Predicting Philadelphia Phillies Starting Lineup Halfway Through Spring Training

While spring training games still have a ways to go before Opening Day, spring training itself is just about at the halfway point now.

As we begin to enter the home stretch, more and more roster spots will be named as more and more cuts are simultaneously made. 

In the meantime, it’s all about speculation.

For the Philadelphia Phillies, most of their starting lineup is admittedly set in stone. Carlos Ruiz will be suspended for the first 25 games of the season, rendering Erik Kratz the starting catcher. Ryan Howard, Chase Utley, Jimmy Rollins and Michael Young will make up the infield barring any injuries.

The outfield is a little more unclear at this point, though opposition faces a starting three of Domonic Brown, Ben Revere and Darin Ruf.

Pitching-wise, the Opening Day starter has yet to be named, but heavy speculation—including an endorsement by teammate and incumbent Opening Day starter Roy Halladay, according to CSNPhilly.com—leads to Cole Hamels earning the nod.

Will manager Charlie Manuel change his ways and give Hamels the first ball, or will he opt for Doc, who has started for the Phillies for the last three years?

Could Cliff Lee even garner consideration?

With most of the lineup itself intact and predictable, all that’s left is guessing the order Charlie’s going to pencil them in on April 1, against the Atlanta Braves.

Halfway through spring training, we’ll do our best to get it right.

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4 Reasons Philadelphia Phillies Will Recapture the NL East Crown

The Philadelphia Phillies have been the standard of excellence in the National League East. Since 2007, they have won five division titles, two pennants and one World Series.

The 2012 season did not follow the usual script. Plagued by injuries to key players and an inconsistent offense, the Phillies struggled early and, despite a late run at the NL Wild Card, were never able to fully right the ship.

Expect the Phillies to start out hot and dethrone the Nationals in 2013. Yes, they are old, but their experience and pitching will more than make up for their age.

Last year, the Nationals cruised to a relatively easy division title, but as witnessed in the fifth and deciding game in their playoff series against the Cardinals, they will hit a wall when the pressure heats up.

The Phillies have done it before and will do it again. The 2012 season was merely a mirage, and fans should expect Philadelphia to take the division in 2013. Here are few reasons why.

 

Starting Pitching

Say what you want about age, but the Phillies have one of the best pitching rotations in the majors. It is top-heavy with aces Roy Halladay, Cliff Lee and Cole Hamels, and there is no need to rehash their impressive resumes.

The back end of the rotation should see improvement in 2013. The Phillies added former Nationals pitcher John Lannan in the offseason to bolster the rotation.

The fifth member of the starting staff is Kyle Kendrick. Although Kendrick’s time in Philadelphia has seen its ups and downs, the second half of 2013 saw him pitch very well, and Phillies fans are hoping he can keep that solid pitching going this year.

The Phillies went 7-3 in Kendrick’s last 10 starts. Kendrick only gave up more than two runs twice in this stretch, which included three shutout performances.

If the Phillies can get Kendrick to perform anywhere near that level in 2013, the rest of the NL East better take notice.

 

Ryan Howard

As mentioned before, injuries are what held the Phillies back in 2012. If everyone is healthy, the Phillies will win the division and go deep in the playoffs, but that is a big if.

Last year, Howard missed much of the season recovering from the Achilles injury he suffered in the 2011 postseason

He never seemed comfortable at the plate last year coming off of his injury, and his production reflected that.

A notorious slow starter, Howard usually saves his best baseball for late in the season when it really matters. This year, however, could be different. If his early spring production is any indication, Howard looks primed to come out of the gates hot.

So far this spring, Howard is hitting .417 with three homers, three doubles and 10 RBI, and is currently 5-for-9 with two homers and a double off of lefties.

The most indicative statistic of Howard’s success is his hitting against lefties. He is at his best when he utilizes the entire field, and that generally means going the other way against lefties.

Many a Philadelphia fan has seen Howard pull off of the ball and strike out on an off-speed pitch throughout his career. To fans, his strikeouts against breaking balls can be as maddening as his homers are exhilarating.

When Howard first came up to the majors, he had early success hitting the ball to the opposite field. If he can be patient in the batter’s box and take what the pitcher gives him, look for Howard to bounce back and have a monster 2013 season.   

 

Michael Young  

Last year, Ty Wigginton and Placido Polanco split time at the third base position, and both became close to automatic outs as the season wore on.

In 2013, the Phillies have vastly improved at this position with the addition of perennial All-Star Michael Young.

Although he is 36, Young is a professional hitter. He has a career average of .301, and, although his power production is decreasing with age, he should benefit from the hitter-friendly Citizens Bank Park.

The 2008 Gold Glove winner also improves the Phillies defense on the hot corner. Production from third base will be much-needed for a team that has not seen consistent offense from the position.

Even during their run of consecutive division crowns, the Phillies had the likes of Pedro Feliz, Greg Dobbs and Eric Bruntlett manning third—not exactly murderers’ row.

 

Motivation

For the first time in a long time, the Phillies are the underdog. Thinking the Phillies are too old to compete and make it through a 162-game schedule, most “experts” are picking either the Nationals or the Braves to take the NL East crown.

Expect the 2013 Phillies to play like they have something to prove from the first pitch onward.

They have been the class of the division for most of the past decade, and while the Braves and Nationals will contend throughout, a great champion does not give over the crown easily.

Although players like Shane Victorino and Hunter Pence have moved on, the Phillies still have the core from their championship runs. The likes of Utley, Howard and Rollins will not go quietly. They know how to win and understand what it takes to win when it matters. 

Look for this veteran presence to guide the Phillies down the stretch and lead them to another division title in 2013.

Read more Philadelphia Phillies news on BleacherReport.com

Philadelphia Phillies Team Health Report: 2013 Injury Risk for Every Starter

Will Carroll has produced an annual Team Health Report for each MLB team for 12 years. The report gives risk ratings for every player in the expected starting lineup and starting rotation, plus two relievers. A proprietary formula sets a baseline according to a player’s age and position. It is adjusted by 12 factors, including injury history, team history and expected workload.

This risk rating is classified into three tiers—red (high risk), yellow (medium risk) and green (lower risk). It should be used as a guideline and is about probability, not prediction. To learn more about how the Team Health Reports are devised, click on this article. 

2012 Rank: 26th of 30 teams in DL days and dollars lost

Biggest Injury: Chase Utley, $8.1 million lost value

Head Athletic Trainer: Scott Sheridan

The Phillies got old quick. Injuries will do that to a team as much as the calendar.

Injuries to Ryan Howard, Chase Utley and Roy Halladay highlighted the problem, but it was more deep-seated than that, and this offseason really didn’t help. Instead of getting younger, the team seems to be taking an incremental approach and hoping that Scott Sheridan and his staff can hold them together for one more run with this group.

That’s not the worst idea. Sheridan and his staff won a Martin-Monahan Award a couple years back, just as their run at the top of the NL East started. Injury stats are often forward indicators, as they were for the Rays and Brewers, but is it also a forward indicator of a decline? The data sure seems to say yes to that.

What’s less clear is whether that decline can be halted or even slowed.

This is a team that is flat-out risky. Aside from those “big three” injuries, all of whom must come back to full production for this team to have a chance at .500, let alone a title, there’s risk up and down the lineup and there was more brought in. If everything goes right, they could contend, but the Nationals and Braves have made huge leaps in talent, not incremental changes.

This could be the last year of what Ruben Amaro and ownership see as a success window. Charlie Manuel is close to riding off into the sunset and handing over the reins to Ryne Sandberg. Utley and Howard could be near the end as well, especially if they continue to have physical problems. The rest could be quickly torn down for prospects, though likely not to the core like the Marlins did. 

The season, then, hinges on the medical staff. If they can get this team back into the upper third of injury stats, there’s a chance that the Phillies play into October. If they stay at the back half, they’ll likely be in the same place of the standings.

Click ahead for the Phillies. Here are links for all the teams’ reports.

AL East	Baltimore	Boston	New York	Tampa Bay	Toronto
AL Central	Chicago	Cleveland	Detroit	Kansas City	Minnesota
AL West	Houston	L.A.	Oakland	Seattle	Texas
NL East	Atlanta	Miami	New York	Philadelphia	Washington
NL Central	Chicago	Cincinnati	Milwaukee	Pittsburgh	St. Louis
NL West	Arizona	Colorado	L.A.	San Diego	S.F.

 

Will Carroll is the Lead Writer for Sports Medicine at Bleacher Report. He has written about sports injuries and related topics for 12 years. His column is called “the industry standard” by Hall of Famer Peter Gammons.  

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15 Dark Horses Who Could Win a Phillies Roster Spot on Opening Day

As a veteran team, the Philadelphia Phillies don’t have many openings on their 25-man roster this spring. Forecasting what the club will look like on Opening Day, barring injuries, isn’t too much of a challenge. 

Even in positions where the spot is realistically up for grabs there are players who are favorites to come out on top. The Phillies need two corner outfielders, and Domonic Brown and Darin Ruf are strong favorites to make the club. Names like Phillippe Aumont, Justin De Fratus and Jeremy Horst are early favorites in the bullpen. 

But things can change in a hurry during spring training. Players can get off to a hot start and win the favor of the coaching staff. The next thing you know, they’re on the Opening Day roster. 

There aren’t likely to be many—if any at all—of those players this spring, but there are a few names to keep an eye on. The following slideshow will take a look at some of the camp’s “dark-horse” candidates to make the roster on Opening Day.

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Predicting Philadelphia Phillies’ Regular-Season Record in 2013

Few predictive models are as well-financed, well-researched and successful as sports books.

Sure, where betting is legal, the books have that little matter of the 10% they collect on losing wagers to ensure their success. But they still get it right more often than not.

The San Francisco 49ers were favored by three or three-and-a-half (depending on where you looked) over the Baltimore Ravens in Super Bowl in Super Bowl XLVII.

With less than a minute left, the 49ers were inside the Ravens’ 10-yard line, down 34-29. Had they scored a touchdown, the 49ers would have gone for two points (to keep a field goal from beating them).

And the difference in the final score would very possibly have been three points. 

Of course, the Ravens’ defense held, and the final score of 34-31 Ravens made the sharps look dull.

That is the sort of book-breaking magic the Phillies are trying to conjure in 2013.

A quick look at the Ladbrokes World Series odds table tells you what you probably already knew: The Philadelphia Phillies are no longer the front-runners entering 2013.

Per Ladbrokes, the Phillies at 16/1 have an equal chance to win the World Series as the defending World Series champion San Francisco Giants.

Unfortunately for Phillies fans, per Ladbrokes, there are nine teams with better odds to win the title—and four of them are in the National League.

The British oddsmakers presently project the Washington Nationals as the National League East’s most likely World Series winners at 8/1. The Cincinnati Reds (9/1), Los Angeles Dodgers (10/1) and Atlanta Braves (14/1) are also preferred to the Phillies.

These odds cannot be disregarded when projecting a win total for the 2013 Phillies. It is apparent that at least one casino in Las Vegas took these odds into account.

Per sbnation.com, when the Atlantis Casino in Las Vegas released their MLB over-unders last month, the house’s projections fell in line with the Ladbrokes odds.

The Nationals’ over-under was 90 wins. Atlanta’s over-under was 86 wins. And the Phillies’ over-under was 81.5.

One-half game better than they had in an injury-plagued, severely-underachieving 2012 season? Even a hardened, cynical Phillies fan has to question the validity of that sort of pessimism.

Any team would struggle without healthy, effective play from its three- and four-hole hitters in the lineup and without its ace.

Without Utley, Howard and Halladay, that is essentially what the Phillies were dealing with. So far this spring, all three have looked healthy and capable of returning to a high level of play.

Further, the Phillies’ 13 blown eighth-inning leads (per the New York Times) should be a problem left behind following the acquisitions of Mike Adams and Chad Durbin.

Those two figure to do a better job of getting the ball to Jonathan Papelbon with a lead than did, say, Jeremy Horst.

So my prediction for the Phillies in 2013 is full health (or close to it) for Ryan Howard, Chase Utley and Roy Halladay. Those last two, along with Michael Young and Carlos Ruiz, are all in contract years—so whatever they have left, you’ll see it.

Putting it all together, I see 87 wins for the Phillies and a race for the final wild-card berth that goes to the final day of the regular season.

In fact, based on the odds, I’d sign up for 87 wins right now.

Read more Philadelphia Phillies news on BleacherReport.com

Peyton Manning Should Be Inspiration for 2013 Philadelphia Phillies

As the calendar turns to March, we are approaching the one-year anniversary of a pretty monumental day in the history of American professional sports.

One year ago Thursday, Peyton Manning was released from the Indianapolis Colts, the organization by which he was drafted first overall in 1998 and was with for 14 seasons. During that time, he became arguably the best quarterback of his generation and put himself in with the top 10 players to ever play the position. The term “face of the franchise” has become a cliche in professional sports, but it was an unadulterated reality in Manning’s case. He truly was the Indianapolis Colts.

But alas, after a bizarre neck injury caused Manning to miss the entire 2011 season, subsequently contributing to the Colts going 2-14 that season and earning the top overall pick in the 2012 NFL draft, he suddenly became expendable. With the shining blue-chip Andrew Luck waiting in the draft and ready to play, it simply did not make sense to bring back a 36-year-old QB coming off injury and send the best QB prospect in years to the bench.

Let me make a disclaimer—I am not condemning what the Colts did. They did what they had to do. The situation in Indianapolis was as unique as a snowflake. Had the Colts wound up with any pick lower than second overall in the 2012 draft, they most likely would have kept Manning and traded the high pick for several lower picks to put some pieces around the aging star to give him one last chance at a run in his final years.

But that didn’t happen. The Colts had the first overall pick, Luck fell into their lap, and here we are.

Having said that, allow me to take you back to the end of 2011. While it is easy to forget since so much time has elapsed, maybe you remember how bleak the outlook on Manning’s career was.

Many people predicted he would embarrass himself in 2012, posting the worst stats since his rookie year and having to end a great career in shame.

Others predicted that his body would have the solidity of a chocolate eclair after a year on the couch, and he would suffer a career-ending injury on his first sack.

A friend of mine even predicted that he would retire in 2012 training camp, realizing the game passed him by.

Of course, we know this did not happen. Manning totally idiocized the pessimistic predictions, posting the best season of his wonderful career next to his legendary 2004 MVP performance. By notching eight yards per attempt, 37 TD passes to only 11 INT, and achieving a terrific 105.8 passer rating, Peyton made everybody forget the bleakness of his post-2011 outlook.

Okay, I am finally going to get to baseball now.

The Phillies can take a lot of optimism out of the Peyton Manning story. The 2012 Phillies were obviously decimated by injury. The problem with that squad wasn’t only that Chase Utley, Ryan Howard, and Roy Halladay missed significant time. The big issue was that all three players’ injuries ruined their performance on the field, with Utley putting up a slash line of .256/11/45, Howard going .219/14/56, and Roy Halladay putting up a 4.49 ERA with a 1.222 WHIP.

These bad 2012 seasons by the three cornerstone players on the team have pundits predicting they will face a very tough uphill battle with the Nationals and the Braves in 2013. The other two NL East teams are looked at as the young forces set to take their places at the table, while the Phillies are the broken-down old veterans who the game has passed by.

But, just as Peyton Manning disproved so many doubters, so can the Phillies.

Chase Utley can hit .280 with 25 HR.

Ryan Howard can hit 42 HR and knock in 130.

Roy Halladay can pitch 230 innings, put up a sub-3.00 ERA, and amass 200 strikeouts.

If one of these things happen, the Phillies could make that seven-game jump that would have been necessary to make the playoffs last year.

If two of these things happen, the Phillies can win 91-93 games, and be a legitimate threat for the NL East crown.

If all three happen, then the Nationals and the Braves be damned. The Phillies out-and-out win the NL East and are NL favorites for the World Series.

Do these things seem implausible? Maybe.

But how many people expected the 2012 Peyton Manning to put up a 105.8 passer rating a year ago today?

Read more Philadelphia Phillies news on BleacherReport.com

Biggest Winners and Losers of Phillies’ First Week of Games

With just a week’s worth of spring training games in the books. it is far too soon to formulate a realistic opinion of any one player. But it is never too soon for a player to make a good impression. Of course, it’s never too soon for a player to make a bad impression either. 

The Philadelphia Phillies have had their share of good and bad moments early in the spring, and we’ll take a look at some of its early winners and losers in the following slides. With that in mind, however, a word of caution: Don’t read too deeply into spring stats. 

For most players on this roster, the spring is a time of preparation, not competition. Veteran players and most pitchers are trying to fine-tune themselves for the regular season and are not focused on putting up good numbers. 

But there is more to it than that. It’s about how certain players look and feel during the spring as well. For the Phillies, a lot will have to fall in their direction this upcoming season. How certain players look and feel during the first week of the spring could go a long way. 

Here are the early winners and losers. 

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Philadelphia Phillies: 10 Standout Stars from First Week of Spring Training

For the Philadelphia Phillies, the first week of spring training provided a taste of what fans will see this season, a benchmark for which to judge rookies, realistic expectations for returning players and of course, a chance to see the team take the field for the first time in months.

While many consider spring games to be meaningless, they do enable teams the opportunity to evaluate their current personnel alongside the minor league talent that might soon join them. For the Phillies, this has definitely been a big part of the spring equation as guys like Tommy Joseph, Cody Asche and Ender Inciarte have all gotten their chance to impress this spring.

In addition, position battles are often decided based on spring performances. This off season, the Phillies have two, notably the corner outfield spots and the remaining roles in the bullpen. With a strong start, Domonic Brown has charged ahead in the race for starting right fielder while guys like Rodrigo Lopez have started strong en route to earning a possible bullpen spot.

Then there are the lingering injury questions that only a nine inning baseball game, not baseball activities, can provide. So far so good for Ryan Howard as he has charged ahead as the team’s best spring performer. The jury is still out on Chase Utley, who has received minimal playing time as he handles his knee problems.

Overall, it has been a fun first week, with a handful of noted performances that could speak for a positive start to the 2013 season.

Here are the top ten early spring performers as well as one honorable mention after the team’s first week of games.

 

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