Phillies

Phillies Blog, Baseball News, Trade Rumors & Spirits

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A fan's Philadelphia Phillies blog

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The most comprehensive Philadelphia Phillies Blog.

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Last news: December 31, 1969 19:00:00

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Lots of people talking about this great article about how many curve balls Ryan Howard saw last year. Milt Thompson says that given how many breaking balls Howard sees he should be able to walk 150 times in a season. That may be a little optimistic, but it does seem like Howard should [...] - [Read more]

Here’s today’s guess on who will be on the 25-man roster for the Phillies on opening day: Hitters (13): Ruiz, Howard, Utley, Polanco, Rollins, Ibanez, Victorino, Werth, Schneider, Gload, Dobbs, Castro and Francisco. Sure looks like it’s a tough task for Brown to work his way on to the roster, not matter how well he hits [...] - [Read more]

A brief moment to reflect on how the Phillies could be sixth-best in the league overall in runs allowed if their starters were seventh best and their relievers were ninth best. There were five teams in the NL last year that allowed fewer runs than the Phils. They were the Dodgers, Giants, Cardinals, Braves and [...] - [Read more]

While the Phils struggled some in the early innings last season, it was still the relievers who had more trouble overall. The table below shows the Phillies rank in the NL for starters and relievers for 2009 in ERA, ratio, runs allowed per nine innings and runs allowed per batter faced: [...] - [Read more]

The second, fifth and ninth were pretty clearly the problem innings for the Phils in 2009. When your closer puts up a 7.21 ERA for the season you don’t have to look real hard to figure out what went wrong in the ninth, but it surely means there were some guys pitching a lot [...] - [Read more]

Last week I looked at where the Phils pitching got worse by inning in 2009 compared to 2008. I also wanted to look at how their runs allowed per inning compared to the rest of the National League in 2009 The table below shows the Phillies rank in the league for runs allowed by inning [...] - [Read more]

The Phillies got a little worse at preventing runs last year compared to their 2008 campaign. In 2008, only two teams in the NL allowed fewer runs than the Phils. In 2009 the Phils dropped to sixth in the league. If you had asked me the inning in which the Phillies saw the most [...] - [Read more]

Ruben Amaro suggested last week that Phillies fans might want to relax about the lack of lefties in the pen and further suggested that righty Jose Contreras and his splitter might be a big weapon against lefties this season. I actually feel pretty relaxed about the pen, but more because I feel confident that [...] - [Read more]

Last week I mentioned that while the Phillies got worse at preventing runs overall last year, using opponent batting statistics they still got better against left-handed batters. A couple more things about that. First, a big part of their success against left-handed hitting had to do with some right-handed pitchers that 1) were great against lefties [...] - [Read more]

In 2008, when they won the World Series, the Phillies were the third-best NL team at preventing runs. Only the Cubs and the Dodgers allowed fewer. In 2009, the Phillies were pretty good at preventing runs compared to the rest of the NL again, but dropped to sixth-best in the league. Returning to the [...] - [Read more]

Details about when JC Romero will be able to contribute to the Phillies pen remain uncertain, so it seems likely that the Phillies opening day roster will include lefty Antonio Bastardo or his fellow lefty Sergio Escalona. Or both. So it seems important to be able to tell them apart. Neither of the two [...] - [Read more]

After looking at how the runs allowed per plate appearance changed by catcher for 2009, I thought it might be interesting to look at how they changed depending on who was pitching. The table below shows, for each player who pitched for the Phillies in 2009, the rate at which the pitcher allowed runs per batter [...] - [Read more]

Last week I wrote that the Phillies allowed about 91.1% of the runs per plate appearance when Carlos Ruiz was catching that they did when some other player was catching. The table below shows how that compares to other teams in the NL for 2009. For each team, the table shows the player [...] - [Read more]

As I wrote earlier this week, Carlos Ruiz had a nice season with the bat in 2009 that put him on the list of the best hitting catchers in baseball. Prior to ‘09, though, Ruiz hadn’t excelled offensively with the Phils. Despite the lack of offensive production, Ruiz had a reputation as a [...] - [Read more]

Under his new contract, Carlos Ruiz will make $1.9 million in 2010, $2.75 million in 2011 and $3.7 million in 2012. Did the Phillies get a good deal or not? The table below shows, for players across both leagues who got at least 200 plate appearances as a catcher, the top 15 catchers [...] - [Read more]

It might not be till we’re well into the 2010 season, but I think that when the batting order settles down for the Phillies it will go Rollins, Victorino, Utley, Howard, Werth, Ibanez, Polanco, Ruiz. In this article, though, Manuel seems to suggest that the Phillies may start the season with Polanco hitting second [...] - [Read more]

Back in November I looked at some of the available players who looked like they might be a good match for the Phils at third base. The Phillies landed on Placido Polanco and most of the rest of that group has found a home by now as well: [...] - [Read more]

Phillies batters hit with the bases empty in about 56.1% of their plate appearances in 2009 and in those plate appearances they drove in 16.2% of the runs that the Phillies scored. For the eight Phillies regulars, here’s the percentage of their plate appearances that came with the bases empty and the percentage of [...] - [Read more]

Earlier this month I wrote about how important it was for Phillies pitchers not to walk a batter with the bases empty. Phillies hitters also drive in a lot more runs in their chances to hit with runners on base than in their chances with the bases empty. If you had asked me [...] - [Read more]

After having the best bullpen in the National League in 2008, the Phillies’ pen faded to the middle of the pack in 2009. At this point it looks like five of the bullpen spots for 2010 have been filled by Lidge, Durbin, Madson, Romero and Baez. The table below shows what those five [...] - [Read more]