Pat Burrell's Career in Perspective

The big question for the future of the Phillies right now is Ryan Howard.  With his arbitration tomorrow, all attention is focused on the difference between $7M and $10M.  But, obscured in the focus on Howard is the fact that, barring a trade, he's going to be a Phillie through at least 2011.

The big bat that the Phillies might lose after this season is Pat Burrell.  So, this spring training is a good time to put Burrell's career with the Phillies in perspective.

Here, I'm going to look at a particular perspective.  I compared the Phillies' left field output from the day Burrell's career started (May 24, 2000) until now with every other team's left field output.

How do Phillies' left fielders compare?  Pretty well.  Their ranks in the majors are as follows:

Going up against the likes of Barry Bonds, Manny Ramirez, Adam Dunn, and Brian Giles, these rankings are pretty good. Obviously, Pat Burrell's batting average issues are reflected here, but otherwise, his and the other Phillies left fielders' production has been substantially above average.

Pat Burrell constituted just under 80% of these plate appearances, so others contributed to these impressive numbers. However, as a left fielder, Burrell produced an .856 OPS, compared to the Phillies overall left field OPS for this time of .839. Thus, his replacements have been worse than he has. Suffice it to say that Pat Burrell has been a significant offensive force during his time here, one most teams would love to have in their lineup spot for their left fielder and one that the Phillies have missed when he's not in the lineup.

The full chart of teams' left field performance during the Burrell era, ranked by OPS, is below the fold.