ERA and Jason Durbin is 0-5 with a 9.61 ERA. The IronPigs big power slugger, Brennan King, is hitting .204 with just one home run and five RBIs.

The Phillies two hot prospects at Lehigh Valley, Jason Jamarillo and J.A. Happ, are on different tracks. J.A. Happ is 0-3, but has actually pitched well: he has an ERA of 3.51 and has struck out 37 hitters in 33 and one-thirds of an inning. Happ has largely been done in by the fact that the IronPigs are awful. Happ might still earn a call-up with the Phillies if Kendrick struggles.

The highly touted Jason Jamarillo has some issues: .193 Batting Average, 2 Home Runs, 3 RBI. I'd say that Chris Coste's job as the backup catcher is very safe.

Over in Berks County, the Reading Phillies are 13-12 and sit three games out of first place in the Eastern League's Southern Division. Outfielder Gregory Golson is off to a terrific start: .320 batting average, 6 doubles, 2 triples, 2 home runs and 15 RBI and eight steals in eleven tries in twenty-five games. Jeremy Slayden, the powerful outfielder who I think is vastly under-rated by scouts and pundits, is hitting .310 with three home runs, twenty RBI and seven doubles.

In Clearwater the Threshers are 9-17 and sit in the Florida State League's Western division's cellar. Prospects Adrian Cardenas and Joe Savery are doing well: Savery has a 2.92 ERA and Cardenas is hitting .347. Finally, over at the Jersey Shore, the Lakewood Blue Claws are 13-13.

Monday, more!

Labels: Braves, Bruntlett, Burrell, Hamels, Mets, Minors, Myers, Pitching, Rollins, Utley, Victorino

If you ever wanted a nice illustration as to what Jimmy Rollins means to the Phillies, then look no further than last night's cringe-inducing 8-2 loss to the Mets to see. Rollins, scratched from the lineup after an injury on Tuesday night, was replaced by Eric Bruntlett, a player thrown in as balance in the Brad Lidge deal. Bruntlett promptly made not one but two costly errors in the third innings, helping the Mets score six runs and effectively ending the game for the Phillies. A couple of thoughts (today is a brief post):

-Remember how concerned people were about Adam Eaton's abilities in the #5 slot of the rotation? Maybe Kyle Kendrick is cause for more concern. Check out the line on Kendrick's performance thus far this season:

vs. Mets: 2.1 IP / 7 Runs / 1 Earned Run / 4 Hits / 6 Walks / 0 Strikeouts
vs. Reds: 5.0 IP / 4 Runs / 4 Earned Runs / 8 Hits / 2 Walks / 1 Strikeout

If you are keeping tally at home, that means that Kendrick has allowed eight walks in seven and one-thirds of an inning and has just one strikeout to show for it. To be fair to Kendrick, just one of the seven runs were earned as the Mets big 6-run inning was largely a product of Bruntlett's defensive miscues, but his struggles on top of a shaky spring and the fact that he needed so much defensive help to get to his 10-4 record last season leaves me feeling pessimistic about Kendrick's chances.

Unless Kendrick can start getting some strikeouts he is going to continue to struggle and his days as a starter are numbered.

-Chad Durbin tossed three and two-thirds nice innings in relief, not allowing any runs and giving up just a single walk while striking four Mets out. He makes a compelling case to take Kendrick's spot.

-If Jimmy Rollins is out for a while and the Phillies lost confidence in Bruntlett's abilities, what will the team do? One rumor I heard was that they'll bring shortstop Freddy Galvis in from Single-A Lakewood to play short, something that I can hardly believe. Galvis might be a defensive standout, but that would be a shocker to see happen. A more definite possibility would be bringing Jason Donald, currently playing at Double-A Reading, into the fold.

-What in the heck is up with the Phillies fielding? In nine games they've made 13 errors. Chase Utley has made three, a fact that shocks me.

Tomorrow, I'll give my thoughts on tonight's Adam Eaton - John Maine duel and I'll turn my eye towards the Cubbies.

Labels: Bruntlett, Durbin, Fielding, Kenderick, Mets, Pitching, Rollins, Rotation, Utley

Round One of the Phillies and Mets ended with a 5-2 victory by the Phillies yesterday afternoon in Shea Stadium. Before we cheer the results of the battle in excess of their actual significance (this is the first of nineteen games between the two teams this season), let's look at a couple of things we saw yesterday:

-Jimmy Rollins was 2-for-5 with two runs scored and an RBI. Jose Reyes was 1-for-5 with no runs scored and no RBIs or stolen bases. The performance from the Phillies and Mets leadoff hitters is a nice microcosm for the game and illustrate why the Phillies still have a slight edge on the Mets, even with Santana wearing a Mets uni: with the bright lights shining, J.Roll produced and Reyes didn't.

-Nice pitching performance from Jamie Moyer, scattering seven hits or walks over six innings of work.

-The Phillies bullpen bent but didn't break. They allowed three hits and a walk but no runs in the final three innings. The Mets bullpen imploded once Perez left the game, allowing five runs, five hits and three walks over the last three innings.

-Chase Utley got hit by his third pitch this season. Careful, Chase.

-Tonight Kyle Kendrick goes for the Phillies, hopefully improving on his shaky performance against the Reds, where he got the cheapest win imaginable, throwing just five innings and surrendering four runs in the process.

Mets - Phillies, Round 2, tonight at 7:10 in Queens.

Labels: Kenderick, Mets, Moyer, Rollins, Utley

And so the Mets (2-3) and Phillies (3-4) finally get to square off, in a series that has seen a lot of hype and anticipation developing around it over the last six months. Jayson Stark wrote in the pre-season about the emerging Phillies – Mets rivalry, challenging fans “to find two teams in the N.L. that are more closely matched – and more obsessed with each other – than these two.” The genesis for the immediate bad blood in this rivalry stretches back to the 2006-2007 off-season when Jimmy Rollins boldly predicted that the Phillies were the team to beat in the N.L. East (“I think we are the team to beat – finally.”), a claim roundly rejected by the Mets, the defending N.L. East champs, and most of the New York-focused media. The rivalry largely simmered during the regular season as the Mets got off to a lead and held it over the Phillies and Braves.

Let’s rewind to September 12, 2007. The Phillies had just gotten battered by the Colorado Rockies 12-0 at Citizens Bank Ballpark. Kyle Kendrick had gotten hammered badly. Meanwhile, the Mets had squeezed out a 4-3 win over the Atlanta Braves in Queens. The Mets record stood at 83-62, seven games (7.0) better than the 76-69 Phillies with a mere seventeen games left. The Mets second consecutive division title seemed assured. They would be playing October baseball for sure and seemed a likely pick to make it to the World Series against the Red Sox.

That’s when everything changed. The next night the Phillies beat the Rockies 12-4. That weekend (September 14-16) the Mets and Phillies squared off for the final time that season. The Phillies rallied to win the first two games 3-2 and 5-3, then broke open a 5-5 tie to win Sunday’s game 10-6. It was the third series the Phillies had swept the Mets in during the season out of the five they played. It ran the Phillies record over the Mets to 12-5. The Mets lead had been cut in half, from seven games to three and a half.

The Mets continued to struggle, losing two in a row to the Nationals before taking four of their next five games. The Mets 7-6 win over the Florida Marlins on Sunday, September 23rd, seemed to righten the Mets ship. They still held a two and a half game lead over the Phillies. The Phillies had also been playing terrific baseball during this time, winning five of six against the Cardinals and Nationals only to drop two in a row. The last week was dramatic and exceptional, some of the best baseball played in a long, long time.

After dropping a 10-6 loss to the Atlanta Braves on Tuesday (the Mets had gotten clobbered 13-4 by the Nationals the previous day when the Phillies were idle, cutting the Mets lead to a mere two games), the Phillies beat the Braves 5-2 and 6-4. Meanwhile the Mets were spiraling out of control: they lost to the Nationals 10-9 on Tuesday, then 9-6 the next day. The Mets 3-0 loss to the Cardinals on Thursday meant that the Mets and Phillies had identical records at 87-72. Friday night the Phillies beat the Nationals 6-0 before 45,084 roaring fans at Citizens Bank Ballpark while the Marlins defeated the Mets 7-4 in front of 55,298 stunned New Yorkers in Queens. The Phillies had won twelve of their previous fifteen games while the Mets had dropped eleven of fifteen. Mustering all of their strength, the Mets beat the Marlins 13-0 while the Phillies lost to the Nationals 4-2. The teams were tied 88-73. If both teams lost or if both teams won on Sunday there would be a one-game playoff.

That never happened: Tom Glavine took the mound on Sunday and promptly surrendered seven runs in the first inning on the way to a 8-1 loss to the Marlins, their twelfth loss in seventeen games. The Phillies, meanwhile, jumped out to a 3-0 lead over the Nationals on their way to a 6-1 win. It was the Phillies thirteenth win in seventeen games.

The off-season simmered once more until the Mets jumped into the Johan Santana derby and beat out the Red Sox and Yankees. Buoyed with their acquisition of Santana, the Mets suddenly felt emboldened to talk trash, leading Carlos Beltran to declare: “This year, tell Jimmy Rollins WE’RE the team to beat.”

Tonight the rivalry is renewed.

The interesting thing about this series is how the Mets and Phillies aren't putting the strongest pieces they have on the board forward. Johan Santana and Pedro Martinez won't take the mound for the Mets, Santana having pitched (and lost) Sunday, while Pedro is on the D.L. Cole Hamels and Brett Myers hurled the Phillies last two games, so both teams are going with the back ends of their rotations. As I noted above, the Phillies and Mets enter this series with losing records.

Not exactly the makings of Yankees - Red Sox, Part II.

The Mets and Phillies are sending nearly the same teams to the field tonight that met last season. The Phillies have upgraded themselves at third base, adding Pedro Feliz to replace the light-to-no hitting Wes Helms and Abraham Nunez, and ably replaced Aaron Rowand with the Jayson Werth / Geoff Jenkins platoon. There is no reason to believe that the Phillies can't equal the 892 runs they scored in 2007 this season, or even exceed it.

The Mets, meanwhile, bring David Wright, Carlos Beltran, Carlos Delgado back along with Jose Reyes. Aside from Moises Alou, on the D.L. and replaced in the Mets lineup with ex-Phillie Endy Chavez, the Mets send substantially the same unit to the field that played last season - although the Mets did upgrade at catcher by acquiring Brian Schneider over Paul Lo Duca in what was basically a swap of catchers with the Nationals. The key to the Mets offense is the play of Jose Reyes, who might have won the 2007 N.L. MVP award had the Mets held on and won the N.L. East. In 2007 Reyes stole 78 bases, hit 12 triples and 12 home runs, scored 119 runs and had an .359 OBP. Reyes struggles down the stretch helped sink the Mets and probably elevated the candidacy of Phillies shortstop Jimmy Rollins, who shined while opposite number Reyes sank.

This season Reyes is off to a shaky start, hitting just .238 (.261 OBP) in five games (5-for-21) with a .283 slugging percentage (compared with a robust .421 last season). Reyes also is 0-for-1 in stolen bases. If Reyes isn't threatening the opposition the Mets offense loses its biggest gun and suddenly looks a whole lot more ordinary.

The Santana Issue. I might as well stop for a moment and talk about Johan Santana. I've gotten assailed by Mets fans more times than I can count on this score, but ... The acquisition of Santana improves the Mets, perhaps makes them 2-4 games better, but it isn't the smashing blow to the hopes of the rest of the N.L. that the Mets fans seem to think it is. Santana is a great pitcher, but great pitchers can lose 2-1 pitchers duels, and he only takes the mound once every four-to-five games. Baseball teams win, not individuals. This is what makes baseball a better sport than, say, the NBA. One man can propel an NBA team to a 25-30 game improvement, whereas baseball teams cannot rely on the impact of one player. I'll play the A-Rod card: A-Rod leaves Seattle before the '01 season and they improve by 26 games over their previous season's performance.

Comparisons: Based on last year's performances, here are now the Phillies and Mets stack up. Offensively, the Phillies have the clear edge here. They led the N.L. with 892 runs in 2007, whereas the Mets were fourth with 804 runs. The Mets did steal 200 bases last season - best in the N.L. - to the Phillies 138, but the Phillies were caught 19 times to the Mets 46. On-Base-Percentage? The Phillies led the N.L. with a .354 OBP to the Mets .342. The Phillies also led the Mets in home runs (213 to 177), doubles (326 to 294) and triples (41 to 27). The Phillies were also second in the N.L. in home runs and first in triples. Mets did hit better with runners in scoring position: .276 vs. .259 BA/RISP.

In terms of Pitching, the Mets have the clear edge. The Mets 4.26 team ERA was better than the Phillies 4.73 and they tossed twice as many shutouts as the Phillies: ten to five. The Mets also allowed fewer home runs (206 to 165) and got more strikeouts (1,134 to 1,050).

Fielding, the Mets have the edge once more, posting a superior Defense Efficiency Ratio (DER): .702 vs. .687, although the Mets had a higher Unearned Run Average (UERA): 0.39 vs. 0.33.

What is going to be the key to this series? I have a few.

Can the back end of the Mets rotation beat the Phillies? In particular, the Mets want to see a good game from #3 starter (now likely #2 starter) John Maine on Thursday night against Adam Eaton.

Will the Phillies usual Mets-killers make their appearance? Pat Burrell, who has three home runs and nine RBI in the Phillies first seven games, has a lifetime .921 OPS against the Mets with 41 home runs and 102 RBI in 134 games. If Burrell has a big series, then the Phillies will take at least two of the three games.

Putup or Shutup. Jimmy Rollins vs. Carlos Beltran. Last year J.Roll talked big but backed it up with an MVP performance. Can Beltran do the same after calling Rollins out in spring training? Last year J.Roll had a 1.057 OPS against the Mets with six home runs, 15 runs scored and 15 RBI, four doubles, two triples and eight steals in nine tries in 18 games with the Mets. If the Mets are going to beat the Phillies, Carlos Beltran needs to step up and be a leader and do something like that.

Ghosts of '07. Jose Reyes needs to shake his struggles down the stretch last season out of his head and play some baseball. More than any other player, the Mets need big things from him to beat the Phillies.

Today at 1PM, Jamie Moyer vs. Perez. Mets vs. Phillies. Battle of Armageddon, Take One.

Labels: Burrell, Eaton, Mets, Moyer, Pitching, Rollins, Rotation

There has been a lot of talk recently about the Mets “buying” the 2008 N.L. East division title. After scuffling through a painful post-season where memories of their historic 5-12 collapse against the Phillies are in their minds, now suddenly the Mets are proclaiming themselves the team to beat and act as if last season never happened. I don’t buy it. There are a number of reasons why the Mets aren’t a lock to win the N.L. East in 2008, and they are …

1. History: Remember the 2002 Mets? In the wake of the Mets surprising run at the N.L. East title in the days after 9/11 the Mets management decided to open up the team’s purse-strings and attempt to lure the top free agents to Queens. In came Mo Vaughn, Roberto Alomar, and Jeremy Burnitz. And the Mets finished seven games worse than they did the previous season. History is against the Mets here.

2. Numbers: The addition of one player rarely makes the sort of impact that people are talking about here. Suddenly the Mets suspect rotation goes from a weakness to an exceptional strength? I don’t think so. Remember, Santana will throw 35-40 games for the Mets in 2008. They still need pitchers for the 120-130 games that Santana cannot pitch. Do you really feel comfortable, Mets fans, with Willie Randolph handing the ball to John Maine on the last game of the season?

3. The Aging of their Roster: They added Santana to bolster the rotation, but they’ve updated none of the other positions on the roster in any meaningful way. Anyone notice that Carlos Delgado really struggled in 2007? His OBP plunged to .333, a decline of nearly thirty points and a nearly seventy point decline from the .399 he posted with the Marlins in 2005. His home runs declined from 38 in 2006 to 24 last season and he saw his Runs Created dip from 101 to 70. Delgado is 36 this season and is entering the twilight of his career. He better not struggle in 2008 or the Mets are in trouble.

4. It’s in their heads: The memory of last season is still going to echo in their minds. Any time the Phillies have struggled in a pennant race the ghosts of 1964 are raised. Any time this season that the Mets struggle, the ghosts of last season will return. I wonder how badly this will effect the play of a young player like Jose Reyes, who really seemed to wilt under the pressure of the pennant race last season while his counterpart in the Phillies lineup, Jimmy Rollins, shined. Will Reyes struggle any time the mention of 2007 comes up? I think he will.

So there you go, Phillies fans. Four very good reasons why the Phillies might just still be the team to beat in the N.L. East in 2008. It’s a little early to waive the white flag, fellas. There are 162 games to go …

Labels: Mets, Playoffs, Predictions

The conventional wisdom out there is that the Mets have basically guaranteed themselves a 2008 N.L. East division title with their acquisition of Johan Santana. Suddenly Santana turns to Mets mediocre rotation into one of the best pitching staffs in the National Leagie. I beg to differ. The Mets may have upgraded themselves considerably – and they now definitely have a leg up on the opposition – however, even with Santana, the Mets don’t have the best starting rotation in the N.L. East.

I’m going to use pitching projections from the 2008 Bill James Handbook here because James predictions are uncannily accurate and they make as good a starting reference point as anything …

Let’s start with the Mets …

Win – Loss Record / ERA / K/BB ratio
Johan Santana: 16-8 / 3.00 / 4.00
Pedro Martinez: 10-4 / 2.88 / 4.65
John Maine: 12-11 / 4.05 / 2.08
Oliver Perez: 9-12 / 4.69 / 2.34
Oliver Hernandez: 8-7 / 3.95 / 2.31

Now Pedro’s numbers are based on his throwing just 125 innings, so I guess this presumes that he might still have some nagging injuries. That’s a reasonable presumption. The teaming of Pedro and Santana really might be deadly, but the rest of the Mets rotation looks pretty spotty. Maine and Perez had great, but largely fluky seasons in 2007. The Mets will have a great 1-2 punch at the top of the rotation, but that's it.

Let’s move onto the Phillies …

Cole Hamels: 15-7 / 3.33 / 3.75
Brett Myers: 6-5 (29 saves) / 4.17 / 2.51
Jamie Moyer: 11-10 / 4.31 / 2.09
Adam Eaton: 8-10 / 4.89 / 1.94
Kyle Kendrick: unk.

The projections for the Phillies are a little screwy because they have Myers as the Phillies closer and there is no data for Kendrick to gain an accurate idea about because he’s pitched just one season. My gut tells me that Myers would probably have an ERA closer to 4.00 and his win-loss would be close to Hamels 15-7 if they ran his numbers as a starter … Hamels numbers strongly suggest that he’ll turn in another strong season and might be a player in the Cy Young race if he tosses enough innings … Eaton will be better than he was in 2007, but only with Adam Eaton would a 4.89 ERA be considered an improvement (2007 ERA: 6.29).

Basically, the Phillies rotation will be solid, but not great, though if Hamels and Santana cancel each other out, then the Phillies might have a slight edge here if Pedro struggles.

Let's move on to the Braves.

John Smoltz: 17-7 / 3.22 / 4.06
Tim Hudson: 15-9 / 3.67 / 2.19
Chuck James: 12-8 / 3.86 / 2.38
Tom Glavine: 11-10 / 3.99 / 1.59
Buddy Carlyle: 7-6 / 4.11 / 2.97

If the 2008 Atlanta Braves rotation isn’t the best in the N.L. East, I’ll eat my hat. Say whatever you want about the Braves, but they do know how to assemble pitching staffs and they’ve assembled another good one with their ’08 team. Glavine might not be the Cy Young Award winner he used to be, but he’ll be hurling behind a good defense and he’ll do what he does best: get lots and lots of pop-fly outs. Smoltz and Hudson look like Cy Young contenders, and James looks like a solid #3.

Clearly the Braves are tops here. It’s the ‘90s all over again.

Labels: Braves, Eaton, Hamels, Kenderick, Mets, Moyer, Myers, Pitching, Rotation

Lots of Phillies news out there. I was busy processing the Pedro Feliz deal when the Twins decided to deal Johan Santana to the Mets. I’ll talk a little about Feliz tomorrow …

So the Twins sent Santana to the Mets: after all of the talk about the Red Sox and Yankees it ought not to have surprised us that the lower profile Mets would swing in under the radar and scoop up Santana. On paper the deal is a masterstroke: after trying to contend with a largely unknown pitching staff (John Maine, Oliver Perez, Orlando Hernandez) the Mets have added one of the best pitchers in baseball to go along with Pedro Martinez, who missed nearly all of 2007. On paper, the Mets rotation looks pretty good now: Pedro and Santana to go along with Maine, who was a surprising 15-10 with a 3.91 ERA, and Perez, who was 15-10 with a 3.56 ERA. If Maine and Perez duplicate their ’07 performances, and if Pedro regains his pre-2006 form, and if Santana continues to pitch at a high level … well, suddenly the Mets spotty rotation looks pretty good. Perhaps the best in the division, ahead of the Phillies and the Tim Hudson / John Smoltz-led Atlanta Braves.

The best part of the deal is that the Mets didn’t surrender any killer prospects to make this happen. After talking about Philip Hughes and Jake Ellsbury, the Twins didn’t get any sure-fire major leaguers out of the deal. This looks like a major blunder on the part of the Twins leadership. Ouch.

So is this a guaranteed win for the Mets? Well, Santana did see his Fielding Independent Pitching (FIP) ERA rise from 3.02 in ’04, 2.80 in ’05, and 3.15 in ’06 to 3.96 in ’07. Looking inside of the numbers there was precious little change in Santana’s strikeouts and walks allowed – in fact they’ve been remarkably consistent over the years:

K/9 BB/9
2004: 11.7 / 2.4
2005: 10.0 / 1.9
2006: 10.2 / 2.0
2007: 10.3 / 2.3

The change in Santana’s numbers stem from the fact that he allowed a few more home runs – 33, as opposed to 24, 22 and 24 between ’04 and ’06 – in 2007 than he had in the past. I consider that to be a fluke, although this perhaps might suggest that he’ll surrender a few dingers in the one or two starts he makes at Citizens in 2008.

This is disastrous news for the Phillies: they suddenly have the third-best pitching staff in the N.L. East and made no major splashes this off-season. The Mets added Santana (and Pedro, for all intent and purpose), and the Braves added Glavine. What are the Phillies hoping? That Travis Blackley will supplant Adam Eaton as the #5 starter? Suddenly, after the joys of last season, a third-place finish seems likely.

Although … you also have to look at the fact that there is enormous pressure on the Mets. If Pedro collapses – he is getting older – and if Maine and Perez regress to average, and if Santana struggles … suddenly the Mets look beatable. And you have to wonder if heads will roll in Queens if the Mets fail to make the playoffs again.

Alright, a little on Pedro Feliz tomorrow.

Labels: Mets

With the winter meetings coming up, I think you can expect some wheeling and dealing, in part because everyone needs pitching and the market for pitchers is pretty thin. Who wants to spend $10+ mil on Carlos Silva (13-14, 4.19 ERA)? This is going to be a pretty active trade market.

So far the most active team has been the Anaheim Angels, who continue to vastly over-pay for talent, swapping their Gold Glove shortstop to the White Sox for solid-but-unspectacular pitcher Jon Garland (10-13, 4.23 ERA) and paying $18 million bucks a year for the next five years to Torii Hunter, a talented outfielder whose career might be in decline and certainly isn’t worth $18 mil. I suppose that you can do so when your owner is willing to shell out $120-$140 million bucks a year. The Angels were fifth in payroll in 2007 ($109 mil), and they ought to run into the rarified air of the Mets ($116 mil), Red Sox ($143 mil), and Yankees ($195 mil) next season.

The Twins are talking about a deal for Johan Santana with the Yankees or with the Mets. The Evil Empire and its bumbling counterpart strikes again. Santana struggled a little in 2007, but that was just a run of bad luck. He allowed 33 home runs last season (1.45 HR/9) after allowing 24 in about fifteen fewer innings (1.00 HR/9), which is pretty much the sole reason why his ERA rose from 2.77 to 3.33 … Even an off-season for Santana is still fantastic … Backed with a decent defense, in a park friendlier to pitchers and buoyed with an offense capable of producing six runs a game, Santana could be a perennial Cy Young Award candidate. Oh, by the way, he’s 2-0 with a 1.17 ERA in three career starts at Yankees Stadium.

The Yankees would probably be willing to part with some talent like Joba Chamberlain or Phillip Hughes as part of the deal. Makes sense to add such a dominating pitcher to the rotation, which would patch up the biggest hole they have right now.

The Mets, equally strapped for pitching now that Tom Glavine is back in ATL, might be a better fit. Would the Mets deal for Santana if it meant packaging Reyes? Well, while the Mets have refused to part with Reyes in the past he played badly at the end of the season and the opportunity to pair Cy Young Award winner Santana with Cy Young winner Pedro Martinez is too tantalizing to pass up. One of the two New York teams will end up with Santana because they are the only teams capable of signing Santana to the $20 million dollars a year he’ll make on the open market in 2008.

On to Phillies news … The Phillies snared Shane Youman off waivers from the Pittsburgh Pirates. I’m not sure what to make of Youman. Like J.C. Romero, he allows a lot of walks (3.5 BB/9), too many for my comfort, as a matter of fact, but like Romero he doesn’t allow a lot of home runs: 0.76 HR/9. I’m on the fence. I think there are some things to like and there are some issues. I’m eager to see how he’ll do.

The Phillies acquired Chris Snelling off waivers from the D-Rays. Looks like Snelling and Chris Roberson will battle it out to see who’ll be the fifth outfielder in 2008.

Labels: Mets, Romero, Snelling, Youman

Nobody at the beginning of the 2007 would have predicted that Jimmy Rollins would emerge as the National League MVP. Even on the Phillies own roster I assumed that Ryan Howard, the 2006 MVP, or Chase Utley would be the Phillies prime contender for the award. Rollins was the Phillies lead-off hitter, their speed guy, the guy who briefly made a run on Joe DiMaggio’s 56-game hitting streak.

Rollins 2007 MVP award is the product of a lot of intangibles. This might be the first MVP award given because a promise was kept: Rollins spring training statement that the Phillies were the team to beat in the N.L. East, which increasingly looked ridiculous when they got off to a 3-10 start, came true down the stretch as the Phillies erased the Mets seven game lead.

But the numbers on Jimmy Rollins are impressive. What really impresses me about J.Roll is how he’s progressively refined his game, season after season, to become a better and better player. It’s that evolution of skill that I’d like to examine here a little today.

Jimmy Rollins broke into the major leagues in 2000, playing 14 games for the Phillies at the close of the season. Rollins play helped to oust Desi Relaford from the Phillies lineup as starting shortstop and J.Roll was on his way.

In 2001, J.Roll played his first season and scored 97 runs, hit 29 doubles, 12 triples, and 14 home runs. J.Roll stole 46 bases in 54 tries. However, his .323 OBP was extremely low for a lead-off hitter and he struck-out 108 times, or 15% of his plate appearances. The next two seasons, J.Roll posted similar numbers:

2002: 82 runs scored, 33 doubles, 10 triples, 11 home runs, 31 steals in 44 tries, .306 OBP, .146 K/PA (strike-outs per plate appearance) …

2003: 85 runs scored, 42 doubles, 6 triples, 8 home runs, 20 steals in 32 tries, .320 OBP, .164 K/PA …

Confused about what I’m talking about? Here are the stats I refer to defined:
On-Base Percentage (OBP): How often a player gets on base. (H + BB + HBP) / (Plate Appearances)
Slugging Percentage (SLG): Total Bases / At-Bats = Slugging Percentage. Power at the plate.
Runs Created (RC): A stat originally created by Bill James to measure a player’s total contribution to his team’s lineup. Here is the formula: [(H + BB + HBP - CS - GIDP) times ((S * 1.125) + (D * 1.69) + (T * 3.02) + (HR * 3.73) + (.29 * (BB + HBP – IBB)) + (.492 * (SB + SF + SH)) – (.04 * K))] divided by (AB + BB + HBP + SH+ SF).
RC/27: Runs Created per 27 outs, essentially what a team of 9 of this player would score in a hypothetical game.

At the close of J.Roll’s 2003 campaign, there were a lot of grumblings that he struck-out too much and was too focused on being a speed guy with power than in being an effective lead-off hitter. Tellingly, the Phillies had dropped J.Roll to the bottom of the order, having him hit sixth, seventh or even eighth and giving the lead-off job to rookie Marlon Byrd.

In the off-season, J.Roll, a West Coast native, worked with former San Diego Padre Tony Gwynn to improve his swing. The aim was to cut-down on strike-outs. Gwynn was a terrific teacher. The Hall of Famer’s career OBP was .388 and his career batting average was a robust .338. Gwynn drew 790 walks in his career, a decent total, but struck-out just 434 times in 10,232 plate appearances. That’s just 4% of the time. In contrast, J.Roll had 331 strike-outs in 2,169 plate appearances entering 2004. Gwynn and J.Roll worked to make contact more often and put the ball into play, not to be more patient at the plate and to draw more walks.
At the start of the 2004 campaign, J.Roll once against started at the bottom on the Phillies batting order, hitting seventh on Opening Day against the Pittsburgh Pirates. He continued to languish at the bottom of the order for the months of April and May before Byrd’s struggles drove him out of the Phillies lineup and handed J.Roll the lead-off job once more. Secure as the Phillies lead-off hitter once again, Rollins hit lead-off for the rest of the 2004 season.

The effect on his numbers was electric: suddenly J.Roll saw his strike-outs drop from .152 K/PA to .100 in 2004 (73 in 725 PA). J.Roll’s runs scored went from 85 to 119. His OBP improved to .348. He hit 14 home runs, 43 doubles, 12 triples and stole 30 of 39 bases. J.Roll finally broke 100+ Runs Created for the first time in his career with 109. His previous high had been 96 in 2001.

In 2005 and 2006 J.Roll once more posted similar numbers. His walk totals never improved during this time period, but his strike-outs never approached his pre-2004 totals:

K/PA
2001: .150
2002: .146
2003: .164
2004: .100
2005: .097
2006: .106

Look at the corresponding shift in Rollins Runs Created per Game:

RC/27
2001: 5.1
2002: 3.8
2003: 4.2
2004: 6.0
2005: 5.6
2006: 5.9

Rollins closed off the 2005 season with a 31-game hitting streak wherein he hit .386 (.435 OBP), 17 doubles, 4 triples, 3 home runs, scored 28 runs, and stole 13 of 14 bases. He began the 2006 season half-way to DiMaggio’s magical mark of 56 games. Sadly, he went 0-for-4 in the third game of the season, so the batting streak died at 33 games.

Something in Rollins as the 2006 season wore on. Always a speedy player with some pop in his bat (the comparison to Rickey Henderson was obvious), J.Roll began to hit with more power as time went on. He hit 16 home runs after the All-Star Game in Pittsburgh, which was more than he had hit in an entire season before. His slugging percentage was an astonishing .580 in August of 2006. Partly Rollins was feeding off teammate Ryan Howard, well on his way to an MVP season himself, but J.Roll was evolving into a different player.

In the 2007 off-season J.Roll boldly predicted that the Phillies, not the mighty Mets or the complacent Braves, were the team to beat in the N.L. East. Observers brushed off J.Roll’s words and mocked him. How could the Mets, loaded as they were with bats like Carlos Delgado, Carlos Beltran, David Wright and Jose Reyes, lose the division? Plus, the Braves, the team that had dominated the division for over a decade, were poised to come back into the mix. What chance did the Phillies have?

Additionally, J.Roll wasn’t thought off as the best player at his position in the division, let alone being the best player in the league. 2006 Rookie of the year Hanley Ramirez and the Mets Reyes were thought to be #1 and #2 amongst shortstops in the N.L. East. Reyes, who stole 64 bases with a .354 OBP in 2006, was thought of as perhaps the best player in the division and key to the Mets hopes of winning the N.L. East again in 2007.

And J.Roll delivered while Ramirez languished on a losing team and Reyes found himself ensnared in a nightmare in Queens. As the Mets sank, losing 12 of their last 17 games, Reyes hit .187, scored just 11 runs and was caught stealing three of his five attempts. J.Roll, as the Phillies won 13 of those 17 games, hit .309 with 3 home runs, 3 triples, 3 doubles, 12 RBI, 14 runs scored and he was successful in all ten of his stolen base attempts. At the end of the season, J.Roll had set career highs for hits with 212, runs scored with 139, home runs with 30, triples with 20, RBI with 94, Runs Created with 135, Slugging Percentage with .531, and Batting Average with .296. He also equaled his highest stolen base total with 41.

For all of that he was the 2007 National League MVP, winning by 17 points in the closest vote since 1991, when the Braves Terry Pendleton beat out the Pittsburgh Pirates Barry Bonds by 15 points.

It was a terrific season and J.Roll was deserving of the award. With Ryan Howard and Jimmy Rollins, the award has finally been wrestled away from the clutches of Barry Bonds and his chemically-enhanced body. Incidentally, notice that three Phillies are amongst the top eight vote getters in the MVP balloting: Ryan Howard finished fifth in the voting with 112 votes and Chase Utley finished eighth with 89. Aaron Rowand got three votes and thus finished 22nd in the MVP voting.

I’d also like to note that J.Roll did a terrific job in interviews crediting the success of the Phillies as a team and stating that he wants his team to find success more than himself. What a terrific leader.

So what are the chances that a Phillie could win the award once more in 2008? Pretty good actually. Chase Utley was a viable MVP candidate as well when he went down. Like J.Roll he plays terrific defense at a challenging position, and like J.Roll he’s a tough hitter who can run and hit for power: 48 doubles, 22 home runs and 103 RBI despite missing a month with a broken hand. I could easily see Utley winning the award in 2008, giving the Phillies a run reminiscent of when Jose Canseco, Mark McGwire and Walt Weiss won the A.L. Rookie of the Year award in 1986, 1987 and 1988 respectively for the Oakland A’s. Along with Utley there is also the chance that J.Roll or Ryan Howard could capture the crown again. How many teams are lucky enough to have not one or two, but three viable MVP candidates?

Can I also comment on the institutional bias against pitchers winning the MVP award?

Back in 1952, when the Phillies Robin Roberts went 28-7, there was no Cy Young award, so Roberts had to content himself with being narrowly beaten out for the MVP award by Hank Sauer of the Chicago Cubs. Roberts was spectacular in 1952, throwing a complete game in 30 of his 37 starts and finishing the season with an ERA+ of 141 (Roberts ERA was 2.59, while the league’s ERA was 3.66. 3.66 / 2.59 = 141). And yet Sauer beat him out for the MVP 226 to 211. Roberts, whose run as the best pitcher in baseball went from 1950 to 1955, began to decline in 1956, the year the Cy Young Award was first handed out. Because Roberts, who might have won as many as three or four Cy Youngs between 1950 – 1955, never won a Cy Young he’s never got the recognition he’s deserved from baseball historians. Being the best pitcher in an era known for batting will do that.

But baseball is biased against pitchers winning the MVP. Even when Randy Johnson was winning his five Cy Young Awards, he was barely a factor in the MVP voting, finishing sixth in 1995 with the Seattle Mariners. The last pitcher to win the MVP was Dennis Eckersley in 1992, when he saved 51 games for the Oakland A’s. A pitcher hasn’t won the N.L. MVP since Bob Gibson did it in 1968. There is a sense in baseball that they ought to stick to “their” award.

Jake Peavy and Brandon Webb turned in terrific performances in 2007. Each was a major factor in their teams contending in the N.L. West. Without Peavy, the Padres would have been a .500 team. Without Webb, the D-backs probably would have been a sub-.500 team. And yet Peavy finished seventh and Webb seventeenth in the MVP voting. Chipper Jones and Prince Fielder turned in nice seasons with their teams, but were they really more valuable than Peavy or Webb? I doubt it.

Unfortunately I don’t like how the Phillies off-season is unfolding. Mike Lowell is gone, back to the Boston Red Sox, and the Phillies pitching options have dried up now that Curt Schilling has returned to the Red Sox and the White Sox dealt Jon Garland to the Anaheim Angels. While the Phillies have improved the bullpen, they still need to add another starting pitcher to help Cole Hamels, Brett Myers and Jamie Moyer. I suspect that the Phillies might offer some prospects to the White Sox for Pitcher Jose Contreras, or they might attempt to deal for Third Baseman Joe Crede, but the Phillies need to make a move soon before they find themselves pressured into doing something foolish like offering $50 million to Kyle Lohse or Carlos Silva. A starting pitcher or a third baseman. The Phillies have to land one or the other or both to make this a successful off-season.

Torii Hunter might set the market next week and sign a deal that will determine how much Andruw Jones and Aaron Rowand get to ask for. I think that Hunter will ink a deal with the White Sox and stay in the A.L. Central, while the Texas Rangers will make a run at Jones and Rowand. I guess there is always a chance of the Phillies re-signing Rowand, but that is pretty remote, especially if the Phillies swing a deal for pitching and try to lock up their young stars (Hamels and Howard) to long-term deals.

Monday: Season In Review, Fielding. Until then, enjoy your Turkey.

Labels: Base-Stealing, Fielding, Howard, Marlins, Mets, Power-Hitting, Rollins, Rowand, Utley

Now it is the day after the Phillies phantasic comeback and everyone is waking up and coming to grips with what happened. There were some nice pieces in the Philadelphia Inquirer:

I like David Aldridge's piece about Charlie Manuel. I've always been a big fan of his and believed that the Phillies were better off with the reins in Manuel's hands than anyone else's. Manuel's calm, steady approach and Moneyball-esque strategy on the field are important reasons why the Phillies have had win totals in the upper-80s and were playoff contenders these last three seasons. I believe completely that Pat Gillick intended to fire him at the end of the season and replace him with Davey Lopes for 2008 until the Phillies surged. Now Charlie will get another season, or more.

Phil Sheridan looks at the losers up I-95 in Shea Stadium. I had forgotten that Billy Wagner was a Met and beating his team makes this all the sweeter until I read Sheridan's article. Sounds like the Mets are going to be a mess this off-season.

Todd Zolecki talks a little bit about Jimmy Rollins, who certainly has the momentum to be the 2007 NL MVP. I'm rather skeptical J.Roll was the NL MVP based on the numbers - he did lead the NL in outs with 527, he finished well behind Matt Holliday in Runs Created, 149 to 135, and he wasn't the best defensive shortstop in the league - but J.Roll was the critical cog in the Phillies machine down the stretch, a key bat and the team's emotional leader. J.Roll was been amazing at the plate: thirty home runs, twenty triples, thirty-eight doubles, forty-one steals in forty-seven tries, 139 runs scored, 94 RBI, there is probably nobody in baseball with his unique blend of speed and power at the plate. This season was J.Roll's best in the bigs and I'd have no problem with giving him the nod over Holliday based on emotion alone. Oh, and while J.Roll isn't the best NL shortstop, he plays a much tougher position than Holliday. That has to count for something.

I bet that J.Roll will come out ahead of Holliday and will take the NL MVP, although I wonder if Chase Utley and Ryan Howard might split the Phillies vote. J.Roll has some big advantages here: he plays in a major, East Coast market close to New York and he was a hero in a close, well-televised playoff race. Momentum is there, as opposed to Holliday and the Rockies, who largely flew under the radar of the national media in their race for the playoffs.

By the way, give the Rockies credit for quite a run for the playoffs: they've won 13 of 14 games. Aside from a 4-2 loss to the Diamondbacks on Sept. 28, the Rockies haven't lost in nearly two weeks. Part of me wants to see the Rockies win because they look like a weaker team on paper than the pitching-heavy Padres, but then I think you also have to worry about how strong the Rockies are finishing.

Here is what the Mets fans are saying. First The Eddie Kranepool Society talks about the Mets collapse. The anger is obvious, though restrained. The Musings and Prophecies of Metstradamus was pretty petulant and juvenile about the Mets loss. A lot of pathetic, sour-loser whining about the Phillies. Don't whine or make snide comments about the team that beat your team, big guy. It just makes the Phillies triumph all the sweeter.

ESPN's Page 2 has a nice litany of reasons why the Mets blew their lead.

Baseball Prospectus' Nate Silver has a nice article at SI.com about the biggest chokes in baseball history. He ranks the '64 Phillies at #13, and puts the Mets collapse at #5. Silver notes that the Mets had a 99.8% probability of winning the N.L. East on Sept. 12, when they held their 7-game lead. The '51 Dodgers - Giants pennant race ranks #1, which I can see. The '95 Mariners - Angels race, has been pretty underrated by writers and historians, ranks #4. Maybe because the Angels won the '02 World Series and erased some of the stain. According to BP, the odds against the Angels losing in '95 were 8,332-to-1, far bigger than the Mets 500-to-1 choke in '07 or the Dodgers 382-to-1 choke in '51. By the way, the Phillies were 25-to-1 to blow it in 1964, which is pretty minor comparatively.

Tomorrow: NLDS preview.

Labels: Managing, Mets, Rollins

1964 … 1980 … 10,000 … 7 … I work with a lot of numbers on my blog. I’m not a flowery or witty writer, or at least I don’t have the time to be. I work quickly and I work with information and I utilize numbers to tell you the unknown story that is behind the headlines. E.g., the Phillies are winning because … they are leading the N.L. in stolen base percentage … they are leading the N.L. in triples hit in the last three innings of a game … You get the idea.

I look at a lot of numbers on A Citizen’s Blog and I wonder if they mean anything to people. They mean something to me. I was the kid in High School Algebra doodling baseball statistics when my teacher was explaining what in the heck (X-2) (X – 1X – 4) meant. The numbers tell the whole story of a game. You can look back and extrapolate from box scores about hits and runs and what happened in a game. You can look at stats and extrapolate how a team works (or doesn’t) and how it wins (or doesn’t). Who is contributing and who isn’t.

I work with a lot of numbers and they just don’t seem to be adequate to sum up or even really explain the Phillies stunning late September surge from 7 games back just two and a half weeks ago to where they are now: first place in the N.L. East and a berth in the playoffs. The Phillies 125-years of futility, their 10,000 losses, none of it really matters right now, because the Phillies won the division and sit in the playoff jumble, one of four teams with a chance to go to the playoffs and one of eight who will win it. This team had heart, it believed and it played better than anyone thought it could. The passion of the Phillies fans as they waved towels and wildly cheered the team as it made its run to the playoffs, the passion of the individual Phillies themselves, it simply cannot be replicated and cannot be explained by numbers. This is really stunning stuff, and I am happy that I was here to talk about it.

In the end, the Phillies won their 89th game of the year, which gave them one more than the Mets or anyone else in the N.L. East. Their 89-73 record means that this is the Phillies seventh consecutive season with 80 or more wins. This is also the first time under manager Charlie Manuel that the team has made the playoffs after several near-misses. The ’05 team was eliminated on the final day of the season and the ’06 team was eliminated on the second-to-last day of the season.

The Phillies were as much fighting history as they were fighting the Mets. This season they became the first professional sports franchise to lose 10,000 games, an event that the media made far too big a deal over. The team has just one championship, in 1980. They’ve come close and blown it many times: in 1950 they nearly blew a massive lead in the N.L. pennant race to the Dodgers, then got swept in the World Series. 1964? Well, until the ’07 Mets came along, the ’64 Phillies had the biggest choke job in MLB history, blowing a 6-game lead with just twelve to go. The great Phillies teams of the 1970’s lost three consecutive NLCS. The magical ’93 team lost the World Series on a walk-off home run. History was a real obstacle here, more than people realize. This is new ground that the Phillies are exploring: success.

Poor Charlie Manuel, much maligned for not being fiery enough, has his playoff berth. Perhaps now people will stop complaining about him and arguing to replace him with a much more aggressive manager. This is a veteran team that knows what needs to be done, Manuel was the right man to manage it, without screaming and yelling and acting like a crazy man. If the ’07 Phillies had been led by Larry Bowa, I shudder to think how this season would have ended.

Now let us turn our attention to the rest of the MLB playoffs. Here in the N.L., the Phillies are joined by the Arizona Diamondbacks and Chicago Cubs, as well as the winner of tonight’s Rockies – Padres playoff game. The Padres have a big edge in terms of pitching, but the Rockies are the better team on offense, they are playing with momentum and they are at home. I don’t see Jake Peavy as the silver bullet that the Padres are hoping and praying that he will be. I say that tonight’s game will be a 5-2 Rockies victory.

Alright, tomorrow I will preview the Phillies – Rockies / Padres series and give an overview on the 2007 playoffs. Stay right here for all of your Phillies baseball needs!

Labels: 1950, Managing, Mets, Playoffs

What a weekend to be a Phillies fan as the crazy, see-saw battle for the N.L. East came to a peaceful end with the Phillies 6-1 victory over the Washington Nationals and the Mets 8-1 loss to the Florida Marlins. The victory, which gave possession of the N.L. East to the Phillies with an 89-73 record, means that the Phillies will play in the playoffs for the first time since 1993.

This has to be one of the most memorable seasons in Phillies history, ranking right up there with 1950, 1980 and 1993. The Phillies dramatic come-from-behind victory in the race for the division ought to erase memories of 1964. For once, the Phillies pulled off the dramatic, the astonishing, they delivered the fantastic comeback. The Mets 7-game collapse is just as dramatic as the Phillies in 1964. While the Mets incompetence played a part, we also have to give the lion’s share of the credit to the Phillies: terrific clutch play of Jimmy Rollins, the powerful lineup that features three potential MVP candidates in Jimmy Rollins, Ryan Howard and Chase Utley, the patched together rotation that includes just two of the Phillies five expected rotation starters, the leaky bullpen, the speed from Rollins, Bourn and Victorino. This was a team effort and the Phillies should be credited with tough play and mental grit. They won the N.L. East.

Tomorrow I’ll have some more thoughts on the 2007 playoff race, but I wanted to give everyone a snapshot of what I was thinking. Celebrate Phillies fans!

Labels: Bourn, Howard, Mets, Nationals, Playoffs, Rollins, Utley, Victorino

Has the tide turned in the Phillies favor? Will 2007 go down in history as the year that the Phillies erased the stain of 1964? Will the Phillies make the playoffs for the first time since 1993?

This is shaping up to be a historic season. After Jimmy Rollins boasted that the Phillies were the team to beat in the preseason, many dismissively wrote the Phillies off with their struggles out of the gate. Just a few weeks ago the Phillies were mostly given an outside chance to make the playoffs. Trailing in the wildcard race, well behind the Mets in the N.L. East race, the Phillies were a long-shot to make it. Just two weeks ago the Mets held a seven game lead on the Phillies. The Mets collapse these last two weeks is hardly as dramatic as 1964, but it is stunning. How could a team boasting such experience as the Mets, with so much talent, fall apart like this? The spirit and energy of Phillies fans was contagious, as they cheered wildly and waved towels. The Phillies fed off that energy and seemed to be playing with passion we’ve never seen before. Certainly, I’ve never seen the Phillies play like this since 1993. In the past we’ve seen the Phillies playing tentatively down the stretch, cautiously, fearful they’d come up short, reluctant to believe in themselves.

Not this year. Watching Brett Myers pump his fist as he strode off the mound with his 21st save of the year, you could see the passion and enthusiasm in the players and the fans. This team believes in itself. This team knows it can win. I haven’t seen a Phillies team with this much passion and heart since 1993.

The Mets, in contrast, look like the Phillies. Manager Willie Randolph looks like he’s been beaten. Watching him on ESPN last night he seemed tired and drained, too numb to rally the troops. His efforts to fire up his players during the game was almost pathetic, pounding the fists of players who looked too pessimistic and too nervous to think about victory, only the avoidance of defeat. Nobody wanted to look him in the eye. This is a beaten team.

According to Baseball Prospectus’ playoff odds, the Phillies hold a slight edge over the Mets for the N.L. East right now: 50.3% to 49.7%. Overall, the Phillies playoff chances are slightly better than the Mets: 59.1% to 58.5%.

Tonight, Saturday and Sunday: Phillies vs. Nationals. The Phillies are 10-5 against the Nationals this season and this seems to favor the Phillies. The last series they played the Phillies took three of four. Oh, and ace Cole Hamels goes for the Phillies tonight. The Mets, meanwhile, greet the Marlins at Shea Stadium, where the Fishstripes are aiming to be spoilers. This will be interesting.

It’s not in the bag by any means. The Phillies still have to win, and as a Phillies fan you have to remember the tragic history this team has. Decades of losing, a dynasty that failed to materialize in the 1950’s, the collapse of 1964, the teams of 1976-1978 that lost the NLCS three times, the decline of the championship team in the mid-to-late 1980’s, the ’93 team that lost on Joe Carter’s home run, the team’s recent failures. I hesitate to point out that history is against the Phillies.

But who cares about that? Live in the moment. October baseball beckons. My prediction: the Mets rally and win two of three, the Phillies also take two of three, and the Phillies and Mets duel in the 163rd game of the season Monday night, a one-game playoff to decide the N.L. East title. Enjoy!

Labels: Hamels, Marlins, Mets, Nationals, Playoffs, Rollins

The Phillies tremendous 5-2 victory last evening over the Atlanta Braves could … could … be the critical moment of the 2007 season, as the Mets lost again to the Washington Nationals and saw their lead over the Phillies evaporate to just one game. Alas, the San Diego Padres hammered the Giants 11-3 to maintain their one-game lead over the Phillies. With just four games left, the Phillies sit on the razor’s edge, a mere one game out of first place in the N.L. East and one game out of the wildcard lead.

The game showcased how differently the Phillies and Braves are now, compared to just recently. Gaffes like Chipper Jones’ failure to tag Chase Utley and then his wide throw to first on Aaron Rowand, which allowed Utley to score and set up Ryan Howard and Rowand scoring when Greg Dobbs singled them in later, were mistakes that you’d see the Phillies make. Mental, bone-headed lapses in judgment that would break a game wide-open.

Kyle Lohse also out-pitched Tim Hudson, who actually pitched quite well himself. Lohse handicapped Braves hitters all night long, striking out five and not allowing a walk. Aside from the home run he allowed off the bat of Mark Teixeira, it was a near-perfect performance. Hudson pitched well too, but was utterly done in by Jones error.

Also, the Phillies bullpen entered the game and nailed the Braves coffin shut with three strikeouts. The Braves bullpen, in contrast, allowed the Phillies to tack on an insurance run when Shane Victorino hammered an insurance home run to make the game 5-2 in the seventh inning. The tough pitching, the good fielding, the mistake-free baseball, it is like the Braves have regressed to become the Phillies of old. This year feels different.

I think Phillies phandom knows that too. Watching the game on TV last night, I loved seeing the intensity in the crowd. Citizens Bank Ballpark was rocking. If the Phillies make the playoffs, Citizens Bank is going to be a difficult place for the Cubs or Diamondbacks or Padres to come and win a game or two.

I also saw that the Colorado Rockies have won ten games in a row and would probably be the most unlikely playoff team in decades if they close the gap and take the wildcard. Their last nine wins have been against the Padres and Dodgers too: very good teams they are competing with for the playoffs. These Rockies have been amazing over the last week. Overall, they are 17-7 in September. The Rockies September surge augers well for their chances to compete in 2008.

The Mets, in contrast, have really opened the door for the Phillies with their 4-9 swoon since September 14th. What’s wrong with the Mets? Their pitching has really been shelled of late. They allowed 32 runs to the Nationals in this series. 32 runs!!!! Tonight the Mets have Pedro on the mound. If he collapses, I think the Mets could be ruined mentally.

We shall see.

Labels: Braves, Bullpen, Fielding, Lohse, Mets, Pitching, Rowand, Utley

What a difference a day makes … the Phillies come-from-behind 7-6 win over the Nationals, coupled with the Mets 8-7 collapse against the Marlins means that the Phillies improved their playoff chances from 29% to 36% last night and moved to within 1.5 games of the Mets. The Mets still have the inside track on the N.L. East title – at their current paces, the Mets will finish at 90-72 and the Phillies will finish at 88-74 – but the Phillies are playing with momentum and they get six more cracks at the Nationals in the next twelve games.

I can’t believe that I didn’t preview the Nats – Phillies series … Here is a quickie preview of the next three games …

Tonight: Adam Eaton vs. Shawn Hill. This is a major mismatch for the Phillies. Hill is 4-4 with an impressive 3.01 ERA this season. In four career starts against the Phillies Hill is 2-1 with a 3.81 ERA. Adam Eaton, in contrast, has been the Phillies weakest pitcher this season and a major disappointment. He’s 9-9 with a 6.36 ERA thus far this season. In his sole start against the Nationals he was rocked for four runs in six and a third innings.

Saturday: Kyle Kenderick vs. Tim Redding. Like Hill, Redding has generally pitched well for a very bad team. He’s 3-5 with a 3.73 ERA. He won his sole start against the Phillies earlier in the year, going six innings and surrendering just two runs. Kenderick has been a surprise to me. I really didn’t think he was pitching well earlier in the season, but he’s 9-4 with a respectable 4.05 ERA. Kendrick doesn’t strike players out – just 3.5 K/9 – but he’s good about not allowing walks – 2.1 BB/9 – and he seems to give his fielders the best chance to make plays and get outs. His Fielding Independent Pitching (FIP) ERA is much higher than his actual ERA – 4.95 – and I wonder if Kendrick is one of those rare pitchers that influences balls put into play or if he’s just plain lucky.

Sunday: Joel Hanrahan is no match for Cole Hamels. He’s 4-3 with a 6.45 ERA and he has a nearly 1:1 strikeout-to-walk ratio (34 strikeouts to 33 walks). Should be an easy win for the Phillies.

Bottom-line, I think the Phillies will win Saturday and Sunday’s games in a walk, but I worry about tonight’s game. If Adam Eaton can pull together and turn in a solid performance, then Friday might just earn the Phillies a sweep.

Winning tonight is important too because Pedro Martinez goes for the Mets tonight in Florida and I think the Mets will probably play with a little fire tonight. The Phillies can’t afford to lose this game and fall behind the Mets. Every game counts.

Labels: Eaton, Hamels, Kenderick, Mets, Nationals

Just thirteen games left … Last night’s close 2-1 loss to the Cardinals will hurt the Phillies playoff chances, but not fatally undermine them. The Phillies were riding a hot streak that was due to end. Just bad luck they lost on a night where the Padres and Mets and D-Backs, because we have to keep our eye on them, all won. Hats off to Adam Wainwright, who didn’t get the win, but bamboozled the Phillies for eight innings, holding them to just four hits and four walks, while striking out seven Phillies. That was about as good a performance as you could ask for a pitcher to turn in.

The loss and the Mets / Padres / Diamondbacks victories were devastating to the Phillies playoff chances: the Phillies playoff odds dipped to 29%, down from 48% the previous day.

Meanwhile, people in Boston are evidentially freaking out about the Red Sox dwindling lead over the Yankees in the race for the A.L. East. In reality, the race is little more than a psychological contest, as the Red Sox and Yankees have 99.9% and 99.1% chances, respectively, of making the playoffs. The Blue Jays, Orioles and Devil Rays don’t have a chance at the division, so the worst that the Red Sox can do is second-place. If they fall to second, then they will compete with the Tigers for the wildcard. The Tigers stand a 0.82% chance of securing the wildcard.

Basically, there is no chance of the Red Sox missing the playoffs. This is all a psychological battle between the Red Sox and Yankees. The Yankees will be looking to secure the A.L. East for the bazillionth time – well, the tenth consecutive time – while the Red Sox want their first A.L. East title since 1995. If the Red Sox lose to the Yankees it will look bad, but realistically, it might give the Red Sox an axe to grind in the playoffs. Imagine the fury and anger they’ll unleash on the Indians or Angels in the first round of the playoffs.

Interesting fact: the run differential between the Phillies and Mets is paper-thin. The Phillies are +57 and the Mets are +55, but the Mets have the better record because they are 32-26 in games decided by two or fewer runs. The Phillies are 31-31 in those games. I don’t know if that means anything to anyone, but it is interesting information nevertheless.

I’ll post again later, if I get a chance …

Labels: Mets, Playoffs

What a night … you had to flip between games on the TV and watch what promised to be a disastrous night for Philadelphia sports teams. With memories of 1964 dancing in their heads, the Phillies – against the St. Louis Cardinals no less – nearly blew a 11-0 lead in the sixth inning when the Cardinals roared back to score three runs in the sixth, six runs in the seventh and two runs in the eighth. Good defense by Aaron Rowand saved the Phillies from disaster.

And so the Phillies ran their record to 81-69, now just 2.5 games behind the Mets as the team from Queens, New York, dropped their fourth consecutive game, losing 12-4 to the Nationals, a loss that might come back to haunt the Mets in the future. The wildcard race remained unchanged, as the Phillies sit just 1.5 games out. Here are the standings:

N.L. East:
Mets: 83-66
Phillies: 81-69 (2.5)
Braves: 77-73 (6.5)

N.L. Wildcard:
Padres: 82-67
Phillies: 81-69 (1.5)
Dodgers: 79-70 (3.0)

Meanwhile, I wonder if the Donovan McNabb era is coming to an end … last night’s 20-12 loss to the Redskins was a mini-disaster for the Eagles. Oh sure, teams can rally from 0-2 and make the playoffs … the 2003 Eagles did that, going 12-2 down the stretch … but the Eagles just looked flat and uneven, especially on offense. McNabb seemed to have difficulty in setting his legs and getting off a good throw. Sure, he threw for 240 yards, but it took him 46 passes to get to that point, or 5.2 yards a pass.

While I think Andy Reid has done a nice job coaching the Eagles, I hate his propensity towards calling passes all of the time on offense. What was the Eagles play selection last night? About 2-to-1 in favor of the pass? Is it any coincidence that the Eagles offense clicked last season when Reid gave over the play-calling duties and the Eagles finally went 1-to-1 on the run/pass ratio? Until McNabb gets back to 100%, the Eagles have to hammer Brian Westbrook, Correll Buckhalter and Tony Hunt into the opposition. Westbrook carried the ball just 17 times last night for 96 yards. True, he caught 8 passes for another 66 yards, but the Eagles need to work him into the rushing game more.

So, a good night for one team and a bad one for another. Tonight, Cole Hamels returns to the Phillies and tries to run the Phillies winning streak to six games.

Labels: Fielding, Hamels, Mets, Playoffs, Rowand

Another exceedingly rare afternoon post … So the Phillies are just a game and a half out now. Suddenly the powers that be are taking notice of the red pinstripes. Even with this weekend’s series against the Mets, the NL East is out of reach (they’d have to sweep the Mets and get a heck of a lot of luck the rest of the way), but the Phillies are hanging tough in the wildcard race still. With Cole Hamels coming back soon, the Phillies are only getting stronger.

Tonight is the battle of the soft-tossing, 40+ lefty twins, Jamie Moyer and Tom Glavine. I find myself resisting the urge to write too many lauditory posts about Moyer. If I blogged the Mets I’d probably do the same with Glavine. I love walking Moyer work with that fastball that doesn’t qualify even remotely as “fast”, the easy motion to the plate, and watching teams pop the ball up or tap weak grounders back to the mound. I love the confidence and leadership that Moyer has brought to the Phillies and the impact his soft, slow pitches have on games.

I like seeing Jamie Moyer go against the Mets this evening because he might disrupt their timing for the rest of the series. Moyer and Hamels make a much more enjoyable ying-and-yang combination to spring on the opposition. Kyle Lohse goes against Pedro Martinez on Saturday. I am eager to see if the Phillies can get to Pedro, who has looked solid but not overpowering thus far this season. He’s gone just five innings in both of his first two starts, so I am unsure if the Mets will let him pitch or treat him with caution on Saturday. I think, with a big national audience, that the Mets will unleash Pedro and see what he can do against the Phillies.

I worry about the Sunday match-up which sends Adam Eaton to the mound. This is the game where the Mets have the clear edge.

According to Baseball Prospectus’ Playoff Odds report, here are the odds of the following teams making the playoffs:

Mets: 99.8%
Diamondbacks: 90.9%
Cubs: 57.9%
Padres: 51.3%
Brewers: 40.7%
Dodgers: 24.8%
Phillies: 18.9%
Rockies: 11.9%
Braves: 1.9%
Cardinals: 1.5%

The Reds have a sub-1% chance and the Pirates, Astros, Giants, Marlins and Nationals are 100% of the luck according to BP. It is mildly unfair that these weak NL Central teams actually have a chance at making the playoffs when a deserving team like the Phillies or Dodgers or Padres might not make it. The Cubs, for example, are on a pace to win 84 or 85 games, while the Padres are on pace to win 87 games and the Phillies 86 games. C’est la vie.

Over in the A.L., the field is basically set, according to BP:

Red Sox: 99.9%
Angels: 99.8%
Indians: 97.5%
Yankees: 89.5%
Tigers: 12.2%

The Mariners, Blue Jays and Twins all have sub-1% chances (specifically, the Twins have a 0.00017% chance of making the playoffs). By the way, the Tigers are on pace to win 88 games, raising the possibility that the A.L. will feature a team with 90 or more wins that does not make the playoffs, vs. the N.L. with a team that barely has a .500 record. That’s kinda sad.

Here is a modest proposal for the MLB: remember 1994 when the Texas Rangers led the A.L. West at the time of the strike with a less-than-robust 52-62 record? The Rangers were on-pace to win 74 games that season and probably wouldn’t have finished the season with a winning record (they would have had to have gone 30-18 just to finish at 82-80). Baseball ought to have a .500 or better requirement to make the playoffs. If one of the teams wins a division with a sub-.500 record, then there ought to be a second wildcard. That is more fair than taking the chance that a team will win the World Series and suck in the regular season. Otherwise, than geography counts for more than the quality of your play in the regular season.

Labels: Eaton, Hamels, Lohse, Mets, Moyer, Odds 'n Ends, Pitching, Playoffs