The Phils just keep getting it done, though in a much uglier way than they were last year at this time, but done nonetheless.
Right now, the Phillies Magic Number sits at 14. This means that if the Phillies go 10-10 in their last 20 games, the 2nd place Marlins would have to go 17-2 to overtake us. The Braves would have to go 18-1. Stranger things have happened. But not much stranger. As we already knew, the ball is in our court. Don’t fall on our faces and we are looking at our 3rd straight NL East Title.
If the Phillies continue at the pace they have been going all year, they will finish with 93 wins, the 5th highest total in team history. In case you were wondering, the top-10 win totals in franchise history are as follows…
T-1. 101 wins, 1976, 1977
3. 97 wins, 1993
4. 94 wins, 1899 (played 154 games)
T-5. 92 wins, 1962, 2008
T-7. 91 wins, 1916 (154 games), 1950 (157 games), 1980
T-10. 90 wins, 1983, 1978, 1915
As for the homefield in the NL Playoffs, it looks something like this…
1. Dodgers, 85-59
2. St. Louis, 84-60 (1 GB)
3. Philadelphia, 82-60 (2 GB)
4. Colorado, 80-82 (3 GB)
If the season ended that way, it would put us away against the Dodgers for the NLDS. If we overtake the Cardinals for 2nd or the Dodgers for 1st, we would be home against the Rockies. I know the Rockies are real hot right now, but I’m very much partial to that 2nd option and let the Dodgers and Cardinals duke it out. Colorado has a great line-up, but their pitching isn’t all that scary. So while the 10-10 mentioned above is all well and good for the division, it would certainly be in the Phillies best interest to overtake the Cards or Dodgers, and 10-10 won’t get that done.
Who is the Phillies 2009 MVP?
Last year, for me at least, this was a pretty easy question, and the answer was Brad Lidge. This year? The pitching has been inconsistent and no one in particular has stood out for long periods of time, except maybe J.A. Happ, but he has only made 19 starts. On offense, Ibanez and Howard have carried the team for weeks at a time, Utley, Victorino and Werth have been solid all year and Rollins, though his full-year numbers aren’t impressive, still dictates the W-L record of this team more than any other player, and is flashing a gold glove once more.
So – who is your Phillies MVP for 2009? Here are the stats…
And here is a quick pitch for each player…
Rollins – Perhaps his greatest attribute this season has been his Gold Glove at the most important defensive position on the field. Despite his horrid first couple months, he’s still on pace for 40 2Bs and 20 HRs.
Victorino – Leads the team in BA, doubles and triples, while also playing great defense in CF. Made his first all-star team, and is the ultimate energy guy.
Utley – Another typical Utley season. Tops in runs and on-base % and the most efficient batter on the team. An elite defender and baserunner.
Howard - Lead run producer who has 5 more HR, 11 more XBH and 29 more RBI than anyone else on the team.
Werth – 2nd in HR and with Utley and Ibanez in RBI while providing excellent defense in RF and wearing down opposing pitchers more than anyone in the NL.
Ibanez – Carried the team on his back until getting injured before the all-star game. Still leads the team in SLG% and is 2nd in XBH despite recent slump.
There are the arguments, who gets your vote?
Who is the Phillies MVP for 2009?
- Ryan Howard (44%, 76 Votes)
- Chase Utley (32%, 54 Votes)
- Shane Victorino (11%, 19 Votes)
- Jayson Werth (9%, 16 Votes)
- Jimmy Rollins (2%, 3 Votes)
- Raul Ibanez (2%, 3 Votes)
Total Voters: 171
Loading ...A Couple Notes on Pedro
I’m not going to preview the Nats series, because we’ve played them 150 times already, including just last week with the same pitchers going, and we all know enough about what’s going on that you don’t need me to repeat myself. Instead, I want to talk about Pedro for a moment and then open up a discussion about who the Phillies MVP has been this year.
I want to talk about Pedro because watching him in his last couple outings has been a unique joy for me. Here is a super-duper-star, first ballot HOFer, arguably the best RHP of all-time, one of the more charismatic players of our generation and a man who, like Babe, Manny and Hank, needs only 1 name to be instantly recognized, and he’s pitching for the Phillies. And he’s pitching really, really well (more on that in a second). The Phillies have never, arguably in the history of the franchise, had someone of this star power in their uniform. It’s about as surreal as seeing the Babe himself suit up in the red pinstripes. It felt like I was watching a movie last night.
As expectations go, I think most of ours were pretty tempered for Pedro’s arrival. I, for one, was thinking a 4.50 ERA would be about where he would end up. Maybe a couple real good outings, certainly a couple where he got shelled. I never expected he would still have this kind of movement on his pitches and this kind of control with his fastball. The result? 7 starts, 7 Phillies’ wins, a 2.87 ERA, an electric atmosphere when he pitches at the Bank, questions about whether he’s busted his way into the playoff rotation, and potential questions in the future about whether the Phillies should consider bringing him back for 2010 and beyond. I would say this has gone as well as humanly possible. Pedro Martinez, quasi-vintage Pedro Martinez as a Phillie. It still seems weird, but I’m enjoying every moment.
{ 30 comments… read them below or add one }
its tough to decide but i’d put it on Victorino bcos he’s been the most consistent all year. offense and defense but Rollins’ glove ALONE is reason for him. Utley is another one you take for granted. yeah this is impossible.
I would agree with your take on Pedro. Its a lot of fun to watch him work the hitters, move the ball around and mix up his pitches. He would be my third game starter right now.
I’m with jkay. It’s really tough to pick just one guy this year. Many guys have had very good stretches along the way and made valuable contributions, making this season more of a team effort.
I found this article, A Better Way To Use Ryan Howard, on dugoutcentral.com. The premise is that the Phils might be better off if they sat Howard against lefty starters and picked up a cheap veteran like Ty Wigginton to platoon with him at first. Strictly looking at offensive numbers it could help, but it’s an absurd proposal that would never happen for many reasons.
The reason I’m even mentioning this article is because it contains some good data on Howard’s offensive production which I wanted to post here:
It’s become fashionable among some stats-oriented baseball sites to bash Ryan Howard. He’s a first baseman who’s unsuited for any other position, despite some effort to develop him as a corner outfielder in the minors because Jim Thome occupied first base in Philadelphia. Howard has outstanding power but less-outstanding bat speed, and he’s more effective against finesse pitchers than he is against power pitchers, except that he struggles against ground ball pitchers, too. He’s considerably more effective against right-handed than left-handed pitchers. Many point to all of these flaws, as well as to the advantages Howard gets from hitting in a strong lineup in a hitter’s ballpark in the weaker of the two leagues, and they criticize, subtly and not-so-subtly, Howard’s perennially high support for the NL MVP Award.
We have very good hitting metrics, though, and they suggest that Ryan Howard is as excellent as the voters believe him to be. One of the best metrics is WPA, a situation-specific measure of how much a player helped his team to win. Ryan Howard is third in MLB in WPA this year, trailing only Albert Pujols and Prince Fielder. Here are his WPA ranks the last four years:
Year WPA (Rank Among Qualified Position Players)
2009 4.81 (3rd)
2008 2.39 (36th)
2007 3.08 (21st)
2006 8.04 (2nd)
There are 30 MLB teams, so Ryan Howard has two qualifying years out of four that are MVP-caliber and two others where he would have been the best or second-best hitter on an average MLB team. That is very, very good hitting. Yes, his home run and RBI rankings are even more impressive, but Ryan Howard has hit a lot of those shots when the runs mattered, and that’s reflected in his high WPA. Home run and RBI counts are easily altered by circumstance, but a team can only win a game once, regardless of the number of runs scored. Using WPA as a metric thwarts criticism of his numbers based upon his lineup and his ballpark.
A different way to look at Howard’s ability to help his team would be to check his batting splits. Over his entire career of over 3,000 PA, Howard’s batting line in high-leverage (or “clutch”) situations has been .296/.398/.652, for a 1.051 OPS. His performance in middle-leverage and low-leverage situations has been .278/.367/.591 and .266/.367/.536, for a .958 and a .903 OPS, respectively. Ryan Howard’s OPS goes up by 16% from the least-important to the most-important moments at the plate, and it goes up by just under 13% in high-leverage situations when contrasted to all other situations. That’s big: across MLB in 2009, OPS declines almost a percentage point, on average, in high-leverage situations, probably because managers often put better pitchers into the game at such times. Whether or not one wants to accept that Ryan Howard is a true “clutch hitter,” over a span of over 3,000 PA he’s hit as if he is one.
As a footnote to that excellence, Ryan Howard is one of the best pinch hitters in MLB. Two truisms about pinch hitting are these: batters do worse as pinch hitters than they do if they’re in the lineup, and power hitters struggle more than contact hitters as pinch hitters. Ryan Howard defies both of these rules. Over his career he’s a .393/.452/1.036 batter in his 31 pinch-hitting appearances. The MLB batting line for pinch hitters this year is just .227/.317/.356, so Howard’s batting line dominates the norms for players in that role even more than his overall hitting dominates that of other first basemen. One has to remember that it’s a small sample size, but it certainly appears as if Howard has no trouble coming off the bench to pinch hit. While few managers would choose to bench Howard just to have the chance to use him at a critical opportunity instead of whenever his turn in the order arrived, the concept of having a “clutch” power hitter on call for the decisive moment of a game is, at the least, intriguing.
bski-
Ask and you shall receive, Pete (even if it takes me a while sometimes). Utley’s WPA numbers during the same period, from fangraphs.com:
2009: 4.80 (4th)
2008: 1.47 (60th)—–Howard is actually 39th, not 36th.
2007: 3.40 (18th)—–Rollins was 25th in his MVP year with a 2.69
2006: 3.93 (17th)
Oh yeah, it is easy to find. The leader boards for WPA for batters, starters, and relievers, and WAR for batters and pitchers are posted on the right side of the home page. Just click on the header you want, like WPA hitters, and it takes you to the full listing. Then you can select different seasons from a drop-down menu.
Easy there Pete, I wouldn’t quite equate Pedro Martinez as a Philly with possibly the most recognizeable name in sports history (Babe Ruth)…
*Phillie
‘Howard has outstanding power but less-outstanding bat speed’ – i would argue that Howard has quite impressive bat speed but terrible patience.
stu-
Jkay: Agree 100% about Howard’s lack of patience. It’s the one, big, flaw in his approach. In ’06 and ’07 he demonstrated fantastic patience, taking his walks when it was he was not being given a strike to hit. What’s changed in the past 2 years can only be chalked up to a lack of patience, and it causes him to get himself out quite often. If only he became willing to take his walks once again…
did anyone else catch the interviews during the game tonight with Michael Taylor and Kyle Drabek?
jkay, How have you come to measure his bat speed? Your argument has no basis. Does it spring from an impressionistic take on his long balls? Agree with you and Morty on the assertion that his lack of patience is ever ready. I would argue that a batter who accumulates 860 Ks in 2616 career ABs (.328 K “success” rate) often demonstrates deficient bat speed.
jjg: i should have added – ‘for a big man’. i tell just by looking. usually Howard messes himslef up by staying away from the plate but when he’s right, his swing on pitches inside is very good, catches up to them. comapring him to the other big sluggers – Dunn, Fielder, Ortiz and Co.
“I would argue that a batter who accumulates 860 Ks in 2616 career ABs (.328 K “success” rate) often demonstrates deficient bat speed. ’ – you’re seriously over-estimating Ryan Howard’s IQ. i’d say 50% of that is from swinging at breaking balls in the dirt.
jkay, Points of comparison … bat speed (& hand-eye coordination)
reflections of other big men/bombers: career K averages:
Williams .092
Gehrig .098
Aaron .112
Mays .140
F. Robinson .153
Ruth .158
Foxx .161
F. Thomas .170
E. Matthews .174
Griffey Jr .181
McCovey .189
A-Rod .209
Mantle .211
Ortiz .214
McGriff .215
Bonds .217
Ramirez .219
Schmidt .225
F. Howard .225
Delgado .240
Stargell .244
Allen .245
McGwire .258
R. Jackson .265
Kingman .271
Thome .300
R. Howard .328
Poor reflexive decision-making on “breaking balls in the dirt” contribute some but hardly explain Howard’s pitiful contact/’ball in play’ number. Insufficient bat speed factors often imo. Who said anything about IQ? We’re talking baseball here. And, besides, Howard is poised and articulate in speech, a condition which speaks to his being in possession of more-than-ample intelligence, should that ever become a hitting requirement.
jjg: i never meant IQ as cognitive or cerebral functions; just being sharp enough to understand what the pitchers are doing. point well made, i’ll shut up.
70% of those guys are HOFers though.
to Ryan Howard if he reads this blog: forgive my expression, i never called you an idiot. just slept in too many Writing classes.
Pete, why don’t you submit this site to philly.com and take over for the gawd-awful “High Cheese” with David Murphy? Is that guy in high school? His writing ability and moronic pose on his “weblog” makes him sound and look like a complete ree-ree.
man – the Nats are the worst baserunning team I’ve seen in awhile.
yeah Werth doubling them up was unforgiveable, Howard’s was less error and more chance. meen i think they made like 4 or 5 serious blunders just on the pads. Thans Nats
glad to see Lee is back to throwing CGs and Blanton back to dropping zeros. Why does Carlos Ruiz always end up with torrid late season numbers after stinking it up early? glad to see he finally caught Lee and a good one too. any coincidence with him breaking outta his slump?
Condrey, Dobbs back. Park down?? lets hope not .
Meen Werth can hit ‘em hard. Such a good athlete to generate such power. the Philies are blessed with guys who can hit long balls…..and strike out a lot too.
Without getting into the Team MVP debate, it’s worth pointing out that Utley, while experiencing a strange decline in doubles, has more than made up for it with career highs in walks and steals. His improvement in walk rate is impressive, so that his full-season offensive numbers will look very Abreu-like (talking prime Abreu, not the current version that is still doing well for the Angels).
btw, we’re now ahead of the Cardinals.
Trillo Fan,
Very interesting that you would compare Utley’s offensive numbers to Abreu’s. I think it’s safe to say that in the eyes of most Phils fans there is a marked difference in the way each of them is perceived (i.e. Utley—the gritty hustler who goes all out and is always doing something to help the team vs. Abreu—the laid back guy who glides along, who never busts his butt, who puts up good offensive numbers that are mostly hollow, and who could do a lot more if he made an effort).
Except for the fact that I always wished he would swing at more perfectly good pitches in an attempt to drive in runs instead of letting RBI opportunities go by while waiting for his pitch, I have always been an Abreu supporter.
Since we were talking about WAR the other day, I thought I would list Abreu’s year-by-year WAR numbers to see how they compare with Utley’s.
1998: 3.49 (26th)
1999: 3.28 (26th)
2000: 4.76 (11th)
2001: 3.78 (30th)
2002: 5.43 (8th)
2003: 3.49 (18th)
2004: 5.17 (7th)
2005: 3.74 (15th)
They look pretty comparable to me.
It may be fair to compare Utley and Abreu’s offensive production- but that does not begin to compare their impact. Even ignoring the leadership/style issues that can be sujective, you have to look at position.
Getting that type of production at 2B makes you talk HOF. While that same production at RF only leads to all star consideration.
That is why I never understood moving a guy like Soriano from 2B to LF. I don’t care if he kills you with his fileding, you never can make up for the production differential of a guy putting up numbers like that at 2B. Unless you can replace him with a top 5 offensive 2B you are giving up the chance to have a moster offensive line-up by combinig him with even an average offensive LF.
I’m not a baseball guy, so maybe someone can explain this to me.
Part of why the Phils have such a killer offensive line-up is that they get non-traditional major production at 2B and SS. That type of luxuy allow the GM so much more flexibility building a team. I’d guess that most teams with slugging middle infielders end up having top overall team offenses.
tk76, last I checked our everyday SS was batting .245 with one of the lowest OBP for leadoff hitters in the MLB. Couple that with our 3B hitting .266 with 11 HRs, I would argue that our 3B, SS, 2B offensive production is about average for the league even with the anomoly of production at 2B.
stu-
Rollins & Utley: Guts of the Phillies; got the train rolling and shovel coal regularly. Both building nice resumes. Are they better than Whitaker & Trammel? Dunston & Sandberg? Yount & Molitor (while it lasted)? Concepcion & Morgan? Bowa & Trillo (not as offensively flashy, but a very good duo)?
Rollins all-time Phillies ranks (not making a point, just looked them up and figured I’d share)
Runs – 5th
Hits – 8th
Doubles – 4th (4 behind Abreu)
Triples – 5th (3 behind Ashburn)
HR – 15th (7 behind Rolen)
RBI – 20th
Total Bases – 6th
Stolen Bases – 4th
bski et al. – Just to be clear, I was not comparing Utley with Abreu as overall players. I think everyone would agree that Utley is far superior in terms of intensity, attitude, and leadership by example, and he does play a more important defensive position. What I was comparing was their offensive production as #3 hitters in the Phillies lineup. I would argue that until this year, Abreu in his prime was a slightly better #3 hitter than Utley, just looking at stats and ignoring what effect their respective attitudes have on their teammates (hard to measure anyway). They both hit a lot of doubles, hit for good power (high 20′s or low 30′s HR), stole a decent amount of bases (Abreu more, Utley higher pct.), and hit for average. The one difference was that Abreu drew more walks and saw more pitches (something that he has continued in helping both NYY and LAA).
Actually, courtesy of baseball-reference.com, here is an interesting comparison. Abreu 1999-2005 (includes a couple down years): .305 BA, .415 OBP, .522 SLG, .937 OPS, avg. over 162 games of 112 runs, 180 hits, 43 2B, 25 HR, 99 RBI, 32 SB, 10 CS, 113 BB. Utley 2005-2008: .305 BA, .380 OBP, .535 SLG, .915 OPS, avg. over 162 games of 120 runs, 193 hits, 46 2B, 31 HR, 112 RBI, 15 SB, 3 CS, 67 BB. Pretty similar except the walks …
Pretty impressive offensive numbers in both cases. As I sid before, if Abreu played 2B he would get HOF consideration (if not be a lock with those numbers.)