Can Antonio Bastardo Continue to Shine for the Philadelphia Phillies?

Antonio Bastardo has been pretty popular lately, to say the least.

When I went on to RotoWorld.com this morning, I saw that, over the past seven days, he was the 10th-most highly searched player in baseball.

Since I was on RotoWorld.com, most of these questions probably related to how much value he has for a fantasy team.

That led me to wonder, “Why do people doubt his value so much?”

Why can’t they just look at the raw numbers that he has been producing?

Or, are people looking at his numbers because they are intrigued from him coming out of nowhere?

Most of them are probably there because when he came up last year, he appeared in 25 games, posted an ERA of 4.34, and allowed right-handers to hit .300 against him.

Not quite stellar.

For the sabermetrics believers out there, according to the FanGraphs method of Wins Above Replacement (WAR), he was at 0.3. Anything under zero essentially means that that player is replaceable by any average Major League Baseball player.

He is already at 0.6 this season.

Since it is cumulative, what this is essentially saying is that he has already provided the Phillies with twice as many wins as last season.

Part of this is because he has pitched more innings, but he has also been really hot this year—he has allowed just three earned runs in 30 innings and ha an ERA of 0.90.

This is why so many people doubt Bastardo and feel the need to research him. They wonder if this type production is sustainable or if is this just a flash in the pan.

One important statistic to look at is how he is handling right-handed batters.

There are many more right-handed batters than left handed batters in Major League Baseball, and if a pitcher is going to be successful in either the closer or setup role (as opposed to just being a specialist), he needs to be able to handle right-handed hitting.

This season, right-handers are batting .111 against Bastardo.

Another important stat for relief pitchers is how many runners they strand on base.

Bastardo has stranded an amazing 99.1 percent of runners on base. This is the second-highest among all relievers in baseball behind only Tyler Clippard of the Washington Nationals.

If Bastardo is able to sustain his current level of play, it would simply be amazing—almost impossible.

However, to put this numbers in perspective, last season only two pitchers in all of Major League Baseball stranded over 90 percent of runners.

The same was true in 2009.

Antonio Bastardo is having an amazing year so far.

I don’t think that anybody can criticize his current performance, but it seems as if people are questioning whether or not he can sustain it.

In my book, the raw numbers tell me that Bastardo is indeed having an excellent year, and the Phillies have benefited greatly from his success in what has been an injury-plagued bullpen.

While he might not be able to perfectly sustain every statistic, I predict that he will finish off this great start with continued success.

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Philadelphia Phillies: Why Ben Francisco Will Be Valuable in Postseason Drive

Last night, it took 8.2 innings for the Phillies to finally defeat the Athletics. Ben Francisco provided the chopper that brought home Shane Victorino for the 1-0 victory.

Francisco has been the target of a lot of criticism this season. While some of it has been merited, a lot of it has not been. This article is not written purely in response to that walk-off single last night, but a clutch base hit illustrates the value that Francisco adds to this team.

The argument has been made that he is not necessarily a starting outfielder and is better suited for the traditional fourth outfielder role, but that is not what this is about either.

From looking at his statistics through this season so far, I think that Francisco is going to be a valuable member of the Phillies down the stretch because he knows how to come through in big situations.

1. When he comes in as a pinch-hitter, his average is .364 with an on-base percentage of .462.

2. When there are men on base, he is batting .293 with an on-base percentage of .392.

3. When there are runners in scoring position with two outs, he is hitting .304.

While the argument may be made that these statistics are so situation-specific that they do not indicate very much about how well he is playing this season, that explains my point. He may be having a down year, but that fact alone does not preclude him from being able to perform especially well in certain situations as shown by what he has done so far this season.

If the Phillies trade for a new outfielder to add some power against left-handers, I hope that is not at the expense of Francisco being sent away or demoted. I think that even if he is on the bench, his record of pressure situation success will benefit the Phillies on their postseason drive.

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Philadelphia Phillies: Vance Worley’s Solid Start Also Shows Slight Flaws

Vance Worley seems to be doing pretty well so far.

After five appearances last season as kind of a preview, where he went 1-1 with an ERA of 1.38, he got another opportunity this year with the injury-ridden Phillies pitching staff.

He has had a solid campaign so far, but there are a few areas that could be slightly improved.

First, the solid part. In seven appearances this season, he is 2-1 with a 3.41 ERA. He is also receiving an average of 6.28 runs of support in every start, and he is not wasting this support by allowing a lot of runs. Roy Oswalt would kill for this kind of run support, I’m sure (he is only receiving 3.60 runs of support on average). Worley has 22 strikeouts in 29 innings. These are all solid numbers, and he has more than filled in for the injured Joe Blanton.

However, he is throwing far too many pitches. He is reaching the 100-pitch mark around the sixth inning. He has not made it past the sixth inning in any start this season and has only made it even that far twice out of five games started.

Another slight area of concern is a high hits per nine innings ratio. He is giving up an average of 9.9 hits per nine innings. While he hasn’t been allowing them to score very much, if he could give up a few less hits, that would be better in general, but it would also alleviate the problem of a high pitch count.

These problems are not that major as long as the Phillies continue to provide him with a lot of run support and he is able to continue stranding runners on base. However, this is still kind of a dangerous situation.

Worley is having a solid season so far, but of course he has room for improvement. I am confident that these slightly higher numbers will come down to better levels as the 23-year-old continues to mature, and I think that he will be a solid option for the rest of Blanton’s DL time.

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Roy Halladay’s Tireless Arm Just Keeps Throwing Strikes

By Roy Halladay‘s standards, he was probably not too thrilled with his performance last night as he went seven innings, gave up four runs, all of them earned, and ended up with a no-decision.

However, even on a subpar night, Halladay was able to stay in the game through seven and throw over 100 pitches again. That is what is remarkable about Roy Halladay: his arm seems to just keep throwing darts.

In every game this season, Halladay has thrown over 100 pitches. He has not had an outing under six innings either. In his banner performance on April 24 when he struck out 14 San Diego Padres in 8.2 innings, he threw 130 pitches. He is 34 years old and is active leader in career complete games with 62.

The most important reason that he goes so deep into games was evident last night. Through 100 pitches, he had thrown 73 strikes. For the past three seasons and so far this season, he has led his league in his strikeouts to walk ratio. Currently this season, he has 114 strikeouts to 14 walks. Even though he does throw a lot of pitches, he throws a lot less than the average pitcher would facing the same number of batters because he does not waste pitches.

The 13-year veteran knows how to throw. It really is just that simple. He doesn’t waste pitches, and his 6’6″ frame is more than durable enough to handle the heavy load. It almost seems as if he is a throwback to another era and a world without a full bullpen.

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Pedro Feliz: World Series Hero Fights for a Comeback

As anyone who has visited Philadelphia will realize, Camden, New Jersey is right across the river.

For former Phillies third baseman Pedro Feliz, it must feel like he is a million miles away.

Feliz came to the Phillies before the 2008 season after playing parts of eight seasons with the San Francisco Giants. He came to Philadelphia after hitting over 20 home runs in each of the previous four years and seeming like a more than capable replacement for the under-performing Wes Helms.

Watching Feliz, it was hard to miss his powerful arm and sparkling defense at third base. As a matter of fact, he currently has the 35th highest career fielding percentage by a third baseman in Major League Baseball history according to Baseball Reference.

In his first season with the Phillies, he was coming off a year in which he led National League third baseman in fielding percentage, so it was obvious that the Phillies were not going to have any defensive problems while he was at the hot corner.

At the plate, his 2008 performance did fall a little bit short of his earlier numbers in San Francisco (.249, 14 HR), but he came up big when the Phillies needed him. In the bottom of the seventh in Game Five of the World Series, he drove in Eric Bruntlett with a clutch base hit to put the Phillies ahead for good 4-3 and secure the World Series championship.

He batted .333 throughout the World Series and did not commit a single error as usual.

After another year with the Phillies and a split year between Houston and St. Louis, Feliz failed to make the Kansas City Royals out of spring training in 2011. With his major-league career seemingly on the decline, Feliz joined the Camden Riversharks of the independent Atlantic League of Professional Baseball.

Despite the fact that the independent leagues get a bad reputation as grounds for the desperate to try to return to professional baseball, Feliz is joined on the Riversharks by former major leaguers Toby Hall and Mike Lamb as well as others.

Currently, he is batting .261 through 25 games with a pair of home runs and nine RBIs.

Who knows what the baseball future will be for Feliz? At 36 years old, he is seemingly nearing the end of a solid career, but he has been quoted as saying that he wants to return to the major leagues.

Perhaps he will make it one more time, perhaps he will not, but Phillies fans should remember his big hit that brought a title back to Philadelphia.

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Phillies Hope to Remain Hot While Marlins Welcome Ramirez Back from Injury

The Phillies hope to win their fourth straight as they return home to meet the Florida Marlins tonight.

The Phillies’ Cole Hamels takes the mound opposite Chris Volstad of the Marlins. The Marlins have lost nine out of their last 10 games, and Volstad himself has been saddled with three straight losses. Hamels on the other hand has been phenomenal over his last five starts posting a 4-0 record and a 1.70 ERA for the Phillies who currently have the best record in baseball (40-26).

On the offensive side of the ball, the highlight for tonight will be the highly-anticipated return of shortstop Hanley Ramirez to the Marlins’ lineup.

Although Ramirez had been having an abnormally cold year batting only .210 with only four home runs through the 48 games he played in before his injury, the Marlins will need his big bat in the middle of the lineup to make up their 7.5 game deficit in the division.

To appreciate how substandard this is, consider that he has a career average of .307 and has averaged 26 home runs per 162 games. He has been named to the last three All-Star games and won a batting title in 2009 by batting .342!

Obviously, he is a great hitter and will make a quick impact.

For the Phillies, the key will be the bullpen. Although it has been heavily embattled by injury throughout the season, it seems as if the set-up combination of Michael Stutes and Antonio Bastardo has recently been able to deliver the ball to closer Ryan Madson with solid regularity.

Madson himself has been a pleasant surprise as he had had difficulty closing games in the past when staff injuries had forced him into that role. This year, he already has 15 saves and the rumor mill is already turning about whether or not Brad Lidge will even be able to return to his traditional role.

When the best team in baseball plays the coldest team in the National League, the results will probably favor the Phillies tonight as well as the series.

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