One Stat That Sums Up Each Philadelphia Phillies Player’s 2012 Season

Leave it to the Philadelphia Phillies to jump back into a postseason race after seemingly being on the brink of destruction just a few short weeks ago. 

But that’s the kind of year it’s been for the Phillies. Just when you’ve accepted the fact that they were dealt a bad hand out of the gate and folded at the trade deadline—they go and rattle off a big winning streak and jump into the Wild Card hunt. 

So what’s the difference? Why are the Phillies playing so much better right now than they were early in the season? 

Well, one of the biggest factors is their return to health. Any time you add guys like Roy Halladay, Chase Utley, and Ryan Howard, you are going to get any worse. 

But that’s not the only factor. Not only did those guys give this club a boost with their return to the active roster, but other players are just playing better. 

Thee is some youth on this club now and they’re revitalized. One way to see the difference is to tell a player’s story through a single statistic—what made him good or bad? 

Maybe then we can see why this team is clicking right now.

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Ranking Every Phillies Regular Based on Future Importance

The Philadelphia Phillies haven’t played a “meaningless” month of September for a long time. 

And while they are still scratching and clawing their way back into the back end of a postseason race, a lot of fans have already shifted their focus to how the Phillies can improve in time for the 2013 campaign. 

Well, there’s an easy way to figure out which players are going to help you and who isn’t going to be very effective—find out how important they are in comparison to each other. 

Guys at the top of the list are going to be players that you want to keep. Players at the bottom of the list are going to be guys that could wind up being expendable or replaceable. 

That’s what this slideshow will do. We’ll rank the players currently on the Phillies’ roster by their importance to the future and see where they can improve moving into next season. 

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25 Most Unforgettable Pennant Race Moments in Philadelphia Phillies History

It’s that time of the year again. 

No, it’s not Christmas. You won’t wake up and find any presents under the tree. It’s not Thanksgiving either, so no turkey for dinner. 

It’s time for Major League Baseball’s pennant race to kick into full gear, and while the Philadelphia Phillies are trying their damnedest to fight and claw their way back into the race, it looks like they’ll sit this one out. 

So it goes without saying, if the Phillies do somehow make the postseason this year, it will be nothing short of a miracle and probably the greatest pennant race moment in franchise history. 

For some historical perspective on what that means, here’s a look at the most unforgettable pennant chase moments in the history of the Phillies franchise—some great, some, well, not so much.  

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Weak Schedule Could Help Vault Surging Phillies Back into Postseason Race

“Hope springs eternal in the human breast; Man never is, but always to be blessed. The soul, uneasy and confined from home, rests and expatiates in a life to come.” 

I assure you, Alexander Pope was not talking about the Philadelphia Phillies when he penned that quote in his Essay on Man and Other Poems, but it’s relevant enough to that ball club to practically be their mantra this season. 

As many great works of literature, of course, that famous quote was cut and chopped throughout time and only a fraction of it is what we remember today: 

Hope springs eternal. 

That’s all the Phillies have right now. Hope. In the beginning of the season, they didn’t even have that. They were forced to field a mediocre offense that replaced the injured likes of Chase Utley and Ryan Howard with “hitters” who barely qualified as replacement level. 

Their bullpen fell to shambles when key contributors from a season ago—like Mike Stutes and David Herndon—joined their offensive minded teammates on the disabled list. 

And don’t think that the starting pitching was immune to that injury bug. Cliff Lee missed time with an oblique issue early in the season and Vance Worley finally succumbed to a bone chip at the end of August. 

What many thought was the final blow for this Phillies club came at the end of May when ace starting pitcher Roy Halladay suffered a bad strain of the right latissimus dorsi that could force him out of action for up to two months. 

But Halladay came back. So did most of the other aforementioned names, like Lee, Utley, and Howard. 

And while their returns didn’t make an immediate impact on the club physically, they gave the rest of their teammates quite the booster shot mentally. 

They provided hope. Hope that they could model the rest of their season after the St. Louis Cardinals of 2011—a team who’s fury they felt first hand when they helped them make the postseason by defeating the Atlanta Braves only to be dispatched by the surprise RedBirds in the first round of the playoffs. 

Fresh off series wins against a pair of teams that would be in the postseason if it started today—the Braves and Cincinnati Reds—the Phillies are finally feeling confident about their chances. Confident about having to make that improbable and exhilarating run after being at the top for so many seasons. 

Currently eight games out of a Wild Card spot, it wouldn’t be easy. It’s an uphill battle on a near vertical slope, but with the right traction, that’s a possible climb. 

For the Phillies, that “traction” could be an incredibly weak stretch of games for them this month; starting with a home series against the Colorado Rockies. 

The Rockies, who have played most of the season without their superstar shortstop, Troy Tulowitzki, were just manhandled by the Braves’ pitching staff. They lost consecutive 1-0 games on unearned runs. 

The Phillies aren’t going to let up on them. They’ll be throwing two of the best pitchers in the National League at them in Cliff Lee (who shutout that Braves for seven innings in his last start) and Cole Hamels, followed by rookie Tyler Cloyd, who struck out nine and walked zero against a potent Reds lineup in his last start. 

The Phillies are in a position to win that series handily, and it’s just the start of a string of games that they should be capable of winning easily. 

Following their series against the Rockies, the Phillies will throw Roy Halladay, Kyle Kendrick, and Cliff Lee against the last place Miami Marlins before hitting the road to take on the worst team in baseball in the Houston Astros—for four games. They’ll then travel to Citi Field to take on the rival New York Mets. 

In case you haven’t been keeping count, here’s an update: The Phillies will play 13 consecutive games against teams with losing records. 

And that’s not even the kicker. 

For this club, the best part about the schedule is that after that very winnable 13-game stretch, they’ll return home to square off with the Braves, followed by three games against the Washington Nationals. 

Now, making up eight games in the standings is no simple task, but no team in the race right now is better equipped to make up that ground than the Phillies. 

The Braves have to play the Nationals and the Milwaukee Brewers. 

The Cardinals have to play the San Diego Padres, who have been playing good baseball, Los Angeles Dodgers and Brewers. 

The Pittsburgh Pirates still have to play the Reds and Brewers. 

And while most of this Phillies roster is still focused on this season, make no mistake about it—almost everyone else around the club, including the fans, has moved on. 

The five-time reigning National League East champions just can’t bring themselves to do so. 

It’s an uphill battle. Of course it is. Anyone who told you otherwise would be lying right through their teeth. 

But all the Phillies have right now is hope. Hope that the Cardinals left them a little magic following their improbable run at the World Series last season.

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One Way for Each Philadelphia Phillies’ Player to Salvage His 2012 Season

To make an incredibly long story short: The Philadelphia Phillies have been an interesting team this season. 

After the heart of their order and their ace, amongst a slew of other injured players, spent time on the disabled list this season, the Phillies all but fell out of postseason contention. 

They traded Shane Victorino and Hunter Pence and gave a paltry look on the rest of the 2012 season. For all intents and purposes, this year was over. Two All-Stars were heading west and none were coming back to the City of Brotherly Love. 

Well, not through a trade, anyway. 

The Phillies would eventually activate Chase Utley, Ryan Howard, and Roy Halladay from the disabled list and even more reinforcements would soon follow. 

They battled through the month of August and suddenly found themselves in a position that felt somewhat familiar. It was the same spot that the St. Louis Cardinals were in last season before they vanquished the Phillies from the postseason. 

All of a sudden, there was hope. Hope at a miraculous run towards the postseason. 

But in fitting fashion for the Phillies this season, an incredibly bad loss with contributions from guys like Jonathan Papelbon and Kevin Frandsen seemed to dash that measly ounce of hope rather quickly. 

Now, the Phillies find themselves trying to make a comeback that would make the Cardinals’ run in 2011 look insignificant. 

Here’s what they need to do to salvage the season.

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Predicting the Philadelphia Phillies’ Opening Day 25-Man Roster for 2013

The Philadelphia Phillies are having the kind of season that already has fans looking forward to next year. 

So while the Phillies try and make an improbable run back into the postseason race here in 2012, it certainly isn’t too soon to take a look at the roster moving forward and try and make sense of what the Phillies 25-man roster could look like on Opening Day 2013. 

Some of the names are obvious. The Phillies have made big commitments to guys like Ryan Howard, Cole Hamels and Jonathan Papelbon, and those guys aren’t going anywhere. 

However, the Phillies also made a couple of deals at the trade deadline involving guys like Shane Victorino and Hunter Pence in an attempt to free up some space under the luxury tax for flexibility this winter. 

Some of the guys on next year’s roster are already here. Others are in the minor leagues. Even more are on the free agent and trade markets. 

One thing is for certain: If the Phillies are going to win in 2013, they’ll need to be creative in some areas of the roster.

Here’s what they should do. 

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Odds of All 25 Philadelphia Phillies Mailing It In for the Season’s Final Month

Fans like to think that professional athletes never even think about “mailing it in” early, but the reality is that it happens all the time. 

Sometimes we forget that professional athletes are human at their core. There’s a human element involved in any competition, even at a professional level, and the Philadelphia Phillies are involved in a unique situation. 

They were supposed to win this season. 

Of course, they haven’t done much winning at all. The Phillies have been plagued with injuries and inconsistency and haven’t gotten on much of a roll. They’re all but mathematically eliminated from the postseason, and the question has changed. 

What’s next? 

The Phillies haven’t played a meaningless September in a long time. This is a roster full of veteran players accustomed to winning ball games. What are they going to do when there is nothing on the line? 

It would be very uncharacteristic for some players on this team to essentially “cave in,” but others have shown a willingness to do so in the past. Some have their hands tied. They’re going to have to mail it in early to rest or let other guys play. 

We’ll rate the roster on a three-level scale for this slide show: low, moderate and high. 

I think those ratings are pretty self explanatory, with “low” being a player most likely to give it everything he has in the final month and “high” being a player who has already conceded. 

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August Report Cards for All 25 Philadelphia Phillies Players

Is that a faint glimmer of hope on the horizon? 

The Philadelphia Phillies rolled into the month of August surrounded by fans already focus on the 2013 season, but in a lot of ways, the Phillies themselves were already gearing up for next year. 

By the final day of July they had traded away two of their key cogs coming into the season in Shane Victorino and Hunter Pence. 

They added some quality minor league talent in guys like Tommy Joseph and Ethan Martin while adding some players that could help at the MLB level next season in Josh Lindblom and Nate Schierholtz. 

The month of August wasn’t going to be one that the Phillies had become accustomed to in years past, but it was going to be an interesting one nonetheless. A lot of guys on this club still had something to play for. 

Now, the Phillies find themselves in a unique situation. Hovering right around 10 games out of a Wild Card spot, they seem like a distant threat to the leaders. 

But you know that this club can’t help but realize that they’re in nearly the exact same predicament as the St. Louis Cardinals were at this time last season, and that train ran right through Philadelphia on its way to a World Series. 

August was a pretty good month for the Phillies. They’re going to finish with a record north of .500 and an unlikely dream of recreating the Cardinals’ dramatic run at the postseason. 

So in order to determine whether or not they even have a shot, we’ll look back at each player’s month of August and grade them on their performance. Who needs to improve and who needs to stay the course for the Phillies to make an improbable run at October in the month of September? 

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25 Most Intimidating Strikeout Pitchers in Philadelphia Phillies History

We can debate the things that make a pitcher great until we’re all blue in the face, but one fact that cannot be denied is that pitchers capable of striking out hitters in bunches are off to a good start on the road to greatness. 

Do strikeout pitchers always pan out? No, of course not. The chances of making it to the Major League is slim, let alone each and every pitcher who can strike a batter out with relative ease becoming a big league player. 

But great pitchers tend to be strikeout pitchers. It’s really not as complex as it seems. The better the pitches, the tougher they are to hit. The tougher they are to hit, the more likely it is for a hitter to strike out. 

Certain pitchers, however, do it with style. Some strikeout pitchers are intimidating. 

So what makes a pitcher intimidating? Well, the Philadelphia Phillies have plenty of examples in their history. Some pitchers, like Roy Halladay, are so good they’re intimidating. Some guys have reputations for being intimidating. Steve Carlton comes to mind. 

Some pitchers have the look, like Mitch Williams’ mullet, and some guys do a whole routine, like Jonathan Papelbon. 

But they’re fun to watch. 

The Phillies don’t have a ton of great, intimidating strikeout pitchers, but they have a few, and some of the names are kind of surprising. But that’s what keeps it interesting. 

Remember! There is a balance between being both “intimidating” and a “strikeout pitcher” involved in these rankings, so make sure to keep that in mind as you move forward!

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Philadelphia Phillies: Picking an Intro Song for All 25 Players

HUMOR.

Want to talk about one of the most underrated facets of Major League Baseball? How about the guilty pleasure of fans, players and ballpark employees everywhere? 

Introduction music. 

That’s right. For batters, it’s known as walk-up music. For starting pitchers it’s a warm-up song, and for relievers it’s entry music. 

For the fans, it’s fun. 

Nothing gets the casual fan more hype than jamming out to a great song at the ballpark. Hitters feel the same way. Picking the perfect song before each at-bat could lead to a good outcome. Of course, the opposite is true as well. 

For pitchers, it could be the difference between getting that extra mile per hour on your fastball. You need to get that adrenaline flowing big time before you deliver that first pitch. That’s why the sounds of the game are so important. 

For the Philadelphia Phillies, it’s been a disappointing season—one worthy of new intro songs. That’s right. I’m going to pick an intro song for all 25 players on this roster. 

Of course, some of this is going to be complete satire. I really just couldn’t help myself. 

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