A Sad Sunset on Jamie Moyer’s Horizon?

The Philadelphia Phillies, the defending World Champions, are without a doubt a team loaded in talent. From top to bottom, the Phillies have guys who are considered among the best at their position. 

There is Ryan Howard and Raul Ibanez’s power, Shane Victorino and Jimmy Rollins’ speed, Cole Hamels (and now Cliff Lee’s) pitching, and Chase Utley’s all around brilliance. 

But if you ask me what I most look forward to watching when it comes to the current Phillies team, I would have to say watching Jamie Moyer pitch. Sure, he gets rocked from time to time, but what No. 4/5 guy in a rotation doesn’t? 

There is just something about watching Jamie Moyer pitch that brings out the kid in me.  When you watch Moyer throw, you think to yourself, “Hey, if he can do it, I could have too”. 

Of course none of us could, but watching a six foot, 185 pound, 46-year-old makes you think you’d have a chance. 

I can’t think of a guy that has done so much with so little noticeable talent. And when you combine all of that with the fact that he is one of the classiest guys in all of sports, and a hometown hero, he simply blows me away. 

I dare you to go onto the Moyer Foundation’s website, spend a few minutes on it, and then tell me Jamie Moyer isn’t one of your favorite guys in all of sports.

As I watched Jamie Moyer drive by in the World Series victory parade this past October, all I could think was “there is a guy that deserves to be up there.” 

And that is what makes writing this article so hard.

Now I can’t imagine Jamie doesn’t make it through the year in the rotation (barring injury). He will certainly get knocked around a few more times, but even with his high ERA he still leads the team in wins. 

I’m sure its just a coincidence, but the fact that he leads the team in wins with an ERA above 5.5 makes me think the offense trys just a little bit harder when Moyer takes the hill. 

But with Ruben Amaro Jr. announcing that J.A. Happ will remain in the rotation through the season, and with the positive signs about Pedro Martinez pointing toward a spot in the rotation for him, you have to wonder, what happens to Jamie?

It is not out of the question that the Phillies go to a six-man rotation. At least it isn’t according to Amaro Jr. 

I can’t imagine, at this point in a season, a full six-man rotation is an idea that is worth, or even smart, trying. Sure, it will help a guy like Happ who is throwing more innings this season then he ever has before, and it will probably be good for Pedro Martinez who won’t be able to throw a whole lot of innings before he gets hurt again, but it probably hurts just about everyone else. 

Pitchers, like most baseball players, are creators of habit. At this point in the year, guys are used to, expect, and want to pitch every fifth day. If you mess with a pitcher’s routine, you mess with his confidence—and when a pitcher’s confidence goes, they go into long, seemingly inescapable death spins (just ask Brad Lidge). 

Recently, Cole Hamels has shown some definite signs of fatigue, so for sake of argument, let’s just assume that the Phillies brass decides to go to a six-man rotation to give Cole some extra rest. And let’s also assume the Phillies don’t pull a Flushing Meadows Special and forget how to win the last month-and-a-half of the season.

With the Phillies in the playoffs, what happens to Jamie Moyer?

He certainly won’t pitch out of the bullpen. If you want to talk about a guy who has earned the right not even to be asked to pitch out of the pen, its Jamie Moyer. And the Phillies won’t ask. Not just out of respect, but because he probably wouldn’t be all that effective. 

Moyer is the type of pitcher that sets guys up at-bats in advance. He works a lineup from top to bottom the entire game, and while doing everything he can to get the current batter out, he is also thinking a few batters ahead.

It’s like asking a great chess player to come into a game you’ve been playing, asking him to make one move, and then expect good results. That’s just not how it works, and that’s not how Jamie Moyer pitches. 

So, with that out of the picture, you look as his bread and butter—the rotation. I’d imagine the Phillies will start the playoffs with a four-man rotation like they did last year. 

Obviously Hamels and Lee are in there, so you’re left with two spots. Blanton gets in because he eats innings, has been pitching great, and is right handed. So the last spot comes down to Martinez, Happ, and Moyer. Certainly not an easy choice. 

It’s easy to assume Happ is going to continue to put up phenomenal numbers the rest of the year, and if he does, the choice is easy. But odds are he’ll get tired as the innings pick up, and the choice won’t be so clear. If a healthy, rested Martinez pitches great, he could end up making it a one-man race as well.

What seems to make the most sense is the Phillies pitching either Martinez or Happ—depending on the starting match-up—and keeping the innings short using the other man out of the pen as the match-ups change. 

Happ has already proved he can be effective as a starter and a reliever, and Martinez has incentives built into his deal that specifically refer to bullpen work, so it’s not something he is completely opposed to. 

So where does that leave Jamie? Do they give him a roster spot in case of an emergency? I would have to guess that they wouldn’t—especially if the “Brett Myers is way ahead of schedule” rumors are true. 

If they’re going to have a guy like that in the bullpen, it would be Brett before it would be Jamie. So, he’s out of the rotation, and the pen isn’t happening, and that pretty much leaves us out of options. 

All is not lost. Jamie still has another year left on his contract, but its not a lock that he would return—especially if he were to be left off the playoff roster. 

It’s also not a lock that the Phillies will have room for him next year. Hamels, Lee, and Happ are locks for a spot, and I can’t imagine the Phillies will let Blanton go without signing another right-handed pitcher first. 

So that takes up four spots. The final spot is the one that is up in the air. I can’t imagine the Phillies wouldn’t give super-prospect Kyle Drabek a shot after the fuss they made about hanging onto him. And if that is the case, I’m not sure if Moyer is willing to spend a spring competing for a spot on the team. 

Which is why I think all signs point to retirement. As sad as it is to say, I just don’t see Jamie coming back. There has also been all kinds of talk about how great of a pitching coach Jamie would be, as he practically takes on that responsibility to a lot of the young arms now, but Jamie has never said he wanted to coach. 

In fact, he has almost said the opposite. Jamie seems to be looking forward to a long retirement in Seattle, where he and his wife can watch their kids grow up.

No matter how it ends, the legacy of Jamie Moyer won’t be tainted—mostly because Jamie won’t let it. If Moyer is left off the playoff roster, is told he will have to compete for a spot in the rotation next year, and decides to retire instead, he won’t hold a grudge. He’s too classy of a guy. 

He knows how the game works, and he is committed to doing what is best for whatever team he plays for—even if that means he needs to step aside. 

So if next year Kyle Drabek (or anyone for that matter) replaces Jamie Moyer in the Phillies rotation, let’s not just hope we replace a great pitcher with another one, let’s hope that the replacement has half the class as the man he replaces.

The Eric Brunlett Analysis: How Low Can He Possibly Go?

It’s no secret that Charlie Manuel wasn’t always a fan favorite in Philadelphia.  I’ll be the first to admit I thought Charlie was nothing more then an above average hitting coach.  I am also smart enough to admit when I am wrong, which explains the No. 41 Manuel jersey I’ve worn to every Phillies game I have attended since the World Series victory.

When Jimmy Rollins was struggling earlier this year, Charlie stuck with him, and I gave Charlie the benefit of the doubt.  Even though I think Jimmy Rollins will never be the player he was in his MVP year (which is an entirely different story), Jimmy did come out of the horrific slump he was stuck in without having to come out of the lead-off spot for any extended period of time.

So I was willing to give Charlie the benefit of the doubt again when it came to letting Eric Bruntlett have a bench spot on the defending World Champs.  But at some point, I have to say enough is enough.

I will say this, before I make my case for why this bum should never be allowed to take another Major League at-bat, Eric Bruntlett will always have a special place in my heart.  The guy scored the winning run of the World Series, ending years of pain and suffering, and therefore his name will always remain tucked deep down in my memory bank.

But I will also never forget that he didn’t get himself on base.  He was a pinch runner in game five of the World Series (as he was when he scored the winning run of game three).  It also didn’t take a base running guru to score on either of those plays.  But I’m not here to write about Eric Brunlett’s World Series heroics, I want to talk about the things he can’t do right…which is pretty much everything.

When a scout assesses a player, generally they look at five different general baseball skills to determine the amount of tools that particular player has.  So let’s examine the tools of Eric Bruntlett, shall we?

 

Tool 1 :  Hitting for Average

Raise your hand if this one made you laugh.  I know I did.  Eric Bruntlett’s batting average is so despicable, it’s impossible to even get mad anymore, all you can do is laugh.  Eric Bruntlett is hitting an astounding .133 this season.  He’s making Mario Mendoza look like a Hall-of-Famer.

Neck beard’s average is actually lower then Cole Hamels and Chan Ho Park.  While neither Hamels or Park have as many at-bats as Bruntlett, Bruntlett only has 83 himself (as of August 4th).  Its not just this year either, Eric Bruntlett is hitting a pitiful .228 for his career.  He has never had more then 46 hits in a career, and has almost as many strikeouts as hits.

He doesn’t get much better in the playoffs either, where his batting average is a mind blowing .188.  So clearly we are zero for one in the tool category so far, but there has to be some reason he has made it seven years in Major League Baseball.  Let’s go to the next tool.

 

Tool 2:  Hitting for Power

Three homeruns in the past four years pretty much sums up this category.  One of those homeruns did come in the World Series though (the only World Series game the Phillies lost at that).  He is averaging about a homerun for every 76 at-bats he takes.

That means he is due for a homerun any day now (assuming he is still in the Major Leagues in a week).  I could go on and on, coming up with reason after reason to why Eric Bruntlett does not get a check for the hitting for power tool, but I will leave it at 11 homeruns in 767 career at-bats, and let you be the judge from there.

 

Tool 3:  Baserunning Skills and Speed

Like I said before, he did pinch run his way to being the deciding run in the 2009 World Series, so unlike the first two categories, he is not the worst guy on the team here.

That doesn’t make him Rickey Henderson either.  He does have 30 stolen bases, but he’s been caught stealing eight times as well.  He’s above the 75 percent mark in swiping bag success, so we’ll call him average.  For the amount of hits he has, he does have a decent amount of extra base hits (41 of his 142 non-homerun hits were extra bases).

But, like I said, he’s no Rickey Henderson, nor is he even close.  He just has not done enough on the base paths to give him a check for baserunning skills and speed, but he has also done enough to keep me from totally dismissing him here.  So we’ll give him half a point for tool three.

 

Tool 4:  Throwing Ability

This one is hard to gauge simply because we don’t get a chance to see Bruntlett throw the ball a lot.  The only thing I can do is look at his stats, which I understand isn’t always the best judge of ability.  But its all I have so I will use it.

He has only five outfield assists in 100 career games, certainly no Chuck Klein, but in his defense he did not come up as an outfielder.

He spends most of his time at third and short stop, which means his arm has to be half decent.  So once again I am stuck giving him half a check for throwing ability, mainly because the sample size isn’t very large.

Certainly if he could hit, he’d get more playing time, and I would be able to make a better judgement call, but I think we have figured out from the first two tool analysis, that isn’t something we should hold our breath for.

 

Tool 5:  Fielding Ability

Fielding percentage is a statistic that is controversial in the sense that it is hard to use it as the sole measure of a fielder’s ability.  This is because in order to make an error, a fielder has to first do something correct.

For example, if a third baseman charges a bunt, bare-hands the ball, and launches the ball into the right field corner when he had time to settle the ball and make a better throw, it is an error, despite the fact that if he had not made a great play getting the ball in the first place it would have been a hit.  This causes the player’s fielding percentage to drop.

If an outfielder misreads a ball and runs in, only to realize the ball is going over his head, when the ball drops in and the player near touches it, a hit is awarded and the outfielder’s fielding percentage is not effected.

With that being said, it is really all I have to go by in this situation.  That and the memories of balls going through neck beard’s legs when he took over at short for Jimmy Rollins while he was on the DL in 2008.  A solid, but certainly not great fielding percentage is .975.  A slightly below average fielding percentage is in the .970-.965 range.  Bruntlett’s is .963.  Not shockingly, Eric Bruntlett is below average.

He is also a full .10 worse in the infield then he is in the outfield.  A dismal .955 as a second baseman also leads me to believe that it is not a throwing issue that causes the errors, its his inability to field.  So it appears we have found yet another tool that Eric Bruntlett lacks.

 

So all in all we get Eric Bruntlett half a point for running speed and ability, and half a point for throwing ability.  The lesson learned here seems pretty obvious, be average at few things, grow a hideous beard, and you too can score the winning run in the World Series, which then gives you a job for an entire extra year that seemingly everyone agrees you are in no way qualified for.

I plan on doing some more research into the following question, but I also am hoping someone has already done the research for me and can lead me in the right direction.  There has to be right handed infielders going on waivers in the next few weeks.  Any thoughts on who the Phils might pick up?