The last time we saw this table, on September 20th, the Phils were tied for the 8th best record in the NL, at 71-81, and were also tied for the 12th worst record in MLB, a game out of the "bottom 10". They proceeded to lose 8 of their last 10, dropping them to 13th in the NL, and securing the 7th overall pick in draft.
Not the kind of stretch run we've gotten accustomed to, but in this case we'll take it.
Below are ending records by manager, along with the pythagorean projection for each, based on run differentials:
Phillies Hitters
Utley edged out Brown for the highest OPS on the team (he also nosed out Ruf in wOBA, .356 to .354, with Brown at .351).
Also, Utley, Brown, and Revere were the only hitters who exceeded the average OPS predicted for them in pre-season projections.
Schmenktadamus
Back on May 23rd I made a prediction that Ryan Howard would be the Phillies' best hitter the rest of the way. This was met with some incredulity, and in fact I was wrong -- he was beat out by Brown, but it's good to see Howard was at least in the race:
1. Brown .284/.341/.520 (.860 OPS)
2. Howard .270/.345/.492 (.837 OPS)
3. Utley .289/.353/.475 (.828 OPS)
Interleague Play
The American League again had the better record in interleague play this season, for the 10th year in a row. However the National League seems to be closing the gap in recent years, albeit with a notable step backward in 2012. This year the AL won 154 games, vs. 146 for the NL, for a .513 winning percentage. That's the AL's smallest margin of victory since 2004 (126-125, or .502).
The Phillies won only 7 of 20 (.350) against AL teams.
Phillies Attendance
As RtP fanshotted after the season's final game at Citizens Bank Park, the Phils broke through the 3 million attendance mark again this year.
Below is how attendance has changed since moving into CBP in 2004:
Every year other than 2005 and 2006 (about 2.7 mil each) has been over 3 million, peaking in 2010 at 3.8 million.
This year's six sellouts were the fewest yet at CBP. After the sellout streak ended at 257 in August 2012, paid attendance continued to be buoyed by season ticket sales and remained over 40,000 through the end of last year.
Finally, with the second home game of 2013, April 6th, the streak of 313 games of at least 40,000 ended. Then on September 3rd, after 469 straight games (almost three six full seasons' worth) of at least 30,000, that streak ended as well with the first game in the 20's since April 3rd, 2008.
Phillies Hitting vs. Last Year
There will be further analysis to come on some of this (why did the Phillies strike out so much more this year?), but for now these are the high level comparisons to 2012, with annotations:
Phillies Pitching and Defense vs. Last Year
NL Standings and Team Stats
The Phillies outperformed their pythagorean projection by more than any team in the NL (6.9 wins). The Pirates were second at 6.1.
San Francisco won 6 of their last 8 games and avoided becoming only the 2nd team in history to finish in last place the year after winning the World Series. They would have joined the 1997 champion Florida Marlins. In so doing they also fell out of the bottom ten and a protected first-round draft pick.
Milestones
Phillies milestones will be the subject of a separate article. For now we will cover a couple of familiar non-Phillies.
Raul Ibanez
Ibanez didn't quite become the first 41-year old to hit 30 home runs in a season, but his final home run this year (which was also the 300th of his career), did tie the single-season record of 29 for that age, set by Ted Williams in 1960.
Most home runs in a season, age 41+:
1) Raul Ibanez 2013 - 29
Ted Williams 1960 - 29
3) Barry Bonds 2007 - 28
4) Barry Bonds 2006 - 26
In addition:
- his 117 wRC+ is 16th highest in history for a player 41+ with 300+ PA's (11th highest among those with 400 PAs)
- his ISO of .244 is the 4th highest in history at 41 and over, behind only Williams' 1960 (.329), and Barry Bonds' 2007 (.288) and 2006 (.275)
Raul thereby probably earned himself a job somewhere in the majors in 2014, and a chance to continue building his "old man" stats. He's currently tied for 5th for most home runs by a player in his 40s:
1) Carlton Fisk 72
2) Darrel Evans 67
3) Barry Bonds 59
3) Dave Winfield 59
5) Raul Ibanez 48
5) Carl Yastrzemski 48
This is after racking up the 9th most RBIs and 7th most doubles in history in the 30-39 age bracket.
Mike Trout
At the other end of baseball's age spectrum is the former Phillies fan, and Millville NJ's favorite son, who had another amazing season. The 22-year old may never win a Triple Crown, but he does many things very well:
- hits for average (.323, 3rd in the AL)
- hits for power (.224 ISO, 7th in the AL)
- walks (15.4% walk rate, highest in the AL)
- steals bases (33, 6th in the AL)
- plays very good-to-excellent defense (although results were mixed this year after an exceptional 2012)
This high performance across many aspects of the game is captured well in WAR, and both of the main flavors show that Trout's first two full seasons rival the best starts to a career in the history of the game:
List of highest fWAR through age 22
List of highest rWAR through age 22
(The fWAR list goes to 11 so as to include all-time Phillies great Sherry Magee: bb-ref page and bio).
That is certainly impressive company. However even though Trout has already turned 22, because he was born after June 30th (August 7, 1991), 2013 was actually his age 21 season. Comparing him to other players through their age 21 season puts Trout in a class of his own:
List of highest fWAR through age 21
List of highest rWAR through age 21
Focusing on fWAR for a moment, Trout became just the 8th player in history to post back-to-back 10-fWAR seasons, and joined some very exclusive company:
Ty Cobb: 1910-11
Babe Ruth: 1920-21, 1923-24, 1926-28, 1930-31
Rogers Hornsby: 1921-22, 1924-25
Ted Williams: 1941-42 and 46-47 (1943-45 in the military)
Mickey Mantle: 1956-57
Willie Mays: 1964-65
Barry Bonds: 2001-04
Mike Trout: 2012-13
And of course he did it at the youngest age of any of those. In fact, there have only been two 10-fWAR seasons by a player 21 and under, and Trout has both of them.
Also: (h/t for many of these to Jayson Stark)
- by wRC+, he owns 2 of the 5 best hitting seasons by players 21 and under
- by OPS+, he owns 2 of the top 6 hitting seasons by those 21 and under, including the single best hitting season ever (this year, at 179)
- he became the first American Leaguer to have a season that combines 100+ walks (110), 70+ extra base hits (75), and 30+ steals (33). The only National Leaguers to do it have been Barry Bonds (4 times), Jeff Bagwell (2), and Bobby Abreu (3).
- he also had only the second season since 1915 with 190+ hits, 100+ walks, and 30+ steals. The other? Lenny Dykstra in 1993 (194, 129, 37).
[By the way, something that Stark alluded to in the linked article on Trout, who ended up with a .479 OBP after the ASB, is that there have only been eight players who have recorded an OBP over .500 in the second half of a season since 1916 (when the data starts). Only two of those eight players did it since Ted Williams' run ended in 1957: one is Barry Bonds (5 times), and the other is Ryan Howard, with a .355/.509/.751 line in the second half of 2006.]
Miscellaneous
Random notes previously on Twitter (@tgpschmenk) or recent game threads:
- Shin-Shoo Choo's 26 HBPs were the most ever by a player who also had at least 100 walks (he has 112).
- Elvis Andrus just turned 25, but he has already played more games at shortstop (739) than Julio Franco (715), 1980 WS opposing shortstop UL Washington (737), or Ruben Amaro Sr (705).
____