Phillies Stat Notes: May 17, 2014

Contents
- Phillies Hitters vs. Projections
- Hitters among NL league leaders
- Phillies Team Stats vs. 2012 and vs. Reds
- NL Standings and team stats
- Milestones

Phillies Hitters vs. Projections

Chooch has been looking better in the last week, but Howard is still utterly lost.

Phils Hitters among League Leaders

At the season's quarter mark, Phillies are hard to find among the league's leaders in most categories:

fWAR: none. 20th-Utley (1.4). Top 2 in the NL are Milwaukee's Carlos Gomez (2.7) and Jean Segura (2.2).
wRC+: none. 28th-Utley (.127)
Avg: none. 22nd-M.Young (.296)
OBP: none. 17th-M.Young (.383)
SLG: none. 20th-Utley (.500)
ISO: none. 20th-Utley (.219)
BB%: none. 13th-M.Young (12.3%)
H: none. 27th-Utley (41)
Singles: none. 12th-M.Young (32)
Doubles: 7th-Rollins (12)
Triples: 7th-Utley (2)
Homers: none. 15th-Utley, Brown (7)
Runs: none. 32nd-Utley (21)
RBI: none. 14th-Utley (24)
SB: 9th-Revere (7)
GDP: 1st (tie)-M.Young (10)

And from the bottom (out of 80 qualifiers)...
fWAR: 7th-Howard (-0.4); Matt Kemp "leads" with -0.8
wRC+: 7th-Revere (52)
OBP: 11th-Howard (.284)
SLG: 3rd-Revere (.263)
ISO: 1st-Revere (.025), #2, 3, and 4 are Polanco, Dobbs, and Pierre
also 9th-M.Young (.081)
K%: 7th-Howard (29.0%)

Also,
GB/FB ratio: 1st-Revere (5.83). Next 2: E.Cabrera (4.38), M.Young (2.91)
and... next-to-last: Utley (0.76)
LD%: 11th-Howard (24.8%)
GB%: 1st-Revere (73.7%), 5th-M.Young (57.7%)
FB%: 3rd-Utley (47.2%), 6th-Rollins (43.1%) ... last: Revere (12.6%)
IFFB%: 9th-Rollins (14.3%) ... Howard and M.Young among 9 players with 0.0%
HR/FB%: 10th-Brown (21.2%)

Phillies Team Stats vs. 2012 and vs. Reds

Hitting

I've changed the color coding from indicating higher(green) or lower (red/orange) to indicating better or worse. Only two categories changed: K%, obviously, and also SH/G, where I took the position that fewer sacrifices are better. The other possibly debatable position I took is that more SB attempts are better.

One other change is that the "small ball" section now includes productive outs as a % of opportunities. Baseball-reference.com defines productive out opportunities this way:

1) Successful sacrifice for a pitcher with one out.
2) Advancing any runner with none out.
3) Driving in a baserunner with the second out of the inning.

And whaddayaknow, the Phillies lead the NL in productive outs. Which I suppose points out what should be obvious, that productive outs and small ball tactics are like the fine tuning knob. The important things are getting on base and hitting for power, and sadly the Phillies are near the bottom in both of those.

Consistency
Fans often complain about the lack of consistency in the Phillies' offense. What they mean of course, is not that Phillies' hitting should be more consistent, but that it should be more consistently GOOD. In terms of game-to-game variability in their runs scored, the Phils are right in the middle of the pack, ranking 9th in the NL in "consistency".

Pitching

NL Standings and Team Stats

The Reds are pretty good. The have scored the 2nd most runs in the NL (just barely behind Colorado), but that's due in part to their home park. Their pitching has been at least as impressive, with the 3rd lowest ERA in the NL, and FIP (4th) and xFIP (2nd) which are also near the top.

Milestones

Milestones likely to be reached over the next week or so...

Jimmy Rollins
- He needs 2 more walks (13 total) to tie Ed Delahanty for 7th most in Phils' history with 643.
- With 3 more RBIs (18 this year), he will tie Greg Luzinski for 10th most all-time for the Phillies, at 811.

Chase Utley
- His next HBP (which will be his first this year) will break a tie with Chet Lemon and move him into sole possession of 21st place in MLB history, with 152. A second HBP will tie him with Hall of Fame outfielder Fred Clarke for 20th.

Utley hasn't had a month with 50+ PAs and no HBPs since September 2004, when he batted only 52 times. April 2013, with 106 PAs, was his first such month since then, and he already has also gone the first 55 PAs in May without getting plunked.

Ryan Howard
- Howard needs 2 more extra base hits (17 total) to tie Johnny Callison for 8th on the Phillies career list with 534.

Michael Young
- Young needs 7 more RBIs to reach 1,000.

Cole Hamels
- Hamels' start against Cleveland on Wednesday was the 220th of his career and tied him with Larry Christenson for 7th most in Phillies history.

Jonathan Papelbon
- He needs 3 more saves to tie Bob Wickman for 29th most in MLB history, at 267.

Consecutive Solo Home Runs
The Phillies have hit 16 straight home runs without a man on base. The mark for consecutive solo home runs was set by the Giants in 2011 when they hit 21 straight, breaking the record of 19 set by the 1914 Phillies.

The Phils’ last home run with a man on base was the 3-run shot by Domonic Brown on April 27th. John Mayberry Jr. then started the streak of solo homers by going back-to-back after Brown.

25 of their 34 homers have been solo, or 73.5%, which is the 3rd highest % in the NL, behind Cincy’s 78%, and Miami's 74%. The NL average has been 61%, and if the Phillies had the same percentage, only 21 would have been solo. The Cubs (48%) and Nationals (53%) have the lowest %’s of solo home runs.

By the way, one would think that the lower a team's OBP, the higher the percentage of home runs that would be solos, but this year at least there is almost no correlation (.08) between solo home run %’s and OBP.