Myth Busters
1) "Placido Polanco is the Phillies' best hitter"
Often heard on WIP, this can be interpreted any number of ways. If you mean...
a) our best hitter so far this year -- this was true for the first few weeks of the season, but with a .587 OPS since the end of April, he's been overtaken by both Victorino and Howard. The Phillies' best hitter so far, in both OPS and (more importantly) wOBA, has been Victorino. See full list ranked by wOBA linked below.
-- PLAUSIBLE
b) the hitter who is likely to be the best hitter for the year ... the best hitter on the team in recent years has been Chase Utley:
2010 Werth .397, Utley .373, Howard .367, Ruiz .366
2009 Utley .402, Howard .393, Werth .382, Ibanez .379
2008 Utley .391, Werth .382, Burrell .374, Howard .366
2007 Utley .420, Howard .396, Burrell .391, Werth .385
-- BUSTED
Phillies 2011 wOBA leaders are here. Notable:
- Sardinha is 2nd on the team, thanks to his 22.2% BB% while hitting 8th.
- Wilson Valdez pulled just ahead of Cole Hamels after his game last night, but Hamels is still ahead of Pete Orr, Ross Gload, Brian Schneider, and Michael Martinez.
- There are actually THREE pitchers ahead of Martinez, as he's also behind Cliff Lee and Vance Worley.
- Roy Halladay's wOBA is woeful due to his 1 hit in 28 ABs, but it doesn't account for the bases advanced with his 7 sacrifices.
2) "Jimmy Rollins hits a lot of popups"
There are a couple ways to measure this. One is infield popups as a % of fly balls -- this is how it's presented in FanGraphs, for example. To me the somewhat better measure is popups as % of all balls in play. Both are shown below, and since 2006, Rollins have been slightly above the league average in both categories. Shane Victorino though is about 50% above the league average.
-- BUSTED
2006-2011
2010-2011
IFFB/FB
IFFB/BIP
IFFB/FB
IFFB/BIP
MLB Average
9.8%
3.6%
9.6%
3.6%
Phils Average
9.7%
3.7%
8.4%
3.1%
Rollins
10.1%
3.9%
8.2%
3.1%
Victorino
15.5%
5.5%
13.7%
5.2%
- as an aside regarding popups, with 3 infield popups already this year, Howard's career popups (18) have now surpassed his career triples (17).
3) "As Jimmy Rollins goes so go the Phillies"
The Phillies are 18-7 (.720) when Rollins scores a run. That's pretty good until you look at the same stat for the rest of the regulars and realize that the .720 is the lowest on the team.
-- BUSTED
hitting a HR | getting an RBI | getting 2+ RBIs | getting a Walk | scoring a Run | getting a Hit | getting 2+ Hits | |||||||||||||||
W | L | Pct | W | L | Pct | W | L | Pct | W | L | Pct | W | L | Pct | W | L | Pct | W | L | Pct | |
Rollins | 3 | 0 | 1.000 | 10 | 1 | .909 | 4 | 0 | 1.000 | 12 | 8 | .600 | 18 | 7 | .720 | 27 | 15 | .643 | 15 | 5 | .750 |
Polanco | 3 | 0 | 1.000 | 13 | 7 | .650 | 5 | 1 | .833 | 11 | 8 | .579 | 17 | 4 | .810 | 27 | 18 | .600 | 15 | 7 | .682 |
Utley | 1 | 0 | 1.000 | 2 | 1 | .667 | 0 | 0 | 3 | 1 | .750 | 3 | 0 | 1.000 | 3 | 4 | .429 | 1 | 0 | 1.000 | |
Howard | 9 | 2 | .818 | 20 | 8 | .714 | 8 | 0 | 1.000 | 14 | 7 | .667 | 19 | 5 | .792 | 23 | 9 | .719 | 14 | 3 | .824 |
Francisco | 5 | 1 | .833 | 14 | 4 | .778 | 6 | 1 | .857 | 13 | 8 | .619 | 10 | 2 | .833 | 18 | 7 | .720 | 6 | 3 | .667 |
Ibanez | 7 | 1 | .875 | 15 | 5 | .750 | 6 | 1 | .857 | 8 | 5 | .615 | 14 | 4 | .778 | 19 | 13 | .594 | 9 | 7 | .563 |
Victorino | 6 | 0 | 1.000 | 14 | 2 | .875 | 3 | 0 | 1.000 | 9 | 1 | .900 | 15 | 5 | .750 | 22 | 9 | .710 | 8 | 3 | .727 |
Ruiz | 2 | 0 | 1.000 | 5 | 1 | .833 | 1 | 0 | 1.000 | 10 | 6 | .625 | 9 | 2 | .818 | 13 | 7 | .650 | 5 | 3 | .625 |
Starter | 0 | 0 | 4 | 0 | 1.000 | 2 | 0 | 1.000 | 1 | 1 | .500 | 5 | 0 | 1.000 | 14 | 2 | .875 | 3 | 1 | .750 | |
Team | 25 | 6 | .806 | 34 | 19 | .642 | 34 | 19 | .642 | 32 | 22 | .593 | 34 | 20 | .630 | 34 | 24 | .586 | 34 | 24 | .586 |
Marquee Stats
Advanced stats have been a boon to our understanding of the game. However it's still useful at times to look at the traditional marquee stats, to a) show how a casual, non-sabre-savvy fan might view a player, and b) put past seasons in a new light (how many times have we seen seasons like Ibanez' and Francisco's and thought "hmm, the average is low, but otherwise that's not bad")
Below are the Phils' stats to date, extrapolated to 700 plate appearances.
AVG | HR | RBI | other | |
Rollins | .268 | 8 | 49 | 38 SB |
Polanco | .319 | 8 | 84 | 201 hits |
Utley | .195 | 15 | 45 | 30 SB |
Howard | .243 | 34 | 120 | 39 doubles |
Francisco | .223 | 22 | 94 | 82 walks |
Ibanez | .246 | 25 | 90 | 146 Ks |
Victorino | .274 | 23 | 73 | 19 triples, 31 SB |
Ruiz | .242 | 10 | 50 | 35 doubles |
Valdez | .244 | 0 | 46 | 36 doubles |
Brown | .293 | 15 | 91 | 61 doubles |
Walks
With a 8.1% BB% the Phillies are 10th in the NL just below the league average of 8.4%. The team leaders in BBs are Howard (25), and Rollins (24), and they are projected to finish the year with 68 and 66, respectively (assuming 95% playing time for both). The last time the Phillies' team leader in walks had less than 70 was in the mid-1990s:
1996 1) Todd Zeile 67, 2) Benito Santiago and Mickey Morandini 49
1995 1) Darren Daulton 55, 2) Dave Hollins 53, 3) Charlie Hayes 50