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

Johnny Abruzzo wrote:

The Fixer wrote:

2 things...the phils have better young pitchers than worley. I think he is expendible. Sell high baby. johnny, like you've been saying, spend on the rotation and keep the cheap kids in the pen.

You already are gonna have 3 starters making about $65M! Gotta have one or 2 cheap ones. Stuff is great but there's something to be said for proving you can do it in the show.

81 wrote:

http://sports.yahoo.com/mlb/blog/big_le ... lb-wp13209

Ryan Howard(notes), Philadelphia Phillies

Data: .246/.342/.453, 18 HR, 73 RBIs, 1 SB, 0 CS, 49 BB/104 K

Malfunction: Ryan Howard is leading the National League in RBIs, and he's on his way to another 30-homer season. Still, if you look a little deeper, the 31-year-old is having a disappointing campaign and a terrible July, with just a .548 OPS in 14 games this month. That's a small sample size, but Howard's decline has been nearly linear: Beginning in 2006, his MVP campaign, his yearly OPS has been the following: 1.084, .976, .881, .931, .859, .795. This would all be worrisome in itself, but his contract makes it positively frightening. Starting next year, the Phillies owe him $125 million through 2016. Is Ryan Howard's bat turning from elite to ordinary?

Diagnosis: Ryan Howard has been one of the ultimate touchstones for the debate about just how useful RBIs are in measuring a hitter's value. The sabermetric answer, of course, is "not very." RBI totals have much more to do with a hitter's teammates — the ones who got on base in order to be driven in — than with the one driving them in.

As Joe Posnanski wrote a week ago:

Howard leads all of baseball with 296 runners on base. He had an amazing 60 game-stretch recently when he hit .223 … and he still drove in 47 runs in those 60 games.

But a low batting average is the least of it. Bill Baer at Crashburn Alley lays out the statistics of the matter: Ryan Howard is in the process of posting career lows in Isolated Power, Weighted On-Base Average, and hitting against left-handed pitchers.

The drop in Isolated Power — a measure of a hitter's ability to hit for extra bases, calculated by subtracting batting average from slugging percentage — has been particularly precipitous, declining from a spectacular .346 in 2006 to a more ordinary .207 in 2011, lower than his teammate Shane Victorino(notes). Moreover, the collapse in his platoon splits suggests that Howard, who only has a .637 OPS against southpaws this year, may need to be removed from his everyday role when a left-hander is on the mound. Weighted On-Base Average is an overall measure of offensive performance, sort of like a more advanced version of OPS — another measure in which he's posting a career low.

The drop in his Isolated Power is particularly salient for a power hitter like Howard: It's 40 percent lower this year than it was when he won his MVP. But his walk rate this year has declined by nearly a quarter, from 15.3 percent in 2006 to 11.7 percent this year. (He has also cut his strikeouts, but not by quite as much.) If that weren't enough, Fangraphs has Howard as a below-average baserunner and below-average fielder.

That said, Howard is a notorious second-half hitter. For his career, he has an .867 OPS in the first half and a 1.007 OPS in the second half. So it's very possible that he'll catch fire for the rest of the summer and post the kind of numbers we got used to seeing from him before his injury-shortened 2010. However, I noted Howard's traditional second-half bounce in Slumpbot last June, and Howard proceeded to produce an .858 OPS in the second half after posting an .859 OPS in the first half. So it's quite likely that Howard's problems — especially his declining power and walks — are caused by something other than the calendar.

Reboot Directions: Ryan Howard is still a pretty good hitter, particularly in a year in which offense is down across the league. But he isn't very good, and his power has been on a linear decline for six years. Even if his Batting Average on Balls in Play climbs up 34 points to reach his career average, that overall decline is almost sure to continue.

Phantom Pain wrote:

The Fixer wrote:

81 wrote:

http://sports.yahoo.com/mlb/blog/big_le ... lb-wp13209

Ryan Howard(notes), Philadelphia Phillies

Data: .246/.342/.453, 18 HR, 73 RBIs, 1 SB, 0 CS, 49 BB/104 K

Malfunction: Ryan Howard is leading the National League in RBIs, and he's on his way to another 30-homer season. Still, if you look a little deeper, the 31-year-old is having a disappointing campaign and a terrible July, with just a .548 OPS in 14 games this month. That's a small sample size, but Howard's decline has been nearly linear: Beginning in 2006, his MVP campaign, his yearly OPS has been the following: 1.084, .976, .881, .931, .859, .795. This would all be worrisome in itself, but his contract makes it positively frightening. Starting next year, the Phillies owe him $125 million through 2016. Is Ryan Howard's bat turning from elite to ordinary?

Diagnosis: Ryan Howard has been one of the ultimate touchstones for the debate about just how useful RBIs are in measuring a hitter's value. The sabermetric answer, of course, is "not very." RBI totals have much more to do with a hitter's teammates — the ones who got on base in order to be driven in — than with the one driving them in.

As Joe Posnanski wrote a week ago:

Howard leads all of baseball with 296 runners on base. He had an amazing 60 game-stretch recently when he hit .223 … and he still drove in 47 runs in those 60 games.

But a low batting average is the least of it. Bill Baer at Crashburn Alley lays out the statistics of the matter: Ryan Howard is in the process of posting career lows in Isolated Power, Weighted On-Base Average, and hitting against left-handed pitchers.

The drop in Isolated Power — a measure of a hitter's ability to hit for extra bases, calculated by subtracting batting average from slugging percentage — has been particularly precipitous, declining from a spectacular .346 in 2006 to a more ordinary .207 in 2011, lower than his teammate Shane Victorino(notes). Moreover, the collapse in his platoon splits suggests that Howard, who only has a .637 OPS against southpaws this year, may need to be removed from his everyday role when a left-hander is on the mound. Weighted On-Base Average is an overall measure of offensive performance, sort of like a more advanced version of OPS — another measure in which he's posting a career low.

The drop in his Isolated Power is particularly salient for a power hitter like Howard: It's 40 percent lower this year than it was when he won his MVP. But his walk rate this year has declined by nearly a quarter, from 15.3 percent in 2006 to 11.7 percent this year. (He has also cut his strikeouts, but not by quite as much.) If that weren't enough, Fangraphs has Howard as a below-average baserunner and below-average fielder.

That said, Howard is a notorious second-half hitter. For his career, he has an .867 OPS in the first half and a 1.007 OPS in the second half. So it's very possible that he'll catch fire for the rest of the summer and post the kind of numbers we got used to seeing from him before his injury-shortened 2010. However, I noted Howard's traditional second-half bounce in Slumpbot last June, and Howard proceeded to produce an .858 OPS in the second half after posting an .859 OPS in the first half. So it's quite likely that Howard's problems — especially his declining power and walks — are caused by something other than the calendar.

Reboot Directions: Ryan Howard is still a pretty good hitter, particularly in a year in which offense is down across the league. But he isn't very good, and his power has been on a linear decline for six years. Even if his Batting Average on Balls in Play climbs up 34 points to reach his career average, that overall decline is almost sure to continue.

I swear I didn't write this article.

2 extra base hits in july :roll:

You didn't write the article but I think you commented below it...

Great article. I'm a huge Phillies fan and I've been raving to my friends about how Ryan Howard is bad for years now. The worst part is his ridiculous contract. He's not even a top 10 first baseman, but he's one of the highest paid players in the league. Absolutely ridiculous.

jamminpearls wrote:

What would u give the Muts for Beltran?

jamminpearls wrote:

What would u give the Muts for Beltran?

jamminpearls wrote:

PureandEasy wrote:

jamminpearls wrote:

What would u give the Muts for Beltran?

That's a good question, I don't know, I'd have to think about that one

I wouldn't give them much,maybe Singelton. I'm not giving them Worley or Brown. Worley might be pitching over his head but he'd be a nice #4 at a cheap price for yrs. Especially if we have to pay Hamels 20+ still. Brown i'd only move for Pence. I'm not giving a div rival a young stud for 2 months of help.