***The Official Philadelphia Phillies 2012 Thread***

Wobbie

Jearlpam0925 wrote:

imalive wrote:

Jearlpam0925 wrote:

Alive, I'm assuming you hit the parade?

thought about it but no. I live in salt lake. glad I didn't go....talked to some friends who were there....they said it was a clusterfuck of the highest order :? . gonna head over to the giants thread...see if someone, anyone is still interested :roll: .

Cooooome on, man. Your squad wins its first title in their history(that's how I look at it - two separate teams when you play in two separate cities) and you don't make it there? No matter the clusterfuck, I gotta say you have to be there, especially with the supposed heartache this team has caused you in the past. Gotta make it happen. I wouldn't be able to live with myself. Then again I think I could go without cheering Huff pulling a thong out of his pants.

you're right.....I'll go next year. :shifty:

The Fixer

from jim salisbury this weekend. I would do this in a heartbeat...mccutchen is a beast


Just thinking aloud
Read an interesting piece on a Website dedicated to analysis of the Pittsburgh Pirates the other day. The article speculated that the cost-conscious Pirates could face some problems if centerfielder Andrew McCutchen earns Super-2 status and qualifies for salary arbitration after the 2011 season. A fourth year of salary arbitration for McCutchen could cost the Pirates as much as $10 million down the road.

All this got us to thinking that the Phillies might want to consider trying to trade for McCutchen. He'd give them a potentially dynamic offensive player, a right-handed hitter (which they need) who can bat leadoff and play centerfield.

This whole idea is silly, right? McCutchen, who just turned 24, has nearly two full big-league seasons under his belt, he's been productive, and he's not far removed from being one of the most highly touted prospects in the game. There's no way the rebuilding Pirates would give up a budding young star like that. Ah, but what if the Pirates got another promising young talent in return, one who is just 11 months younger than McCutchen, one who is far from his salary arbitration years, and one whose left-handed swing has been compared to Darryl Strawberry's?

Yes, we're talking about Domonic Brown.

Clearly, Brown alone wouldn't be enough to get the Pirates to do the deal, but the addition of another prospect or two might intrigue them.

Like we said, just thinking aloud.

Cliffy6745

The Fixer wrote:

from jim salisbury this weekend. I would do this in a heartbeat...mccutchen is a beast


Just thinking aloud
Read an interesting piece on a Website dedicated to analysis of the Pittsburgh Pirates the other day. The article speculated that the cost-conscious Pirates could face some problems if centerfielder Andrew McCutchen earns Super-2 status and qualifies for salary arbitration after the 2011 season. A fourth year of salary arbitration for McCutchen could cost the Pirates as much as $10 million down the road.

All this got us to thinking that the Phillies might want to consider trying to trade for McCutchen. He'd give them a potentially dynamic offensive player, a right-handed hitter (which they need) who can bat leadoff and play centerfield.

This whole idea is silly, right? McCutchen, who just turned 24, has nearly two full big-league seasons under his belt, he's been productive, and he's not far removed from being one of the most highly touted prospects in the game. There's no way the rebuilding Pirates would give up a budding young star like that. Ah, but what if the Pirates got another promising young talent in return, one who is just 11 months younger than McCutchen, one who is far from his salary arbitration years, and one whose left-handed swing has been compared to Darryl Strawberry's?

Yes, we're talking about Domonic Brown.

Clearly, Brown alone wouldn't be enough to get the Pirates to do the deal, but the addition of another prospect or two might intrigue them.

Like we said, just thinking aloud.

I think Philadelphia would have a collective heart attack. I would do it in a second too.

Johnny Abruzzo

Cliffy6745 wrote:

The Fixer wrote:

from jim salisbury this weekend. I would do this in a heartbeat...mccutchen is a beast


Just thinking aloud
Read an interesting piece on a Website dedicated to analysis of the Pittsburgh Pirates the other day. The article speculated that the cost-conscious Pirates could face some problems if centerfielder Andrew McCutchen earns Super-2 status and qualifies for salary arbitration after the 2011 season. A fourth year of salary arbitration for McCutchen could cost the Pirates as much as $10 million down the road.

All this got us to thinking that the Phillies might want to consider trying to trade for McCutchen. He'd give them a potentially dynamic offensive player, a right-handed hitter (which they need) who can bat leadoff and play centerfield.

This whole idea is silly, right? McCutchen, who just turned 24, has nearly two full big-league seasons under his belt, he's been productive, and he's not far removed from being one of the most highly touted prospects in the game. There's no way the rebuilding Pirates would give up a budding young star like that. Ah, but what if the Pirates got another promising young talent in return, one who is just 11 months younger than McCutchen, one who is far from his salary arbitration years, and one whose left-handed swing has been compared to Darryl Strawberry's?

Yes, we're talking about Domonic Brown.

Clearly, Brown alone wouldn't be enough to get the Pirates to do the deal, but the addition of another prospect or two might intrigue them.

Like we said, just thinking aloud.

I think Philadelphia would have a collective heart attack. I would do it in a second too.

Me 3. That guy is awesome. Phila would get over it once they figured out what they got.

Jearlpam0925

Yeah, I read that a few days ago. There's no way I see Pittsburgh doing that though. Be a lot cooler if they did.

Jearlpam0925

Right guard, Shane Victorino, was voted to the Pro Bowl again. Erm, I mean, Shane wins his third straight gold glove.

The Juggler

pete orr.

Jearlpam0925

Ha-wahn Samuel.

Jearlpam0925

ALSO - apparently the Phils have reached out to Jermaine Dye. I don't understand how he didn't have a job last year after his 2009 season, which was decent. If he can still play, I think he could be the best value for a platoon with Brown.

eeriepadave

Jearlpam0925 wrote:

Ha-wahn Samuel.

not sure how i feel about this move yet :problem:

Johnny Abruzzo

eeriepadave wrote:

Jearlpam0925 wrote:

Ha-wahn Samuel.

not sure how i feel about this move yet :problem:

Perlozzo was just awful at 3B, so Sammy can't be any worse, right?

The Juggler

Johnny Abruzzo wrote:

eeriepadave wrote:

Jearlpam0925 wrote:

Ha-wahn Samuel.

not sure how i feel about this move yet :problem:

Perlozzo was just awful at 3B, so Sammy can't be any worse, right?

i like the move. but i don't think perlozzo was awful. steve smith was awful. perlozzo was pretty bad during the playoffs though.

The Fixer

Jearlpam0925 wrote:

ALSO - apparently the Phils have reached out to Jermaine Dye. I don't understand how he didn't have a job last year after his 2009 season, which was decent. If he can still play, I think he could be the best value for a platoon with Brown.

dye - ugh

I think it's hilarious that samuel is in the phils wall of fame. the history of this franchise is horrid

Jearlpam0925

Everybody thinks anybody were horrible at third base. Part of it is a product of this ballpark. Perlozzo wasn't horrible. He was a ton better than Dancy or Smith. Dancy was the absolute worst.

If the problem we're talking about is first and third base coaches and think they'll be the biggest hump to hurdle to getting to the World Series, then I'm absolutely ecstatic. We'll be fine.

It's funny how we lose Werth, but I guarantee our offensive numbers are better next year than this past season.

The Fixer

I'm just the messenger...full article here - http://www.baseballanalytics.org/baseba ... liath.html

Downfall of a Goliath
Bill Baer | Wednesday, November 10, 2010 at 9:47AM
Ryan Howard has long been viewed as weak to left-handed pitching. In comparison to his production against right-handers, that is largely true. The truth is that he is a slightly above-average hitter against southpaws, ranking in the 69th percentile with a .359 wOBA in 2010.

Still, the New York Yankees neutralized the Phillies in the 2009 World Series by making heavy use of Damaso Marte, causing Howard to strike out in 13 of his 23 at-bats. The Cincinnati Reds followed suit in the '10 NLDS using a quartet of lefties as Howard struck out five times in 11 AB. And, of course, the World Series champion San Francisco Giants allowed Howard to become familiar with lefties Javier Lopez and Jeremy Affeldt, striking him out 12 times in 22 AB.

If you are keeping score at home, that is a grand total of 30 strikeouts in 56 at-bats, a 53.4 percent strikeout rate in his last three playoff series.

Howard is under contract for one more year before his five-year, $125 million extension kicks in. Phillies fans are worrying that the slugger is declining much sooner than anticipated.

2010 was rough for Howard. Aside from missing two weeks with a sprained left ankle, he finished the year with by far his lowest ISO (.229 compared to a .293 career average) and his .367 wOBA was two one-thousandths of a point from being a career low. Following four consecutive years of 45+ HR and 136+ RBI the respective 31 and 108 output is a disappointment.

The surprise, at least in the regular season, was that Howard did not decline against lefties. In fact, he improved! His .358 wOBA against lefties outpaced his career .329 average. By process of elimination, Howard must have declined against right-handers -- and he did, significantly. His career .424 wOBA against right-handers is head-and-shoulders above his .372 output in 2010.

Baseball is a great game because it is impossible to achieve optimal strategy. As your opponent makes adjustments to you, you make adjustments to those adjustments, and so on. Lefties threw Howard a bunch of low-and-away sliders, so the first baseman started to look for those pitches more. He was crushing fastballs from right-handers, so those pitchers threw him more soft stuff.

In 2008, one in every two pitches thrown by a right-hander was something hard -- particularly four-seam fastballs. That figure dropped to 47 percent in '09 and 42 percent in '10.

The following heat map displays the fly ball distance on soft stuff thrown by right-handed pitchers in each of the past three seasons. Two things are apparent on the graph: right-handers have become much more willing to challenge Howard inside, and that Howard became noticeably weaker against pitches on the outer portion of the plate -- perhaps the latter as a function of the former.

Ryan Howard's fly ball distance vs. RH soft pitches
The following heat map shows the fly ball distance on hard stuff thrown by right-handers from 2008-10. Notice that Howard's coverage of the plate -- particularly the inner portion -- seems to have vanished.

Ryan Howard's fly ball distance vs. RH hard pitches
It is particularly the hard stuff that pitchers have been using inside on Howard. This could be an indication that Howard's bat speed slowed; that they doubt his ability to turn around on an inside fastball.

If that is the case, the large extension awarded to Howard by Phillies GM Ruben Amaro may become the franchise's biggest mistake before it even starts.

The Fixer

pete orr, dane sardinha, juan samuel, and now this guy I've never heard of. and possibly jermaine dye. now I see why they had to raise ticket prices :?

The Phillies signed right-handed reliever Eddie Bonine, according to Jon Paul Morosi of FOX Sports (on Twitter). The 29-year-old posted a 4.63 ERA in 68 innings for the Tigers last year with 3.4 K/9 and 2.9 BB/9. The Tigers made a push to bring Bonine back on a minor league deal before the Phillies made a better offer, according to MLB.com's Jason Beck

Jearlpam0925

Since Heyman slurps Boras's brown hole, I'll take this as legit. But what it could mean is another....

"8:48pm: The Phillies are "making [a] big push to keep Werth," tweets Sports Illustrated's Jon Heyman."

http://www.mlbtraderumors.com/2010/11/p ... werth.html

Stove is starting to churn into a slow boil for now, boys...

The Juggler

assuming he's healthy i think/hope he'll bounce back, but it's worth noting...

http://www.philliesnation.com/archives/ ... declining/

Is Chase Utley Really Declining?
Posted by Paul Boye, Thu, November 11, 2010 05:05 PM

Spurred by Bill Baer’s Wednesday post on Baseball Analytics discussing Ryan Howard’s apparent decline, I started thinking about whether Chase Utley may be facing the same fate already.

The harsh reality of an aging core is one no front office or fanbase ever really wants to deal with, but that time has arrived for the Phillies. Assuming Domonic Brown starts the year in right field as Jayson Werth’s replacement, and no other changes are made to the starting eight position players, Brown will be the only starter under 30 on Opening Day 2011. Raul Ibanez will turn 39 in June. Placido Polanco is 35. Jimmy Rollins and Carlos Ruiz will be 32, and joining them will be Utley, following a season in which Chase added “surgically-repaired thumb” to his list of ailments.

Is age necessarily a forebear for poor performance? Not really. One hundred thirty-six players have hit at least 100 homers after turning 32, and a guy with a skill set like Utley’s – compact swing, good discipline – is likely to age pretty well, assuming good health.

What’s got me curious, however, is the notion that Utley is on the decline. Did he have a good postseason? No, I’m not sure anyone will argue that for very long. His defense was a little shaky and he hit just .212/.325/.333 in his 40 playoff plate appearances, but people seem to forget that Utley’s September/early October was much better over a bigger stretch of PAs. Chase hit .306/.420/.491 with five homers and 10 extra-base hits in 131 PAs in the season’s final month-plus.

Let’s take a look at Utley the same way Mr. Baer did in his article, by utilizing the ever-wonderful tools provided by the folks at Baseball Analytics. Hopefully, we’ll be able to see some data that supports either side of the decline argument. To start, the following three graphics are maps of Utley’s SLG against “hard” pitches – basically any pitch around 85 MPH or faster – from 2008, 2009 and 2010.

On the top row, we see 2008 and 2009’s slugging heat maps, with 2010 nestled below. It seems that, while Chase still handles hard pitches down and in, his overall plate coverage seems to have diminished. Pitches on the outer half weren’t driven for nearly as many extra-base hits in 2010.

Let’s put this concretely: in 2008, Utley slugged .768 with a 24.2 percent line drive rate on those hard pitches on the outer half. In 2009, he slugged .855, but with a greatly decreased 16.5 percent line drive rate. What really gets interesting is that, in 2010, Utley’s slugging dropped to “just” .554, but his line drive rate soared to 23.3 percent despite that.

We could simply be dealing with a sample disparity. Through all three seasons, there were no great fluctuations between Utley’s swing rate and contact rate for those hard, outer-half pitches. He did put more of those pitches in play in 2010, but the increase in line drive rate dilutes the argument for weaker contact made, somewhat.

It appears the answer isn’t in Utley’s success against hard pitches, but soft pitches, especially changeups and sliders. In 2008, Utley slugged .511 against the change. In 2009, he had a .404 SLG, and in 2010, that number dropped to .344, far below what’s expected of Chase. A large part of that could be due to a decrease in BABIP with those pitches (.364 to .358 to .250), especially since Utley is, again, still hitting line drives.

As for sliders, it seems Utley’s kryptonite is a slider from…a righty? Chase hit just .188/.325/.406, with a .316 BABIP, against sliders from righties. Compare that to 2009 (.298/.377/.511, .467 BABIP) and we have our biggest drop-off of any pitch’s stats from 2009 to 2010. Again, part of that could be BABIP fueled and could reverse in 2011 with no extra adjustment from Utley, though he did strike out more than 30 percent of the time against sliders in both years. This is the closest I’ve come to evidence supporting some sort of dramatic decline.

Graphically, though, Utley seems to be handling RHP sliders where they’re pitched the most.

The sliders that catch the plate are handled rather easily, and those that miss outside the zone aren’t often put in play (as expected). The sliders that do dive down and in on the black, however, do seem to pose a bit of an issue. The lack of color on the in play map tells us that Utley either takes those pitches or doesn’t make good contact, but only 25 pitches found that red/yellow spot on the inside black, not nearly enough to be truly problematic (Utley saw 154 total sliders from righties in 2010, so only 16 percent of the sliders Utley saw hit that spot).

The conclusion here is unclear. The numbers clash and conflict across the board, and there’s no clear pattern like the one Mr. Baer found with Howard. Hard stuff doesn’t really do the trick, changeup struggles seem BABIP fueled and without any particular major flaw on Utley’s part, and the closest thing we have to a definitive answer (the slider) doesn’t really feel definitive enough to shoulder the full weight of this argument.

I’m wondering if I’m dealing with a red herring. For all we know, these numbers could simply be year-to-year fluctuation based on luck. Unfortunately, the data runs out in 2008, so expanded samples aren’t possible. What are we left with, then? It’s tough to say. Every point of data seems counterbalanced, and there’s no true lean in any direction.

All this really tells me is that Utley may simply be susceptible to the effect of aging, with hip and thumb surgeries certainly not helping the cause. So, perhaps he is declining, but that decline certainly isn’t dramatic or alarming. Every player with decline at some point in their careers, and Chase Utley is no exception, but there doesn’t seem to be any imminent collapse around the corner for Utley, at least as far as these numbers go, and I would expect him to have another Chase-esque year in 2011.

The Fixer

the last paragraph of the utley analysis sums it up for me. not much to worry about. howard on the other hand...

The Juggler

The Fixer wrote:

the last paragraph of the utley analysis sums it up for me. not much to worry about. howard on the other hand...

yeah, everyone gets older. like i said, i think he'll bounce back. but it's definitely worth noting.