Filed under:

# Phillies Stat Notes: oof

The Phillies are at the bottom, or near the bottom, in nearly every important category. Their hitting with RISP has been especially laughable, but that's bound to improve.

This is the first Stat Notes of the season, so obviously small sample warnings apply. We have some of the same views as last year, and will also be trying some new things. Comments and suggestions welcome.

#### NL Standings and Key Stats

Offense
Scoring is up slightly in the early going, 4.06 per game compared to 4.00 last year. Still, there have been 18 shutouts so far this year in the NL, which over a full season would work out to 185. That would tie for the third highest total ever in the NL (since 1914). Five of the six highest totals in history have come since 2010, partly due to expansion, obviously:

2010 - 207
2014 - 186
1968 - 185
2012 - 180
2011 - 175
2013 - 174

#### Phillies' Stats vs. last year, and vs. the Braves

Hitting

So far the Phils are a consistent 9-12% worse than last year across batting average, OBP, Slugging, OPS, and Isolated Power.

They are second in the NL in attempting sacrifice hits, at 0.63 per game, and they've only been successful in 2 of those 10 attempts. The only team attempting more sacrifices so far has been the Cardinals, with 11, and they've been almost as woeful, succeeding in only 3 of them.

The Phillies have been by far the worst in the NL so far in hitting with runners in scoring position. They are last in the NL in batting average, OBP, Slugging, and (obviously) OPS, hitting an atrocious .176/.254/.231 (.485) with RISP. In fact, they're last in each one of those stats across all MLB. A batting average on balls in play of .209 hasn't helped matters.

That's a departure from last year, when they weren't great but at least were in the middle of the pack in the NL, ranking 8th in both batting average and OPS (i.e. better than their overall rankings of 10th and 12th respectively). As bad as the team is, this year's RISP stats are certain to climb in the coming weeks.

Pitching

The bullpen has been better so far, at least in ERA (2.91, vs. 3.64 last year), but that's the only bright spot.

#### Phillies Hitters

Among the many interesting and wondrous things with the early hitting stats:

- Only 4 of the 15 Phillies position players have an OPS of .600 or better; since 1995, the fewest players any team has had with at least 300 PAs and .600+ OPS is 5, by the '95 Phillies and Cardinals, 1998 Dodgers, and 2012 Astros.

- Cody Asche, Freddy Galvis, and Odubel Herrera are the only ones so far who are hitting better than last year's NL average at their respective positions, or even compared to the production the Phillies got from those positions.

- Chase Utley's .098 would be the third lowest monthly BABIP in Phillies history (50+ PAs), at least since 1914 (his .401 OPS would be 58th lowest, by the way).

- We know Utley struggled after his hot start last year, and in fact over the past calendar year he has now hit only .242/.312/.363, for a wRC+ of 85. However, with additional value on the bases and in the field, and a relatively weak contingent at second base in the NL, his 2.6 fWAR is still the 3rd best in the NL at the position over that period.

Back to Utley's stuggles, other than a bump in ground balls (and a drop in fly balls), his batted ball stats don't look particularly worrisome:

Season Team GB/FB LD% GB% FB% IFFB% HR/FB IFH% BUH%
2003 Phillies 1.10 23.9 % 39.8 % 36.3 % 7.3 % 4.9 % 4.4 % 0.0 %
2004 Phillies 1.27 22.0 % 43.6 % 34.4 % 6.4 % 16.7 % 6.1 % 66.7 %
2005 Phillies 0.84 23.2 % 35.0 % 41.8 % 9.8 % 15.2 % 3.9 % 100.0 %
2006 Phillies 0.85 19.5 % 37.0 % 43.5 % 14.0 % 14.0 % 8.2 % 100.0 %
2007 Phillies 0.89 19.6 % 37.9 % 42.4 % 6.3 % 11.6 % 5.3 % 0.0 %
2008 Phillies 0.79 24.3 % 33.3 % 42.4 % 11.6 % 15.3 % 2.9 % 0.0 %
2009 Phillies 0.71 18.5 % 34.0 % 47.5 % 7.2 % 14.0 % 9.5 % 0.0 %
2010 Phillies 1.06 19.9 % 41.1 % 39.0 % 9.8 % 11.2 % 6.0 % 0.0 %
2011 Phillies 0.89 12.7 % 41.1 % 46.2 % 7.4 % 6.7 % 2.1 % 0.0 %
2012 Phillies 1.17 21.4 % 42.4 % 36.3 % 4.2 % 11.6 % 4.5 % 50.0 %
2013 Phillies 0.89 19.5 % 38.0 % 42.5 % 10.0 % 10.6 % 5.3 % 50.0 %
2014 Phillies 1.09 24.6 % 39.3 % 36.1 % 7.0 % 5.9 % 4.5 % 0.0 %
2015 Phillies 1.27 19.0 % 45.2 % 35.7 % 6.7 % 13.3 % 5.3 % 0.0 %
Total - - - 0.92 20.7 % 37.9 % 41.4 % 8.9 % 11.9 % 5.3 % 47.1 %

There's also nothing that looks distressing in his plate discipline numbers:

eason Team O-Swing% Z-Swing% Swing% O-Contact% Z-Contact% Contact% Zone% F-Strike% SwStr%
2003 Phillies 23.0 % 72.8 % 48.9 % 51.6 % 88.1 % 79.9 % 52.0 % 59.9 % 9.8 %
2004 Phillies 18.7 % 73.9 % 50.0 % 66.3 % 87.6 % 84.2 % 56.7 % 61.0 % 8.0 %
2005 Phillies 20.2 % 60.8 % 41.0 % 53.5 % 90.8 % 81.8 % 51.2 % 56.5 % 7.4 %
2006 Phillies 22.4 % 64.0 % 43.9 % 64.4 % 89.7 % 83.5 % 51.6 % 59.0 % 7.1 %
2007 Phillies 22.3 % 60.4 % 42.1 % 64.0 % 91.8 % 84.8 % 52.2 % 56.6 % 6.2 %
2008 Phillies 25.1 % 62.7 % 44.0 % 65.7 % 91.8 % 84.4 % 50.4 % 52.1 % 6.4 %
2009 Phillies 19.1 % 57.9 % 37.0 % 65.2 % 91.7 % 84.3 % 46.2 % 49.2 % 5.6 %
2010 Phillies 25.5 % 57.8 % 39.3 % 76.2 % 91.1 % 85.6 % 42.8 % 52.8 % 5.5 %
2011 Phillies 28.4 % 58.6 % 41.2 % 77.3 % 94.2 % 87.5 % 42.3 % 53.7 % 4.9 %
2012 Phillies 25.3 % 59.0 % 39.1 % 74.3 % 95.2 % 87.3 % 41.2 % 51.4 % 4.7 %
2013 Phillies 29.0 % 59.3 % 42.2 % 67.3 % 93.1 % 83.1 % 43.7 % 54.4 % 7.0 %
2014 Phillies 27.5 % 61.9 % 42.4 % 76.4 % 93.2 % 87.0 % 43.2 % 55.9 % 5.1 %
2015 Phillies 27.2 % 56.8 % 39.5 % 77.4 % 93.5 % 87.0 % 41.5 % 50.0 % 5.0 %
Total - - - 24.1 % 61.5 % 41.9 % 68.4 % 91.5 % 84.6 % 47.6 % 54.7 % 6.3 %

#### Milestones

Chase Utley

- Utley passed Jimmy Rollins (887) to move into 7th place in Phillies history in RBIs and now stands at 895.
- He also tied Derek Jeter for 15th most all-time in HBP at 170. Next at #14 is Carlos Delgado with 172.

Ryan Howard

- Howard's first and only HR so far was the 335th of his career, which tied Darryl Strawberry for 100th all-time.

Ben Revere

- His next stolen base will be his 150th. Of the 243 players who stole 150+ bases since 1951 (when CS stats begin), Revere's 80.54% success rate ranks 26th. If we only compare stats through age 27 for each player, since SB% may dip later, of the 82 who stole 150 by age 27, he ranks 16th.

Always-a-Phillie Jimmy Rollins

- His next Extra Base Hit will be his 813th, tying him with Joe Morgan for 106th all-time.
- His next double will be the 484th of his career and will tie him for 73rd all-time with Hal McRae. In the 48 years from 1951 to 1998, some matched it but no one surpassed the 54 doubles that McRae hit in 1977.
- Three more games at Shortstop will give Rollins 2076 for his career, passing Tommy Corcoran (1890-1907) for 15th most in MLB history at the position.