Several interesting statistical things popped out at me today as I searched for MLB 3rd basemen who are worse than Pedro Feliz who have more at bats than he has. On the way, and going down several rabbit holes, I found some interesting notes about the Phillies this year. As jonk posted recently, the Phillies are good, but sometimes in ways that may surprise us, even if we watch the games. It's sort of a grab bag of things that looked interesting today: GIDP, SB%, ERA+ (!), Pedro Feliz' suckitude all behind the cut...

 

GIDP: As discussed here recently, the Phillies avoid double plays. They really, really avoid double plays. To date, the Phillies have been doubled up 86 times, which is fewer than any team in MLB except the Texas Rangers. By way of comparison, the Astros lead the league at 142 on the year. The Astros have an OBP of .321 and the Phillies have an OBP of .325, so it is not a function of the Astros having more baserunners to get wiped out.

GIDP avoidance does not appear to be an anomaly affecting only 2009 -- in 2008, the Phillies had only 108 GIDP for the full year. Only four teams had fewer. 2007? 22nd in MLB. 2006? 27th in MLB. 2005? 29th in MLB.

Why is this? Good team speed? Perhaps they get doubled off less often. Perhaps the prevalence of fly ball hitters helps them. Perhaps those rally-killing homeruns constantly clear the bases. Perhaps the xBH put runners past first more often than not. Perhaps Utley's take-out slides help out. These are probably all be factors, but a full treatment is beyond the scope of this today. It would be interesting to see what can make a team "good" at this, since the Phillies clearly are for some reason.

 

Stolen Base %:

Davey Lopes gets a lot of love around here (at least from everyone but WetLuzinski, who still harbors a 1970's grudge. Blame the ump, not Lopes, WL). The Phillies had 28 CS in 2008 along with 136 SB. They had the fourth most steals and the fifth fewest CS. The 136 steals and the 28 outs and a SWAG (scientific wild-ass guess) from the run expectancy chart suggests an extra 20 runs were created by the steals (136 * .15 for advancing a base -- I know, I know -- it's a SWAG, not calculations to send a rocket to Mars) while maybe 11 runs were lost by the CS (about .5 run lost per CS). (note: see here -- my SWAG turned out to be pretty close) The Phillies were SB winners in 2008.

In 2009, the story continues in much the same vein: 106 SB and 24 CS. That average is inflated somewhat by the master thief, Ryan Howard (7/0), but we can expect a reversion to the mean next year, I suspect. The Phillies are 9th in MLB in steals and only two teams have fewer CS. The ratio of SB to CS (SB%) needs to be a bit over 3 - 1 (75%) to have a winner in SB. Situational issues can affect this, but over the course of the year, 75% is needed to come out ahead. The Phillies have the best SB% in 2009. This was true in 2008, also. And 2007. They were good, but not the best in 2006 (6th in MLB). All Davey Lopes? Nope, but maybe fine-tuned a bit, and that marginal bit (the amount that is "a bit over 75%") is what makes stolen bases productive instead of break-even for the Phillies:

2009:82.0 (1)

2008: 84.5 (1)

2007: 87.9 (1)

Davey Lopes Hired -- 10/2006

2006: 78.6 (6)

2005: 81.1 (2)

2004: 78.7 (2)

2003: 71.3 (13)

2002: 70.7 (10)

The Phillies have been good at stealing bases -- Lopes made them great (he is 6th all-time in SB%, by the way).

 

ERA+

Despite playing in a high school field, the ERA rank for the Phillies to date this year is 6th in the NL. The ERA+ rank is 7th. Understand, of course, that the team that bumps them is Colorado, but it is still somewhat interesting that the Phillies home park is penalizing, rather than assisting, them in the ERA+ rankings this year.

 

Pedro Feliz is awful:

Find another 3B with an OPS+ that is lower with more AB in 2009. Fielding helps balance this out, as 92% of the balls fielded at 3B by Phillies players result in outs (best in the NL), and Feliz is responsible for most of that, but his hitting is beyond awful. The best view I could find easily for OPS (not OPS+, though) and showing pitches seen (not ABs, since I couldn't get it to sort by two stats) is here. Not exactly NSFW, but you might make some unexpected exclamations, so do be careful. It's horror show bad.