Long Live John Lannan! A Plea for John Lannan's Continued Freedom

It’s high risk and low reward, I can not back your plan.

if Lannan was assassinated, who would the replacement be?

It is true that JBL brings a knife to a gunfight when he faces the phillies. That said, his recklessness with the blade can not be ignored. Two boxes of krimpets and a case of yuengling for the man that delivers JBL. Dead or alive.

maybe he should just take two pitches to the head and we’ll call it even.

Cohen is, once again, soft on terror!

I have to admit, the case for accepting some collateral damage at the hands of JBL in the name of ultimate victory is persuasive. But what does it profit a man to gain victories yet lose his best players?

While it may be true that the Phillies win 92% of the games John Lannan starts, this plea only takes into account the short-term gain, and tails to asses the long term damage that Lannan does. Being hit by a pitch does tremendous psychological damage and it is statistically proven that after Lannan beans a Philadelphia Phillie, the batting average drops. Let’s take a look at Ryan Howard:

Ryan Howard

April 13, 2011
10 games before incident – .467
10 games after incident – .311

August 1st, 2010
10 games before incident – .299
10 games after incident – .284

July 26th, 2007
10 games before incident – .268
10 games after incident – .271
(This is the one game the Phillies LOST against Lannan)

Not only do you have to look at the player psychology, but the team psychology (sometimes called CHM for short or club house morale). A common factor of a drop in CHM is the loss of a player due to injury. Example in case is 2007 when Utley was put on the DL by Lannan. After this injury, the team would only go 15-14 without Utley, a winning percentage of barely over .500. It just so happens that prior to last night’s incident, the Phillies played 29 games to date, and have a pristine 20-9 record (.689).

If another injury were to occur (and there is an 11% chance of a player hit by Lannan suffering an injury requiring a DL stint) similar results might occur and the Phillies, win percentage could drop a full .172 points! (Probably even worse due to small sample size).

Finally, you must take into account the economy. As you know, attendance records of CBP are difficult to obtain, officials citing Nationals security as a reason but rough estimates show that after Chase Utley was taken out of the lineup by Lannan, attendance (specifically noticeable among the females) dropped significantly. Lower attendance translates to lower earnings and therefore, these grievous assaults on the economic structure of the Philadelphia Phillies leads to less investment in the team in future years.