Philadelphia Phillies: 1 Correction All 25 Players Must Make to Chase NL East

If the Philadelphia Phillies‘ record and position in the standings is any indication, this is a club that needs to make a lot of corrections moving forward.

Coming into the season, the thought was that the pitching would excel while the offense struggled, and while that has been true to a certain extent, it certainly has not been the entire story early on.

The offense has struggled. That is an undeniable fact. Players that we thought would have minor roles have stepped into the spotlight and excelled, but that is a small majority compared to the players who have fallen flat on their faces early in the season.

The pitching staff needs to make a few corrections as well. After often appearing superhuman, Roy Halladay needs to make an adjustment. The bullpen has been in shambles in the middle innings, an the wheels are starting to fall off the rest of it.

Simply put, this is a team with plenty of corrections to be made, but it is still early in the season. There is plenty of time to make those changes, but here is what the team will need to do.

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Philedelphia Phillies: What Each Player Must Do to Help Continue Winning Ways

The Philadelphia Phillies are not a team built to play .500 baseball.

Yet that’s exactly what they’ve done through the first month of the season. Sure, they have their excuses. Any team would struggle with the meat of its order shelved on the disabled list. But the Phillies have never been a team to make excuses.

For every All-Star player on the disabled list, the Phillies have an adequate replacement in some way shape or form. You can’t replace those guys, but you can certainly hold down the fort until they return, and that’s what the Phillies are beginning to do.

Ryan Howard and Chase Utley are on the disabled list? Ty Wigginton and Laynce Nix have played well at first base. Freddy Galvis has lived up to every bit of his reputation as a sensational defender. Cliff Lee is on the disabled list? Kyle Kendrick has experience in the starting rotation.

The fact of the matter is that although this team can make excuses, they won’t. They know that they shouldn’t be playing .500 baseball.

Here’s what they need to do to win ball games from here on out.

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25 Bold May Predictions for the Philadelphia Phillies

The month of April has not been kind to the Philadelphia Phillies.

It’s been a container for the club’s first month with a losing record since what feels like the year the Liberty Bell cracked.

As rough as it has been for the Phillies, it wasn’t an entirely unexpected outcome. The meat of their order, Chase Utley and Ryan Howard, are dealing with serious injuries. Cliff Lee has missed time with an oblique strain. Even Michael Martinez’s broken foot managed to throw a wrench into their plans.

With all of that being said, this is a club ready to put the month of April behind them and focus on the road that lies ahead. Looking at the bigger picture, the month of May could be favorable to the Phillies if the pieces fall into place.

But will they?

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Philadelphia Phillies: Grading All 25 Roster Players After MLB’s First Month

The first month of the Philadelphia Phillies‘ 2012 season is in the books, and it hasn’t been pretty.

All things considered, for a lot of teams, kicking off the season hovering right around the .500 mark isn’t a terrible thing. There’s still a lot of baseball left to play, and a .500 record means, more often than not, that said team is still in the hunt early on.

But this isn’t a team built to play .500 baseball. This is a team with three legitimate aces. This is a team with one of the best closers in the game and a bullpen that has pitched well in front of him.

Sure, the Phillies have their excuses. Any team that has to play with their regular third and fourth hitters on the disabled list is at a disadvantage. People expect the offense to struggle, but this badly? Even without Chase Utley and Ryan Howard, three members of the Phillies’ offense—Hunter Pence, Shane Victorino, and Placido Polanco—were All-Stars last season.

The Phillies have their excuses, but this isn’t a team that makes excuses.

So with a month of baseball in the books, it’s time to grade each player’s performance from the month of April. Which players played well, and who needs to step up his game to help the Phillies turn this thing around?

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Philadelphia Phillies: 25 Greatest Player Nicknames in Franchise History

Baseball is a funny game.

Under the top layer of competition exists a core of strategy, superstition, and of course, nicknames. The Philadelphia Phillies are no stranger to any of those things, but they’re especially familiar with the nicknames part. After all, they’ve been around the block a few times.

Established in 1883, countless players have come and gone for the Phillies, but it seems as though the ones we remember most had some kind of moniker that made them memorable. For example, do we remember Von Hayes for what he did on the field, or the “Five-for-One” nickname that made him popular?

The Phillies certainly have never had a shortage of nicknames covering all types of monikers, from the intimidating to the comical. From a description of one’s physical stature and attributes to their mental state, it seems as though the Phillies have had a nickname to cover all situations.

These are only the top 25, but they are classics.

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Philadelphia Phillies: 25 Prospects off to Hot Starts in 2012

The Philadelphia Phillies have traded off a lot of their top prospects in recent seasons, lowering the value of their farm system, but with the way the MLB club has played at the beginning of the 2012 season, there are more than a few people who wouldn’t mind looking ahead.

Though the Phillies have traded top talents to different organizations in order to land All-Star caliber players, the organization is still rich with plenty of prospects with extremely high ceilings.

We all know how the MLB club has fared early in the season, but what about some of the organization’s best prospects? This slide show will take a look at 25 of the organization’s prospects that are off to great starts in 2012.

*Note: All statistics used in this slide show cover the entire 2012 season and were noted on Monday, April 23rd, 2012.

For news, rumors, analysis and game recaps during spring training, check out Greg’s blog: The Phillies Phactor!

Follow @Greg_Pinto

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Philadelphia Phillies’ Outfielder Hunter Pence Dealing with Shoulder Injury

Anyone feeling a little squeamish about the current state of the Philadelphia Phillies‘ offense may not want to read any further, because another one of the team’s best offensive players is dealing with a nagging injury. 

Hunter Pence is out of the Phillies’ lineup for the first time this season with a sore left shoulder. It was originally believed that Pence, who has played in all 15 of the Phillies’ regular season games this year, was simply getting a day off, but that is not the case.

According to numerous reports, Pence suffered the injury making a diving attempt at a ball during a game against the San Diego Padres, with the outfielder refuting a report by his manager, Charlie Manuel, that he had suffered the injury as early as last week when the Phillies were in San Francisco.

Pence told several reporters, including Ryan Lawrence of the Delaware Daily Times, that he is still unaware of the extent of the injury as he has yet to meet with team doctors, though according to Lawrence, he sounded as though he was optimistic that it was not a major injury.

“I felt it after it happened, but I had adrenaline going,” said Pence. “I want to do more, but they don’t want me to. Hopefully it’s not a big deal, but we have to get it checked out first.”

Pence’s sore left shoulder comes just days after the Phillies placed left-handed starter Cliff Lee on the disabled list with a sore oblique, not because it was a serious injury, but because the Phillies were taking the cautious route, but Pence hopes to avoid joining him on the disabled list.

Though he was mired in an 0-for-15 slump heading into Monday’s game against the Arizona Diamondbacks, Pence remains one of the club’s biggest offensive threats with Ryan Howard and Chase Utley on the disabled list.

In Pence’s absence, John Mayberry Jr., who is hitting just .175 / .175 / .200 on the season, will get the start in right field.

For news, rumors, analysis and game recaps during spring training, check out Greg’s blog: The Phillies Phactor!

Follow @Greg_Pinto

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25 Early-Season Philadelphia Phillies Stats That Tell the Story

If the Philadelphia Phillies have been anything this year, they’ve been predictable.

With Ryan Howard and Chase Utley on the shelf while Roy Halladay and Cliff Lee lead the pitching staff, you expect them to play in a lot of close ballgames and hear the old baseball axiom, “Pitching wins ball games,” at least a million times.

The Phillies have certainly done that. The pitching staff has put things on cruise control while the offense never left spring training. They’ve been hovering around that .500 mark in the standings for that reason.

They have the pitching to keep them close and there is no doubt about that. The real problem is that their offensive firepower is the equivalent of a toddler blowing out the candles on his birthday cake.

There are diehard fans out there willing to keep telling themselves that this club is going to turn a corner. That may be true, but it sure doesn’t look like it’s going to be a big corner. So when pictures and blind statements won’t do the job, we’ll hand the ball off to one of my favorite aspects of the game: statistics.

In this slideshow, I’ll show you why—through numbers—the Phillies have struggled early in the season.

 

*All statistics used in this slideshow were accrued prior to the Phillies game against the San Diego Padres on Sunday, April 22nd. Any adjustments that need to be made will be done accordingly.

For news, rumors, analysis and game recaps during spring training, check out Greg’s blog: The Phillies Phactor!

Follow @Greg_Pinto

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25 Biggest ‘Underdogs’ in Philadelphia Phillies History

Being a professional athlete isn’t easy.

Even those that fans and pundits tend to dub the “worst” of them are playing a professional sport, baseball in this case, for a reason. You have to have a natural talent, an incredible work ethic, and all of the right “tools,” and it often seems as though the greatest of them have the perfect balance of all of those things.

But not all professional athletes make it look easy. There is a certain group of players that tend to lean a little closer to the “incredible work ethic” category and borrow from new one—”luck.” The odds are stacked against them and when they make it to the show, it is the type of guy that forced you to think, “Man, you can’t help but feel happy for him.”

We call those guys the “underdogs.”

They don’t always put up the most eye-popping numbers, and they certainly aren’t the flashiest. These are the types of players that usually get the somewhat off-putting terms—”gritty” and “grinder,” for example.

But what would the sport be without them? The fans love to get behind an underdog and they make a great story. Here are some of the most recognizable “underdogs” in Philadelphia Phillies‘ history.

*Note: All statistics are numbers acquired during the player’s tenure with the Phillies, unless otherwise stated.

For news, rumors, analysis and game recaps during spring training, check out Greg’s blog: The Phillies Phactor!

Follow @Greg_Pinto

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25 Reasons for Concern for the Philadelphia Phillies in 2012

It’s a long season.

The Philadelphia Phillies haven’t kicked the regular season off on the right foot, but with some five and a half months left between now and the postseason, there is still plenty of time for this team to figure things out, and with the level of experience this roster holds, you have to imagine they will.

That doesn’t mean that there aren’t some obvious concerns for this club, because there are. While the big one is obviously the lack of production from the Phillies’ lineup, the team’s concerns run much deeper than that.

Through the first few series of the season, they’ve shown a bad approach, haven’t used the bullpen efficiently, and of course, are dealing with some big injuries.

If the Phillies want to turn things around, here are a couple of areas they’ll need to address.

**This slide show was written prior to the Phillies’ game against the San Francisco Giants on Tuesday, April 17, 2012. Any statistical changes that require an edit will be made accordingly.**

For news, rumors, analysis and game recaps during spring training, check out Greg’s blog: The Phillies Phactor!

Follow @Greg_Pinto

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