SB Nation User Blog: phatj

Lidge not on 40-man roster?

phatj — Wed, 12 Aug 2009 13:01:39 -0000

Lidge not on 40-man roster?

Dunno what to make of this. Maybe just a mistake?

What to do with Michael Taylor?

phatj — Sun, 26 Jul 2009 02:30:43 -0000

Just so everyone understands, I'm making two few assumptions here. Feel free to quibble with these, but they're not really the point...

The Phillies will trade for Roy Halladay
Michael Taylor will NOT be involved in the Roy Halladay trade (the Jays have an OF logjam)
Dominic Brown WILL be in the trade for Halladay

The Phillies have an OF logjam of their own, with Ibanez, Victorino and Werth all being excellent contributors at their respective positions this season.

So, the Phillies have a few options, sometime before next season:

Trade Taylor for something other than Roy Halladay
Let Taylor season at AAA for another season, and bring him up to replace Werth in 2011
Trade one of the major-league OFs for help elsewhere (3B, C, or SP?) and to free up a spot for Taylor
Make a prospect-for-prospect trade of Taylor-plus for a Brown-level prospect.

I personally find the idea of trading Ibanez really attractive, as I don't think he's going to be able to repeat this season and the lineup could really use another power righty. But I suspect that other teams would be similarly leery of his prospects over the next couple of years, so I'm assuming that's not a real option.

I like trading Victorino. Trading Werth to free up a spot for Taylor doesn't really improve the offense, but Taylor has a good chance to be a better hitter in the near-term than is Victorino, and Werth is a actually a credible centerfielder.

However, if good value for Victorino isn't available, the idea of moving Taylor for a younger prospect is intriguing to me. Taylor is by pretty much anyone's measure an excellent prospect; maybe there's some team out there with a near-term need at OF but a budget crunch, who possesses a high-upside OF prospect who's a couple years away.

Thoughts?

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).