Several interesting statistical things popped out at me today as I searched for MLB 3rd basemen who are worse than Pedro Feliz who have more at bats than he has. On the way, and going down several rabbit holes, I found some interesting notes about the Phillies this year. As jonk posted recently, the Phillies are good, but sometimes in ways that may surprise us, even if we watch the games. It's sort of a grab bag of things that looked interesting today: GIDP, SB%, ERA+ (!), Pedro Feliz' suckitude all behind the cut...

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Baseball Prospectus kindly plays the remainder of the season millions of times to bring us all the playoff odds on a daily basis. Clicky-clicky. I frequently delight in the obvious, such as the fact that the Phillies will, barring a catastrophic collapse, win the NL East and thereby earn a golden ticket into the Willy Wonka's chocolate factory at the end of the season. Let us hope they are, again, Cholly, and not Veruca Salt. The ugliness for the Fish is below the cut.

Below that are some questions that, given the math, I think are less obvious and more interesting. Since the division is almost assuredly locked up, how should the team (if at all) alter its strategy for call-ups or use of regulars?

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Fielding ratings discussed here at CNNSI. The winners? Rollins, Utley, Victornio, Feliz, and...Ryan Howard. Please...please...Howard was not a "winner" per se, but his improvement from his rookie year, year over year, was noticed. I've sort of "felt" this from watching him over the last half of last year and the first half this year, but seeing the validation in a more formal model is good -- unlike Obi Wan, I do not trust my instincts.

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Front-page bump because it links to such an interesting article that addresses many of the points regarding bullpen use that I've been stressing for years.  Great job, Andy Martino.

I wanted to cut/paste big chunks of this article, but I'll just link it instead. Baseball writing is getting better in spots, and this is an instance where I think it shows. The discussion of Madson being less valuable as a "closer" than as a set up guy because of the leverage of the situation? Fabulous. If only someone would give Bill Conlin some tainted elderberry wine, it would make my day complete.

At Amazin' Avenue, I lurked to see how the other half lives. It was sort of a bit of undercover anthropological field work. I learned that Mets fans are pretty much just like us, with a couple small differences. I think there is a large base of mutually shared frustrations that can serve as common ground to bring our disparate cultures together into a warm, glowing one-ness. Some choice bits are below the cut, along with some obeservations from me.

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About ten days ago, we were all scratching our heads, wondering if the Phillies are for real this year. The consensus conclusion reached at the time seemed to be "it is still too early to tell". Since then, while it is still likely "too early to tell", we have all been able to observe the team a little longer against competition that is not the Nationals.

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