Phillies Scouting Report, 4/3/11

I took in a game at the old ballpark today. Here's what I noticed:

1. Michael Bourn  I wasn't so sure about it at the time, but the Phillies did well swapping this guy for Brad Lidge. Bourn has some speedy gams, but he'll never be a reliable leadoff guy. You gots to hit or walk to get the chance to steal bases, and he doesn't do either of those things well enough.
2. Carlos Lee  He looks awful slow in the outfield. He should be a DH, but the Astros don't have any other options.
3. Jimmy Rollins  Jimmy is hitting seeds to start the season. Everything off his bat is a line drive, and that's exactly what I want to be seeing. And he made a crazy play at shortstop ranging far to shallow center field for a grounder and throwing an off-balance strike to first base. Curiously, he was running station-to-station on the bases today- what was up with that?
4. Ryan Howard  He's seeing the ball and hitting the ball. Hard. The shift stole a double off his bat today- he should've been 4-5.
5. Raul Ibanez  Raul is getting the bat on the ball, but his power is all dried up.
6. Charlie Manuel  Uncle Charlie took Roy Oswalt out of the game after only 88 pitches for a pinch hitter. The gamble worked and the Phils scored 2 that inning. Still, with the state of the bullpen and a three run lead, it was kind of a weird move. Oswalt had been pitching a fine game up to that point.

Why the Phillies big bats are Phailing

Two good articles on ESPN about why the Phillies lineup isn't as potent as it used to be. Here and here. If you're not planning on reading them, the bottom line is that teams are refusing to throw fastballs at the Phightens. And since the Phillies are undisciplined hitters, they swing at whatever junk saunters plateward. The results are strikeouts and dribblers.

Ryan Howard is the Phillie who sees the fewest fastballs- only about 53% of the pitches he gets are fastballs. That's astonishing when you consider that the fastball is the most common pitch in baseball (I don't have a calculator in front of me, but I'd guess that an average players sees about 80-85% mustard). Ryan should really think about bunting down the unguarded third base line more often.

It's unclear how the Phillies are going to adapt to a league adapting to them. I can't see J-Roll or the Flyin Hawaiian suddenly learning patience at the dish. Utley is a smart hitter, but he's already battling injuries. And forget about Dominic Brown bringing an offensive spark. That guy was sent home from winter ball for his batting impotence, and he has been equally sucktastic in spring training- breaking an 0 for 16 hitless streak with a swing that ended up breaking his hand. Jeepers.

I think the only hope might be that the Phillies can swap Joe Blanton for a patient, every day bat. Preferably one who can hit from the right side. Here are the players I'd target in a trade:

Nick Swisher, Yankees: He can take over as an every day right fielder. Or left fielder. He's not a top-flight player, but he's proven to be patient at the plate, and has some pop. The Yankees could really use some pitching help, as well.

Chone Figgins, Mariners: He's overpaid and getting long in the tooth, but he'd be the best top-of-the-lineup option on the Phillies roster. He can steal AND draw a walk. The Phils could plug him into the outfield or deal Placido and let Chone handle the hot corner.

Daric Barton, Athletics: This is a little bit of a stretch. I'm not sure the A's would want to trade him, and I'm not sure he can play the outfield. He might be able to play third base (he played ONE game there in 2008). But he's just what the Phillies need offensively: check out this quote from his player profile at ESPN: "Statistically, nobody chased out of the strike zone less than Barton last year." Yes, he'd be another lefthanded bat, but he actually hits lefties better than righties.

Phillies management look lost at the plate; Dan Haren signs with another red-and-white team

If you look back at my critique of the Phils' offseason moves, you can see that I've proven to know more than Phillies management when it comes to assembling a baseball team. I'll return to this subject in more detail in a future post, but here's a quick review of my knowing-better:

• The Phillies should have gone after Adrian Beltre instead of Placido Polanco.

• The Phillies should have kept Cliff Lee.

• The Phillies paid Ryan Howard more money than he's worth and more than he'd probably fetch on the open market.

Also, here are some things I would have written had I started this blog only a few months earlier:

• If the Phillies were going to make an ill-advised trade of Cliff Lee, they should have shopped him around and gotten more for him (You may think the trade was Roy Halladay for Cliff Lee, but it wasn't: The Phillies traded minor leaguers Kyle Drabek, Michael Taylor and Travis d'Arnaud to Toronto for Roy Halladay. They then traded Cliff Lee to the Mariners for some minor league scrubs who you will never see at Citizens Bank Park- Phillippe Aumont, Juan Ramirez and Tyson Gillies.)

• The Phillies spent too much on, and gave too many years to Raul Ibanez.

• The Phillies should have matched the Astros' paltry one year offer to Brett Myers.

I'm not saying that the Phillies would win the World Series this year had they followed my advice, but I will say that the team would be in better shape right now and for years to come. Thus, I know more about assembling a good baseball team than Phillies management. The blunders by Phillies brass have had a trickle-down effect this season, and will for seasons to come.

Let's take the Polanco example. Polanco may be falling apart, and they've already invested in him for the next two years. Meanwhile, Beltre is batting .332 with 16 home runs with 63 RBI, and is slugging .547 (Polanco is hitting a respectable .316 but only has 6 jacks). Beltre is 4th in the league in batting average, 6th in hits, 7th in OPS, and has as many homers as A-Rod. And here's a trickle-down effect you won't find on the stat sheet: With Beltre on the Phillies, Shane Victorino would be batting 2nd, where he could go back to his comfort zone of slap hitting and stealing bases. Shane wouldn't be swinging for the fences as he thinks he needs to do now, and he'd probably be hitting closer to his career average of .280.

More trickle down: Raul Ibanez has been a classy and consistent baseball player throughout his career. But he is now 38 years old and you have to wonder how much chaw is left in his cheek. His current hot streak aside, he has been miserable at the plate this season and for the latter half of last season (he hit 12 home runs post-all star break 2009, but his batting average was .232). We're looking at an aging leftfielder who swings a declining left-handed bat in a left-handed lineup, and who plays a slow left field. The Phillies are on the books for 11.5 million next season for Raul, and even if they could find a sucker to take him in a trade, Raul has a full no-trade clause. The Phillies are stuck with Raul this year and next, and he's eating up payroll the Phillies could use on a better quality player (or players!).

More trickle down: Think the Phillies could use Brett Myers' 3.24 ERA in their starting rotation? Might his 6.68 strikeouts per nine innings be worth 3.1 million dollars? The Phillies didn't think so, but former Phillies GM and current Astros GM Ed Wade did. And, in case you don't remember this, Ed Wade is a moron. What does that say about current Philies management? The Phils wouldn't need to look for starting pitching right now if they'd have re-signed Brett Myers. They could focus their resources to other team needs.

But here's the trickiest trickle: After parting with Cliff Lee for nothing, and refusing to spare some chump change for Myers, the Phillies are now desperately searching for starting pitching. They halfheartedly tried to get Cliff Lee back, but his price had gone up (Seattle flipped him to Texas for more than they gave up in the Phils trade) and it's doubtful Phillies brass could have stood the embarrassment of admitting they should have kept Lee when all of Philadelphia had condemned them for letting him go in the first place.

After all this trickling, the Phillies are in a tight spot. Their playoff hopes are slim, and their world series chances are nil. Still, they seem to want to salvage this season (and be competitive in next season) by acquiring a starting pitcher that they wouldn't need if they listened to me (and all of Philadelphia).

To fill their pitching need, the Phillies braintrust zeroed in on two targets, one good (Dan Haren) and one that will only cause more trickling sadness (Roy Oswalt).

The good one got dealt today to a team in red and white, but it wasn't the Phillies.

No, The California Angels in Anaheim picked up Dan for a big bucket of nothing. According to Christopher Harris of ESPN, the prospects the Angels gave up for Haren "are not expected to be elite players," and the only major leaguer they included in the deal is "a lucky win artist." Keith Law calls said major league player "a mediocre, back-end starter"and the minor league prospects "three bodies." Are you telling me the Phillies couldn't have tried harder to get one of the top major league pitchers, a top-of-the-rotation-talent, a player who has 3 1/2 years left on his contract at a reasonable price (he'll make less than Ibanez this year, and slightly more thereafter), who is only 29 years old, who would have made the Phillies rotation dominant... and they didn't? What the hell, Phillies??? YOU SHOULD HAVE NABBED DAN HAREN, YOU IDIOTS!

**** Note, just after I wrote this, Dan Haren was smote by a line drive while pitching for the Angels and had to leave the game after pitching 4 2/3 innings and striking out 8(!) batters. That ball was my divine wrath, but I must say I wish it hit one of the bumbling fools who make decisions for the Philiies, instead.****

The Phillies will, sadly, focus their efforts on trading for Roy Oswalt. Oswalt is a good pitcher, don't get me wrong. But he isn't the answer for the Phillies, especially not like Haren could have been. Oswalt's ERA and strikeout rate are very good, but they are trending down from the elite level they peaked at from 2001-2006. He is not currently Dan Haren level, but Roy Oswalt is a good pitcher. The thing is, he isn't a good fit for the Phillies. Why? I present the trickling of Roy Oswalt, which will settle upon the Philadelphia Phillies if they trade for him-

• Roy Oswalt does not want to play in Philadelphia. He is an confirmed country boy and wants to live near his home in Weir, Mississippi. Oswalt has admitted that he'd rather be on one of his ranches than traveling from town to town with his current baseball team, which makes me question his dedication to baseball. If Oswalt is traded to Philadelphia, he'd be even farther from his coveted country real estate, and you have to wonder if living in a big city is going to affect Oswalt's already compromised focus. Unfocused pitchers ruin games.

• Roy has played on a lousy Astros team for too long, and he is habituated to losing. Losing attitudes are contagious.

• Roy demands that the Phillies pick up his 2012 option for $16 million. This, along with his $16 million pricetag for 2011 will further hamstring the Phillies payroll and make the team less competitive.

• Roy has had recent health problems, most notably a bad disc in his back for which he has already received 3 cortisone injections. Investing $16 million a year in a pitcher with a time bomb in his back is bad business

• The Bleacher Report has a nice article about why the Phillies are better off keeping JA Happ and not trading for Oswalt; The Phillies have much more payroll flexibility if they keep JA Happ.

Dear Phillies, heed my call. Do not go after Oswalt. And appoint me GM before it's too late. Sheesh. How could you blow landing Dan Haren?!

Stupefying double plays and chair kickers

 Here's the latest on the Phightin Philadelphia Phillies, while I nurse my Kentucky Derby shame:

1) Roy Halladay is Winston Wolfe. He solves problems.
2) Placido Polanco either doesn't like wearing an elbow pad, doesn't like that his elbow hurts, or doesn't want to prove me wrong about his aged ways.
3) In the craziest game of the season, Ryan Howard came up small with the bases loaded against the Giants this week. Jayson Werth didn't, clearing the sacks with two outs.
4) Ryan Madson kicked a chair and broke his toe. The Phillies now have an entire intensive care ward to themselves: Joe Blanton, J.A. Happ, Ryan Madson, and Jimmy Rollins are on the DL. J.C. Romero looks like he should still be on the DL. Placido Polanco looks like he wants to be on the DL. Carlos Ruiz looks like he doesn't want to be on the DL, but should be. Juan Castro probably shouldn't be on the DL, but has a sore ham. Brad Lidge is a tender shoot, just plucked from the DL. The Phillies are missing some key pieces.
5) The Phillies lineup woke up against the mets today; they'll go back to bed tomorrow against Johan.
**4/2 Update, no they won't.**

6) In a forgettable game, Chase Utley and Juan Castro sparked an unforgettable double play. It blew my mind in super slo-mo, here's it in regular-mo.

Let's hope for a new week empty of any demoralizing trips to the Turf Club.

And teach your children to stay away from the ponies.

Howard extension makes red sox salivate

A great article from NESN detailing how the Phillies extension of Ryan Howard has effectively priced most teams out of the market for Albert Pujols, Adrian Gonzalez, and Prince Fielder.

Hidden in the story is the tale of Ryan Howard's WAR, which is like his VORP, which is a nerd statistic that calculates a baseball player's value to his team. WAR stands for "wins above replacement," meaning that player X will win your team this many more games than an average player off the streets. WAR is a complicated formula, and I couldn't calculate it myself, but it supposedly accounts for every variable you can think of- like park size, lineup strength, chaw preference- and spits out how much of a difference-maker the player is in all phases of the game combined. It is a single statistic that tells you how good a player you have.

The thing to keep in mind about WAR is that it is a complete snapshot of how productive a player has been within a certain period of time. It can vary from year to year just like any statistic. If a player goes into a prolonged slump or misses half a season with injury, it will affect their WAR. So, if a player has an anomalous season, for instance if they take horse steroids or they break their pelvis, their WAR may fluctuate wildly from the year before. 

That said, if players are performing at a level consistent with their previous season, their WAR can make for some sound comparisons. This is where Ryan Howard, he of the $125 million contract, is exposed as not being worth that astronomical amount of cash. Gives some credence to the argument I posed in my last post.

According to the WAR stat, Ryan Howard wins his team fewer games than two players having normal (for them) seasons: Fielder and Gonzalez. Uh oh. But the WAR express doesn't stop there. Ryan Howard also had a lower WAR last season than:

1. Albert Pujols- as expected, because Pujols is a better player
2. Joe Mauer- this means that Howard should earn less than Mauer, right? He doesn't.
3. Chase Utley- Yikes, looks like the wrong Phillie got paid.
4. Franklin Gutierrez- Who? Yup, who.

and 27 other batters. Does that mean Howard should be the 27th most paid position player in baseball and not the 2nd? And the Phillies better watch out in the offseason, because free-agent-to-be Jayson Werth is only two spots behind Howard on the list.

If we bring pitchers into the equation, Howard drops 15 spots lower in the rankings. Roy Halladay scores 7.3 to Howard's 4.9, again strengthening my argument that Howard is overpaid (at $25 Million a year to Halladay's $13).

And to think the Phillies wouldn't part with a few measly million bucks to keep Cliff Lee for an extra year!

Look, I love the big fella. But if he starts costing the team games because his massive contract eats up too much payroll, ala A-Rod with the Rangers, I'm sending the Phillies this blog post, which doubles as my GM resume.

Ryan Howard makes a lot of money

Congratulations, Ryan Howard. You're a richer man.

First, let's give Ryan Howard his due. He is a prolific home run hitter who works hard every year to improve every facet of his game. He worked on his baserunning and can now swipe some bases. Training with Sam Perlozzo, he continues to improve his defense; he leads the league in fielding percentage at the moment (though he'll never win a gold glove with all the attention Pujols gets). Howard's trying to fix the holes in his strike zone- flailing at breaking balls away much less this year. He's cutting down on strikeouts. Kind of.

Howard also busted his hump to lose weight and keep it off. So many "naturally hefty" power hitters rest on their laurels, get fat, have to become designated hitters because they've eaten themselves out of playing the field, and shorten their playing careers because they fail to keep their bodies and skills sharp. It happened to Mo Vaughn, it's happening to David Ortiz, it's going to happen to Prince Fielder and Pablo Sandoval. It won't happen to Ryan. Thank you, Subway! (Ok, it might happen to Ryan. He's got a big frame. but Ryan is doing what he can to prevent it)

Ryan deals gamely with the infield shift defenses use against him that robs him of an awful lot of hits- a shift can't be put on a right-handed batter. I've yet to see him lose his temper in the billions of times he's hit a bullet into the teeth of the shift.

Ryan Howard has hit at least 40 home runs and driven in 130+ RBI's for four straight seasons. Only Babe Ruth has done that more times, and I think Ryan is going to overtake him. Yes, Ryan Howard has eye-popping home run and RBI totals, has won awards aplenty, and he's on pace to end up in the Hall of Fame. Jayson Stark notes that Howard hit 100, 150, and 200 home runs in fewer at bats than anybody, ever.

He also seems like a terrific person. My mom loves this guy. Ryan Howard isn't going to run over a homeless guy while driving drunk after groping a lady at a bar where he accidentally shot himself in the thigh. Not going to happen. He's got a fun personality, everybody in the clubhouse seems to like him, and he's a standup member of the community.

I am fond of Ryan Howard and I'm happy for him that he got paid.

Here comes the "but."

An average salary of $25 million is slightly more money than Ryan Howard should earn, and it could cost the Phillies the financial flexibility they need to keep their roster as talented as possible.

I even wonder if Howard could have commanded more had he gone into free agency. Unless the Yankees were in the bidding, I think it unlikely. Who were the Phillies bidding against? And you usually get some kind of deal when you extend a player's contract, trading dollars for job security. This ain't no discount.

Everyone is talking about how the Howard contract means that Jayson Werth is not going to be resigned. I think somebody is going to pay Werth more than he's worth regardless, but yeah, the Phils are going to miss out on some talent somewhere down the line.

My thought is that Howard deserves somewhere between $18-$21 million a year. Depending on how his option works out, I estimate him costing the Phillies $23-$39 million more than he's worth over the life of his contract.

I have no doubt that Albert Pujols is going to ask for, and get, more money than Howard. But Albert Pujols deserves more money than Howard. Howard's contract may cause Pujols' contract to get more inflated than it should be, but Pujols is the best hitter in baseball right now.

Howard is absolutely an elite talent. There are just some players that are better than him. A-Rod, who got overpaid in Yankee money, should earn more than Howard and he does. Derek Jeter should earn more money than Howard and he doesn't.

Howard should be making somewhere around Miguel Cabrera money, who averages $19 million a year. Joe Mauer should make a little more money than Howard- he calls a good game behind the plate, plays stellar defense, and is a better pure hitter than Howard- and Mauer just signed a deal worth $2 million less than Howard's annually. Prince Fielder deserves less than Howard, and we'll see how he does.

Think about this. Roy Halladay is averaging about $13 million a year. Is Ryan Howard worth $12 million a year more than Roy Halladay? Heck no. In fact, if I were basing my estimate of how much Howard is worth on Halladay's contract, I'd say Howard should earn $10 million a year.

Jayson Stark pointed out that nobody will have earned more than Ryan Howard after he's played 10 years: $190 million! Look, he's a great player- but that's waaaay more money than he should make.

The take home message is that the Phillies overpaid for Howard, and the Phillies could be in serious trouble if Ryan doesn't stay ultra productive through his 30's. It's great to think that he'll be a Phillie for a long time, and scary to think that his contract could hamstring the team.

Something that deserves mention here as well. Remember when we Philly fans used to complain about how cheap the Phillies are? Wasn't long ago. Well, we can't call the Phillies cheap now. We can only hope that they'll continue to open their wallet wide to overcome the hole they've dug themselves with this monster contract. We can only hope they'll have the cash to keep this fine team together and add complementary pieces.