Swartz and Seidman: Introducing SIERA
Former Good Phighter Matt Swartz, with ample help from Eric Seidman, continues his request to solve baseball with SIERA, a new pitching metric that you'll get to hear Joe Morgan and Mitch Williams deride on your TV this summer.
Trading Up: Phillies Better in 2010?
by dajafi on Feb 8, 2010 12:02 AM EST
32 comments
Continuity has been the hallmark of recent Phillies teams. Of the eight likely lineup regulars when the 2010 season begins, four of them—Jimmy Rollins, Chase Utley, Ryan Howard and Shane Victorino—will be making their fourth straight Opening Day start. Two more, Jayson Werth and Carlos Ruiz, will be notching their third straight, and Raul Ibanez will be making his second in a row. The only newbie is Placido Polanco, and even he has suited up in Phillies openers before.
But that isn’t to say that GM Ruben Amaro hasn’t changed the mix in a fairly significant way coming off two straight National League pennants. Of the full 25 man roster from the 2009 World Series, more than a quarter have moved on: Cliff Lee to the Mariners, Pedro Feliz to the Astros, Scott Eyre to retirement, Matt Stairs to the Padres, Eric Bruntlett to the Nationals, Pedro Martinez and Chan Ho Park and Paul Bako to destinations as yet undetermined. Most of the bench has been overhauled, along with a decent chunk of the bullpen and those spots in the lineup and rotation.
We’ve chewed over their replacements all winter: Roy Halladay for Lee, Polanco for Feliz, Ross Gload for Stairs, Danys Baez and Jose Contreras for Eyre and Park, and so on. But the big question is, taken as a whole, did this set of moves likely improve the 2010 Phillies compared to their immediate predecessor?
According to the key metric of Baseball Prospectus--projected VORP (Value Over Replacement Player) for 2010--the answer is not just yes, but HELL YEAH:
32 comments | 1 recs |
Oscar Villarreal: Your Newest Phillies Reliever?
The Phillies added another arm to the bullpen mix, signing Oscar Villarreal to a minor-league contract. He missed all of last year after Tommy John surgery, but he's only 29 and has had a couple of years of pretty effective bullpen performance. Although the article says he's not invited to spring training and is slated for Lehigh Valley, provided he's healthy, I wouldn't be surprised to see him in Philadelphia at some point this year.
3 days ago
David S. Cohen
13 comments
0 recs
Phillies Top 30 Prospects, '10 Edition: #10 thru #1
by PhillyFriar on Feb 5, 2010 11:10 AM EST
31 comments
[Part IV of a four-part series]
Was the anticipation killing you? It shouldn't have been, given that I haven't changed the contents of the Top 10 since December's offseason Prospect Roundup. I did, however, tweak the order a bit -- as I said before, this is a fluid process, and as more information becomes available, things are bound to change.
Without further ado, then, I present the Phillies' Top 10 prospects heading into the 2010 season.
31 comments | 0 recs |
Phillies Top 30 Prospects, '10 Edition: #20 thru #11
by PhillyFriar on Feb 3, 2010 9:03 AM EST
14 comments
[Part III of a four-part series]
Movin' on up, we've got the middle group of my Top 30 for 2010. The group as a whole is a nice combination of medium-ceiling guys, a couple of high upside position players, and some hard-throwing arms from the younger levels. So kick back, grab a drink (only if you're of legal age), and check out the second installment below the jump...
14 comments | 0 recs |
Ruben Gets It
by taco pal on Feb 2, 2010 1:41 PM EST
73 comments
I've got to give the man credit. He gets it exactly right here.
"I was talking to some people the other day," Amaro recalled, "and I said, ‘I’m not a dummy. I know what Cliff Lee means to our rotation in addition to Halladay and [Cole] Hamels. It’s a no-brainer.’ … Our goal is to be a contender every year — not just to be a competitor, but to be a contender every year. That’s really my job. As an executive of the club, it’s my job to do what I can to try to maintain that level of talent on the club and that hope from the fans. So, yes, I’d like to have a championship, but not at the cost of having our organization not be good for 10 years. Absolutely not. That’s not the goal. The goal is to be a contender every year. And once you get to the World Series or get to the playoffs, it’s really a matter of who’s playing the best baseball, who’s hottest, who has the karma."
Emphases mine.
I was pretty vehemently opposed to the Halladay/Lee trades, and I still think we gave up too much for Halladay and got back too little for Lee. But there was nothing wrong in principle with trading a one-year rental of Lee for prospects, and while the three prospects we got from Seattle may not be studs, they are still pretty decent.
The point of all of this is to say, although the execution of these trades may not have been the best, in the long run the most important thing is for the GM to have the right philosophy. And Ruben appears to have it.
As I read it, his quote is a flat rejection of the commonly-held notion that the Phils only have a short "window of opportunity" to contend and thus should bet everything they have on the here-and-now. He's right to reject that notion because it's bunk. There is no window. We can stay in contention indefinitely if we play our cards right. Any transactions we make should therefore be value-driven and time-neutral.
The majority of people always want to believe in a "window" because wanting instant gratification is part of human nature, and so, they're hard-wired to jump at any plausible rationalization that lets them indulge that desire. But doing that usually just leads people to do foolish things.
73 comments | 2 recs
Phillies Top 30 Prospects, '10 Edition: #30 thru #21
by PhillyFriar on Feb 1, 2010 7:53 AM EST
15 comments
[Part II of a four-part series]
Alright, no more making you read prospect analysis primers or blurbs on guys who missed the cut -- today begins the rolling out of the Phillies Top 30 prospects for the 2010 season. I've structured it as a reverse countdown to, um, build drama*, so you'll see the middle 10 on Wednesday, and the Top 10 on Friday.
*Yeah, I know, everyone knows Domonic Brown is #1.
So go ahead and check below the jump as we get this shindig underway...
15 comments | 0 recs |
Bastardo with the inside track?
Beerleaguer's Jason Weitzel hears from Phils GM Ruben Amaro Jr. that lefty Antonio Bastardo has impressed the brass after a dazzling turn in the Dominican Winter League, highlighted by an 0.53 ERA and 26 strikeouts in 17 innings. Meanwhile, Sergio Escalona, Bastardo's likely competition for the second lefty role in the Phillies bullpen, struggled in the Venezuelan Winter League with a 10.50 ERA in ten innings.
8 days ago
dajafi
22 comments
0 recs
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NL East Standings
| W | L | PCT | GB | STRK | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Philadelphia
|
93 | 69 | .574 | 0 | Lost 1 |
|
Florida
|
87 | 75 | .537 | 6 | Lost 1 |
|
Atlanta
|
86 | 76 | .530 | 7 | Lost 6 |
|
New York
|
70 | 92 | .432 | 23 | Won 3 |
|
Washington
|
59 | 103 | .364 | 34 | Won 7 |
(updated 2.8.2010 at 5:00 PM EST)
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Most Commented
Ruben Gets It
by taco pal 6 days ago
73 comments | 2 recs
Trading Up: Phillies Better in 2010?
by dajafi about 20 hours ago
30 comments | 1 recs
Phillies Top 30 Prospects, '10 Edition: #10 thru #1
by PhillyFriar 3 days ago
30 comments | 0 recs
Phillies Top 30 Prospects, '10 Edition: #20 thru #11
by PhillyFriar 5 days ago
14 comments | 0 recs
Oscar Villarreal: Your Newest Phillies Reliever?
by David S. Cohen 3 days ago
13 comments | 0 recs