Phils sign Pedro Feliz.
According to the reports that are floating around, the Phillies are about to sign Pedro Feliz to a two year contract. It’s tempting to leave the analysis at pointing out the fact that Baseball Prospectus’ list of comparable players to Feliz has late career Charlie Hayes right at the top. Really, it’s hard to top that for pithy indictments.
However perhaps some detail. The plus side to all of this is that the pitching staff should be happy. Feliz is unquestionably a good defender slightly better than Abraham Nunez was and worlds better than Wes Helms and Greg Dobbs have been. Right now the Phillies have an outstanding defensive infield or at least three-quarters of an infield. (Subway commercial aside, Howard’s defense is, uh, not good.) In fact the only weak defensive spots are going to be left and first so they are in good shape there.
Offensively, well, yeah, there’s the rub. While I’m usually a huge proponent of on-base percentage, I will admit that in certain circumstances a low OBP, high slugging guy can be useful in a lineup, in particular if he’s hitting behind a bunch of high OBP guys. My usual example is that in 1993 Pete Incaviglia was a useful player because he was behind Kruk, Hollins, and Daulton who were always on base. When he came back in 1996, he was a waste of a spot because they didn’t have those guys getting on base. Feliz might actually be closer to the first case here. If he’s hitting behind Utley, Howard, Burrell, and Werth that’s a lot of OBP ahead of him, so if he can pop 20 to 25 homers, he’s going to knock in a lot of runs.
That being said, my thinking for a useful low OBP high power guy is someone with an OBP around .310 to .320, not someone in the .280 to .290 range like Feliz is. That’s just really awful. Even Nunez managed higher than that last year. That being said, neither Helms nor Nunez came close to the power Feliz showed, so the only one of the three they had at third who I’d say definitely hit better than Feliz was Dobbs, and I can’t shake the feeling that last year was a career year for him.
Putting all that together, I’m not really sure this is going to hurt the Phillies all that much, if at all. Feliz is not a good overall player, but they were so unbelievably weak at the position last year, there’s really nowhere to go but up. If Feliz keeps up the defense and the power, the overall production from third might go up a little bit. Just not very much.
January 28th, 2008 at 10:08 pm
My feeling has been that a team with terrific offense should be able to carry one or perhaps two slick-fielding infielders who can’t hit a lick, even in high-offense eras. I can’t support that with numbers, of course, but it seems to me that there ought to be some sort of diminishing marginal utility involved. So Happy Pete may well be … not valuable exactly, but, um, a good fielder.
That said, those of my Giant fan associates who watched the games every day in real time loathed Happy Pete, because he made so many damn’ outs, and really, they just couldn’t take it anymore. They don’t care. If he really does save thirty-’leven runs an inning on defense, fine, let him do it somewhere else, because he always always always always always always makes an out, and it drives them crazy. When he finally does sign with the AnybodyElses, the joy over at McCovey Chronicles will be intense (and profane, and likely illustrated).
Thanks,
-V.
January 28th, 2008 at 10:24 pm
Actually, I just went over and read the thread, and most of the gang seemed to think that it was a pretty good signing on the Phils’ part, not too much money, only two years, etc, and potentially lots of RBIs for Pedro with lots of men on base. Nobody is sorry to see him go, mind you, but nobody is laughing at the GM, either. Well, not at your GM.
Thanks,
-V.
January 28th, 2008 at 10:54 pm
I agree, Jeff. Feliz isn’t a complete player, by a long shot; but he’s an improvement on Helms/Dobbs, and he’s not unreasonably expensive, according to preliminary reports. (It’s a small enough contract that he’ll be tradable, if for some reason it doesn’t work out in 2008.) How much of an improvement he represents depends on how highly you value his defensive contributions…and that’s an area where state-of-the-art analysts aren’t in agreement.
Given the available options (Ensberg; Crede possibly, via trade; not much else), this seems like a reasonable move; it’s in the right direction, albeit not a huge improvement, and it doesn’t create long-term payroll problems.
January 29th, 2008 at 12:09 am
Ha! Hadn’t heard the nickname of Happy Pete before, but that’s a good one. While I’m sure I’ll be sick of the hacking before too long, at least intellectually at this point I’m ok with the move.
January 29th, 2008 at 7:12 am
I’m not enamored of the move, but it’s not terrible either. I’m just a little concerned because his numbers from last season are almost exactly the same as David Bell’s the season before he came to Philly.