Philadelphia Phillies: Despite Optimism, Team Proving It’s No Better Than 2012

Entering 2013, it was well-known in baseball circles that the Philadelphia Phillies were supposed to be the hungriest club. Their injury-plagued, star-crossed 2012 campaign, combined with the knowledge that this would probably be a farewell tour for the aging dynasty of the NL East, was supposed to be a recipe for a great rebounding year.

Superficially, the logic made some sense.

For the first time since 2010, Chase Utley and Ryan Howard would both be in the Opening Day lineup. Roy Halladay and Cliff Lee, both having seasons of anomaly a year ago, would get fresh slates. The eighth-inning woes of the previous season would be solved with the signing of Mike Adams, arguably the best setup man in the game. Throw in a torrid spring training from Domonic Brown, and expectations were sky-high on April 1.

As we sit here on April 18, however, Phillies fans are left sipping a cold glass of reality.

Fifteen games into the 2013 season, the club is 6-9. The offense, which scored 4.22 runs per game in 2012 for their lowest total since 1997, is scoring a pathetic 3.47 runs per game. The pitching staff, whose 3.83 collective ERA in 2012 was supposed to be fixed by good signings and rebound seasons, is pitching to the tune of a 4.90 ERA in 2013, over a full run higher than 2012.

The storylines that made the hearts of Phillies fans happy prior to the season have yet to come to any kind of fruition. Chase Utley is leading the team in home runs and RBI with 3 and 12 respectively, but has struggled to find consistency. His .283 batting average is acceptable, but his high number of ground balls and sudden impatience at the plate are very frustrating.

Ryan Howard has been a non-factor at the plate this season; there’s no other way to put it. The fact that he leads the Phillies in strikeouts with 16 is not overly surprising, but his slash line is. The “Big Piece” is hitting only .241 with a single home run and 5 RBI in 62 plate appearances. His .362 slugging percentage is horrible. Going beyond the stats, Howard looks totally uninterested when the bat is in his hands and seems to be going through the motions.

While Cliff Lee has come out in 2013 ready to put last year’s aberration behind him, he has been replaced with Cole Hamels starting the season off with an aberration of his own, with the newly-signed left-hander starting the season off 0-2 with a 7.56 ERA. Roy Halladay’s problems have seemed to follow him into the new season, as he sits with a 1-2 record and a 7.63 ERA.

Domonic Brown’s great spring seems to have been a complete mirage. Batting just .231 with two home runs and 11 K’s so far, No. 9 looks no different than he did in the first three seasons of his disappointing career. A back injury that he sustained Wednesday night could send him to the disabled list, further cementing his player profile of an injury-prone underachiever.

Mike Adams hasn’t made too many mistakes, but what good is a great setup man when you are always trailing when the eighth inning comes around? The Phillies’ brass arrogantly advertised the Adams-Papelbon duo as the best one-two punch in baseball prior to the season, but the moribundity of the bats coupled with the inability of the rest of the staff to hold a lead going into the eighth inning has led that particular brag to become tantamount to a Miami car salesman bragging about his newest automobile’s terrific heated seats.

Sadly, the most unfortunate part of the lackluster beginning to this season is how predictable this mediocrity should have been. Mr. Amaro, who had been a pretty liberal-spending and gutsy GM in his first few seasons, made the same mistake as Mr. Lurie and Mr. Roseman did across the street. He, along with the rest of the Phillies management, assumed the team would simply take the field on April 1 and be a better team than they were in 2012 simply because they are the Phillies, who won so many division titles and two pennants in recent years past.

The organization decided to ignore the troubling facts going on around them; they chose to believe a middle-relief corps made up of unproven puppies such as Jeremy Horst and Phillippe Aumont and hangers-on of yesteryear such as Chad Durbin and Raul Valdes would suddenly and smoothly become a cohesive and solid group.

They chose to believe that the 40 percent of their starting rotation that owned career ERA’s north of 4 would be a reliable back end that could pitch quality starts, even though neither Kyle Kendrick nor John Lannan ever proved they could do so consistently.

They chose to believe that their outfield, which on Opening Day of 2012 was composed of two All-Stars, would not miss a beat in production going into 2013, even though it was composed of a .235 career hitter who never started an opener, a 24-year-old second-year player who never hit a home run and a 29-year-old who still hasn’t had enough plate appearances in a season to qualify for a batting title.

It doesn’t make any Phillies fan feel any better about the outfield when we cast an eye on our division rivals in the deep south, where we see that Justin Upton, a player for whom Mr. Amaro eschewed trading, is leading the major leagues in home runs with eight.

In closing, I will present a caveat of optimism to this pessimistic article: A 10th of the way through a long MLB season in no way presents the entire story. At this point in the season, simply winning three or four games in a row can give an entirely different feel and look to a ballclub.

But as optimistic predictions turn into real statistics and standings, we are taught a cautionary tale about this game of baseball: numbers on the backs of jerseys and numbers in those players’ pasts don’t determine success. What does is producing at the plate and on the mound, which the 2013 Philadelphia Phillies better start doing, and fast.

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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?

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Philadelphia Phillies: Mediocre Season Leaves Unanswered Questions

Well, Phillies fans, it is finally over.

This disappointing season full of underachievement, heartbreaking losses and what-ifs came to an end earlier today, when Michael Martinez’ fly ball landed in the glove of Nationals‘ left fielder Corey Brown.

The five-time defending National League East champion Phillies ended with an average 81-81 record. They took a 21-game tumble from their remarkable 102-win season last year. There is not one big reason for this, but there are plenty of small ones.

Nobody expected Roy Halladay, a baseball god in the last two seasons, to put up a 4.49 ERA. Cliff Lee‘s numbers normalized, as he ended the season with a respectable ERA of 3.16, but the guy just didn’t pitch like himself in the first three months of the season, run support or not.

The Phillies’ offense as a whole scored 684 runs, for an average of 4.22 runs per game. This was by far the lowest total of any of Charlie Manuel’s Phillies teams, and the lowest offensive output for a Phillies team since 1997. This isn’t surprising when you consider that their leadoff hitter led the team in home runs and RBI.

We can officially start pondering the question that will haunt us all winter: Is the Phillies era of excellence over or was this season an aberration of bad luck with players having bad seasons at the same time?

I will attempt to construct an argument for both possibilities. First, I will take the negative side.

It is not impossible that the Phillies have reached the point of regression. Let’s face it, the Phillies are an old team. The reason for this? The Phillies were buyers from 2009 to 2011, and they chose to try to win at the moment rather than look to the future.

The acquisitions of Cliff Lee, Roy Halladay, Roy Oswalt and Hunter Pence sacrificed pieces that would now be useful to build a younger team.

The good news? All of these moves gave the Phillies a better chance to win the World Series, and they definitely made the team more exciting to watch for a couple years. The bad news? The Phillies never did win the World Series after their youthful 2008 season, and those moves are coming home to roost now.

Roy Halladay may never be the same. Roy Oswalt is buried in the ashes of his career and will be retired next year. Hunter Pence is playing on the other side of the country now. In an ironic twist, Oswalt and Pence both have a chance to win the World Series this year, but neither with the team that acquired them for that very purpose.

As it stands right now, the Phillies are possibly a rebuilding team without a farm system, an extremely unenviable position for a baseball franchise, and, often times, a recipe for years of malaise and irrelevance.

Now that all of you are flatly depressed, let’s take a look at the more optimistic possibility.

It is certainly a possibility that there were just too many things that went wrong for the Phillies in 2012 for this to be a sign of things to come.

As I mentioned earlier, Roy Halladay had about as un-Halladay of a season as possible. While he may never be at his Cy Young-level of 2010 again, it is nearly impossible to imagine the hardest-working man in baseball having two terrible seasons in a row.

While Vance Worley may have overachieved in 2011, I don’t think his mediocre 2012 season was his true form, especially knowing about the bone chips. Ruben Amaro learned a painful lesson this year and he certainly will not go into 2013 with a bullpen composed of minor leaguers.

Chase Utley and Ryan Howard will not both miss the first half of the season again. Yes, they are both more injury-prone now than they were in the past, but the odds of both of them missing so much time at once are astronomical.

Having Ryan play 150 games and Chase play 140 will give this offense a different identity, and having a 30-35 HR presence in the lineup is something the Phils sorely missed for all of 2012.

So what is my opinion?

While I agree with parts of both arguments, I am more inclined to fall on the side of this season being somewhat of a fluke.

Remember, while it did not feel like it for most of the season, the Phillies didn’t finish that far off this season. They were still an 81-win team. St. Louis clinched a playoff berth with 87 wins.

With all the crazy idiosyncrasies of this odd season, winning six more games this year wouldn’t have taken too much of a drastic difference.

Do I think the Phillies are going to reach the 102-win dominance of 2011 next year? No. They are not that team anymore.

Do I think that with a couple big signings at third base and the outfield, a few smart moves in the bullpen and expectedly better luck next year could net the Phils between 88 and 90 wins? I don’t think think it’s unreasonable.

The 2012 season is mercifully over. The 2013 offseason has begun, at least for the Phillies and their fans. The organization will now begin to look for answers, because there is no certainly no shortage of questions.

Goodnight, Phillies.

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Jonathan Papelbon: How He Nailed the Coffin Shut for 2012 Phils

Nothing has gone right for the Phillies in 2012.

Besides the seasons from Carlos Ruiz and Cole Hamels, there really isn’t anything great that you can say about the 2012 Phillies. Chase Utley and Ryan Howard missed entirely too much time, and the team was a shell by the time they came back. Roy Halladay, Cliff Lee, Vance Worley and Antonio Bastardo all vastly underperformed this season. Shane Victorino and Hunter Pence didn’t even survive the trade deadline.

Having said all this, there is one player on the roster who may bear the most responsibility for the Phillies’ irrelevance this season. His name? Jonathan Papelbon.

Cinco Ocho himself.

Yes, the richest reliever in baseball history made the difference this season.

After signing a  four-year, $50 million contract this past winter, Papelbon is 3-6 with a 3.02 ERA in his first season as a Phillie. He is also 30-for-34 in save opportunities, with three of those blown saves resulting in Phillies losses.

Had he converted those three opportunities, as he certainly gets paid handsomely to do, the Phillies would be sitting at 68-67 and five games out of the wild card.

But let’s take it a step further.

On four other occasions, Pap was brought into a tie game and allowed the other team to score, resulting in Phillies losses. Had he held onto the tie and the Phillies had come back to win half those games, the Phillies would be 70-65 and only three games out of the wild card.

Another 102-win season was not in the cards. Again, the Phillies had problems this year, were decimated by injuries and had a run of bad luck. It hurts, but it’s acceptable.

But a $50 million relief pitcher being the reason you’re out of the hunt? That is unacceptable.

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Philadelphia Phillies: 10 Bold Predictions for the Rest of the Team’s Season

Well, we are nine games through the season for which we all waited for so long.  As we stand right now, the Phillies are 7-2 and in first place in the National League East.  Having said that, after all the buzz that soaked Philadelphia since that cold winter night they re-acquired Cliff Lee, their record and standing is of little surprise.  They became the odds-on favorite to win the 2011 World Series that night and, even with injuries to Chase Utley, Brad Lidge, and Dom Brown, are still most people’s pick to be triumphant in the Fall Classic. 

It is for this reason that none of my ten predictions will concern overall wins and losses in the standings.  In contrast, my list will address some twists and turns I can see happening throughout the season (Don’t worry, though…I will put my guesses for the playoffs and World Series in my epilogue for the final slide). 

Some of these are wilder than others, but anybody who has been around this wonderful game long enough knows that the only guarantee is that there are none.  So sit back and enjoy the ride.  It should be a good one.

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