SB Nation User Blog: phatj

Marketing FAIL

phatj — Sat, 18 Apr 2009 13:07:10 -0000

The ads for Nationals games on MASN all over this blog are rather badly misdirected. That is all.

La la la I need more works la la la doo dee doo dee stupid SBNation rules blah blah blah my cat's breath smells like cat food wee wah woo I can't think of any more crap to write dobedobedo I need 15 more words goddamn it only 10 to go so close I can almost taste it

Ryan Howard: bestest ever oppo power hitter, maybe

phatj — Tue, 14 Apr 2009 18:16:19 -0000

I know MattS has touched on this point before, but here's a pretty in-depth analysis of where various sluggers have sent their home runs.

http://baseballanalysts.com/archives/2009/04/alltime_home_ru.php

Howard has the third highest career percentage of his homers going to the opposite field, behind, of all people, Roberto Clemente and Julio Franco. It should be noted that neither hit as many home runs in their entire careers as Howard has already, and he's obviously far from done.

Also, Howard has the two highest (technically the highest and also tied for second) season totals of opposite field shots ('06 & '08).

Basically, I guess what this means is that he has disgusting raw power, and the only thing that prevents his flyballs from going out is if he doesn't get enough loft on them (especially to CF and RF). Not exactly earth-shattering to folks who watch him every day, but interesting nonetheless.

To Dave Snyder and Jeff Lamana

phatj — Thu, 16 Oct 2008 05:19:38 -0000

...and to all Phillies Phans who could not witness this in the first life -- this is for you. It is for all of us.

You are with us in this moment, and you will be with us as the Phillies fulfill their destiny. Your families are as jubilant as you are yourselves -- they know what this means to you and at this moment they celebrate with you as well.

May whatever deity you believe in continue to be with you.

Michael Taylor

phatj — Tue, 10 Jun 2008 04:05:23 -0000

Phillies prospect Michael Taylor is making SAL pitching look silly, to the tune of .363/.438/.571/1.009 with 10 homers in 60 games at age 22. Oh, and he's 9 for 11 in steals. OK, so he's a little old for the league, but I present for comparison the following line:

.280/.367/.469/.836 with 19 homers over 135 games. This was Ryan Howard's line, also in Lakewood, also at age 22. He turned out OK.

Anyone care to speculate about why Taylor's not in Clearwater yet? Lakewood is one of the few teams in the Phillies system that doesn't blow, and perhaps the Phillies want him to get a taste of winning. So, do they promote him after the ASB? This article seems to suggest he's going nowhere in the immediate future, but there's nothing concrete indicating why. Other than that, I've got nothing. Would there be any good reason to keep him down in Low-A for a whole season and then double-jump him to Reading next year, rather than promote him to Clearwater mid-season and then let him tackle Double-A with some high-A experience?

Talk to me about this guy. I know he's 6'6", 250 lbs, and presently plays left field. Does he have a future in the OF? The steals indicate he has some speed, but him size suggests he won't keep it forever. The only other obvious place for him to play would be first base... could he supplant Howard there in a couple of years, assuming Howard prices himself out of town or falls apart or something?

Speaking of the Howard comparison, as Ryan is showing some signs that he may not be able to regain his MVP form, would it perhaps behoove the Phils to try to fasttrack Taylor so that he's not hitting MLB just as he reaches his prime?

Michael Taylor

phatj — Tue, 10 Jun 2008 03:41:31 -0000

He's making the SAL pitching look silly, to the tune of .363/.438/.571/1.009 with 10 homers in 60 games at age 22. Oh, and he's 9 for 11 in steals.

OK, so he's a little old for the league, so I present for comparison the following line:

.280/.367/.469/.836 with 19 homers over 135 games. This was Ryan Howard's line, also in Lakewood, also at age 22. He turned out OK.

Anyone care to speculate about why Taylor's not in Clearwater yet? Lakewood is one of the few teams in the Phillies system that doesn't blow, and perhaps the Phillies want him to get a taste of winning. So, do they promote him after the ASB? This article seems to suggest he's going nowhere, but there's nothing indicating why. Other than that, I've got nothing. Would there be any good reason to keep him down in Low-A for a whole season and then double-jump him to Reading next year, rather than promote him to Clearwater mid-season and then let him tackle Double-A with some high-A experience?

Breaking Down Chase Utley

phatj — Sun, 04 May 2008 19:01:35 -0000

No, I don't want to physically injure the NL MVP frontrunner. Let's take a closer look at what he's doing this season.

Utley is currently sporting a ridiculous 1.227 OPS, by far the best of his career (he hit .976 last year) The home runs are the most obvious improvement: he's already hit more than half as many as he did in the five months he played last season. He's on pace to hit 68 for the year, which would be 3rd best of all time.

Not only is he hitting more home runs, he's hitting more extra-base hits overall. It's not just doubles turning into homers. He's on pace for 52 doubles, which is behind the crazy pace he hit them at last year, but still would have been enough to lead the league.

But what's behind the power surge? His other stats don't look exceptional. His batting average is significantly up, but it has steadily improved every season. His strikeut rate is slightly down and walk rate is a bit up (the latter largely owing to being IBBed a few times due to Howard's struggles), but both are also in line with career trends.

What is unexpected is that his groundball rate is sharply down while his line drive and flyball rates are both up:

via www.fangraphs.com

Also, per the Hardball Times, his HR/FB rate is by far the best of his career, at 23.4% (vs. a career rate of ~13%). This isn't an unusual HR/FB rate compared to other sluggers, however -- Barry Bonds bettered Chase's ratio in 3 of his last 4 seasons, and Ryan Howard has hit more home runs per fly ball in every year but this one.

What isn't off the charts, surprisingly enough, is Chase's average on balls in play. It's at .348, which is well above average, but not remarkable nor unsustainable. It's actually down from last season, when his BABIP was .362.

What does all this mean? I don't know, except that it seems extremely unlikely that he'll be able to keep up this pace. Utley doesn't have the physique usually associated with this kind of slugging, although the fact that his HR/FB rate isn't extraordinary is a good sign. The single biggest key to his success thus far would seem to be his GB/FB/LD rates. If he can keep smashing liners and flies all year even if some of his other numbers regress, he may well cruise to the MVP award.

Todd Zolecki is great

phatj — Thu, 06 Mar 2008 19:58:50 -0000

[editor's note, by dajafi] Promoted from the diaries, because when beat writers get it right, it's impossible to give them too much credit.

We've been talking about this over on backshegoes.com, but I might as well post it here too.

Once again, Todd Zolecki shows his saber-stripes: http://www.philly.com/philly/sports/20080306_Phillies_show_striking_out_not_all_that_bad.html.

He makes the obvious points: Phillies have led or been near the league lead in both strikeouts and runs scored for each of the last several years, double plays are one obvious downside of putting the ball in play vs. striking out, etc.

On BSG we've nit-picked about this: "Howard is a career .291 hitter. He has struck out 493 times in 1,461 career at-bats, which means he hits .439 when he puts the ball in play. If he could have cut his strikeouts from 199 to 175 last season, his average would have jumped from .268 to .289. He might have hit 50 homers instead of 47." It (possibly fallaciously) suggests that Howard can cut down strikeouts without affecting other aspects of his game.

All in all though, it's a nice piece, one that strikes a nice balance that shouldn't alienate old school readers but keeps us geeks happy too. Not to mention he's not a verbose old crank with a perverse love affair with strained metaphors.

The smoke is clearing, the mirrors are broken

phatj — Thu, 23 Aug 2007 01:06:05 -0000

Joe Table is back, baby!

Over the last week (not including tonight), he has allowed a 1.117 OPS, for an ERA of 7.71 over four appearances. Tonight, in 1/3 inning, he allowed five runs (two scored while he was in the game; he left with the bases loaded, and Clay Condrey allowed all the baserunners to score).

Would you trade...

phatj — Thu, 12 Apr 2007 19:09:05 -0000

Carlos Carrasco for Mark Teahen?

There's an interesting discussion of this very question here, and I thought I'd take the pulse of the TGP readers.

My personal feeling is that if Teahen's shoulder is 100% healthy (he had off-season surgery on his labrum, I believe -- a particularly worrisome bit of anatomy), I'd do this in a NY minute and I'd sweeten the deal if needed.

Teahen is an above-average 3B, both offensively and according to scouts and stats, defensively as well, right now. He's an inexpressibly vast upgrade over Nunez, and a big step up over Helms as well. And he's young so he's likely to get better, and four years from free agency.

What do the rest of you think?

Poll

Well? Wouldja?

Yes, and I'd throw in another prospect if necessary

8 votes

Yes -- but no more

5 votes

Lesser prospect, maybe, but not Carrasco

9 votes

Teahan is teh suxx0rz!

1 votes

23 votes | Poll has closed

Jamie Moyer -- Mentor?

phatj — Mon, 06 Nov 2006 04:22:03 -0000

Much ado has been made of the notion that Jamie Moyer's acquisition was good for Cole Hamels' development. Comcast's John Marzano has discussed it on Post Game Live, ESPN.com's Jerry Crasnick wrote a column about it (although I can't read it because it's an "Insider" piece), and it's been mentioned by Ken Mandel of Phillies.com, including a quote from Hamels himself:

The intangibles Gillick spoke of referred to the veteran leadership that Moyer provided on the four days between starts. He was often seen huddled with Randy Wolf or Cole Hamels with a baseball in his hand, and they typically weren't discussing the weather.
"He showed me that you don't have to throw 95 miles an hour to get somebody out," Hamels said in September. "He's told me a lot of things. It's amazing that he's still doing what he's doing."

That's all well and good, but The Good Phight is about, among other things, not taking things for granted. So let's look closer.

Proponents of this theory will point to Hamels' stats before and after the August 19 trade for Moyer (all numbers courtesy of Dave Pinto's fantastic Day-by-Day Database): 4.50 ERA, 1.26 WHIP before, 3.35 ERA, 1.22 WHIP after. But wait a minute: the trade wasn't announced until after the completion of Hamels' start on that date, in which he went 6 innings, giving up 2 ER, 5 H and 1 BB. So the correct pre- and post-Moyer numbers are actually as follows:

Before Moyer (5/12 - 8/19): 4.40 ERA, 1.24 WHIP
After Moyer (8/24 - 9/27): 3.40 ERA, 1.25 WHIP

So now the difference is smaller, but still significant, at least in terms of ERA: Hamels' allowed one full earned run per nine innings fewer under Jamie's tutelage than he did before.

But maybe Hamels was actually improving before Moyer arrived. If so, this might be missed in the above comparison.

It turns out that Hamels' 2006 ERA hit its high point after his July 24th start, in which he was lit up for 7 ER in 5 1/3 innings. In his next five starts prior to Moyer's arrival (including the 8/19 start), King Cole went off: 1.83 ERA and 0.84 WHIP over 34 1/3 innings. So, perhaps the more meaningful comparison would be between these numbers and his post-Moyer performance. It turns out that Hamels was on a big-time hot streak leading up to Moyer joining the team, and his subsequent numbers were actually worse.

At any rate, it appears, talking heads' comments and Hamels' own lip service to the contrary, that Moyer didn't help Hamels at all.