Phillies Fans Need to Temper Expectations for the Team and Hunter Pence

Sure, Hunter Pence is an improvement right now. Even though offensively, I expected Brown and Pence to be roughly equal for rest of the season, Pence certainly is the better defensive player at this point. No Brown supporter will deny that. But the trade does not guarantee anything.

I’d be a lot more on board with the move if I knew our worst outfielder, not including Gload, was not going to be manning left field every night. I’d even be fine with moving Brown down to Triple-A if I knew it was John Mayberry Jr. going to be starting instead of Ibanez. But that’s not happening.

Back to Pence. Fans should be prepared when he hits a slump this season, which is bound to happen as his batting average of balls in play regresses to more normal levels. When that happens, I’m sure you’ll hear sports talk folk attributing it to “adjusting” to his new team.

Around this time you’ll also be hearing such questions as, “How does he hit in Citizens Bank Park?” “What are his numbers against the Braves?” “Does he hit the Giants well?”

I can tell you the answer quite easily. Despite whatever numbers you’ll read and look up in such splits, he’s going to hit pretty much the same as his overall career numbers suggest. Citizens Bank Park is a better hitter’s park than Minute Maid Park, but not as much as people think. In fact, so far this year, Minute Maid has been more hitter friendly than Citizens Bank. 

Sure, 3-for-22 with one walk and eight strikeouts against Tim Lincecum is not a good start, but 23 plate appearances is hardly enough of a sample. Chances are he’ll do better in the future—certainly not .800 OPS good, but better than .356.

Pence is a nice player, but not a great one. Since 2009, he’s a very respectable 15th among outfielders in fWAR with 9.9. Unfortunately among these top 15, his .351 wOBA is 14th, ahead of only Michael Bourn. If you prefer Baseball-Reference‘s WAR, he’s accumulated 7.7 wins over the same time period. If he was starting in right field from day one with the Phillies, they’d probably have an additional one or two wins.

That one or two wins should put things in perspective when entering the playoffs. For the sake of argument and giving him the benefit of the doubt, say he would have been worth two extra wins in those 105 team games. That comes to roughly .02 wins added per game. In a seven game series, his addition would add roughly .14 wins. That should help show that his addition does not make a drastic difference in a single playoff series.

Yes, the addition of Pence slightly increases the Phillies chances of reaching and winning the World Series, but in the crapshoot that is the playoffs, nothing is certain. Just ask the Cardinals.

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