Why Your Team Will Blow it in the Playoffs: Philadelphia Phillies

Well, it appears that just about all the playoff spots are decided. Per the excellent coolstandings.com, no team among the Yankees, Red Sox, Tigers, Angels, Phillies, Cardinals, Dodgers, and Rockies have a great shot of making the playoffs - barring a miraculous late season run, or the Rangers gelling together despite injuries and sneaking into the playoffs. 

Now, this lack of drama is no fun at all in September, and it's nigh-unacceptable in the playoffs. So rather than just let things play out like they will, which is to say "predictably," we're going to try to throw a wrench into the hopes and dreams of fans of each of the aforementioned playoff probables. Because none of them are the Braves. AND SO: onward with the hating. Up next: the WFC.

Biggest Strength: the middle of the order.  Chase Utley deserves to be at least mentioned in the MVP talk this year, even though Albert Pujols is the runaway winner.  He's played an excellent second base while mashing to the tune of a .296/.414/.542 line that's good for a .420 wOBA and making him already worth eight wins.  Jayson Werth has had a breakout year, slugging .519 and parking 33 HR - 2nd best on the team.  The leader in dongers, of course, is Ryan Howard, with 38.  His power production is actually down a little bit, but he's become a more balanced hitter, hitting .272/.350/.556 as compared to last year's .251/.339/.543.  Raul Ibanez, as everyone probably knows, hit something like 54 homers in the first half of the season and has come down a bit since, but he's still been good for a .382 wOBA, one point behind Howard. And Shane Victorino, the Flyin' Hawaiian, has added a potent bat (.300/.367/.460) to complement his excellent speed.  Those five have powered the Phillies to where they are right now.  

But Wait A Minute!

Didn't we forget someone, you might ask?  Well, no, we would tell you, because we're never wrong.  We would assume you're referring to former MVP Jimmy Rollins, and, well, he just hasn't been right all year.  He's going steal 30 bases, but he's actually cost the Phillies a run this year with his poor hitting, proving that while speed may never slump, it may suck.  Or something.  

Rollins' tough year isn't the only thing that's going to submarine the Phils, though.  Far from it!  For one thing, they don't have the lineup depth that, say, the Yankees do - after Utley, Werth, Howard, Ibanez, and Victorino, there aren't what you would call a lot of "quality" hitters on the roster.  Ben Francisco and Carlos Ruiz have hovered around an .800 OPS, but Francisco's only been around for 61 PAs, and Ruiz's contribution really only looks good because it comes from a thorougly mediocre group of guys - to wit, Eric Bruntlett, Matt Stairs, Chris Coste, John Mayberry, Greg Dobbs, and Paul Bako all have at least 85 PA. 

So if the Phils can't reliably outhit their opponent - admittedly a large logical leap considering the skill of their their five-man gauntlet - they're going to have to step it up in run prevention.  But can they?  Cliff Lee's a stud, and a recent rough patch (9+ ERA in his last couple starts, excluding last night) doesn't mean that he's in trouble, just that he had to regress from his utterly dominant first few starts as a Phillie.  So they've got themselves an ace.  After that, there's some quality to be had, but nothing overpowering.  Pedro Martinez has looked good since he joined the club* (5.67 K:BB, 3.65 FIP), but a high strand rate (86%) and a high age (38) hint at some regression.  Cole Hamels was great in last year's playoffs, but he's coming off of a career high in innnings (227), and has gone through some rough patches this year that have some wondering whether he's been focused enough on the season at hand.  Of course, that's the worst criticism we can find for the guy, since he's actually having essentially the same season as last year.  This surprised us, but it's true; check out the table.

Year	Age	Tm	ERA	GS	CG	SHO	IP	H	R	ER	HR	BB	SO	ERA+	WHIP	H/9	HR/9	BB/9	SO/9	SO/BB
2008	24	PHI	3.09	33	2	2	227.1	193	89	78	28	53	196	142	1.082	7.6	1.1	2.1	7.8	3.70
2009	25	PHI	4.21	28	2	2	169.0	181	81	79	22	37	147	102	1.290	9.6	1.2	2.0	7.8	3.97

Provided by Baseball-Reference.com: View Original Table
Generated 9/16/2009.

His hit rate has gone up significantly, but that's partly due to a .343 BABIP.  That accounts for the increase in WHIP despite improved control, and his FIP of 3.77 is only five points higher than last year's.  So in reality, he's not as bad as he seems superficially, and he's not as good as he was in the playoffs.  Good enough guy to have as a number two starter, we suppose.  And the last spot will go to Joe Blanton, who's basically a league-average kind of guy.  He's learned how to strike guys out this year, posting  a career high 7.38 K/9 that easily bests his career total of 5.57.  The increase in strikeouts has come along with a large increase in the homers he gives up, though; his HR/9 of 1.51 is a tidy .5 greater than last year.  We'd say more, but, well, the talk of pitchers who give up lots of home runs reminds us of another Phillie that we're just chomping at the bit to write about.

*Did you know that in 1999, Pedro Martinez's banner year and arguably the greatest pitching season of all time, he had a .343 BABIP?  Jesus.  Let's revisit his line from that year.  

Year	W	L	W-L%	ERA	GS	CG	SHO	IP	H	R	ER	HR	BB	SO	ERA+	WHIP	H/9	HR/9	BB/9	SO/9	SO/BB	Awards
1999	23	4	.852	2.07	29	5	1	213.1	160	56	49	9	37	313	243	0.923	6.8	0.4	1.6	13.2	8.46	AS,CYA-1,MVP-2

Provided by Baseball-Reference.com: View Original Table
Generated 9/16/2009.

And he did that with batters getting absurdly LUCKY.  That sort of boggles the mind, no?

We hope you guessed that we're talking about the one, the only, Brad Lidge.  Which gives us a great excuse to use this picture again!

Teeeheeheeheeehee.  Sorry.  In any event, after Lidge blew his like 38th save this year, Charlie Manuel finally stopped running him out there and depriving us of much glorious schadenfreude.  Seriously, the guy's been historically awful; his -2.5 WXRL is the lowest of any pitcher EVER who got as many save opportunities as Lidge has this year.  Which is absurd considering that he's pitching for a division champion.  Fortunately for the Phils, Ryan Madson is there to...well, blow more saves.  Yay!  When you consider that Chan Ho Park leads this unit in WXRL at 1.996, you have to figure there's some reason for concern here.  If the pen keeps handing back leads, the offense and starters are going to have to compensate, and they're going to have little room for error.  When one or two of the big bats goes cold, when Joe Blanton starts serving up gopher balls and Pedro Martinez reverts to Mets form, when Eric Bruntlett fails to convert an unassisted triple play...the Phillies will blow it.

 

Tater Tots

It's been awhile since we've posted, mostly because, well, we have nothing really to say.  We wanted this blog to be a daily thing where we'd talk about the day in baseball and what happened the night before, but that quickly became difficult to maintain with our schedule.  This blogging stuff is hard work, yo.

Anyway, since we failed so miserably in that regard, we decided to try to only write about abstract baseball issues, like why the idea of "closers" sucks, who should trade whom, things like that.  But then we came to realize that there's not a whole lot of that type of story out there.  Failure #2! 

So every so often, we're going to have posts like today's, called Tater Tots after one of my favorite euphemisms for home runs.  Basically it's like a bullet point list of baseball thoughts. Fun!

• Don't buy the Marlins' hot start.  11-1 is great, but 6 games against the Nats will help that record immensely.  Yeah, great teams win the games they're supposed to, but beating up on the Nationals is taking that to a new level.  Plus, they needed 9th-inning comebacks 3 times in the series, and extra innings in two. 

• On a similar note, we hate the early-season power polls and rankings.  No one really believes, for example, that the Marlins are among the top 5 best teams in the league, and no one really thinks the Padres are anywhere near escaping the worst 10.  Why spend an entire offseason analyzing teams only to throw it away in the power rankings that you write in the first week of the season?  

• And, to keep harping, people really love the small sample size results.  Jason Marquis pitches today for the Rockies; he has a 1.98 ERA.  This does not mean that he is a good pitcher, people.  If he were to post a 3-start stretch with a 1.98 ERA in July, no one would notice.  The beginning of the season just puts a bigger microscope on everything.  

• Boy, those three things probably could've been made into a coherent post, huh?

• Schadenfreude: Emilio Bonifacio, he of the .500 flirting, was hitting .485 a week ago.  He's gone 1-20 since, with 9 K's.  Thanks, Jayson Stark!

• New Yankee Stadium has been quite a launching pad.  We're sure you've heard this elsewhere, too, but...11 HR in 4 games?  Goodness.  We watched their debacle against the Indians on Saturday and balls that looked like bloop hits were carrying to the wall.  Some people say the ball is juiced, some people say it's a random statistical fluctuation - you know, the kind we've been talking about for this entire post.  We hate to accuse MLB of anything untoward, but it sure looks to us like they're doing something with the balls.  And that, ladies and gentlemen, is basically proof positive that there's tampering going on: we, one of the least-read blogs ever, kinda sorta accused them of it!

• Elijah Dukes.  That's really all you need to see to know that some kind of craziness is going on.  But hey, this time, it's not some bizarre death threat or assault or impregnation!  No, Dukes is actually the victim in this one.  He showed up 5 minutes late to the pregame stretching - a critical part of any routine, as anyone who's ever gone to a game knows from watching a couple of dudes randomly wave their legs around - and was summarily benched for the day and fined.  But why was he late, you might ask?  He needs to learn that he has responsibilities to the team, right?  To which we would answer: no.  Elijah Dukes is beholden to no man, and you'd best not forget that.  But seriously - dude was late because he was out playing with little kids.  Er...working with the Little League team that he helps coach and organize.  Sorry to mislead.  Manny Acta said that they need to maintain a culture of timeliness and organization, and that there's zero tolerance for stuff like being tardy to meetings.  Because you were working with a Little League team.  C'mon, Manny.  Oh, and the guy who played in Dukes' place?  Yeah, he broke his ankle.  

• That's all we've got for now.  Here bringing in Kyle Farnsworth to relieve us.  Which means, of course, that there's going to be another tater tot to follow.  Hey oh!

• Seriously, though.  Farnsworth gave up another game-losing bomb.  He has 3 L's.  The Royals have 5.

Tom Glavine to Visit Dr. Andrews; Hooray?

http://www.rotoworld.com/content/HeadLines.aspx?sport=MLB&hl=259362

For those of you who don't like following links, that's an update saying that Braves LHP Tom Glavine will be paying a visit to Dr. Andrews regarding discomfort in his left shoulder.  Shoulder troubles ended Glavine's '08 season early, and made him ineffective in the starts when he was able to take the mound.  And, we have to be honest here, our first reaction to the news was that we were glad Glavine wouldn't be eating up any innings for the Braves anytime soon.

Now, we don't wish any harm upon Glavine - or any player, unless that player be Coco Crisp - and we hate that a guy who just wants to do what he loves for another year is finding himself betrayed by an aging body.  Glavine used to be a durable, 200-inning, 30-start guy, and he did it at a Hall of Fame level for many years.  Now, though, his stuff isn't what it was, his control isn't what it was, and his body is breaking down.  In our opinion, he is no longer a viable major league pitcher, injury notwithstanding. 

So the question we asked ourselves is, was it wrong for us to be glad that Glavine may be hurt and have to miss the season?  Can we, in good faith, disregard human decency in favor of what's best for the team?  You have a guy in Glavine who was a mainstay with the franchise for what seems like an eternity.  The Braves wouldn't have won a championship without him, nor, in all likelihood, would they have taken all those division crowns.  We have no reason to dislike him as a person, and we don't like the fact that he might not be able to ply his trade anymore.  

But Glavine, to us, is a piece of a greater whole - and we just so happen to really love that greater whole he represents.  And we think that whole, the Atlanta Braves, would be better suited by replacing him with another, better piece.  And wouldn't you know it - that better piece is right there.  Tommy Hanson, one of the preeminent pitching prospects in the game, is on the cusp of the big leagues after dominating in the minors.  He is younger, more talented, and possesses more potential both now and for the future than Glavine.  That the Braves saw fit to sign Glavine again this offseason was disappointing to us as a fan because we want the Braves to perform as well as possible.  And now, it appears that the injury bug has come and wiped out that mistake signing.  

Which brings us back to our original point: is it ok to be glad that one member of the team suffers an injury if it makes the whole squad better?  To which we say: sure.  What it all comes down to  in the end is that, much as we'd like to be, we're not part of the Braves.  We can love them, hate them, whatever - they won't care.  Some people (rightfully) question the sanity of sports fans simply because of this fact.  And yet, to us as sports fans, the loyalty we show for our team isn't as one-sided as outsiders imagine it to be.  There is an implicit contract in our fandom that the team will do its best to try to win.  Whether they actually try to fulfill this contract is mostly up to the owners and general managers, but still.  The idea is there that the goal of sports franchises is to win, thereby earning our love.  Accordingly, we wish for events to transpire such that our team will be bettered; Phillies fans, we're sure, took nothing but delight from the Mets' collapses the last two seasons, despite the anguish Mets fans suffered (though don't let anyone tell you they didn't deserve it).  Well, being happy that Glavine may miss the season and that Tommy Hanson may take his place falls in that category.  We don't feel bad that Glavine suffers at the expense of the team because we as fans suffer - albeit not physically, at least in most cases - because of the team.  We put up with the nadirs of losing seasons in exchange for the hope of the zenith that is a championship.  That a marginal contributor to that goal misses the season in exchange for a better chance at attaining it...well, it's unfortunate, but we still tentatively offer a cheer for the future.

UPDATE: Of course, the Braves promoted Jo-Jo Reyes instead of Hanson.  We'd rather have Glavine back.

Game of the Day: 4/7/09

Alright, time to reprise a GOTD post.  We feel foolish, but it just HAS TO BE DONE.  Anyway, there's some decent pitching action going on today.  Exciting youngsters Tim Lincecum (vs. Brewers), Jair Jurrjens (vs. Phillies), Josh Johnson (vs. Nationals), and Ubaldo Jimenez (vs. Diamondbacks) all take the hill today, and any of them are worth watching on any given day.  Plus, precocious rook Trevor Cahill takes the mound for the A's; his debut comes against the main divisional competition, the Angels.  Also, look for Dan Haren to start his Cy Young campaign against the Rox, while Ryan Dempster looks to justify his big contract for the Cubbies  and Erik Bedard starts a new season of getting hurt then watching impassively as M's fans  wring their hands and gnash their teeth over the bounty they traded for him.  As for the Game of the Day, though, we once again turn to:

Tampa Bay Rays vs. Boston Red Sox 4:05 EST

James Shields (0-0, 0.00) vs. Josh Beckett (0-0, 0.00)

Rays                                            Red Sox

2B Akinori Iwamura                 CF Jacoby Ellsbury

LF Carl Crawford                      2B Dustin Pedroia

3B Evan Longoria                     DH David Ortiz

1B Carlos Pena                          1B Kevin Youkilis

DH Pat Burrell                           RF J.D. Drew

CF Matt Joyce                           LF Jason Bay

C Dioner Navarro                      3B Mike Lowell

RF Gabe Gross                          SS Jed Lowrie

SS Jason Bartlett                       C Jason Varitek

Lineup-wise, this matchup seems to favor the Sox. The middle of the orders (2-5) look about even, but overall, Boston's got more balance.  Josh Beckett is dominant when he's on, and we think he's going to be this afternoon - it's the opener, emotions are high, yadda yadda yadda. We would like for B.J. Upton to get off to a good start on making us look like geniuses with his inevitable MVP bid, so if he could come on off the DL, that'd be great; hopefully Matt Joyce doesn't screw up too much in his stead.

Player to watch: Depends on your personality. If you're into schadenfreude, watch Jason Varitek. It's sort of fascinating in a sad way to see what happens when an athlete hangs on far too long. We'll be interested to see if he has anything approaching capable bat speed at this point. We'd be more surprised if he hit .250 than if he hit .190. If it's good performances that are your thing, than turn your eye to the pitching mound. If Josh Beckett is in postseason form, this should be a hotly contested pitchers' duel that is great fun to watch.

KCSD GOTD Record: 1-1