Phillies Foul Balls

Whoa.

Jeff Hildebrand — Tue, 17 Jun 2008 01:03:07 +0000

The Phillies have two triples tonight. From Pat Burrell and Ryan Howard. Excuse me while I go check the sky for flying pigs…

Deja vu all over again.

Jeff Hildebrand — Sat, 03 May 2008 03:33:48 +0000

Hmm, let’s see. Early May and the Giants are in town. Game goes to extra innings. Giants take the lead on a homer, only to have the Phils win it on a two-out homer in the bottom of the inning. Where have I seen this before? Granted a homer from Pat Burrell is a little less surprising…

As the DL claims two.

Jeff Hildebrand — Mon, 21 Apr 2008 00:44:33 +0000

The roster revolving door continues. The unsurprising move is Chris Snelling heading to the DL. Snelling’s entire career history is that he’s a good player when he’s healthy, but he’s very rarely healthy. Unfortunate but not unexpected. As a result TJ Bohn gets to sit on the bench and maybe get a couple pinch hitting appearances until Victorino is ready to come off the DL in a week.

The move getting more attention is Rollins finally going onto the DL. Much of the commentary is centered around the fact that after about 10 days of “he’s day-to-day” this is rather a big change. I’ve got a theory about what the real change is though, namely the upcoming schedule. I don’t think it’s too much to say that Rollins is really strongly invested in the rivalry with the Mets. If he had gone on the DL when he was first injured that would have automatically meant that he would miss this series against the Mets. Once it became clear he wasn’t going to be healthy enough to play in the series, he changed his tune and started saying it might make more sense to go on the DL.

Maybe I’m wrong about this, but the timing sure looks suspicious. I can’t say I’m entirely surprised though. I was expected something along this lines for a while, given the Phillies’ history with injury management.

Meanwhile it’s something of a sad reflection on the state of the upper level of the Phillies farm system that they brought up Brad Harmon to replace Rollins. Harmon may be a decent player eventually but there’s no way he’s ready for the big leagues now. I’m guessing he’s up solely because he’s already on the 40-man roster so this move isn’t going to cause them to burn any options. If they had called up Jason Donald they would have had to burn an option when they sent him back down when Rollins is back. Meanwhile the Iron Pigs have no one, which somewhat explains their record.

Friday night.

Jeff Hildebrand — Fri, 18 Apr 2008 02:21:32 +0000

Let’s see. A forecast for a beautiful spring evening. The Mets coming to town for the first time since that amazing 4 game sweep last August. A sellout crowd at CBP. And Cole Hamels against Johan Santana. This should be fun.

Prediction time.

Jeff Hildebrand — Sat, 29 Mar 2008 20:36:48 +0000

I guess it’s time for some predictions for the season. I’ll go one step further than before and include projected won lost records.

NL East

NY Mets	92	70
Phillies	88	74
Atlanta	86	76
Washington	76	86
Florida	67	95

I’m much more confident about the lower portion of the division than I am about the upper. The Mets probably have the best overall talent, but they are astonishingly thin in terms of depth and they have some very old players. If Santana were to run into an injury problem early in the season they could implode pretty quickly. The Phillies are the same team they have been for years. They will score a ton of runs, but it’s not clear that they’ll have enough pitching. As always they’ll probably wind up in the upper 80s in terms of wins which is a ridiculous (and somewhat annoying) form of consistency. I don’t think the Braves have quite enough pitching either, but they definitely can’t be ignored because their farm system has been consistently turning out talent. The Nats are a bland, mediocre team, so they’ll have to rely on the new ballpark to draw fans. The Marlins seem to be on the old Expos path which is not a good sign.

NL Central

Chicago Cubs	93	69
Milwaukee	85	77
Cincinnati	82	80
St. Louis	76	86
Pittsburgh	72	90
Houston	68	94

I’m picking the Cubbies almost by default here, but they should be a pretty good team. Signing Fukodome was an excellent pickup and they’ve probably got a year or two more before age starts to kick in with some players. The Brewers are getting bitten already by the injury bug and I think this is going to be a year of consolidating their gains before being a very dangerous team next year. The Reds are a lot better than people thing, but they’ve got the wrong manager for their players. The Cardinals have massive pitching problems and probably need a top-to-bottom housecleaning. The Pirates are going to tie the Phillies’ unwanted record for most consecutive losing seasons, but they at least show some signs of working on and implementing a plan for improvement. The Astros on the other hand do not. They just look very lost.
NL West

LA Dodgers	91	71
Arizona	87	75
Colorado	84	78
San Diego	81	81
San Francisco	58	104

This is perhaps the most interesting division in the game this year, with four teams I could see winning the division. The Dodgers have been stockpiling young talent for a while and if they let them play the way they should, I like them to come out on top, but it’s going to be a dogfight. The D-Backs won 90 last year but were outscored in doing so. I think they’re not likely to be outscored again, but they won’t be as lucky as they were. They’re still a good young team though. The Rockies has an unbelievable run last year but that looks a little too much like lightning in a bottle for me to believe they’ll make it out of a tough division this year. The Padres are a little too old and injury prone, so I think they’re going to slide out of contention. Then there are the Giants. With apologies to one of my regular commenters, that is one hell of an awful baseball team. I mean really, they got a couple of interesting young pitchers but that’s it. Aaron Rowand is going to come to really regret signing there I think.

AL East

Boston	97	65
Toronto	90	72
NY Yankees	88	74
Tampa Bay	75	87
Baltimore	64	98

Yup, Boston is well on their way to being the new Evil Empire. Lots of talent, a good mix of old and young players, and some depth if things go wrong. I think the old Empire is going to struggle (by their standards) a bit this year and a very good but not great Blue Jays team will sneak past them. Unfortunately it still won’t be enough for the Jays. Tampa is a trendy pick to make some noise, and while they’re definitely better and have lots of potential for future years they aren’t quite there yet. Next year perhaps. Then there are the Orioles who are just floundering; a pretty bad, not very interesting team.

AL Central

Cleveland	95	67
Detroit	94	68
Chicago WS	78	84
Minnesota	76	86
Kansas City	65	97

This looks like it’s going to be one heck of division race. Or would be if it weren’t for the fact that both Detroit and Cleveland should make the postseason regardless of who wins the division. Those are two strong deep teams. Meanwhile the White Sox and Twins have lost too many pieces from their strong years earlier this decade. They won’t be bad teams, but they just don’t have the roster to compete. The Royals on the other hand are what they have been for the past few years, which is just not very good.

AL West

LA Angels	87	75
Seattle	82	80
Oakland	78	84
Texas	75	87

Another choice more or less by default. The Angels have been hurt by injuries but have enough depth to hold out and there really isn’t anyone else to challenge them. The Mariners were competitive last year but they were playing way over the heads and they’re going to come back to earth this year. The A’s are rebuilding this year and could be interesting next year. For this year they’re a middle of the pack team. The Rangers are another one of those teams that doesn’t really seem to have a clear vision of what they’re doing.

Picking pennant winners and the like at this point is a bit foolish, but I’ll go with the Indians and the Cubs for the World Series with the Indians being the ones to end their drought.

Roll on Opening Day!

Phils sign Pedro Feliz.

Jeff Hildebrand — Tue, 29 Jan 2008 01:48:24 +0000

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.

Alternate uniforms.

Jeff Hildebrand — Fri, 30 Nov 2007 03:51:13 +0000

Today I guess I’m stealing a page from Paul Lukas’ work.

A few months ago I was thinking that the Phillies were staying out of the alternate uniform silliness and that was something to be grateful for because most of them are truly dreadful. In addition the Phillies don’t exactly have a great history with alternates. Shortly after that I heard the Phils were in fact going to have essentially an alternate uni for next year and was somewhat dreading what would turn up.

As it turns out, the dread was misplaced. All in all the new duds aren’t that bad. The historical look is a nice touch and the colors blend far better than the ridiculous blue caps in 1994 did. I still prefer the regular home uniforms, I guess after all these years they just don’t look right without the red pinstripes, but these don’t provoke a “What they hell were they thinking?” reaction like a bunch of other alternates do.

Oh come on!

Jeff Hildebrand — Thu, 29 Nov 2007 02:54:27 +0000

Are the Phillies really that desperate that they’re picking up castoffs from the Pirates?!?

Quick followup.

Jeff Hildebrand — Thu, 08 Nov 2007 04:59:02 +0000

The wire service story on the trade seems to answer one of the questions, namely Lidge is going to be the closer and Myers is moving back to the rotation. The trade’s now looking even better. I also have to laugh at Ed Wade once again talking up having picked up a veteran reliever.

Starting the off-season with a bang.

Jeff Hildebrand — Thu, 08 Nov 2007 04:47:31 +0000

This one snuck up on everyone I think. The Phils get Brad Lidge and Eric Bruntlett in exchange for Michael Bourn, Geoff Geary, and Mike Constanzo. (I think Ed Wade is eager to regain some of the players he drafted.)
I love the Lidge pickup; I know he’s been regarded as being down over the past couple of years after the homer to Pujols in the NLCS, but I really think way too much has been made of it. He’s still a strikeout machine and that’s what you want in a reliever, especially in a bandbox like CBP. Bruntlett is a very generic utility infielder, but I guess we know who replaces Abraham Nunez in that role.

They also didn’t give up all that much. Bourn is an excellent defensive player, but I’m really not convinced that he’s ever going to hit enough to be an everyday player. However I wouldn’t be surprised to see him enjoy a solid career as a fourth outfielder/part-time starter. Geary is about to hit arbitration and get expensive, which in turn reduces his value. As a cheap fungible reliever he’s got value, but if his salary starts going up via arbitration, he’s a lot less useful. Constanzo is looking more and more like a bust with his struggles at Reading this year and a dreadful performance in the Arizona Fall League. All told that’s not a huge package to be giving up.

The trade does raise some interesting other questions though. Does Lidge move into the closer role or does he become a setup guy. I’m happy to have him in either role, but of course if he does become the closer, that means Myers is likely headed back to the rotation. This may depend on whether or not the Phillies can land a starter somewhere else. Another issue is what this means for the outfield. If they resign Rowand they’re still in pretty good shape with only a fifth outfielder needed and that’s a spot that could definitely be filled via a non-tendered free agent similar to how they landed Jason Werth last year. However if Rowand walks or if they get stupid and actually trade Burrell, they’re suddenly very thin. I’m comfortable with a starting outfield of Burrell, Victorino, and Werth, but there’s nothing on the horizon for reserves/injury insurance. While Chris Roberson is still on the roster I’m convinced that he’s effectively done with the Phillies and I see no reason to be optimistic about T.J. Bohn. There definitely seems to be some work still to do there.

All told it’s a good first move of the off-season, but there should be move to come. It’ll be interesting to see what happens next.