Full Update of Surprises, Busts and Injuries at Philadelphia Phillies Camp

Baseball is a sport where anything can happen and no time of the year epitomizes that more than spring training, where rookies, veterans and players who aren’t even guaranteed a spot on the roster congregate with a common goal: Make the club and win a World Series title. 

As you can imagine, spring training breeds a number of interesting results, and the Philadelphia Phillies are no exception. This is a club battling age and injuries, doing their best to prove that they can still compete in the National League East. 

Throughout the season, keeping this club healthy is going to be the key to their success. If names like Roy Halladay, Chase Utley and Ryan Howard are on the field and producing, they can contend. 

They’ll also have to receive some positive play from a few unlikely sources—we’ll call those guys the “surprises”—and avoid players that struggle over long periods of time. For the sake of this slideshow, those guys will be called “busts.” 

With those parameters in mind, let’s update where the Phillies’ injuries, surprises and busts stand at this point in camp. 

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Breaking Down Philadelphia Phillies’ Blueprint for Winning the Division

The Philadelphia Phillies were in an unfamiliar position at the end of last season.

Rather than preparing for a postseason division series, the Phillies ceded their position atop the National League East and missed the playoffs for the first time since 2006.

The good news is that with Opening Day less than two weeks away, the Phillies will soon have an opportunity to make their way back to the top of the NL East standings and, in the process, the postseason.

In order to do so, however, a number of things must go right, ranging from the health and productivity of the players to the decisions made by the coaching staff and front office.

If it all works, the Phillies just might have a chance to start a new streak this season.

Here is a blueprint for the Phillies to make their way back to the top of the National League East.

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Philadelphia Phillies Under the Most Pressure the Rest of Spring Training

At its core, spring training is a small sample size of players doing their best to shake off the rust in anticipation of the upcoming regular season, but it also carries all of the blessings and curses of a that sample size. 

Regardless of who you are, if you play well through the month of March people anticipate your regular season. This rings especially true when a team like the Philadelphia Phillies receives good performances from players like Ryan Howard and Domonic Brown. 

That’s the blessing. If you play well in a small sample size, you have the opportunity to throw up some impressive numbers and crank the hype machine into full gear prior to the regular season. 

The curse is equally as powerful. Any player that performs poorly over a small sample size generates concern. Take a look at Roy Halladay. He is a two-time Cy Young Award winner with a pair of no-hitters, including a perfect game, under his belt. 

But he hasn’t pitched well this spring and people are concerned about his future. Is that a warranted concern? 

Spring training is ultimately a handful of exhibition games, but they’re important games for a lot of players. They could help to determine a job. They play a role in what kind of start the team gets off to. 

There will be a number of players under a lot of pressure as the second half of spring training begins. Here they are. 

Statistics courtesy of Baseball-Reference.

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Philadelphia Phillies Players Set to Outplay Their Contracts in 2013

All the offseason buzz around the Philadelphia Phillies seemed to be around Darin Ruf.

But Ruf is hitting .205 this spring and pretty clearly cannot play left field at a major league level. So that’s the last you’ll hear about him in this article.

Instead, the biggest focus here has to be on the Phillies’ Forgotten Man, the ultimate post-hype sleeper.

Domonic Brown‘s production so far this spring has the Phillies believing that the “answer” they have been looking for in the outfield has been right there all along.

Assuming Brown makes the major league club and sticks all season, Brown will make $490,000 in 2013. That is the Major League Baseball minimum salary.

In a season where Alex Rodriguez is primed to “earn” $28 million to play maybe half-a-season for the New York Yankees, it will not take much for Brown to outplay his contract.

Early returns, though, are exceptionally encouraging.

Thus far at Clearwater, Brown leads the team in hits and runs scored. He is also tied with a resurgent Ryan Howard for the team lead in home runs.

This is an abrupt about-face for a player with Brown’s spotty statistics to this point in his career.

Domonic Brown has been wearing the “prospect” label now for what seems like half a decade. He is 25 years old. He only played 56 games for the Phillies last season.

But for Brown’s prior status as an up-and-coming player, his .236 lifetime batting average in 147 games would probably have earned his release.

To his credit, though, Brown’s 2013 spring training indicates that he is serious about not just making the team, but (per the Philadelphia Inquirer) earning a starting job and keeping it.

The other two big return-on-investment guys are new faces in Philadelphia.

Ben Revere was brought in to man center field after the departure of Shane Victorino last August.

The Phillies gave up Vance Worley and highly regarded pitching prospect Trevor May to pry Revere from the Minnesota Twins. 

Charlie Manuel needs to figure out what to do with a player like Revere—74 career stolen bases, zero career home runs—in a lineup already a bit starved for the long ball.

But so far, Revere is doing exactly what the Phillies hope he will do all season. He is second on the team in both hits and runs scored.

Like Brown, Revere is slated to make the MLB minimum in 2013. He should outperform that by plenty.

And while it may seem strange to put a player set to make $16 million in 2013 on this list, Michael Young fits here.

Considering that the Phillies are only paying $6 million of what Young is due, his spring statistics so far (.294 batting average, tied for second in runs batted in with nine) suggest that Young will be a comparative bargain at third base in 2013.

For a Phillies team stuck with a number of contracts unlikely to fully pay off (Chase Utley, Roy Halladay and Howard come to mind), some good news from the hot starters of spring training is really welcome.

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Philadelphia Phillies’ Biggest Winners & Losers Halfway Through Spring Training

The Philadelphia Phillies have something to prove this season. 

This is a theme that has already begun during spring training, as most of their regulars are fighting to prove that they can be healthy and effective and that they will extend these efforts through the regular season as they attempt to topple the reigning division champion Washington Nationals. 

It’s not going to be easy, though, especially if this spring is any indication. There have been very high notes for the Phillies this spring, but there have been some questionable moments as well. 

While there is a strong sense of optimism in the air, one cannot go a full day without that pungent smell of doubt wafting across your nose. 

At the outset of spring training, no one thought that this was going to be an easy season for the Phillies. Now, with half of the spring slate in the books, we can take a look at some of the club’s winners and losers in camp so far. 

Which players should the Phillies be concerned about, and which ones are ready to roll? With opening day roughly two weeks away, it’s time to take stock once again.

 

All statistics courtesy of Baseball-Reference.

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Philadelphia Phillies: What Would Return to Ace Form by Roy Halladay Give Phils?

During Roy Halladay‘s time in Philadelphia, as he has gone so has his club.

Halladay joined the Phillies in 2010. He won 21 games, with nine complete games and four shutouts. He threw 250.2 innings. His strikeout-to-walk ratio was 7.3.

All of these numbers led the National League, and Halladay won the 2010 National League Cy Young Award. In a related story, the Phillies won 97 games that year.

And there was that little matter of the no-hitter he threw at the Cincinnati Reds in their 2010 National League Division Series.

Sure, the San Francisco Giants touched him up some (most notably Cody Ross) in the National League Championship Series. But the entire Phillies team had to answer for that series loss.

A year later, Halladay was again very special. Nineteen wins, eight complete games and 233.2 more strong innings. His team won a franchise-record 102 games.

And while he took the loss in Game 5 of the 2011 National League Division Series against the St. Louis Cardinals, he went eight innings in that game and gave up one run. Again, his team lost, but he could hardly be blamed.

Even after earning $15.7 million in 2010 and $20 million in 2011, Halladay outperformed his contract in both of those seasons.

2012, of course, was another matter entirely.

Halladay came crashing down to earth last season.

Fresh off that 2010 National League Cy Young Award and finishing runner-up in that voting the next season, Doc posted this line: 11-8, 4.49 ERA, a half-dozen starts missed and a strikeout-to-walk ratio of 3.67, his worst since 2007.

Not surprisingly, with their most-accomplished pitcher struggling so mightily, the Phillies won as many as they lost in 2012.

The simplest answer to the question of what a return to form by Halladay would mean for the Phillies is expressed in one word: everything.

If Halladay can muster one more season where he makes (and goes deep into) most of his starts, the Phillies’ plan of having three legitimate stoppers at the top of the rotation as they did in 2011 can be deployed again to devastating effect.

How important is Halladay to the 2013 Phillies? When he got cuffed around by the Detroit Tigers this week, it made not just local but also national news.

Only Halladay knows if his reduced velocity this spring is truly a case of him needing to build arm strength or, sadly, arm speed forever lost.

But the Phillies’ records with Halladay at the top of the rotation have followed pretty closely with his successes and failures.

There is no compelling reason to believe 2013 will be any different.

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Philadelphia Phillies: 6 Most Disappointing Players in Spring Training so Far

As two weeks of spring training have shown the Philadelphia Phillies, not every player invited to major league camp can be deemed as impressive and ready for the start of the 2013 season.

Obviously, no team expects that every guy is going to put on a spring training performance for the ages. Some of the guys invited to camp are there just to get a tryout as it were. Others are there as minor league guys the team wants to take a better look at. And of course, there are the veterans who just are not 100 percent ready at the end of February.

Every team must face that for every Domonic Brown, (2013 spring numbers: .395 BA, 17 H, 15 R, 3 HR), there is going to be a Darin Ruf (2013 spring numbers: .200 BA, 8 SO).

So in taking into consideration factors such as the expectation (measured on a scale of one to 10 with 10 being the highest), 2012 stats and overall spring performance, here are the guys who have disappointed in baseball’s preseason.

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Roy Halladay’s Career Innings Mark Suggests Doom for Phillies

Philadelphia Phillies co-ace Roy Halladay suffered through a rough exhibition outing on Tuesday against Detroit, surrendering home runs to Ramon Santiago and Don Kelly, walking four batters, and barely popping radar guns with 84-85 MPH fastballs.

Coming off arguably the worst season of his career, there is a sense of concern in Philadelphia. While speculating on potential injury has become in vogue, it’s likely that Roy Halladay is simply running out of bullets in his right arm. He may not be done, but former pitchers in his class—starters in baseball history with at least 2,600 IP and spectacular ERA+ marks—have been accustomed to dramatic dips in career performance around the innings mark Halladay has presently reached.

Using Baseball-Reference.com’s Play Index and sorting by adjusted ERA, only 159 pitchers since 1901 have reached the 2,600 IP mark. Of course, that doesn’t truly tell the story of Halladay’s dominance. Of those 159, only 10 starters in the history of baseball have a better career ERA+ mark than Halladay. For the purposes of this piece, we’re ruling out those that haven’t debuted in the past 50 years.

Using those parameters, the five pitchers most similar to Halladay in terms of innings pitched and ERA+ are Pedro Martinez (154+), Roger Clemens (143+), Randy Johnson (135+), Greg Maddux (132+), and Curt Schilling (127+).

Heading into the 2013 season, Halladay has thrown 2,687.1 IP over 377 big league starts, including 66 complete games. His career adjusted ERA of 134 places him just below Martinez, Clemens, and Johnson. His mark is slightly better than Maddux and Schilling.

Of course, the final numbers for those future Hall of Famers are finished products. Halladay is still pitching. Unlike win total, his ERA+ is likely to only trend down as his career unfolds. As will his effectiveness.

Those five former stars weren’t necessarily done when they hit the innings mark Halladay sits at heading into 2013, but there’s a direct correlation toward their careers before and after comparable innings. In other words, they hit a wall. The same wall Halladay might have reached.

Through the first 2,513 IP of Pedro Martinez’s career, his ERA+ was 166. Afterwards, it was 94, or in other words, below league average. He pitched to a 4.58 ERA over 314 IP to round out his career.

Through the first 2,776 IP of Roger Clemens’ career, his ERA+ was 114. Afterwards, it was 140. Of all the names listed, he was able to keep his performance the most level through the years.

Through the first 2,748 IP of Randy Johnson’s career, his ERA+ was 141. It was 125 beyond that number, including a 5.00 ERA for the Yankees in 2006.

Through the first 2,849 IP of Greg Maddux’s career, his ERA+ was 146. It was 117 beyond that mark.

Through the first 2,812 IP of Curt Schilling’s career, his ERA+ was 131. He dipped to 110+ for the rest of his career, including a stint as a reliever in Boston.

In 2012, Halladay saw his ERA rise over two runs, and a shoulder injury landed him on the disabled list. His K/9 mark dipped to 7.60, its lowest since 2008. According to FanGraphs, his average fastball velocity fell to 90.6 MPH, the lowest mark of his big league career.

It’s widely assumed that the Phillies are the third best team in the National League East behind Washington and Atlanta. That doesn’t mean they can’t be a postseason threat, though. If you believe in the former National League juggernaut, it’s likely because of stellar starting pitching.

Last year may have been an aberration for Halladay and the Phillies. 

Or it may have been the beginning of the end for a Hall of Fame starter and the best team Philadelphia has ever fielded. The careers of Martinez, Clemens, Johnson, Maddux, and Schilling serve as a wake-up call for Halladay supporters and detractors. Dissecting every Halladay pitch this spring has some merit, but the wear and tear is already done. 

Joe Giglio is a MLB Lead Writer covering the NL and AL East. Follow him on Twitter @JoeGiglioSports.

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Updated 25-Man Phillies Roster Predictions Midway Through Spring Training

At the midway point through spring training, the Philadelphia Phillies are a team with just as many questions as answers. 

That’s not necessarily a bad thing. While some surprisingly poor performances are undoubtedly a cause for concern, there has been strong competition in the Phillies’ camp this spring and some battles are now a question of who is going to cave first. 

So now, with half of the Grapefruit League slate officially in the books, it’s time once again to update our predictions on the Phillies’ 25-man, Opening Day roster.

What will the lineup look like on Opening Day? Which players “on the bubble” find their way into the bench or bullpen? 

Needless to say, the last few weeks of Grapefruit League action are going to determine a lot for the Phillies in the early portion of the regular season. Here’s where things stand now.

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Why Baseball Prospectus’ Predictions for Philadelphia Phillies Are All Wrong

Many experts and independent baseball blogs alike have the Philadelphia Phillies poised to finish in third place by the end of the upcoming season. As a result of the team’s 81-81 finish last year in addition to an aging core group of players, for the first time since 2008 the Phillies are not widely projected to finish as the top dog in the NL East. Not to mention that more significant upgrades by division-mates Washington Nationals and Atlanta Braves slot them further into contention.

However, one website in particular stands out in its projection for the Phillies in 2013. In my opinion, the Phillies are slated to win 87 or 88 games in 2013. I haven’t yet decided on that final amount, but somewhere in that ballpark sounds about right to me.

I’m not too far out there like FOX Sports’ Jon Morosi, who believes that the Phillies will finish ahead of the Braves in 2013, but I do believe the Phillies will have a better finish than that of 2012 (per HardballTalk.com). What bothers me is that baseball website Baseball Prospectus has the Phillies projected not only to finish third in the NL East once again, but they also project the Phillies to finish at 81-81, just like last year.

Given the Phillies’ small yet cost-efficient upgrades this offseason at multiple positions, there’s no reason they shouldn’t do better than posting a .500 record. Here’s five reasons why Baseball Prospects dropped the ball on their projection for the Phillies.

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