Preservation Key As Camp Nears
Posted by Tim Malcolm, Wed, February 04, 2009 08:44 AM | Comments: 58
Issues, Posts
Health is always at maximum importance during the thawing months of February and March. The Phillies don’t have a laundry list of injured players, but surely, they have some key issues.
Primary is Chase Utley, whose hip might take him out past Opening Day. Frankly, I can’t see him playing in early April, and there’s no reason to rush him. I’d rather have my best player joining in at 100 percent on May 1 instead of maybe 60 percent on April 3 starting some “feeling out” phase. One thing the Phillies have proved is April isn’t as important as August in the marathon of baseball.
Then there’s Pedro Feliz, whose back might keep him out longer than April 1. I’m a little more concerned with this injury, since Feliz fills a very specific niche that no other rostered player does well. (Whereas if Utley is out, you can make do with an average defensive second baseman and the big sluggers picking up his production.) No one plays the hot corner like Feliz, and his knack for clutch knocks might be lost early. Still, it’s not a heavy concern, as he should be back totally by May.
Those are the two main injuries. The more underlying issue that could plague the Phillies is overuse. Cole Hamels was bumped from about 190 innings in 2007 to 270 innings in 2008 (counting postseason). Injury-free Brett Myers saw a huge addition of innings in 2008. The bullpen was relatively healthy in 2008, and Chad Durbin and Ryan Madson saw a lot of time. Offensively, you can never be too careful with Jayson Werth and Shane Victorino.
Of course, these are problems that plague a lot of teams, and you just have to deal with the facts. But preventive measures should be sought early. It’s possible Hamels and Myers will be on shorter leashes in April and May, with Charlie Manuel relying heavily on new addition Chan Ho Park and Scott Eyre to bridge the games to Brad Lidge. And it’s possible we see more Geoff Jenkins and Eric Bruntlett earlier, so Werth and Victorino are preserved for the dog days.
The Utley and Feliz injuries show us that you can only go so far on broken parts. Feliz had to take some time off in 2008. Utley, of course, played the whole slate on a broken hip. He’s superhuman. But not everyone is. In 2009 – and especially starting when camp breaks — the Phillies should be open to any option.
Posts: 0 KM
I agree with your concern about the Feliz injury. With any back injury, symptoms can linger for a long time, so even if Feliz is back by April 1, he may still miss more time later in the season due to the injury.
On a side note, Phils are reportedly interested in Joe Beimel, Will Ohman and Randy Flores. I personally like all 3 guys, but Joe Beimel clearly had the best season last year, posting a 2.02 era.
Posted: 08:33 PM on February 4, 2009
Posts: 0 Kev
As long as Ibanez can catch the routine fly balls to Left Field, what is the big deal? Im with NJ its not like we signed Griffey to roam the outfield, their is no way he can be worse then Burrell. Burrell didnt commit many errors because he never really tried to make a tough play, he would rather let the ball drop in shallow, or whatever, and get the ball in quickly rather then try diving or something which could possibly give him an error. I believe thats the right thing to do, make the necessary play and not hurt your team.
But why does everyone think he is going to be worse? I just dont understand it, if hes been in the league for 10+ years, he can’t be that horrible. He doesnt have to cover a lot of ground towards center cause thats Victorinos area, so as long as he can make the routine plays, who cares, seems like people are just nit picking, trying to find reasons to doubt Amaro. I agree with NJ, if us ordinary people have issues with Ibanez, im sure the Front Office knows this and did some research. You can’t compare that to Eaton, cause thats a one time bust. He sucks.
Posted: 09:54 PM on February 4, 2009
Posts: 0 Youth Baseball Parks Blog » Blog Archive » Fatal Mistake
[...] Malcolm argues that the Phillies should wait on Chase Utley until his hip is healed. His reasoning is poor, however: One thing the Phillies have proved is April isn’t as [...]
Posted: 01:42 AM on February 5, 2009
Posts: 0 NJ
I can understand bringing up Eaton though they must be a different bunch of people working on the reports for pitchers and positional players, it’s not like Amaro’s doing the legwork. Although we certainly haven’t gotten anywhere near our moneys worth from Eaton there were a lot of stupid contracts for pitchers (Shmidt, Marquis, Silva, Lilly, Meche, Pavano) and few worked.
Without having any knowledge of advanced scouting I’d say Ibanez will better than Burrell in a reduced area of LF with Vic and Werth able to cover a lot of ground, no-one really cares to much about Gross’s D in Tampa (unless he isn’t hitting) when they have Crawford and Upton to cover most of the ground.
Apparently things aren’t looking to promising for the Rangers and Sheets because of ‘dollars and cent’s. The closer it gets to camp and edging towards opening day the more appealing Sheets gets, I’m not going to predict him being healthy but he did throw just short of 200 innings last year and that’s a flier I’d take any deal of the week.
Posted: 07:30 AM on February 5, 2009
Posts: 0 NJ
^If anyone’s going to bring up Burrell vs Ibanez on offense, Burrell was not going to sign for near what he signed for in Tampa. He has the ability to carry a team but his streaks can hurt. Ibanez won’t carry the Phils but he won’t need to be carried, I’m very sure the primary reason for him being here is to bring that character element into the clubhouse to teach guys like Ryan Howard how to grin and bear through those weeks their not on fire, we know he plays smart and it’s the same reason Moyer was retained.
It’s the addition by subtraction idea, it’s not about Ibanez and Moyer it’s about them making the real core of this team stretch out their success.
Posted: 07:39 AM on February 5, 2009
Posts: 0 Chuck P
Ibanez is a better fielder than Burrell… Burrell is a DH and everyone kind of knew that it was coming to that. Sure, Burrell wanted to come back here because he would have made more coin as a LF but I didn’t see many NL teams jumping to sign Burrell. Ibanez can play LF. He doesn’t have to play gold glove defense because LF defense is not that important in this park (very little ground to cover) and Victorino/Werth limit the amount of ground that he’ll have to cover anyway.
Posted: 10:15 AM on February 6, 2009
Posts: 0 Cheap Bats
Great quality stuff.
Posted: 03:31 PM on March 25, 2009
Posts: 0 cerner etreby
This blog is great. How did you come up witht he idea
Posted: 12:01 AM on May 22, 2010