I got to thinking a little bit tonight, about how often it seems that Ryan seems just lost at the plate this year.  While his average is decent, it's actually right around his career norm.  His slugging is way down this year, over 100 pts lower than career norms.   What trouble me most though, was my perception that when Howard whiffs, he seems to be very efficient at it.  Now bear in mind, you have to see at least 3 pitches to whiff, so I wanted to compare Howard to some of his peers in whiffdom.  Results after the jump.

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First foray back to TGP after last years WS ended.  Can't find any spring training commentary so I thought I'd add my own.  MLB Network broadcasted yesterday's Phillies-Yanks World Series rematch.  I was smart enough to DVR it and was able to watch.  Bilzo's thoughts after the jump...

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Since I work with a fans from other teams, as well as some just pure baseball fans...I like to keep track of the post-season odds as presented by baseballprospectus.  Also, being an excel nerd, I would go go in every day, input their data, and keep a graph going.  Since it's the end of the year, (and I finally remembered to email the file home) I decided to share that fun little graph, and I'll go ahead and put in what I think are some key events/stretches and how those things may have impacted each teams percentages at making the post-season.

Keep in mind that this is "playoff" odds...NOT division odds.  That's why if you look close at some of the numbers, you'll notice things can add up to more than 100%, thanks to the wildcard.  Graph and commentary after the jump.

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There's been some discussion of late about the Phillies dependence upon the long ball as their primary method of run production.  The recent run of 15 straight home runs coming as solo-shots (as in....nobody on base) coupled with a depressed offensive output for the team has made this discussion even more heated recently.  There are two primary schools of thought, with competing themes.

In order to win baseball games, you have to score runs.  As Harvey Haddix found out long ago...being perfect, even extending into extra innings, can still lead to a loss if the guys at the dish are as inept as your opponents at making contact and putting balls where the opponents are not.  Therefore, hitting home runs is good.  A good power hitter is in scoring position the minute he steps to the plate.  Common sense says that the more home runs you hit, the more potent your offense, the better your chance to win games.   There really isn't any arguing going on with this point. 

The discussion at hand however is going on the premise that if a team seems to rely on the long ball too much for their scoring, they might do better cease trying to hit the ball into next week, focus on making contact, getting on base, and being able to score by more reliable means.  My take on this has been that if you run into a homer drought, you're dead.  Also..in post-season you tend to face good pitchers on better teams.  Hitting dingers off the middle relievers from marginal teams is likely easier than doing it against a staff ace from a playoff team (but then again...so is getting a hit of any kind..)  Small ball isn't necessarily more exciting, we all remember McGwire and Sosa, and we all likely know that Rickey thefted 130 bases one year....but that's not how the Phillies are built nowadays.  So the question at hand is...do teams that have a higher or lower percentage of the runs come via the home run have better success in the regular season and in the playoffs?

One of my co-workers (Chris Dial...recognized for his defensive analysis and a regular contributor at www.baseballthinkfactory.org was kind enough run a query in his stat software and give me the data for all teams since 1993 with regards to their runs scored, and the percent of runs scored via the homer.  In my attempts to make some sense of the data, I discarded 1993-1995 as it was pre-divisional play, and also included a couple strike shortened season (makes correlating percentages to win totals a little difficult).

So what did I find?

Let's get to the data.

Here's each year, and the MLB average for the percent of runs scored via the homer:

1996       35.0%

1997       33.8%   

1998       34.3%

1999       35.9%

2000       36.7%

2001       36.6%

2002       35.7%

2003       35.7%

2004       36.8%

2005       35.9%

2006       36.0%

2007       34.1%

2008       34.3%

The numbers hold pretty steady, roughly 34-37% over a 13 year period.  My litmus test of precision is the term ‘%RSD' which effectively normalized standard deviations.  Those 13 values yield a %RSD of 2.97, which I'll call ‘tight' with a little room for improvement, but for the purposes of what I'm doing here...good enough to warrant discounting year to year variations and fluctuations in how teams are doing.

The first correlation I'll go after is runs scored to wins.  Here's the plot:

via lh6.ggpht.com

While this looks scatter shot, you will notice there's a slight tilt to the dots, as evidenced by the trendline.  The rationale here is essentially, home runs = runs; runs = wins.  One other thing to think about though is that the teams above that 100 win mark seem to be centered around 30-45%.

Now to determine how teams did in the playoffs, I gave them a ‘score' based on their performance. 

Zero = missed playoffs altogether.

One = made the playoffs, but lost in first round.

Two = made it to the LCS, but lost.

Three = made it to the World Series, but lost.

Four = won the World Series.

How does the homer percentage correlate to post-season performance?  Lets see....

via lh3.ggpht.com

Before you dig into this, remember that a ‘dot' on the 4 line, should also be dropped to the other 3 lines below it as well, as this is a population graph, so attaining a score of ‘4' means you also made it to the LCS, and the playoffs as well.

What do we notice?

A bit of a parabolic effect.  Teams that have made the playoffs pretty much cover the same range as the teams that don't,  but there's only a couple blips down there at the 25% range.  Looks to be that if you want to make it to the playoffs and have any shot of advancing, you best get about 28-45% of your runs via the homer. 

The data seems to support both sides of the argument.  Home runs are good for your offense, but overly relying on them might get you there, but you won't hang around for long.  As of Sep. 8th, the Phils were scoring 46% of their runs by the homer.  If they were to win or even make it to the World Series with that mark, it would be the highest value of any team to do so in the past 14 years.

Had the pleasure of watching the Iron Pigs take on the Durham Bulls last night.  Went with the wife and had seats right against the field down by the home team's dugout.  After an hour long rain delay to start., here's what we saw:

Pitching:

JA Happ looked *really* good.  I believe the first hit and only hit he gave up was either in the top of the fourth of fifth.  A few balls hit hard to the outfield, but no screamers.  Walked a couple as well, but fanned 9.  A really good outing against a decent team.

Swindle came in to pitch the 7th.  He was entertaining to watch.  Guy was heckling him calling him Jamie Moyer after he threw a 55 mph curve up there.  Speeds ranged from 55-89 I think, which is pretty sweet.  Unfortunately, the Bulls had him timed really well.  First guy made an uneventful out, second and third batters timed his slow stuff and went to right field with back to back singles on very hard hit balls.  He got bailed out of it as the next batter lined one to second, and a runner was doubled off.  Box score shows a decent inning, 1 IP, 2 H, O ER, but in reality, he got hit hard by 3 of 4 batters.

Ennis pitched the 8-9th.  Looked good, but the Bulls were swinging at everything and just ready to call it a night, seeing as how they were down 7 and it was an hour later than normal.

Hitting:

Knott and King both hit no doubter impressive homers to left center.  I thought one had a shot at breaking a window on the adjoining offices, but not quite.  Jaramillo had an RBI single, but didn't look impressive.  Andy Tracy is slower than me.  Cervenak looked the best, as most of his hits were pretty well tagged.

Other Notes:

Andy Tracy appeared to pull a hammy running out an infield single.  Ball glanced off pitchers glove into dead zone between 1st, 2nd, and pitcher.   Run scored on that play, but Tracy is either ridiculously slow or was hurt on the play.  He stayed in, so I'm guessing he's Luzinski-esque.  He also appeared to be heckling the crowd in the 8th inning, saying something about "take your girlfriend" but I couldn't quite figure it out.

Mike Rouse got the bonehead award as he hit an infield dribbler, tried to leg it out but was called out on a close play (correctly I thought) and he started jawing at the ump.  Greg Gross half-heartedly restrained him, the ump turned to walk away and Rouse kept going and then finally gave up.  I'd have tossed him out of the game.  Next inning the first ball hit comes to him, and he bobbles it, letting a fast runner on base.

Prospects look pretty slim.  Other than Happ, I didn't see any one who really excited me.  Cervenak doesn't have a spot in MLB, and Swindle looks gimmicky.