Michael Young, Heartbreaker

I have to say, I had a similar reaction when the Phillies traded Bobby Abreu. /sarcasm

[Video via Big League Stew]

BREAKING NEWS: The Phillies Are Good At Everything

Today, ESPN.com's Keith Law released his organizational farm system rankings for all 30 MLB teams (sorry, Insider access needed). Where did our Phillies rank, you ask? Fifth. Yes, you read that right, FIFTH. In all of MLB. Damn we are awesome.

If it's one thing we've heard from analysts, other team's fans and sports talk shows over the past year, it's that the Phillies, while very good right now, have damaged their long-term success by making all the trades they've made recently. We've heard, "hey, you may be good now, but you're gonna suck in 2013!" Well guess what folks...NOT. GONNA. HAPPEN. Despite not spending the amount of money other teams do on prospects, and despite trading for every team's ace, the Phillies farm system is loaded. Yes, most of the talent is in Single A, but that means they should be ready by about 2013...right when we'll need them. Yep, our better is definitely better than their better.

Cliff Lee.

h/t to PhuturePhillies.

I Love You Cliff

<3

Cole Hamels Is Our Fourth Starter

Welcome home, Clifton. Multiple reports have confirmed, Cliff Lee has agreed to a deal with the Phillies. Ruben, I take it all back. We all take it all back. We love you, so very, very much.

This is all so new, so fresh, it's hard to really believe it. However, barring some ridiculous turn of events, the Phillies now boast a rotation of Roy Halladay, Cliff Lee, Roy Oswalt and Cole Hamels. That doesn't even make sense.

Think about it this way: Roy Halladay, per Fangraphs.com WAR statistic, was the second most valuable pitcher in baseball last year. Number one? That would be Cliff Lee. Almost every team in baseball would kill to have Cole Hamels and Roy Oswalt as their top two starters. We have them. And we have Cliff Lee and Roy Halladay too.

I'm gonna go cry myself to sleep with happiness. Cliff, glad to have you back.

Oh, and fuck the Yankees.

I'm Gonna Pretend This Is All A Lie

Sometime in life you hear something so good, so unbelievable, that you are almost forced to believe it isn't true. After reading rumor after rumor earlier today about the possiblity that the Phillies had entered the Cliff Lee bidding at the 11th hour, I come home from the bar tonight to this tweet from Joel Sherman of the NY Post:

At thsi moment, #Yankees have become extremely negative about landing Lee and believing that he is edging toward #Phillies

Besides the fact he spelled "this" wrong...well...holy shit. There isn't much else to really say right now, especially since there is really very little chance of this happening. If reports of the Yankees $150 million bid are true, Lee would probably be leaving $50 million on the table to join the Phillies. It's true that he loved it here, but that's a lot of money to "go somewhere you love." Thankfully we won't have to wait very long, as Jon Heyman reported tonight that a deal could come tomorrow.

Let's hope it's Christmas come early this year in Philadelphia.

*fingers crossed*

Jeff Francoeur Is A Douche, Please Don't Sign Him

As I'm sure you've heard by now, the Phillies have interest in Jeff Francoeur. Rubes Jr. really wants a platoon partner for Domonic Brown, somebody who can not only hit lefties but provides some good outfield defense. It would appear, on the surface, that Francoeur can do both as he hits lefties (.299 career avg.) and has a strong arm in right field.

The problem is, Jeff Francoeur is a total douche. Besides the fact that he just looks like a guy I would hate, he also seems to carry some perpetual upside that never becomes reality. Plus he was a Met, which pretty much makes him toxic. And he was obviously the reason the Rangers lost the World Series. Oh, and in case you need any more reasons to hope the Phillies don't sign this guy, here is a gem of a quote from 2005:

“If on-base percentage is so important, then why don’t they put it up on the scoreboard?”

Ugh. Last time I checked they do, pal.

This Phillies team if full of good, fun, cool players. Let's not ruin that with Frenchy, ok Rubes?

Don't let me down.

Bad Ass Mickey Morandini Baseball Card

Seriously, I've seen a lot of baseball cards and this has to be one of the most bad-ass ones around (as is this one). Mickey is layin' the wood to some crappy catcher (who I think is on the Mets but I can't quite tell) obviously scoring a game-winning run. He probably slept with multiple girls following this game, and then combed his mullet slowly as he looked over his conquest. As we all know, Mickey Morandini rocks.

Oh, and he's also back in the organization now as the manager of the Class-A Williamsport Crosscutters. But really, I just wanted a reason to show that awesome card.

Enjoy your Friday.

A Player by Player Restrospective: Ryan Madson

Juan Uribe. If Ryan Madson is anything like us fans (which right off bat, I'll admit, is unlikely) he probably falls to sleep at night having nightmares about Mr. Uribe. I mean, if I gave up a go-ahead home run to a player that effectively ended my team's season it would probably stick with me for awhile. Fucking Juan Uribe.

Honestly, though, Ryan Madson had quite a year. His end of the year statistics, a 2.55 ERA, 1.04 WHIP, 10.87 K/9, do a pretty good job of telling his story for 2010 - he was pretty damn dominating. Once he returned from his broken foot...

(Ok, side bar. I really think an "idiot injury" clause should be automatically written into every contract in professional sports. I know the union's would never allow this, but honestly, if you're an athlete and you almost blow a game and then in anger kick a chair and break your foot - you deserve to lose some cash. Not your career, just some cash. This clause of course will inevitably help the Steelers recoup some dough when Big Ben has his scrotum torn off by some angry college chick he tries to rape bone in a random bathroom stall in Chicago. Or Miami. Or Harrisburg.)

...he was practically un-hittable. His ERAs in August and September were 0.98 and 1.26 respectively. In October, his only run allowed was the solo shot to F'in Juan Uribe. Hell, from July 31 through October 23, Madson gave up only five earned run. Five. That's beyond impressive. Plus, his year was also Saber-approved, with a 2.61 FIP and .308 BABIP, meaning he wasn't lucky...just good.

What was most exciting about Madson career year, however, is his increase in K/9 rate. After posting a career high rate in 2009 of 9.08, Madson jumped all the way up to 10.80. That is dominating stuff. While it's hard to directly attribute that jump to anything in particular, it's possible that Madson's increased use of the cutter helped. Madson only threw his fastball last year 52.2% of time, the lowest since his rookie season in 2004 (which during, perhaps coincidentally, he had the lowest ERA of his career) . He threw the cutter 18.1% of the time, over a 4% increase from the year before. He also bumped up his changeup usage (which has always been his best pitch) to 28.7% of the time. As he got more comfortable with the cutter (it became a positive value pitch this year, as opposed to last year when it was negative) his use of it gave the hitter another quality pitch to worry about. No longer being able to simply sit on a fastball, or hit a mistake cutter, the National League had no chance. Madson rode his dominating changeup to what probably would have been a 100 K season if he had been health all year.

Unfortunately, this might be Madson's final year as a Phillie. He's under contract for 2011, his final year of the $12M/3-year extension signed in 2009, and then will hit free agency at just 31 years old. With teams always looking for dominate relievers, Madson will be a hot commodity next off-season. I mean, if Brandon Lyon can get $5M a year, you have to think that Madson will get at least $7-8M. Will that be from the Phillies? Probably only if he's the closer (which is a post for another day).

So, anyway, don't worry about that right now. Madson will be an incredibly important part of the Phillies bullpen next year, especially with Brad Lidge's health always in question. Let's just hope he stays away from chairs this off-season.

Next up, Carlos Ruiz.

A Player by Player Retrospective: Joe Blanton

Joe Blanton signed a 3-year, $24M extension last offseason, keeping him in a Phillies uniform through the 2012 season. This made some sense for the Phillies (minus the whole ‘should have just kept Cliff Lee with that money’ thing which I’m not going to get into) since he asked for $10.25M in arbitration, and the Phillies countered with $7.5M. Meeting in between was a good idea, since the arbitration process can be difficult to predict. Plus, the Phillies were keeping a reliable arm, someone that had just come off a pretty good year, who is fully capable of pitching 200 innings to a 4.10 ERA. That’s useful.

However, Joe Blanton start to the season had people yelling to remove him from the rotation. Through his first eight starts of 2010, Blanton sat at a 7.28 ERA and his peripheral stats supported that lousy number. His FIP sat at 5.34 in May and 5.16 in June and his xFIP numbers were just as close. His K/9 rate was awful (4.5 in May, a season low) and he gave up 13 homers in his first 11 starts. The numbers just didn’t look good for Joe.

Thankfully, something turned around in July. From the All-Star break on he started 15 games, pitching to a 3.33 ERA (this doesn’t include his one game relief appearance). His K/9 rate rebounded to 7.89, which helps explain the ERA drop. Couple that with fewer walks and HR allowed and suddenly he was back to being a reliable 4th starter (which is what he was once the Phillies grabbed Oswalt). From the naked eye, it would appear that the early season strained oblique Joe suffered in spring training probably delayed him in getting up to speed. That and the fact that he may just be a slow starter (since he had an equally bad start to 2009, although it ended a little quicker then).

In looking at the numbers, it was striking how similar a pitcher he was to 2009 (his xFIP numbers were almost exactly the same) except for one major difference: he learned a cutter. In the past, Blanton was primarily a fastball, slider, changeup pitcher, occasionally throwing a curveball (not a very good one, mind you). This season, like most Phillies pitchers though, he started to work in a cutter. This came at the detriment of his slider, his second best pitch historically, which he threw less often. That change may account for some of the early season woes as well. As we saw with Hamels early in the year as well, the cutter is a very powerful pitch, if you know how to throw it. If not, it’s basically a slower fastball that hangs in the middle of the plate. That isn’t good. Another offseason to work on the pitch should be very beneficial for Blanton’s 2011 performance.

Overall, Joe Blanton really is what he is. He’s a decent starter, averaging exactly 2.0 WAR in the past three seasons. He’s getting paid a contract that he’s worth, as he’s set to make $8.5M both this year and next. I really couldn’t sum it up better than in this chart from Fangraphs.com:



See, he really is about as average as possible. And you know what? Sometimes, especially in the National League, average is plenty good enough.
Next up, Ryan Madson.

[chart courtesy of Fangraphs.com]

2010 Phillies Recap: A Player by Player Retrospective

I recognize that we’re all still very depressed from last Saturday’s events. While we may have considered the fact that we could lose to the Giants, I don’t think any of use actually thought that we would. However, after Cody Ross homeruns, Ryan Howard strikeouts and f’in Juan Uribe, our team is no longer playing baseball this year. That fact, sadly, isn’t going to change.

With that, it’s important we look back on the Phillies season we just witnessed with fond memories. After all, they did win 97 games this year (count the five they won in the postseason and they won 102 games). Only the Giants can end up with more total victories (and they have to win the WS to do that). The Phillies swept a postseason series for the first time in their history. Roy Halladay threw a perfect game then a no-hitter in his first playoff start. Placido Polanco made an easy transition to third and played most of the season with a bone-chippy arm. Cole Hamels rebounded big time and put together his best season. Roy Oswalt is now a Phillie. Ryan Madson had another dominate year in the 8th inning. There was a lot to be happy about this year.

But it wasn't all roses. Chase Utley went cold in mid-May, got hurt and was never really the same. Ryan Howard didn’t even hit 35 HR (something a guy with his power really should never NOT do). Raul Ibanez was barely relevant until July. Jimmy Rollins was hurt most of the season. Joe Blanton sucked for two months. Still though, they won 97 games.

Overall the season was a great one, if ultimately unfulfilling. But to kill some time until spring training, while giving you some analysis, I’m here to break it down for you, player by player.

First up (yes, this was done randomly by finger point)…is Raul Ibanez.

It doesn’t take a very perceptive person to see that Raul Ibanez’s year was not as good as his 2009 season. We all know how good Ibanez was through mid-June of last year, he was putting up MVP-type numbers that helped carry the team through their usual first-half malaise. After his injury he never returned to the form of April and May, but that was fine. The team made the World Series anyway and his 13 RBIs in 15 October games helped to alleviate the growing worry that he really was too old. 2010 was going to be big for him (big in proving he wasn't too old).

This year couldn’t have started worse for Ibanez. At the all-star break he had only 7 HR and was batting only .243. In the second half he was a little better, hitting 9 more HR while raising his average up to .275. While you might look at his average and say ‘hey he hit .272 last year’ and think this year wasn’t that bad, it really was. Ibanez was able to keep his OBP high thanks to a career high 10.7% walk rate, but he still only clocked in at .349 (up from .347 last year). That, however, was paired with a steep drop in power, with only a .169 ISO as compared to .280 from 2009 (when he hit his career high 34 HR). When a guy is in your order to help drive in runs, power helps. Ibanez, simply, didn’t have enough for a corner outfielder whose defense is so poor (a -6.9 UZR).

If you look at FanGraph’s pitch type values for Ibanez you can see that he struggled mightily against fastballs this year. A pitch he historically kills, he simply couldn’t generate any results from this year. Now, this could be a one-year anomaly, or it could point to an overall drop in bat speed (which is to be expected from a 38-year old). A major league batter sees fastballs more than any other pitch type, so if he can’t handle them that will make a rebound season next year very difficult for him to produce. It won’t be hard for pitchers to see can’t catch up to the pitch and he’ll continue to see a steady diet of inside fastball and sliders away. Bad news.

Thankfully, Ibanez has just one year remaining on his contract. Although he makes a pretty penny ($12.1M next year) you can still live with that if he produces 1.8 WAR again. He’s probably a $6M player (in value) so the Phillies are only losing $6M on his deal (which isn’t terrible when compared to the $11M value discrepancy in the Howard’s contract, but that's for another time). Ultimately, if the Phillies continue to bat him 7th, he won’t hurt them too much. He doesn’t hit well on the road, and can’t walk against lefties (4:1 K:BB ratio) so if the Phillies platoon him with a RH bat with some pop next year the production from left field should be fine.

Or, he could rebound and hit 30+ HR again. I'm hoping for that.

Joe Blanton up next.