Phillies Nation

Florida Marlins: (87-75, second place in the N.L. East in 2009)

The Florida Marlins are truly an amazing team. They’ve got a cycle going: start out with a crap team, draft and scout well, make a few shrewd trades, win a World Series, sell everyone off, and repeat. So far, it’s worked about once every five to seven years.

In 2009, the Marlins won 87 games with a combined team salary of roughly $34.5 million, according to Cot’s Contracts. That means they paid about $397,000 per win. It’s about the cost of a house in the suburbs, but it’s far better than the Phillies’ ratio (93 wins, $127.9 million payroll, $1.375 million per win) or the World Champion Yankees (103 wins, $206.8 million payroll, $2.01 million per win). Now, I’m sure that while Marlins fans (if there are any) are proud that their team paid about 1/8 as much per win as the Yankees, they’d much rather overspend for a World Series title.

But there is something to be said for being able to scare the bejeezus out of the Phillies, Mets, and Braves every year with a bunch of homegrown prospects and reclamation projects. Their scouting department does an excellent job and Fredi Gonzalez, while I think he’s a self-important, tyrannical prick, is an excellent manager who now has won more games than any other manager in team history. While I don’t think anyone in his right mind would pick the Marlins to win the division outright, you’d have to be an idiot to underestimate them.

2010 Preview

We know that Hanley Ramirez is probably the best position player in the National League not named Pujols. We know that Dan Uggla and Jorge Cantu will hit some and play terrible defense. Apart from that, the Marlins just have a slew of young players, enough that if Andrew Miller or Cameron Maybin doesn’t work out, they don’t really care.

Look for the Marlins to pitch very well. Josh Johnson might turn out to be the third-best starting pitcher in the division, and is an intimidating presence on the mound at a massive 6-foot-7, 250 pounds. He rode a mid-90s fastball and a hammer slider to a 3.03 FIP and 15 wins last year, good enough results that when MLB ordered the Marlins to go spend some money, they spent it locking up Johnson to a contract extension. He and Hanley Ramirez are the only Marlins signed beyond this year.

Another Marlin pitcher to watch out for is Ricky Nolasco. Think of him as a right-handed Cliff Lee–he was quite good in 2008 but went to the minors in 2009. He straightened out his mechanics and came back up to the majors with his problems fixed. In September and October, he struck out more than 11 batters every 9 innings, a staggering total for a starting pitcher. Look for Nolasco’s 2008-09-10 to be a less-dramatic version of Lee’s 2006-07-08 seasons.

Beyond Johnson and Nolasco, they have the team’s highest-paid player, Nate Robertson, acquired from the Tigers this spring. Of course, the Tigers are paying $9.6 million of his $10 million salary. Beyond him stand a collection of young pitchers, ranging from former No. 6 overall pick Miller (6-foot-7) to Chris Volstad (6-foot-8) to Anibal Sanchez, who’s only 6-foot but threw a no-hitter once. If this season goes south, look for the Marlins to loan their starting rotation to the Heat next year.

If you don’t know the Marlins by now, you will never never never know them–they’re going to be a young, exciting team that finishes a few games over .500 and scares the crap out of the Phillies in September. With the ascendancy of the Braves, the Phillies have a bigger chaser in their rearview mirror, but don’t sleep on the Fish, or your playoff hopes might sleep with them.

Prediction: 86-76

St. Louis Cardinals (91-71, first place in NL Central)

Back when when we were at The Phrontiersman, Paul and I did a playoff projection pool with our friends and families (his Yankee-fan girlfriend predicted the outcome of every single series and won). I got in trouble when my predicted NL champion, the Cardinals, got swept in the first round. Since then, not much has changed. They’ve ditched Joel Pineiro and Mark DeRosa’s medical history, but the core remains.

I don’t know how a team with so few quality players can be any better than the 2009-10 Cardinals. They manage it because they’ve got two of the five best starting pitchers in the National League, two quality outfielders (including one, Colby Rasmus, who’s getting a lot of love for a breakout 2010 on the heels of his 16-homer rookie season), the best defensive catcher in baseball, and that dude Pujols.

Albert Pujols is mind-bendingly good, as I’m sure you know. He just turned 30 in January, and has already hit 366 major league home runs. His WAR of 8.5 last year was as good as Ichiro and Shane Victorino combined. He’s literally two all-stars in one. He’s third all-time in career OPS, up with Babe Ruth and Ted Williams and Barry Bonds. At one point late last summer (I don’t know if this held up until October), he was twice as likely to hit a homer with the bases loaded than he was to swing and miss at a pitch. He’s a truly transcendent player, and I don’t know that we’ll ever see the like of him again.

But after Pujols, there’s a huge drop-off to Matt Holliday, and from him, a huge drop in quality to Brendan Ryan, Rasmus, and Yadier Molina, and after that, who knows?

Essentially, the Cardinals won 90 games last year on the strength of Pujols, their top two starting pitchers, and tremendous good fortune. Ryan Franklin held up as a dominant closer for most of the year. Pineiro developed a bowling ball sinker. Zombie John Smoltz turned into a solid No. 4 starter.

Perhaps most ridiculously, Skip Schumaker acquitted himself quite well after converting to second base from the outfield. While infielders move to the outfield quite often with great success (Mickey Mantle, for instance, was originally a shortstop), the opposite almost never happens. But Schumaker, while he didn’t light the world on fire, continued to hit .300 and walk some while not killing the Cards at the keystone. That’s the kind of break the Cardinals always seem to get, and it’s what put them into a position to mount a serious challenge for the pennant.

2010 Season

The good news for Cardinals fans is that the rest of the NL Central is in such a state that they don’t need all the same breaks to get back into the playoffs. I’m going to contradict my esteemed colleague Pat Gallen here, but the NL Central, apart from St. Louis is like a Dane Cook TV special–just one terrible joke after another.

I can’t name more than four Pittsburgh Pirates without using Google. The Reds don’t have any proven star-quality players and are toiling under the leadership of the only manager in baseball whom I’d describe as an albatross–Dusty Baker. In Houston, Ed Wade is trying to win by reassembling the 2003 Phillies. Lou Piniella’s Flying Circus is just getting older and more dysfunctional. That leaves the Brewers, a team that could steal the division, but needs even more lucky breaks than the Cardinals to do so.

St. Louis would be the third-best team (at best) in four of the other five divisions in baseball, but due to fortunate geographical circumstances, they’re in a division where having two good starters and one monster position player is good enough to win 90 games.

Of course, once they win the division, Wainwright and Carpenter go from pitching 40 percent of the time to 2/3 of the time. I’m not saying that’s enough for me to pick them to win the pennant again, but they scare me.

Prediction: 90-72

The Total WAR Project is a series of posts that analyzes the closest competition facing the Phillies in 2010. The posts use Wins Above Replacement, a metric designed to use offensive and defensive production within a single stat.

So we’ve covered the six NL teams (Braves, the Mets, the Rockies, the Cardinals, the Dodgers, the Brewers), plus the Mariners. I honestly think that these Yankees are the team to be worried about. It goes against the pessimist in me, but short of Chase Utley and Roy Halladay engaging in and acting on a suicide pact over the All-Star break, I can’t see any way this team doesn’t get back to the Fall Classic.

They were the best team in baseball by a huge distance last year, and they got even better this offseason. They go legitimately 4-deep in the rotation, they have the best lineup in baseball, and they’re in the process of rotating older talent out of the lineup and inserting younger talent, but more on that later. In short, the best team in baseball continues to get better. More on this after the jump.

Continue reading Total WAR Project VIII: New York Yankees

The Total WAR Project is a series of posts that analyzes the closest competition facing the Phillies in 2010. The posts use Wins Above Replacement, a metric designed to use offensive and defensive production within a single stat.

In today’s Total WAR Project, we visit the famous story of the jilted ex-boyfriend. You know the feeling when, as Gloria Gaynor famously sang, “you see me with somebody new,” and your heart immediately falls into your colon? Well, it’s not exactly like that, but there will always be a sense of “what-could-have-been” for Phillies fans with Cliff Lee. Yes, the Phils dumped him for a stud, but the grass is always greener, etc. Sort of like when I broke off my torrid romance with Holly Hunter to be with Kate, my Long-Suffering Girlfriend. I’m happy now, but every time I watch Broadcast News, there’s that little twinge of regret. But I digress.

We have identified, studied, and otherwise examined the six teams that are most likely to deny the Phillies the pennant, either by preventing them from winning the division or Wild Card or by knocking them out in the NL playoffs: the Braves, the Mets, the Rockies, the Cardinals, the Dodgers, and the Brewers.

And so we journey to the mystic American League West to take a look at the first of three teams that could give the Fightins the most trouble in the World Series: The Seattle Mariners.

Continue reading The Total WAR Project, Part VII: Seattle Mariners

I’m not that easily shocked, but something happened to me Wednesday night that I think bears repeating here. I was at a bar with a couple friends, when, realizing that the famed “Pitchers and Catchers” was only a couple weeks away, I let out a sigh and said, almost without thinking, “God, I’m ready for baseball season to start again.”

Three tables away, a man overheard my comment, came over my table, and almost without warning launched into a three-minutes of some of the most hateful invective I’ve ever heard about one Cole Hamels. I began offering some counter-arguments (“Cole was distracted with the new wife and baby” and “Cole was unlucky with his high BABIP”), but this man was hearing nothing of it. He didn’t hear me, because he was screaming so loud and not stopping to breathe, and even if he had, I don’t think he would have cared much about the fact that Cole allowed two more hits per 9 innings in 2009 than 2008, despite almost all other peripheral stats remaining the same.

It occurred to me that the Phillies’ ascendancy in 2007 and 2008 was due in large part to three players who, for whatever reason, were all just abject disappointments in 2009. These three–Jimmy Rollins, Hamels, and Brad Lidge, will all be back in prominent roles in 2010. I don’t think it’s fair to blame these three for the failure to repeat (after all, a lot of things went wrong in that World Series), but I do think it would help if the Phillies had a leadoff hitter with an OBP over .300, a No. 2 starter who’s somewhat more consistent than two-hit shutout one night, then 7 earned runs in 4 2/3 innings five days later, and a closer who’s not having literally the worst year ever for a full-season closer.

So from these three stalwart Phillies, what can we expect? Whom can we trust?

Continue reading Whom Can We Trust?

Greetings. You probably don’t know who I am, so let me take a moment to introduce myself. My name is Michael Baumann, and I’m one of the two new bloggers who have decided to sell out and go mainstream. My buddy Paul and I will be providing you with analysis (most of it sabermetric, but don’t tune out just yet), whimsy, projections, speculation, and other odds and ends in the coming months. I hope you enjoy having us almost as much as I hope I don’t screw the pooch on this one. I’m just happy to be here and I hope I can help out the ballclub.

But on to business. It’s now late January, and that means that the Super Bowl is bearing down on us. For some, that means wings, commercials, and debate over which one of Andy Reid or Donovan McNabb (or both) is to blame for the Eagles not being there. Not me. For me, it means prop bets. Now, sports betting isn’t legal in Pennsylvania or New Jersey, and even if it were, I’m not really much of a gambler. I find point spreads and money lines sort of boring, but during Super Bowl Week, you can bet the over/under for the number of the player who scores the first touchdown, or the set list in Bruce Springsteen’s halftime show. I love these wagers.

So it got me thinking, since there is no baseball going on right now, and the Phillies appear to be putting the finishing touches on their team for next year, what prop bets would I offer on the Phillies for 2010 if I were a Las Vegas sportsbook?

Continue reading If I Were a Las Vegas Sportsbook

Free agent open season starts tomorrow and Phillies Nation is hosting its first ever live chat Friday morning at 10 am. Pat Gallen will be at the keyboard providing live updates as teams race to make the first moves. He will also answer questions submitted by readers – visit the homepage starting at 9:45 am to submit questions and be prepared for some intense hot stove discussions.

For those of you interested in how the free agency process works, tomorrow is the day teams must file their Reserve lists for all Major and Minor League levels.

Major league clubs can reserve 40 players, only 25 of whom can be on the active roster between Opening Day and midnight August 31. AAA clubs can reserve 38 and AA clubs can reserve 37, with roster limits of 24 from Opening Day through the 30th day of the season and from August 10 until the end of the season, 23 between these dates. Teams in A, short-season A and Rookie leagues can reserve 35. Class A clubs play with 25-man rosters, while short-season A clubs have 30-man rosters, only 25 of whom are eligible to play in any given game, and Rookie league clubs have 30-man rosters.

Those lists comprise the entire roster of players for a major league franchise. If you are not on any of these lists (and not eligible for the Rule 5 draft), you are a free agent. General Managers like to act fast so they can pick up the cream of the discarded crop at a reasonable price. Expect some hot news in the morning.

When the term “rivarly” comes to mind, the Philadelphia Phillies think of the New York Mets while the Los Angeles Dodgers think of the San Francisco Giants.  The truth is, the Phillies and Dodgers have bad blood between each other, and it goes beyond Tommy Lasorda beating up the Phillie Phanatic.  Their historical meetings in the National League Championship Series are the roots of a Phillies/Dodgers rivalry.

In 1977, the Phillies and Dodgers first met during the League Championship Series.  That year, the Phillies won 101 games, a franchise best.  The Phillies took the first game of the series, 7-5, but the Dodgers answered with three consecutive wins.  Dusty Baker was named the Most Valuable Player, but it was game three that stirred controversy.

The Phillies had a comfortable 5-3 lead headed into 9th inning before a huge turn of events.  Davy Lopes hit a ground ball that deflected off Mike Schmidt. Larry Bowa bare handed the ball in mid-air. In the same motion, he fired to first. Lopes was ruled safe, although the replay clearly showed that Lopes was out. Instead of ending the game, the tying run scored.  Bill Russell’s RBI single scored Lopes. The Dodgers won the game and eventually the series.  October 7, 1977 will forever be known as “Black Friday.”

1978′s NLCS featured a rematch. Once again, the Dodgers won the series, 3-1.  Steve Carlton was unavailable until game three because he pitched the National League East clinching game a few days before the NLCS.  Game three was the only game that the Phillies won.   For the second year in a row, Russell drove in the game winning run.

In 1983, the Dodgers dominated the Phillies in the regular season, winning 11 of 12 against their cross-country rivals.  However, the Phillies won the games that mattered most, winning the NLCS in four games.  Carlton shutout the Dodgers to open the series. The lone run came on Mike Schmidt’s home run.  After losing the second game of the series, the Phillies rebounded and won the final two games. Gary Matthews crushed three home runs during the series, earning the NLCS MVP.

In each of these series, the team that won the NLCS lost the World Series.  That changed in 2008.

In game one, Chase Utley and Pat Burrell’s sixth inning home runs off Derek Lowe led to a victory.  Brett Myers drove in three runs during game two.  In game four, Shane Victorino, still furious about a fastball that almost nailed him in the head, homered in the eighth inning to tie the game at five.  Matt Stairs had no problem sending Jonathan Broxton’s fastball “deep into the night.”  Stairs’ game winning homer gave the Phillies a 7-5 win.  Cole Hamels, the NLCS MVP, shut down the Dodgers en route to a 5-1, clinching victory.

This series will feature many familiar faces.  Former Dodgers Davy Lopes, Chan Ho Park and Jayson Werth are against their former team, much like Larry Bowa, Mariano Duncan, Jim Thome, Vicente Padilla, and Randy Wolf.

As the saying goes, history repeats itself.  Will Matt Stairs be the new Bill Russell?  Will Cliff Lee’s unavailablility until game three prove to be costly like Steve Carlton in 1978?  The umpires have missed several calls throughout the postseason; will there be another missed call as big as “Black Friday?”  These two teams can’t look at the past. They are looking to build their own legacy, and the Phillies hope it’s the same as 2008.  As Jimmy Rollins said: “it’s going to be one of those epic series.”

This double post is brought to you by both Amanda Orr and Pat Gallen

Brad Lidge’s time as a closer must be numbered. After last year, Lidge has been given a free pass, but it’s time to rip it up. With nine blown saves, a 7.33 earned run average, and 1.80 walks and hits per innings pitched, he can’t continue to be the Phillies closer. The Phillies have other options.

When Lidge was on the disabled list earlier this year, Ryan Madson took over as closer.  However, he was also victimized.  Madson has of record of 4-4 and is 4/8 in save opportunities.  He has a 2.95 ERA and 1.18 WHIP.  He strikes out 9.1 batters per nine.  Overall, they are decent numbers, but most of his struggles have come as closer.  While trying to adjust to his new role, perhaps he tried too hard.  Giving him another chance is worth a shot.

Brett Myers went down with a hip injury, but is recovering faster than expected.  There is a chance Myers will be back as a reliever.  He has closing experience, in 2007, when he went  5-5 with a 2.87 ERA.  He saved 21 games in 24 opportunities and opponents batted just .229 against him.  As a closer, he was a whole different animal, striking out 64 in 53.1 innings.

With this being his contract year, Myers would like to make an impact any way he can.  He has experience, and was successful at it.  He loved it, and was upset with the Phillies converted him back to a starter the following year. Myers should not immediately jump into the closers role, but depending on his outings, he could find himself in the ninth inning.

Chan Ho Park, Chad Durbin, and others could close, but they aren’t the best options.  They have been successful in the roles they are currently in, especially Park.  When J.C Romero returns, he would give the Phillies another option, but with the number of base runners he allows via walks, he probably won’t fare well.

Charlie Manuel wants to “stick to his guy,” but how many more blown saves will it take? After being the National Leagues’ best closer in 2008, Lidge has been the worst closer in baseball this season, sporting the most blown saves and highest ERA of any reliever. As long as Lidge is pitching the way he currently is, he can not close. The best option is Madson or Myers, once he returns.

-Amanda Orr

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We Will Miss You, Brad Lidge

This is in no way an obituary for our fair closer Brad Lidge.  It is, in essence, a kind reminder of what was, and what should be.

It’s not every season you can be perfect, but in 2008, Brad Lidge was just that.  To think that 2009 would be similar was justifiable, though not recommended.  Not in the fickle game of baseball.  Only certain closers can be counted on year after year after year.  Mariano Rivera, Trevor Hoffman, and a select few have been able to relish the role in the 9^th inning.  Lidge has not done that.

Last night against Pittsburgh, we witnessed another piece of confidence torn from the fabric of number 54.  Is there any left from here on out?

Let us not forget the special things Lidge brought forth less than a year ago.  The anchor of a stellar bullpen nailed down games with ease, unlike anything Phillies fans had seen since Steve Bedrosian in the 80’s.  And even Bed Rock couldn’t hold a candle to what Lidge put forth.

Lest we forget, it’s a “what have you done for me lately” world we inhabit, and that same slogan holds true in baseball.  Brad Lidge cannot close games now.  At least not every game.  And while Charlie Manuel has gone through the manual on how to approach the subject, I’m afraid the options are limited.

My theory: closer by committee.  There are several able arms that have withstood the pressure in late inning situations.  With Madson throwing 98, Park on point, Eyre a shoo-in against lefties, and possibly a healthy and hungry Myers set to return, there are options here.  Go with the gut feeling.

If Madson matches up well against the hitters in the ninth, go his way.  Two lefties about to come up?  Call on Eyre.  Looking for a change of scenery?  Give Lidge a shot here and there.

Try this for the next month and at the end of September, come to a conclusion for the playoffs.  If a CBC still works, go with it.  If Madson is simply on fire, run with him.  If Myers jumps back in and remembers how to be a closer, then he can be your man.

Cholly is a smart individual; that much is certain.  The mind games he has attempted to play with Lidge have failed, but you cannot blame him for trying. In a similar situation with Jamie Moyer, Manuel and the staff made a tough decision on a guy who helped the Phillies win games.  Now, another decision like that has to be in the works.  It’s time for real change.  The Phillies have some room to maneuver here with such a large lead in the NL East.  So trial and error should not hurt any more than Lidge has.

We will hardly forget Brad Lidge’s magical season of a year ago.  However, that chapter is closed and its time open another.  Make it happen, Cholly.

-Pat Gallen

It’s a question that will never be answered with yes; especially when it pertains to the Phillies and Mets rivalry.  Between two teams that have a genuine dislike for each other, it gives the feel of hockey hatred, not baseball animosity.

As we enjoy back-to-back wins for the Phillies (and hopefully three in a row on Monday afternoon) it pains me to jump back into a sore subject.  Not trying to be the buzz kill.

On Saturday night in Queens, the Phillies got a superb effort out of J.A. Happ once again.  He fought hard through seven innings, giving up eight hits, but only one run, en route to a 4-1 Phils victory.  While Happ fought on the mound, the fighting in the stands came to a head.

Undoubtedly you’ve either seen the live broadcast, the YouTube video, or heard through the grapevine that two parties – one rooting for the Phillies, the other for the Mets – got into fisticuffs in the seats, leading to ejections and the like.  There was beer spilling and haymakers, all in what intends to be a family-friendly environment.

It is yet another black eye for our fan base.  Maybe it wasn’t the Phillies fans fault, perhaps it was the New York group egging them on. But nonetheless, it adds to the already incessant negativity tossed our way.

I’m here to say the machismo has gone far enough. Whatever Mets fans do is their own business.  If they want to brawl in the stands and act like jerks, then so be it.  But lets be better than this, Phillies Nation.  I’m as sick as you are of having to hear that our town is filled with bullies and thugs.  That we care only about drinking and fighting, more so than what goes on within the diamond. That our crime rate reflects on our baseball-loving supporters. That our education system breeds incompetence and unsportsmanlike behavior.

Phillies faithful are often thought of as some of the most passionate and knowledgeable in all of sports.  But they also let their blood spill onto the canvas more than most, and it’s a trend that needs reversing.

As for Saturday, the long, hot day, on top of the alcohol, added to the heated conflict that has been brewing for nearly three seasons. People will fight – it’s nature.  We witnessed this recently in our own backyard as a Phillies fan was killed in the CBP parking lot over a spilled beverage.

However, this shtick is growing tired, and its time for us all to do something about it.  I’m not here to tell people how to live or how to react to a confrontation.  But I can say that I hope we all grow up enough to realize that we are rooting for a team, a band of brothers, and that our own agendas should be set aside for the betterment of those around us.

The black eye continues to grow.  And while some believe they are simply backing their hometown team by fighting for them, in actuality it hurts us as a whole. Unfortunately, it’s the few who believe their masculinity is more important than being a decent person that have pushed this issue to a new level. Let’s use our best judgment from here on out, because the fact is we are the best fans in sports, and we do put forth the most passion and we are the most well informed baseball followers.  But the extra-curricular activities are barbaric and just plain disgusting.

We can at least try to get along.