No Answers on the Bench
by dajafi on May 31, 2010 6:37 PM EDT
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Let’s get something out of the way at the start: a Phillies lineup boasting seven recent all-stars isn’t supposed to need help. Robust offense has been the foundation of the team’s success, the constant that, more than anything else, carried them to three straight NL East titles, two pennants and one world f. championship. Charlie Manuel’s mantra "We gon’ hit," isn’t meant as a threat; it’s a promise.
Over the last two weeks, of course, the Phillies haven’t kept that promise. Since May 18, a span of 13 games, they’ve scored 22 runs; over the last 9, they’ve scored an unfathomably low 10. (By contrast, in the four games before the skid began, they scored 35.) During the stretch of eight games in which they were shut out five times and tallied seven total runs, the Phils collectively hit .186/.259./249.
The individual performances of the putative stars have been atrocious: Jayson Werth has hit .154/.195/.282 since May 18, Carlos Ruiz .154/.290/.154 (not including today’s loss in Atlanta) over the same period; Ryan Howard did his share over the five-shutouts-in-eight-games stretch with a .148/.281/.148 stretch, giving those "singles hitter" jokes a little more bite; his 0 for 4 today brought those numbers down further. But it’s almost beside the point to pick on any individual Phillie; literally nobody in the lineup has been hitting.
Which gets us to the real issue. Usually when a team is struggling this badly, the manager has a few guys he can plug in for a day or two to let the regular clear his head and hopefully find his stroke. Indeed, Manuel has tried this: Ross Gload was in today for Werth, leading off, and Greg Dobbs batted second and played third for the injured Placido Polanco and sub Juan Castro, whose awful hitting at least is characteristic of career norms. They went a combined 0 for 5 with a walk.
Gload brought a .242/.242/.424 line into Sunday’s game; he’s been far and away the best hitter off the Phillies bench. Dobbs entered today’s game with a .130/.200/.260 line (and was pinch-hit for by Castro, which might rank among the worst insults someone can deliver via lineup decision). Ben Francisco, who’s seen time in place of Raul Ibanez, was hitting .194/.256/.250 on the season before getting a pinch-double today. Backup catcher Brian Schneider is batting .174/.296/.174; his terrible batting has made it more difficult for Manuel to give Ruiz rest as he battles through a variety of minor injuries.
The reserves have failed both when starting games and coming in to hit. Collectively, Phillies pinch-hitters in 2010 came into Sunday’s game batting .119—worst by far in the league, and actually worse than Phillies pitchers, who collectively hit .125 through their first 29 games. (The pinch-hitters are tied with the Padres for the NL's worst OPS, at .427.) Nor is the botched bench a one-year problem: last season, Phils pinch-hitters batted .186 (second worst in the league) with an OPS of .630 that was 12th in the NL.
Few answers suggest themselves. The Phils could cut Dobbs in favor of infielder Cody Ransom (.239/.296/.484, 11 HR at triple-A Lehigh Valley) or outfielder John Mayberry Jr. (.283/.345/.497). When Jimmy Rollins returns—assuming he can stay returned—that likely will push Castro back to the bench and Valdez to the waiver wire; the opposite might make more sense. Similarly, Schneider is probably rooted in place because GM Ruben Amaro Jr. gave him a two-year deal; Paul Hoover, who more than adequately filled in during his absence with an injury, might be an equal or superior option. Gload and Francisco are what they are, a decent pair of backup outfielders for a club that sent its three starters to the all-star game last summer.
So the answers to the current slump won’t be found on the Phillies’ bench. But slumps end, even this one (presumably). Longer-term, the concern might be whether Amaro’s difficulties building a decent collection of reserves represent not so much bad luck with small sample sizes but some deeper problem of talent evaluation or resource allocation. As the lineup core continues to age and injuries such as those that have slowed or sidelined Rollins, Ruiz and Polanco become more frequent and severe, this is going to matter.
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No way Cholly would start him with any kind of frequency over Ibanez (and rightly so at this point) and the Phils already have Dobbs/Gload as left-handed bats off the bench. At most, he would get some of Dobbs’ PH ABs in the 6th-7th innings. Probably 3-4 ABs a week.
Both the Phils and Brown are much better served right now if he is playing everyday in Reading. Only thing he might might get some consideration for would be a Sept. 1 callup when the roster expands.
No, start him. Put Ibanez on the bench. Or rotate him through. Dobbs/Gload are woeful, and adding in any one game Brown, Victorino, Werth, or Ibanez tot he bench would be a huge asset. I know it’s not Charlie’s style, but if he wanted to, he could get all four regular playing time AND improve his bench. Right now, the bench is so woeful, as is the rest of the offense, that I’d give it a try.
by David S. Cohen on May 31, 2010 9:12 PM EDT up reply actions
I’m no expert on this, but I believe PF, Sickels, and/or Goldstein (at least 2 out of the 3) said earlier this year that Brown needs at least a half-season in AA to consolidate his development. Not only does he have no experience at AAA but he doesn’t even that half-season at AA yet. So I think it would be short-sighted to bring him to the majors now and risk his development, when (1) we don’t really know if the current bench players are going to continue to struggle, given the sample sizes we’re working with, (2) we don’t know if Brown will even have success at the majors if thrust into that role right now, and (3) we don’t know if Ibanez will adjust easily to a bench role, if in fact there is an adjustment to be made there as discussed below. That doesn’t even take into account the issue of service time, which I think is a very legitimate consideration, if a secondary one.
I don’t think Ibanez is going to give them good production this year out of LF (sub .800 OPS with less than 20 HRs) but it is a bit premature to largely bench him for a pretty unknown quantity in Brown. Ibanez hasn’t been that bad.
As for Gload, he is 5-22 with a line of .227/.277/.500 as a PH. He hasn’t been that bad. He just shouldn’t be starting in RF where he is a huge defensive liability. I don’t mind him as a PH option. Just don’t like seeing him start games in RF.
I don’t think there’s enough to be gained in bringing up Brown to justify both slowing his development (because he won’t be playing every day) and starting his service clock.
This might not be true in every circumstance—if Ibanez or Werth suffers a serious injury, I’d seriously consider giving Brown a shot. But right now I think he’s good where he is. If he keeps hitting, a September callup will be appropriate.
Couldn't agree more
I can’t imagine that the phils couldn’t replace dobbs with someone better. I mean the guy hasn’t hit 2008. He’s a liability in the field. And schneider never made sense to me. He sucked on the mets for two years and the phils sign him??? I like valdez more than Castro because he has better speed and range and has actually hit the past 10 days. Amaro should get some heat for this. And even more painful is that with interleague play coming the phils are f
going to be using dobbs gload and Francisco even more.
by phillynyc on May 31, 2010 8:17 PM EDT via mobile reply actions
I’m not happy with the bench either, but sentiments like these are really over the top. Apart from the shortstops, nobody on the bench even has 50 at-bats yet, so none of their 2010 stats are good predictors of future performance. Here were each of their CHONE projections coming into the season:
Schneider .246/.319/.359
Gload .270/.318/.400
Dobbs .273/.327/.430
Francisco .272/.342/.465
Gload’s projections are the only ones that are below-average for a backup at his position (and even those aren’t that bad). I’d say Schneider’s are about average for a backup catcher, while Dobbs’ and Francisco’s are really quite good.
Dobbs looks really horrible these days, and it’s possible that he’s gotten prematurely old. But otherwise, I’m not that concerned.
Francisco and Dobbs were both going to be here. Basically the Stairs/Bako/Cairo trio was replaced at the end of last season by Gload/Schneider/Castro. As limited as that trio was by the end of last season, it is hard to argue that group that replaced them is much better.
Dobbs is the guy that I am surprised by a bit. Last year, he wasn’t productive at all except for a brief spell at end of June/July when Feliz was out (June 20th-July 11th):
17 G, 49 ABs, .367/.377/.571
It turned out that Dobbs’ calf injury never fully healed & got worse as the season went on. Might explain why his production went into the tank after the ASB.
This year . . . he has been just awful at the plate. Cholly has even been trying to jump start him (along with the lineup) by giving him 3 starts in the 8 games. No dice. 0-10 with a 1 BB.
All of the stats show a guy so far who is just lost at the plate swinging at a ton of crap and not making much contact. Ton of stats bear that out:
% LD -9.6%
% K rate – 30.4% vs. MLB avg of 20.6%
% swinging strike – 14.6% vs. MLB avg of 8.2%
% contact – 75.9% vs. MLB average of 81.0%
Basically Dobbs is seeing more offspeed stuff out of the zone this year & he is chasing it more with some pretty meagre results. Yeah he has had only 48 ABs this year but you have to wonder if the Phils won’t DFA is he doesn’t show any improvement by the end of June. He’s been that bad.
Francisco is also a guy who looks like he needs to start to be productive. He only has a handful of PH ABs so hard to draw any conclusions. He just seems uncomfortable up there most of the time PH especially against a right-handed reliever with any decent breaking ball. I would be curious to see the pitch progression on his PH ABs the last 2 seasons but it seems to be start him with something away offspeed, get him behind in the count, and then mix & match.
I don’t see any answers though right now. They just have to roll the dice with what they have for another month or so. Just aren’t any real answers at AA/AAA. Can’t possibly be any worse than they have been so far. It is going to be interesting to see if Amaro is able to tinker as Gillick was in ’06 to improve what turned out to be a terrible bench coming out of spring training.
Francisco’s done poorly as a PH throughout his career, not just this year, so that’s possible. But we’re talking about really tiny sample sizes though.
It’s a different skill set. Especially for a guy who’s still young (28) and was a regular for most of his short-ish big-league career, the adjustment presumably is ongoing. This is a case where Manuel and Thompson, neither of whom was an everyday guy when they played (though I guess Milt was for bits of his career), hopefully can help.
I think we’re going to learn something about Amaro in the next two months. Probably there’s no “panic trade” to be made—but I think cutting Dobbs and calling up Ransom or Mayberry, or making a minor trade for a bench guy, would send a useful message.
Not really related, but I’d be lying if I said this wasn’t in my head when I was writing this: as the Phillies’ struggles continue, Amaro’s trademark smugness is going to get less and less appealing. It really wouldn’t surprised me if he’s fairly widely loathed in a year or two, depending on the team’s fortunes.
Dobbs might also just be a really streaky player.
Right now, he has a .458 OPS in 50 PAs (horrible).
In 2005, he started the season with a .423 OPS in 39 PAs.
In 2007, he started the season with a .531 OPS in 36 PAs.
In 2008, he had a .530 OPS in 49 PAs, for over a month in the middle of the season.
I don’t know how to break down the data any further to see if he was really as bad as those numbers indicate, like he is now, or if he was just unlucky. But he did eventually turn it around in each case.
Anyway, I’m concerned about Dobbs, but I don’t think we have enough data to know for sure what the deal is with him.
Study on PH
BTY has anybody seen any decent pieces on PH and what is a relative measure to consider someone who PH as ‘productive’ or ‘successful?’ My own inclination would be for someone who has say that anyone who has say a minimum of ~25 ABs who hits .250 or better with some pop.
2-year contacts
Handicap Amaro a bit because I highly doubt he is going to be willing to move Gload or Schneider during the season given that they both got 2-yr deals. Even with how limited a guy like Helms or Nunez were – they both didn’t get moved in their 1st year because of their 2nd yr. It almost limits Amaro by default.
If they are going to make a bench move in the interim, it will almost certainly be Dobbs. I would imagine though they are a bit reluctant even there though because it still early to make a bench trade & there is still some uncertainty about Polanco’s health.
Valdez
Why does Valdez have to go back down to the minors? If somebody has to be the odd man out in the bunch, I would much prefer to see Dobbs go. Valdez is at least hitting (and while I remember him being gidp happy at the beginning, he seems to have gotten that under control). I also have not seen him play worse defensively than Castro (although it may be a push). I know that Castro can fill in across the infield except for 1st base (I have not seen him play there, but maybe he can)… Why couldn’t this work?
by dannijd on May 31, 2010 9:53 PM EDT via mobile reply actions
I don’t know about that. It’s at least possible that Dobbs will bounce back and become a valuable bat off the bench again. Meanwhile, it’s pretty much a guarantee that Valdez is playing at his absolute ceiling right now and will probably only get worse. It’s true that Dobbs is a bad fielder though.
True… I am not a huge stats person (have learned the hitting ones and am working on the pitching ones, with defense being very call it as I see it), and it seems like every time Dobbs is near a play something bad happens— you are probably right about potential— I just hate to send down someone who is playing well to keep someone who is playing poorly.
by dannijd on May 31, 2010 10:18 PM EDT via mobile up reply actions
Valdez > Castro
Both guys are about the same offensively. Limited Sub .250 guys with almost no pop and hardly take a BB. Still, Valdez as least has a little more speed than Castro.
Defensively I would definitely give the nod to Castro. He has as much range at SS (if not more) and a much stronger arm.
"...a Phillies lineup boasting seven recent all-stars isn’t supposed to need help."
… and that help certainly isn’t going to be Ross Gload.
http://thatballsouttahere.com
Stop yelling at me so that I can yell at you!
I dun tole you
I had to go back and take a look at this. Cot-dam, sometimes I scare myself:
You can hear T-Mac now: “And as we move to the seventh, some replacements for the Phillies. Out in left field, Ben Francisco is in for Ibanez. Juan Castro will come in to give Rollins a rest, while (Dobbs/Gload) takes over for Howard at first. And with a big lead before tomorrow’s getaway game, Charlie is going to call on big Jose Contreras to nail this one down for the Phils after another strong outing by Halladay.”
OK, so I missed a bit on the “big lead” part, as well as the fact that Charlie doesn’t use anybody to back up Halladay. In all seriousness, as I noted in that preview, the bench was built to sustain innings to get to the regular big bats on Our Wonderful Offense™ ; instead, they’re actively going about killing them.
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