Philadelphia Phillies: Lack of Offense Affects Everything Else

A mediocre at best week for the Phills, considering the anemic offensive lineup with which they have been playing.

The bats are not just a problem because the Phillies are struggling to slug, it’s actually leading to a few other issues.

In this slideshow, I will discuss:

How the team defense has been weakened because the better hitters are being forced to remain late in games when the defense would benefit from a more adept fielder.

How the lack of offense has made the Phillies feel more acutely the loss of Ryan Howard;

And how the decision-making of manager Charlie Manuel has come into question.

 

 

 

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Philadelphia Phillies: Notes from the First Week

The Phillies finally kicked the season off after what seemed like a never-ending spring training camp in Clearwater. Six games in, they’re three up and three down—could be worse, could have won one or two more.

A few games into the season, here’s my six pack of observations from the season’s opening series.

I empty my notebook and we can discuss some of the keys, trends and whatever else is going on with the Phills.

We’ll do this about once a week, one after every few series.

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Philadelphia Phillies: 10 Burning Questions Heading into Opening Day

Being without Chase Utley and Ryan Howard to start the season, the Phillies have more uncertainty than usual. That being the case, they’ll need to be more creative, but also that they’ll have more moving parts than usual.

With that come questions, and here are ten they will face heading into Opening Day.

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Roy Halladay: Why the Phillies Should Worry About Their Ace’s Pitching Arm

After the news that Chase Utley is doubtful to be ready to go for opening day, the Philadelphia Phillies offense took a major blow.

The lineup, already without its cleanup hitter for maybe the first half of the season, only highlights the potential scarcity of runs they could be able to produce this season. This is immediately following the team’s exit in a 1-0 loss for the elimination game.

On the mound that game, of course, was Roy Halladay, who was spectacular from the second inning through the rest of his time on the bump, for seven more innings. He was his true gritty self, especially when he got Matt Holliday to fly out to deep left field during a bases-loaded jam.

What if it wasn’t the 2011 Roy Halladay in his prime on the mound? What if it were someone else?

The Phillies would have no chance of matching the runs their opponents would score. Although they may not be facing Chris Carpenter every day, they still have struggled against inferior pitchers.

If there is any truth to Roy Halladay having any type of injury, as some national writers tried to speculate after his velocity was down, their marathon of a season gets increasingly more difficult.

With the offense really just down to Hunter Pence, Jimmy Rollins and Shane Victorino as far as reliable production, the team is going to lean on the aces more than ever. Then looking at the aces, Cliff Lee has his moments where he doesn’t have it on the mound, and Cole Hamels has never won more than 15 games, even on teams that have led the league in wins.

Doc anchors the rotation, and without him they are going to have a few issues keeping their offense in the game.

So if there is anything even close to resembling any sort of injury or decline, it is the worst possible injury news a single player on the team could face, even worse than the “Big Piece’s” Achilles injury.

Just stay healthy, guys.

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Phillies Trade News: 10 Reasons Philly Will Regret Trading Wilson Valdez

The Phillies most likely will not miss Wilson Valdez. Freddy Galvis appears poised to play at some point, and they have Michael Martinez in the organization.

The team will not miss Valdez, they will just miss parts of him. Because of that, there will be some regret that he is gone.

Here are 10 things that will cause the Phillies to regret trading the utility infielder.

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Philadelphia Phillies: 6 Dark-Horse Candidates to Be No. 5 Starter

What if there is an injury to the Phillies‘ rotation? What if one of the five (likely in the back end) struggle?

The Phillies will need someone to fill in the slot.

Because of the unlikeliness involved, with Joe Blanton being healthy and Vance Worley looking to follow up great 2011 campaigns, it would take a dark horse candidate to fill in for one of the five.

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Joe Blanton: Just How Overweight Is Contract of Philadelphia Phillies Pitcher?

Last week was Philadelphia’s most recent attempt to unload Joe Blanton and his salary. The Phillies, according to Buster Olney, were looking to trade Blanton to bring Los Angeles Angels outfielder/DH Bobby Abreu back, temporarily. They would then flip Abreu back to the New York Yankees (again), and acquire A.J. Burnett.

What probably prevented that nightmare of a trade, Blanton for Burnett, from actually happening was the money didn’t work out for the Phillies. Good. They would have fallen victim to the Yankees again, but also would not really be gaining any salary relief from Blanton, if they were to pay roughly what the Pittsburgh Pirates are going to pay Burnett (granted over two years).

But why is Blanton’s deal perceived as so terrible that there are often desires, from both the Phillies and their fans, to unload his deal? It’s not as terrible as bandwagon perception would suggest.

Interestingly, the deal Blanton and the Phillies agreed to in January 2010 is one of the most talked-about signings in the franchise’s recent history. It’s not crazy to say it is as discussed as much as Jim Thome’s original deal with the Phillies in 2002, which, of course, was a pretty remarkable signing for a few other reasons.

People are able to recite Blanton’s salary for 2012, $8.5 million, like no other Phillie. It probably would require someone more thought (or time if they forgot and had to go as far as looking it up) to remember Chase Utley’s salary off the top off their head than it would to think of Blanton’s.

The number and the agreement itself have been mentioned so much because they are both discarded as “wastes of money” and add to Big Joe’s alternate nickname of “Heavy B” because of his heavy cost. Should they be regretting the contract though?

First, let’s keep in mind that it really only was a two-year extension. Blanton was up for arbitration in 2010, the first year of the deal, and the Phillies, having tendered him, would have to pay him for that season, even if they settled before a hearing. According to Baseball-Reference, his 2010 salary in the deal was $3 million, but that was because it was part of the extension.

If it was just a one-year deal, there is no chance he makes anything less than $5 million more than that. Pitchers usually receive a $2-5 million raise going into their final year of arbitration. Blanton took a $2.5 million pay cut. And he had a very solid 2009 campaign on top of that.

With that in mind, the real extension, not even counting his 2010 salary that was spread out across his 2011-12 salaries, would be keeping him in his free-agent years, his first chance to be paid and on the open market. He received $10.5 million in 2011, and will make $8.5 million in 2012, again according to Baseball-Reference. That equates to a two-year, $19 million extension.

Then consider that they spread out a majority of his true 2010 salary the other two years, and the extension could really only be worth about $15 million for two years.

Even if we temporarily ignore that part of it and value it at what it is in paper for now, which people ignore quite often, and value it at two years, $19 million, is that so terrible?

According to the market, which in reality is the most important thing, it is not terrible at all. For those same two seasons, 2011 and 2012, Jake Westbrook will be paid slightly less than that at around $17.5 million, at the minimum. He has options and other clauses that could flocculate that. But Westbrook, at the time a career sub-.500 pitcher, is past his prime and at the time of both his and Blanton’s deal was far more of an injury risk.

Furthermore, he got this deal after the St. Louis Cardinals were able to witness the Phillies give Blanton this deal and be injured in 2010.

Pitching for the World Champions in a lineup with Matt Holliday, Lance Berkman and Albert Pujols, Westbrook was able to ride on a 4.66 ERA to squeeze out 12 wins with the help he received. He by far led the league in run support and got almost a run per inning to work with from the offense.

Is Blanton definitively worse than he is, and not worth paying a tick more for his prime years? It’s not a logical argument to make. Even now, with two injury-plagued down seasons, Blanton still has a better career winning percentage and ERA compared to Westbrook. So you figure that with Blanton being healthy and if you gave him nine runs to work with per start, he could win a dozen games easily.

Also remember that the Phillies could not assume that Blanton would be injured the first two years of the deal. He had been extremely durable before then. In addition to pitching in and out of the bullpen for them in the postseason, Blanton consistently made every start and led the American League with 34 starts in 2007.

Then, factor in that the two seasons really included part of his 2010 salary, and they clearly were not well beyond the market. If anything, it was less than that, given the contract Westbrook received.

Taking a different angle and playing along with the anti-Joe team, let’s say the Phillies went along with their wishes and only gave him one post-arbitration year, 2011. Who is pitching every fifth day after Roy Halladay, Cliff Lee, Cole Hamels and Vance Worley in the rotation? Remember, the Phillies are right up against their desired budget to avoid the luxury tax.

Right away, throw out Roy Oswalt, as his desire for $10 million can not be accommodated in this scenario. There isn’t anyone making more than Blanton they can consider for the spot, given the budget limits.

It is tough to find one person making what Blanton is set to make or less, about which you can say he is clearly a better option than Blanton for a healthy 2012.

Going over the list, pretending as if Edwin Jackson wasn’t overpaid and would shave off a few million to come to a winning team would not be a better option. The man whose initial claim to fame was being the pitcher that served up a home run to Blanton in the World Series is a .500 pitcher, with an ERA around 4.5, much higher than Blanton’s. He also has struggled in the National League for his career.

Moving on, Paul Maholm is mediocre at his absolute best, and is no better than Blanton. He followed up a 15-loss season with 14 losses this past year, and has lost 14 or more games three of the past five seasons. He’s not worth giving any significant amount of money. If you’re not for counting wins and losses, which at the end of the day is the most important stat, Maholm’s ERA is higher than Blanton’s anyway.

Then there was Jason Marquis as an option this offseason. Marquis is worse than Jackson and has an ERA nearly a quarter of a run higher than Blanton. Incredibly, Marquis is about a .500 pitcher, despite pitching for 11 playoff teams in his 12-year career. How does that happen?

Additionally, Marquis is awful at Citizens Bank Park. His career ERA there is around nine; would you like to see him make 20 or so starts there?

Jamie Moyer technically is an option, but with people upset about him being signed a year too long, is there any reason to think he is worth bringing back again compared to Blanton, especially coming off Tommy John surgery? He is no better.

Freddy Garcia is the last option even worth considering, and the reality is he will never be brought back here after his 2007 season. He is even more of an injury risk than Blanton is anyway.

No one in the minor leagues is ready for this season, and the team remains committed to Kyle Kendrick in the bullpen as a long man and not starting. It’s not a slam dunk that he is better than Blanton anyway.

So while Blanton may frustrate people at times for being just what he is and we all expect from him—an average starting pitcher just giving his team a chance to win—there is not much logic or merit behind it. If you’ll recall, the Phillies recently paid someone more than what Blanton makes to go 14-18 with an ERA above six.

And they considered trading for a pitcher in A.J. Burnett who has posted ERAs above five the past two seasons. The Phillies and their fans last saw him get torched by a Phillies lineup that included Brian Schneider, Wilson Valdez, Greg Dobbs and Ben Francisco for six runs in less than four innings.

Is he really better and worth more than Big Joe? Is anyone truly better than Blanton at the same price or less than he’s being paid?

As far as fifth starters go, the Phillies are and will be fine with Blanton for this season. The guy actually could be the Opening Day starters for some teams in the league, so he’s good enough to be the least-relied-upon starter in Philadelphia while making his market value.

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Philadelphia Phillies Free Agency: 8 Signs a Cole Hamels Extension Is Coming

The Phillies pitchers, catchers and most of the the position players have reported to Clearwater, Fla. Already have we seen the Phillies re-sign Kyle Kendrick to his second contract of the offseason, could Cole Hamels be next? Hamels enters camp with only one year of club control left with the Phillies.

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Philadelphia Phillies: Why They Will Miss Each Departed Free Agent

Going into the off season the Phillies had a list of some pretty significant players being without contract.

Ruben Amaro Jr. and his team looked at the value of each player, tried assigning dollar values to that, and worked to sign the ones he could and wanted to bring back to Philadelphia.

In doing so, along with making some other moves, he may have prevented himself from signing some of his own free agents.

At the end of the off season, with Spring Training a few days away, it turns out the Phillies lost as many of their own free agents as they signed.

For the two that left for other cities, here is what the Phillies will miss:

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Will Vance Worley Suffer ‘Sophomore Slump’ on Philadelphia Phillies in 2012?

The “sophomore slump” is the jinx or regression about which every achieving rookie has been warned. Regardless of being a hitter or pitcher, there are some merits to commodifying the expected trend. The hitters’ rationale for the expected second-year struggles is obvious; pitchers figure out a book on them.

We’ve seen this happen most recently with Jason Heyward or Gordon Beckham. For Heyward, the two-year veteran’s average slipped nearly 50 points from year one to last season.

For pitchers though, it’s a little more complex because there are some extra components to it. Like opposing pitchers to rookie hitters, opposing hitters can figure out a book on a pitcher and his tendencies; their pitches may not be as surprising.

But unlike hitters, who may be more successful in making the transition to an extended version of the seasons to which they are accustomed, a pitcher in his early 20’s body and arm in particular, may struggle rebounding from a full major league season.

There are examples of pitchers struggling from both components. All-Star pitcher Rick Sutcliffe saw his ERA rise more than two full points from 1979-80 after winning Rookie of the Year. Sutcliffe pitched nearly 250 innings in his rookie year, and that could have contributed to his struggles.

Kerry Wood is an example of a guy who was injured after a rookie season and required Tommy John surgery, which prevented him from even pitching in his true “sophomore season.”

And then there’s Brian Matusz, who is an example of both. Not only was he injured to start the season after making 32 starts as a rookie, but he had an insanely poor season. His ERA nearly tripled and ballooned to 10.69, allowing more than two base runners per inning.

Although it was not necessarily in his sophomore season, many people around the game wonder if Cole Hamels struggled with the extra workload in 2008. He threw nearly 75 more innings that year than any year he had ever thrown before as a professional.

In 2009, he started the season with an arm injury, was slightly off schedule because of that, really never was able to get on a real string of putting games together where he was pitching like his normal self and finished with an ERA about one point higher than usual.

So with that in mind, people around the Phillies and their fans could be wondering what is in store for Vance Worley’s 2012 season.

“The Vanimal” was one of the biggest stories of the Phills’ big 2011 season. Finishing third in the National League Rookie of the Year voting, Worley won 11 games and posted an ERA just above three in the major’s  best rotation.

At no point did he look overmatched. He did, however, initially struggle adjusting to the schedule of a major leaguer. It probably was no aid to him that the Phillies sent him back and forth between Philadelphia and Allentown in the first two months, and Worley admitted to struggles as a result of that.

To figure out what a realistic expectation for Vance Worley is for the 2012 season, we should first figure out the reality behind the “sophomore slump” for a pitcher. Does it really exist anymore?

Aside from a few examples, it, in general, does not exist anymore. This can be concluded by looking at the most recent cases; pitchers that exceeded 100 innings in their rookies years between 2008-10. Following up those seasons in 2009-11, there really is no collective regression.

Twenty-four pitchers exceeded the 100-inning mark, but we can only look at 23 of them because Sean Gallagher did not really have a second, follow-up season. But of the 23 most recent cases, they on average saw their ERA drop more than one-third of a point lower in their second year. This coincided with a slight increase in strikeout rate, as well as a considerable dip in the rate of walks they allowed.

The 2010 rookie class is the only one that did not see improved rates in each of the three categories. Take out Brian Matusz and his ridiculously awful stats, and it actually reverses the direction the numbers went and they became improvements.

Another item to note of the recent rookie pitchers is that seven of the 23 were injured their sophomore season, about a 30 percent rate. Nearly all seven of them, however, were pitchers that saw a considerable increase in innings pitched.

Can we translate these numbers into figuring out Worley’s 2012 season? Probably, especially because we can project his strikeout and walk rates.

A key to Worley’s season was the strikeouts he would accumulate, especially swinging. Because so many of them were swinging, an indication the hitter saw something good enough to swing at with their bat, it is more promising that he can repeat that success than it would be if all of his strikeouts were looking.

Considering that in general, rookie pitchers do not see any decrease in their strikeout rate, Worley’s 2012 season begins to take shape in a positive way.

Having said that, Worley’s rates all were much better than the average rookie stats were. His ERA was more than one point lower, strikeout rate was about a point-and-a-half higher and his walk rate was significantly lower.

Does this make him an outlier to the trend? Maybe, so we should look at someone who had a comparable season to him.

Tommy Hanson is the best candidate for that. Hanson’s numbers all were within 12 decimal points of Worley’s ERA, K/9 and BB/9. They both won 11 games, with Hanson losing one more game. Their inning totals also are very similar, with Worley throwing four more in that category.

Looking at Hanson’s 2010 season, his second in the big leagues, he actually saw a form of regression with his ERA and K/9 going in the wrong way. His walk rate did improve, however. Still, Hanson’s ERA was 3.33 and K/9 were 7.68 which are both still good for each category. He also was able to exceed 200 innings.

Other pitchers with rates similar to Worley’s saw slight increases, but still were not too severe to make them a weak link. Madison Bumgarner’s ERA of 3.00 in 2010 rose to 3.21 this year. Jhoulys Chacin’s K/9 of about nine and Johnny Cueto’s K/9 of 8.17, awfully close to Worley’s, both dipped below seven.  Derek Holland’s BB/9 of about three rose approaching four.

David Price and Clayton Kershaw’s strikeout rate went against the trend and rose significantly, but they are two tremendous, left-handed talents. Those are two traits Worley does not possess.

The numbers and the trend tell us, if anything, that Worley may not have quite the success as last season, but by no means will he be awful.

If anything, he still would be in line to be an above-average starting pitcher. What he does have working for him though, is that he did not have a huge jump in innings pitched last season and made nearly the same amount of starts in 2011 as 2010.

Kyle Kendrick is a parallel people have often tried to create beside Worley as far as projecting his sophomore season, but Kendrick’s 2007 is not really similar to Worley’s 2011.

Kendrick had a huge jump in innings, touching over 200 his rookie season and making 32 total starts. The extra strain may have impacted his right arm, as his fastball velocity dropped the following season and his sinker did not drop vertically nearly as much as the year prior. So that parallel does not even exist.

Mark Fidrych, another guy with an animal-related nickname like Worley, is often the guy people go back to when warning of the sophomore slump. But Fidrych, who suffered injuries for the next few years, threw an astonishing 24 complete games as a rookie. On top of that, he injured himself fooling around in the outfield during spring training, which may have lead to further arm damage.

Like Kendrick’s year, the Fidrych parallel is off as well, and in this case, well off from Worley.  

It is just like how the “sophomore slump,” statistically speaking, does not appear to exist in this era of young pitchers.

So will Vance Worley allow the Phillies to win 14 straight starts of his this season and will Worley start out 11-1 again? Probably not, but he will not tail off too much. And should we be surprised if he remains healthy all season? No, because his innings really did not spike up too much.

An injury to him is one of the last injuries anyone should fear among possible injured Phills anyway, just as there is no evidence to fear for Worley struggling too much with any “sophomore slump.”

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