An Ominous Cloud Approaches

Sunday, April 28 was a good day. Carlos Ruiz, fresh off his adderall suspension, had just come off a decent season debut, going 1-for-4 with a double. While his double didn't factor much into the outcome of the game, the Phillies celebrated his return with a 5-1 victory over the Mets.

Chooch has been one of the most beloved Phillies on a team whose string of 5 consecutive division titles was unmatched in Phillies' history. Unfortunately, that streak ended last year, but Carlos, at 34, has only gotten better with age. One wonders if the outcome of Sunday afternoon's game would have been the same without him.

Cole Hamels was exceptionally wild in his first win of the season, walking six batters in six innings after walking just over two per nine innings last season. Yet Hamels allowed just one run in those six innings against a team with the third-highest wRC+ in the NL thus far in 2013.

I don't mean to imply that Ruiz is the reason Hamels was able to keep the Mets in check, but that it probably was a factor in his success. After all, there have been rumblings and grumblings from pitchers about the ability of Ruiz's primary replacement, Erik Kratz, to call a game. While he has graded out pretty positively in terms of pitch framing, he has thrown out just 33% of base-stealers, and in terms of game calling, he just can't hold a candle to Chooch.

So the Phillies were riding high going into their off day followed by a short series with the Cleveland Indians, when out of a nowhere, a wild Delmon appeared! Practically crushing all the good feelings created by the much-heralded return of the Phillies star catcher, Delmon Young will make his the-opposite-of-heralded debut in the Phillies lineup tonight.

If you want to know about Delmon, the person, I'd read this post from Crashburn Alley's Eric Longenhagen. I'm pretty sure that's the second time I've mentioned that in a post, but it's really good, so check it out.

Delmon Young couples his fantastic set of tools with an atrocious approach and an inability to adjust to opposite pitchers. He couples his immense raw power with little patience and a physique befitting a retired plumber. And when it comes to fielding, if you thought Dom Brown was bad, you're in for a treat. With his serious makeup concerns. He has been worth negative WAR over 7 seasons with the Devil Rays, Twins, and Tigers.

It is going to pain me to see Young on the Phillies, especially if he starts taking PAs away from fellow former uber-prospect, Domonic Brown, who is finally getting his shot at regular playing time. But with Brown struggling through 93 PAs and fellow corner outfielder John Mayberry hitting well (for the time being), that is looking increasingly likely.

That is to say, I hated the Delmon Young signing. That is not to say that I hope he plays badly. I want the Phillies to win, and if Delmon Young is part of the God of Baseball's Divine Plan, then I guess I'll cheer for him. But I should say, I won't cheer as hard as for Rollins or Utley or Brown, or especially Chooch.

Small Sample Size In Action

Oftentimes when people cite early season statistics, they offer a disclaimer about those statistics being unreliable based on the noise within a small number of plate appearances. Especially on television, they might immediately disregard that disclaimer and make bold statements on how that player is doing.

This is of note because Domonic Brown entered play Saturday with a .286 wOBA, an 80 wRC+, and -0.2 WAR. Those results look ugly. Much has been made of Dom's struggles early this season by people who need something to talk about, but in reality he was within one good game of being an average hitter.

Then Saturday happened. Dom went 2-for-5 with a single and a three-run home run to break the game open in the fifth. His wOBA went up to .304 and his wRC+ to 92, slightly below the NL averages of .307 and 94. 2-for-5 with a single and a home run is a good game. On Saturday, April 27, Brown had a .596 wOBA. Good job, Dom! You had a good game!

But on Saturday, April 27, there were three games that started at 1:05, and in those three games, ten players had a higher wOBA. It was a good game, but it was not the type of game that everyone will remember. It was a regular, old, run-of-the-mill good game, and it boosted his stats from Wilson Valdezian to roughly NL average.

It's early in the season. Stop caring so much about statistics. Instead, be happy that Chooch will be back tomorrow.

Mike Adams Is Usually Good At Baseball, But Not Always

Professional athletes are paid a ton of money because sports are interesting, and they're very good at sports, which makes them interesting. Mike Adams is going to get paid $12 million over the next two years by the Phillies organization to play a game. I think it's important to keep that in perspective sometimes. I'm going to slave away at a low-paying job (plus a non-paying job if you count college) for the next two years, and he's going to make millions having the time of his life. Man, I wish I wasn't so afraid of the ball when I was a youngster.

But what I can do to scrape a little bit of joy out of that income disparity is poke fun at Mike Adams when he doesn't do things as well as he usually does. Case in point, Shane Robinson's plate appearance against Adams in the 8th inning of Sunday night's 7-4 win over the Cardinals.

Here is a summary of that at-bat. You'll notice the three balls in a row; that will be the focus of this post.

*Note: This will be a .gif-heavy post, so I've inserted a jump here for your convenience. Don't proceed if you have a computer built before 1998.

Jonathan Pettibone to Start Tonight

Late last week, John Lannan was placed on the 15-day DL due to a knee strain, but according to Good Ol' Uncle Chollie, Lannan might be out for six-to-eight weeks. Surprisingly, the Phillies elected to start Jonathan Pettibone in Monday night's game against the Pirates instead of the presumptive sixth starter entering the season, Tyler Cloyd. First thing's first, I think we should compare their ZiPS projections:

According to these projections, we're essentially splitting hairs between the two, as they are both projected to be pretty mediocre. But that is not entertaining enough for you, the beloved reader, so I will go into more detail.

In case you don't remember Cloyd from last year, he doesn't throw hard, and he doesn't have much movement, but he throws a ton of cutters. That makes sense because his fastball is straight and his curveball and changeup are underwhelming, politely speaking. The cutter, though, is a decent pitch, and he could probably ride it to a pre-2011 Kendrick-esque career.

Cloyd came out of nowhere last year at Double-A and continued pitching successfully at Triple-A. He got a six-start audition in the Majors that was largely mediocre, as expected. He posted a 4.91 ERA with a surprisingly high 8.18 K/9 and a surprisingly low 1.91 BB/9. The problem in his short time with the Phillies was the home run; he allowed nearly 2 HR/9. I might expect fewer Ks, more BBs, but less homers this year as he regresses, but we pretty much know what to expect.

According to Marc Hulet of FanGraphs, Pettibone is a large 22-year-old fellow with no real out pitch and high groundball rates. He is a command-control pitcher rather than a fireballer or a pitcher with tons of movement.  He throws harder than Cloyd and has a decent changeup to back it up. According to Marc, his ceiling is a number 4 starter who provides plenty of okay, but not great, innings.

I had just assumed that starting Cloyd in place of Lannon here was the obvious move because it's the "safe" move. But these Phillies won't make the playoffs with safe moves; actually, they probably won't make the playoffs anyway. So, they have to put all their chips on upside. It's more than a little embarrassing that I'm talking about "upside" being the difference between a possible number four starter and a swingman, but this is what these Phillies have reduced me to.

Either way, it will be nice to see a "young guy" pitch, even though I'd prefer one with more talent. It'll give me more to think and talk about.

In other news, Delmon Young had his first rehab game today. I read an awesome post about Young on Crashburn Alley the other day. I suggest you check it out; it might combat the horrifying image of Delmon Young in a Phillies' jersey that I haven't been able to shake since that contract became official.

Dom Brown's Crutch

Until this point in his career, Domonic Brown has not looked like a good defender. This seems odd to me because he is a fantastic athlete. He is tall and fast, and he has enough hand-eye coordination to hit a round ball with a cylindrical bat and the strength to drive it hundreds of feet away, but he just can't seem to track down fly balls. 

I was talking to a guy I work with who coaches high school and college-aged players. I've never been to any of his games or seen him in action, but whenever we talk about baseball he has a lot of good things to say. He doesn't really believe in sabermetrics too much, but he gives me a good perspective on the actual physical aspects of the game and what a player needs to do to be successful.

He told me today that Dom Brown doesn't read the ball off the bat well enough, and it translates to bad routes. Basically he said in amateur baseball a fly ball might slice 5-6 feet, but with the incredibly fast bats that populate the highest level of the game, fly balls might slice or hook or carry two or three times as much, and the ball will come off the bat 15-20 mph faster than it does in college ball. A deficiency in the field might be hidden by a player's athleticism when there is only a few feet to make up, but when that distance expands to 20 feet, and the ball travels so quickly off the bat, this happens:

And three runs score on what should have been a single. While this particular hit was a line drive that didn't hang up very long, Brown could have gotten there on time if he'd reacted quickly enough. According to this guy I work with, it's hard to teach this ability; it's instinctual.

But the Phillies have dealt with terrible defense in left field before. Over the past decade, the Phillies have experienced six seasons of Pat Burrell, three seasons of Raul Ibanez, and a season of Juan Pierre. The Phillies' brass, though, has had an interesting way of dealing with the less-than-stellar left field situation: really good center fielders. The center fielders over that same timespan were Marlon Byrd, Kenny Lofton, Aaron Rowand, and Shane Victorino, and now Ben Revere gets to be a crutch for Domonic Brown. 

But there is more than one way to be good at centerfield, and in a world where your left fielders are either slow as dirt (Ibanez, Burrell) or slow to read the ball (Pierre, Brown), you need a center fielder who can cover more ground. Basically, if your average center fielder can cover X% of the outfield, the Phillies need a centerfielder who can cover Y% of the outfield. While I'm not sure of the exact numbers, Y needs to be greater than X.

And the Phillies have taken notice. Byrd, Lofton, Rowand, and Victorino were all fast, rangy outfielders. While Victorino wasn't the best at running routes, he could cover plenty of ground to his left and right. Rowand was just an all-around great centerfielder when he was with the White Sox, and that continued, albeit to a lesser extent, with the Phillies. Kenny Lofton was the best defensive center fielder in baseball for a long time. And Byrd was a young and fast defense-first center fielder, if you can remember that far back.

So the Phillies are hoping Ben Revere, with his noodle arm and incredible speed, can cover a lot of ground to make up for Brown's deficiency.

He might just do it.

Braves Punish Phils, Part II

Man cannot live on changeups alone, unless you place him on a soggy Turner Field against the swing-happy Atlanta Braves, and his fastball hits 92 mph only once. What could have been Halladay's 200th career win, hopefully only momentarily, confirmed the fears of Phillies fans that maybe there is a reason to worry about him. But then again, it’s only his first start in a long, long season.

If it’s any consolation, Doc struggled against the Braves throughout last season, going 0-2 in four equally unimpressive starts, and the 2013 Braves make those guys look, well, less good. Just for clarification, here are his stats against the Braves compared to the rest of the league after his DL stint last season:

Obviously these numbers are not representative of anything particularly significant, and there are still some concerns for the Phillies, namely Halladay's low fastball velocity. It hovered in the 88-89 mph range tonight, which shows a definite drop-off from his usual place in the lower 90s. Relax; remember, there's 162 games to go. 

On the offensive end, the Phils struggled to string hits together. This isn't 2008, the Phillies won't be an offensive powerhouse, but probably more of an offensive outhouse-not ideal, but put together to serve a noble purpose. Small ball should be the name of the game, but it just wasn't tonight. The Phils put up 2 runs (should have had one more if it wasn't for that horrible call on Michael Young in the seventh) on 9 hits, and stranded 9 runners on the base-paths. Pardon my terrible pun, but that just stinks. 

Papelbon put the banana peel on the trash pile by allowing an eighth inning-homer to Jason Heyward. But it's not his fault; he can only pitch in save situations. 

Here's to you, Cliff Lee.

Thoughts on the Phillies' First Game

I know it's the first game, so I'm not going to try to write anything statistically speaking. I just have a few points that stuck with me from the game.


Chase Utley's Knees Didn't Explode

As you might guess, based on the headline, Chase Utley's knees didn't explode. Not only that, he actually looked quite good out there, coming just a double shy of the cycle. After grounding out in the first, Utley led off the fourth with a dead centerfield home run that BJ Upton didn't even believe was going out.

In the fifth Chase hit a two-run single to bring the Phillies within one run. Following an over-aggressive throw to third by defensive wunderkind Jason Heyward, Utley did the typical Utley thing and advanced to second to the surprise and delight of Phillies fans throughout the land.

In the seventh Chase tripled on a ball that would have been a double for everyone on the roster this side of Ben Revere and Jimmy Rollins. Watching him accelerate through second base, coupled with the extra bag he took on his last hit, reminded me of vintage Utley and warmed my heart.

Then in the ninth Utley popped out against Craig Kimbrel, but come on - it's Craig Kimbrel. That's not even fair.


Cole Hamels Did Not Look Good

Cole Hamels did not look good. He let up homers to Freddie Freeman, The Most Hated Player In Baseball* Dan Uggla, and Justin Upton. Although he only allowed one walk, Hamels couldn't find the strike zone for much of the outing, which might explain why he got hammered when he did. He did have five strikeouts though, which is nice.

* By me.

I think it's safe to say that this was a rough outing, and we should leave it at that. Oh, you're not content with leaving it at that? Here are Hamels' last five First Games of the Season:

I think he'll be just fine.


Chad Durbin Did Not Look Good

You'll notice the similarities between the last two headlines; however, the conclusions won't be the same.

The idea of Chad Durbin infuriates me - not Chad as a person, mind you; he seems like a perfectly fine guy. The problem is that Chad Durbin-esque players are the exact type of players that the Phillies' front office seems to love. If there's one thing that enrages me most about Ruben Amaro, it's that he overvalues the presence of "veteranness". It's not that having players around who are veterans is a bad thing. Hell, I love having Roy Halladay and Cliff Lee around. The difference is that Roy and Cliff are good at baseball and Chad Durbin is an old, washed up middle reliever.

In fact, the thought of Chad Durbin takes me back to Chad Qualls last year, and that is not a place to which I'd like to be hearkened.


Ben Revere Took Many Pitches

Ben Revere's pitches per plate appearance: 6, 4, 11, 2, 5, and his last plate appearance had that awful stike call on a high and outside pitch. If you're counting at home, that's an average of 5.6 pitches per plate appearance, which is just fantastic. I was under the impression that Revere swung at anything and everything thrown to the plate and just didn't really miss. If this is a short-lived aberration  well that'll be a bummer. But if he keeps this up, he'll be a joy to watch all season, and I haven't said anything about his defense and baserunning.


All in all, I'd call it a pretty successful game. The offense had some bright spots. Hamels wasn't great, but he's Cole Hamels, so he'll be fine. I'm looking forward to Wednesday night.