Why The Phils Are Better Then You Think - 2013 Season Preview

I have been watching baseball a long time and generally I have a pretty good pulse on what’s happening in the game. Since I read the book, “MoneyBall” I have begun to look at baseball through a  different set of lens. My old prescription said, “Who cares about the money, just go out and get the damn player.” Now I have adapted a more realist vision of “The cost of the player must be economical enough to sustain a winning product.”

In the last 20 years, the model of the Yankees was to throw money at any position and outspend the competition. I am not going to lie but that does work to a certain degree but then again if I asked 100 girls in high school to go on a date with me, I’m sure one probably would have said yes. Unfortunately for me, I gave up after 80. Anyway, history proves that most teams can’t compete with Yankee money and more sustainable teams are built with deeper teams with a diverse group of 5 tool players. 

In other words, you can spend $120 million dollars on the preeminent stud starting pitcher with a workhorse pedigree that will almost guarantee your team a victory every five days + it’ll create a buzz in the city as said pitcher may have a perfect game and a no-hitter in the playoffs. But in the end, what good will this do for any championship run if you have no money left for reliable hitters or better yet, you completely forget about building a bullpen that will subsequently save said stud starters excellent pitching performances.

This is preceding paragraph is an example of how Ruben Amaro Jr once viewed his Philadelphia Phillie's Squad. His strategy was to do some shock and awe with our 4 Aces + Blanton rotation and everything else will come into focus. That strategy saw a world series team that he inherited get progressively worse each year of his reign. For those who didn’t notice

·         Lost in World Series in 2009,

·         Lost in NL Championship in 2010

·         Lost in Wild Card in 2011

and

·         Missed playoffs in 2012.

This year his strategy fundamentally changed. 

As I see his moves this past off-season, I have two absolute certainties. The team is too fractured to win a World Series this year but the team composition approach is so vastly different then it’s been since 2008 that it is hard for me not to see the Phillie's back in the playoffs this season. Here is why....

Let me first put out some general thoughts on this year’s team makeup.

First some bad news

1.    I don’t see any starting pitcher on this team winning any more then 15 games and you know what? Who gives a darn. Really? I don’t care how many wins my starting pitcher gets, I’m more interested in how many wins my team gets. I see the Phillies playing a lot of close games in which our older collection of pitchers only go 6-7 innings consistently. That means a lot of W/L’s will go squarely on the shoulders of our bullpen. More on them in a bit.

2.    I see Roy Halladay as a guy who will pitch 26-28 games, Strike out 170 plus batters and have an ERA of around a 3.60. Once again, I don’t see this as an issue either. He is nearly 36-years-old and has a lot of innings under his belt. He is a bit past his prime but not yet completely washed up. He is in the last year of a long contract and is no longer needed to be “The Ace.” That’s why we have Hamel’s. If Roy can be an efficient 3^rd starter in this rotation in 2013 then the team can survive. Otherwise, we will need to trade, beg, borrow or deal because Kendrick and Lannan are prototypical viable back of rotation guys and nothing more.

3.    The Phillies will have the worst defensive in baseball. It’s that simple. There were too many roster holes to be filled and very little money to fill them. If the Phillies are any better then last place in fielding errors this season then we are in the bonus. Every MLB team has a flaw. This is by far the Phillies biggest and we should just be prepared for terrible play particularly from the corner positions.

4.    The Phillies do not have a very good hitting bench. Let’s not misconstrue. The Phillies have some nice speed and defense on their bench (namely Galvis and Mayberry) but it lacks any potential late inning power threat. Laynce Nix is not Matt Stairs. My thought is that if the Phil’s are contending in July, the GM can rectify this issue…Calling Jim Thome!!!

5.    The Phillies are old. This statement is true but other then the whispers of Roy Halladays quick decline, no one is saying anything about Utley, Howard and Rollins being unable to keep up with a fastball. If anything, it appears as though age helps in experience and sometimes you need smart veterans to make good decisions at the plate and in the field. Sure a hammy may pop here and there but I wouldn’t put too much stock in our teams age.

LETS MOVE ON TO GOOD THINGS

1.    The Phillies will have one of the top 5 bullpens in baseball. There I said it…now it’s published on my website and I can either brag about this statement or crow about it come September. The truth is that the Phillies had one of the worst bullpens in baseball last year. RAJ paid a lot for a closer but overlooked the fact that you can’t get to a closer when your 8^th inning guys blow the lead. There are now defined roles in our pen. Papelbon gets the 9^th, Adams gets the 8^th, Durbin gets the righties in the 7^th and Bastardo gets the lefties in the 7^th. Horst comes in key 7^th or 8^th innings when above mentioned guys are unavailable. Some combination of Aumont/ Stutes are the long relievers and Valdes is a 3^rd lefty option. It’s a very formidable bullpen who will each rack up a lot wins in close late inning situations. Phillies lost 18 games in the 8^th inning last year. The Phillies missed the playoffs by 7 games. That math is hard to avoid.

2.    154. If I said that the Phillies had a guy play 154 out of 162 games last year, you would say that’s a nice, healthy durable player. What if I said that that was the amount of games played by an entire side of the infield combined last year (Howard and Utley). Together they combined for 154 games. I am not here to profess that either guy is super durable this season. I actually believe each of them will spend time on the DL this year. It’s a long season. But if the two of them can somehow combine for 225 combined games this year that would be drastically better then 225 games of Galvis / Mayberry.

3.    Hamels, Lee, Kendrick, Lannan and a questionable Halladay is still stronger than most NL rotations. Let’s compare our guys to those vicious Nationals. Strasburg vs Hamels. Ok, Strasburg may be the 2^nd best starter (Kershaw being number 1) in the entire NL and Hamels may be the 3rd best, so we are splitting heirs but one thing I know for sure, our management will not shut down our star in August. Gio Gonzalez vs Cliff Lee. Lee had a better ERA and way more K’s last season. Zimmerman vs Halladay. This year it will be push in terms of output. But in a big game situation, I’ll take Halladay 99 out of 100 times, Haren vs Kendrick. Haren wins this one. Haren can be a viable 3 on any MLB club. Kendrick is happy to be a 4. Detwiler vs Lannan. Here’s the big secret on Lannan. He has a 4.30 career era but that number drops to 3.80 when you take out games versus the Phillies. Normally I don’t manipulate numbers like that except the guy no longer has to face the Phillies. I would take him over Detwiler any day of the week. Every rotation in baseball is better than The Marlins. Without RA Dickey, the Phils are marginally better then the Mets. As far as Atlanta. No one scares me on that pitching squad other then Medlan. SO yea pitching shouldn't be an issue...unless of course Halladay is completely cooked.

4.    Speed Kills: One of the most underrated moves made by RAJ this off-season is Ben Revere. The centerfielder was extremely under the radar. When other teams went out and overpaid for sexy names like Upton, Pagan, Ross and Hamilton, the Phillies underpaid on Revere. Now to say that the guys I mentioned in this list aren't more talented then Revere would be a very untruthful statement. They are all bonifide guys who can alter a game with a swing but my question, are these guys 10-15-20 million a year better then Revere?

Revere is a blooming gold glove outfielder. He is young, energetic and hits for contact. He will NOT hit a homerun…probably ever. But that’s not his skill-set. Just like Ryan Howard was not hired to hit for .300. Revere was acquired for $500,000, which is the equivalent of like $7 an hour in normal human pay.

5.    Fill in Some Holes: Lastly, RAJ couldn’t afford to blow his wad on one big free agent because he needed a CF, a 3B and rebuilt Bullpen and rotation guy. So RAJS diversified. You need depth for a long season. Remember, the 2008 Phils got role players like Dobbs, Bruntlett, Jenkins, Eyre and Werth. We see how that all turned out.

To state the obvious, Phillies need to stay relatively healthy. Noticed I didn’t say completely healthy. It’s a long season, guys will get hurt, players will be called up from the minors (Hello Darren Ruf) and there will be pleasant surprises and utter disappointments. There are ebbs and flows. There will be an everyday guy who will bat .209 like Pat Burrell did in 2003. Then we will have a guy that will hit close to. 300 with 30 Hrs and 94 RBIS like Jimmy Rollins did unexpectedly in 2007. Overall when it evens out, I can realistically see this year’s team have a net game win total of +7 over last year.

That’s puts us at 88-74. In what I consider to be one of the best 2-3 divisions in baseball That record can solidify a playoff berth of some sort. The Division? That’s a Stretch. A Wild Card? More than Likely.

Here is my general prediction of the standings

Nationals – 92-70

Phillies – 88 – 74

Braves – 85 -77

Mets -80 – 82

Marlins - 70 - 92

 When all else fails do not worry. Our biggest pickup this year was reacquiring Ed Wade as our Special Consultant. I guess that means we can't steal anymore players from the Astros anymore?