Phillies Stat Notes: In first despite injuries and slumps

Primarily because of injuries, the Phillies have used the most players of any team in the NL so far, with 35. At the other end of the spectrum, the Reds have only used 26.

With Jean Segura back, hopefully the offense can get back into a groove.

Summary

The Phils have been average or somewhat better offensively overall, and average or somewhat worse in preventing runs.

Standings

The Phillies have opened up a small lead in the East, as each of the other contenders have had issues of their own, particularly on the mound.

Runs vs. Average

The graph below shows Runs above average for each team in the NL, by each aspect of the game, as measured at Fangraphs.

For the Phillies so far:

Offense: +14 runs (i.e. better than average)
- Somewhat above average hitting: +11 runs
- Above average baserunning: +3 runs

Run prevention: -3 runs (i.e. below average)
- Below average starting pitching: -5 runs
- Above average bullpen: +4 runs
- Below average fielding: -2 runs

The net total is that as a team they’ve been 12 runs better than average:

The Marlins have been terrible, despite better than average starting pitching.

Batting

Compared to last year

The image the Phillies’ offense has so far is “walks and homers” — work the count and get on base by walks, and then hit a dinger to drive them in.

And they are in fact second in the NL in walk rate, but their HRs per game are only 9th, and in fact PA for PA, they’re only 10th in how often they homer.

What they have been hitting a lot of though is doubles, as well as some triples: they’re third in the NL in doubles and triples per PA. That’s not exactly how we drew it up, and it means their Isolated power overall is still only 8th. However scoring over five runs a game is still impressive, and if they keep that up they will be at or near the top in scoring by the end of the season.

They remain one of the more patient teams in the league, with the third most pitches per PA (4.07), and the second highest walk rate at 11.3% (the Braves lead at 11.4%). They’re about average at swinging at pitches in the strike zone (65.8%, 9th), but are the second least likely to chase out of the zone (28.2%).

On the bases they’ve been very conservative, but that has also meant they’ve made the fewest outs on the bases of any team in the NL. That makes them the NL’s second most effective team on the bases so far, according to Fangraphs’ baserunning runs metric.

Progress over time

The graphs below show how some key stats have progressed. On the left is the weekly performance (with a dotted line showing the NL average for each one), and on the right is the cumulative season-to-date number. Batting Average and BB% together drive a team’s On Base Percentage, and Batting Average and ISO combine to form Slugging Percentage.

The Phils hit really well with runners in scoring position to start the season, batting .315 in their first 17 games, with a 1.047 OPS. In the 11 games since then, they’ve struggled, hitting .208, with a .617 OPS.

Still so far for the season to date they hit for a much higher average with RISP (.277), than without (.237).

Batting — Individual

Rhys Hoskins comes into play today with an OPS over 1.000, one of the best hitters in the league in the early going.

Andrew McCutchen has really been struggling lately, his OPS at .521 over the last week.

Maikel Franco has cooled off lately, but remains the second toughest hitter to strike out in the NL so far — 7.9% of PAs, behind only Yadier Molina’s 7.3%.

The table below shows wRC for each Phillie, by week. Runs vs. Average then compares that to the average MLB hitter, given the same number of plate appearances. And finally OPS by week:

Pitching

Phils pitches haven’t been missing many bats (14th in K%), though they also are walking fewer than most teams (5th in BB%).

Pitching - Individual

In the first chart below is a high-level break down of each starter’s games:

QS is the typical definition (6+ IP, 3 or less ER)
“bad” is any start with more ER than innings pitched, and
“other” is all the rest.

The second chart has a similar breakdown, but by Game Score.

And below are each pitcher’s games, with the Game Score for each one on the right (highlighted green if in the 60-79 range, dark green if 80+).

Jake Arrieta finally had his first non-Quality start on Saturday, but Phils starters have generally kept the team in the game.

Over the last two weeks, Arrieta’s Saturday game was the only one where the starter gave up more than four runs, and only the second start giving up more than three.

References

Phillies hitters (fangraphs)
Phillies pitchers (fangraphs)
Team hitting stats (fangraphs)
Team pitching stats (fangraphs)
Team stats (baseball-reference)