Phixing Philadelphia

By all accounts, 2012 was a disappointing season for the Philadelphia Phillies. After 5 consecutive 1st place finishes in the NL East, the team finished third, with an 81-81 record. Fans spent 5 seasons packing Citizens Bank Park, cheering on their team, getting used to the idea of a winning baseball team in Philadelphia. This past season changed things a bit. The team dealt with multiple injuries to key players like Chase Utley, Ryan Howard, Roy Halladay, and Carlos Ruiz. Combine injuries with an aging team that traded many young and talented players in the hopes of upgrading the squad heading into the playoffs, and fans were left with a team that struggled to win.

So, how did the 2012 team differ from Phillies teams prior?

Batting:

	Runs/Game	wRC+	wOBA	SLG%	OBP
2010	4.77	99	0.327	0.413	0.332
2011	4.40	96	0.315	0.395	0.323
2012	4.22	93	0.311	0.400	0.317

Fielding:

	UZR	DRS	PADE
2010	-5.9	0	1.36
2011	-10	-59	0.75
2012	-8.3	-8	-0.45

Base running:

	BsR	BRR
2010	4.4	-6.2
2011	-1.4	-9.5
2012	4.5	-9.7

Pitching:

	FIP	ERA	K%	BB%
2010	3.93	3.68	19.4%	6.8%
2011	3.24	3.02	21.4%	6.7%
2012	3.72	3.86	22.8%	6.7%

From a hitting perspective, the Phillies have consistently been moving down the charts. Their rate of decline isn't steep by any standard, but for a team that has leaned so heavily on its pitching, even minute drops in hitting production can have significant effects. The Phillies have never been one for considering on base percentage a top priority, but even still, a team that gets on base at a .317 clip probably isn't making the playoffs. In fact, the Tampa Bay Rays had an identical team OBP to the Phillies in 2012, but the reason the Rays won more games is that the Rays had the best pitching in the American League.

Defensively, the Phillies have also fallen by the wayside. Okay, so no one is falling off the impending fiscal cliff to their defensive demise, but the team has consistently become worse and worse in the field. The reason for this is simple. The Phillies have aged, which takes away from range, and certain players weren't good fielders to begin with, like Ryan Howard, anyone who has played left field, and Hunter Pence. Filling holes in their team this offseason should upgrade their defensive efficiency, something important to bolster a pitching staff that still sports numerous aces.

Cole Hamels

The pitching has not changed drastically over the last three seasons. 2011 was a particularly spectacular season for Phillies pitchers as it was the season of the daunting 4 aces, Halladay, Lee, Hamels, and Oswalt. The 2012 Phillies pitched more similarly to the 2010 Phillies, but with pitchers like Halladay and Lee getting older, some regression is possible. On the other hand, the team signed lefty Cole Hamels to a long-term contract, which will keep him pitching in Philadelphia for many more years.

Now that we have looked at the team's past, what about the present and the future? Going into the 2012-2013 offseason the front office has some work to do. After trading center fielder Shane Victorino and right fielder Hunter Pence, the team needs to find replacements for 2 outfield spots, as well as one at third base due to the void left by Placido Polanco. In addition, the team could use to add at least one or two veteran arms in the bullpen to complement the numerous younger possibilities at the team's disposal.

The market this offseason for center fielders is vast. Michael Bourn, B.J. Upton, Josh Hamilton, and Angel Pagan are all options, as well as trade candidates Dexter Fowler and Denard Span. Given the the Phillies recent depletion in their farm system, a trade is less likely than a free agent signing. The team seems to be focused on filling the center field spot, with rumors that they are most enamored by the youngest option of the bunch, B.J. Upton. Hamilton is probably too expensive, and will have to be moved to a corner outfield spot in the very near future, while Pagan's age, and desire to return to San Francisco, may turn off the Phillies. Bourn remains a possibility, but his value is wrapped up in his base running and defense, two factors that diminish quickly with age.

While this free agent crop is filled with center fielders, it is devoid of third basemen. The biggest name is Kevin Youkilis,but after that, there isn't much. In times like these, teams need to find value. Interestingly, the Youkilis is a actually a great option for the Phillies. He may be a bit older, but he's a right-handed bat that can hit for power (.174 ISO), but most importantly, he gets on base (career OBP .384). While Phillies GM Ruben Amaro should consider Youkilis his first option, many other teams will also be clamoring to sign Youk, which will make it more difficult. A lesser known, but valuable option is Jeff Keppinger. Keppinger has bounced around from team to team during his career, but he gets on base (.337 career OBP), and has averaged an fWAR of ~ 1 for the last 5 seasons. Last year he added 2.8 wins to the Rays, playing 1st, 2nd, and 3rd base all at an above average rate. He would cost less than Youkilis, and would allow the Phillies to concentrate money on other spots.

From the bullpen perspective, the Phillies have numerous options. The 2012 Phillies pen was one of the league's best at getting strikeouts (10.05 K/9), but had a below average ground ball percentage. In addition, the team could do a better job getting lefties out. Two pitchers the Phillies should look into are Koji Uehara and Kyle Farnsworth. For a righty, Uehara is surprisingly good at getting left-handed batters out. This is probably due to his devastating changeup that acts similarly to a slow splitter, diving away from lefties. Farnsworth has dealt with injuries, but refashioned himself with a 2-seam fastball that moves and causes many more ground balls. Uahara is more sought after, so his price tag is higher, but both pitchers would fit well into the Phillies 2013 bullpen, and neither would cost too much money.

My best fit, perfect world solution for the Phillies looks like this:

Nick Swisher

1) Use capitol to sign outfielder Nick Swisher. He's a bit expensive, and due to the qualifying offer the Yankees gave him, the Phillies would be forced to surrender their 1st round draft pick to the Yankees. This is a risk, but Swisher does many things well that the Phillies need. A contract in the range of 5 years and $75 million would pay Swisher $15 million per season, a reasonable sum for both sides.

2) Trade pitcher Jonathan Pettibone and shortstop Freddie Galvis to the Colorado Rockies for center fielder Dexter Fowler. The Rockies are looking for pitching and, due to their cluster of outfielders, adding the defensively minded infielder Galvis into the deal could be the key to plucking Fowler. Fowler is entering arbitration years, thus he is under financial control, and provides speed and explosiveness from center field. Platooning Fowler with John Mayberry Jr., who only hits well off of lefties, could be quite productive.

3) Sign infielder Jeff Keppinger to a 2-year contract worth $17 million with a team option for 2015 worth $9 million. He's serviceable, can play all over the infield, and keeps third base warm until prospect Cody Asche improves a bit more on his way to the Majors.

4) Sign Koji Uehara to a 2-year $8 million deal and sign Kyle Farnsworth to a 1-year $3 million contract. Both veteran bullpen arms will do well complementing Papelbon, Bastardo, Aumont, De Fratus, etc... in the bullpen.

Those transactions yield a starting lineup of:

Catcher	Carlos Ruiz
1st Base	Ryan Howard
2nd Base	Chase Utley
Shortstop	Jimmy Rollins
Third Base	Jeff Keppinger
Left Field	Domonic Brown
Center Field	Dexter Fowler
Right Field	Nick Swisher

Amaro would have added about $31 million to the 2013 payroll, which is pretty affordable for the additions of 5 players. No, these moves don't have the snap, crackle, and pop of flashy moves like signing Josh Hamilton or trading for David Wright, but given the Phillies great pitching staff, it would add value in particularly important areas. Some of those moves aren't completely realistic. Nick Swisher may cost more money, and the Rockies may ask for more to acquire Dexter Fowler, but Amaro should look into fixing the Phillies' problems more with patching than with shiny, fancy new parts. Given the Phillies .500 record in 2012, the team could easily rebound to contend once again for the NL East crown, but needs a bit of work to do so. 

Knuckle Sandwich

R.A. Dickey should win the National League Cy Young award. That's what I thought about a week ago. Nothing since then should have changed my mind. All Dickey has done in the last two weeks was throw 15.2 innings of 5-run ball against the Miami Marlins and Pittsburgh Pirates, giving up 14 hits, 4 walks, 1 home run, and striking out 17. Essentially, he did what he's done all season. Here lies the problem: In the words of Jed Bartlett (A character on The West Wing), "Show me numbers." I can look at the Mets knucklballer and say "Wow, he has been dominant this entire season, he should win the Cy Young." I needed to prove it, and not just with any old evidence, I needed to prove it with numbers.

So, here are some numbers for you. Dickey is 20-6 with an NL leading 2.69 earned run average, 222 strikeouts, and 1.041 WHIP. These are standard statistics that baseball folk have used for years in order to evaluate pitchers. Due to the recent statistical revolution in baseball, I've learned to discount some of these statistics, substituting more accurate and descriptive ones in their place. For example, wins and losses mean very little when evaluating a pitcher alone because a lot of what determines whether a pitcher gets a win or a loss has little to do with the pitcher. Earned run average, can still tell us something about a pitcher in a grand sense, but such a statistics combines the play of a pitcher and his defense, instead of the isolating solely the contributions of the pitcher.

Alright, all of this is interesting, but sabermetricians have found a way to show how many wins a given player has contributed above a replacement level (similar to league average) player. These statistics combine most to all of a player's contributions and uses some math in order to normalize other variables like league, environment, etc... The problem is that different websites calculate WAR in different ways. The two main types are rWAR and fWAR. According to rWAR, calculated and used by Baseball-Reference, R.A. Dickey is the 3rd highest WAR amongst pitcher in the National League, trailing only the Cincinnati Reds Johnny Cueto and Los Angeles Dodgers Clayton Kershaw. On the other hand, fWAR, created by Fangraphs, has Dickey as the pitcher with the 6th highest WAR in the NL. Why the discrepancy?

I've read a number of articles about WAR, and they have told me that the major difference in the calculations of WAR is the specific defensive metric used. fWAR uses UZR, rWAR uses DRS, and WARP uses FRAA. Well that is for position players, not pitchers. So, I delved into how WAR is calculated for pitchers. Although rWAR and fWAR have some differences they are relatively minor, including the manner in which park factors are adjusted for, and whether the metric is adjusted for interleague play. Overall, the main difference is simple. The statistic each used to begin the calculation is different. Fangraphs uses FIP and Baseball-Reference uses Runs Allowed.

Let's begin with the easier of the two. Runs allowed is as simple as it sounds, it calculates the number of runs allowed by a pitcher, earned and unearned. FIP, fielding independent pitching, attempts to calculate everything a pitcher does during a game that he can control. They include, strikeouts, walks, hit-by-pitches, and home runs. Fangraphs assumes that any ball put in play that isn't a home run is not the pitchers fault. While this is not always true, as we should assume that every MLB pitcher is subject to at least reasonable defense, when attempting to calculate how much a pitcher contributes to his team in order to compare him to other pitchers, using only those statistics that are solely attributed to a pitcher is reasonable. FIP is scaled to look and act just like ERA. So, in the end, rWAR includes a pitcher's team to some extent, while fWAR looks only at what a pitcher contribues while possibly leaving out some minor contributions.

So, why then does rWAR rank R.A. Dickey higher than fWAR, to the point at which we might not consider Dickey for the Cy Young award through Fangraph's goggles, but might do so when considering the confines of Baseball-Reference's rWAR? If rWAR might consider a pitcher's team too much, than it would make sense for Baseball-Reference to consider the Mets as an above average defense, right? Interestingly, the Mets have a -33 DRS, ranking them 6th from the bottom in that category.  So, what explains the disparity between Dickey's fWAR and rWAR?

We said that fWAR uses FIP, which focuses on a pitchers strikeouts, walks, hit-by-pitches, and home runs.

Name	IP	K/9	BB/9	HR/9
Gio Gonzalez	193.1	9.36	3.4	0.42
Clayton Kershaw	211.2	8.97	2.47	0.68
Cliff Lee	198	8.86	1.27	1.05
Johnny Cueto	210	7.03	2.06	0.6
Wade Miley	187	6.45	1.78	0.63
R.A. Dickey	220	8.55	2.13	0.86

	HR/FB	FIP	WAR
Gio Gonzalez	6.10%	2.84	5.2
Clayton Kershaw	8.70%	2.99	4.8
Cliff Lee	11.40%	3.07	4.8
Johnny Cueto	7.70%	3.27	4.7
Wade Miley	6.70%	3.2	4.5
R.A. Dickey	10.60%	3.28	4.5

When a ball is put in play in the air vs. Dickey, it is a home run 10.6% of the time. This ranks second to worst amongst these top pitchers. This makes sense due to Dickey being a knuckleball pitcher. When a pitch that averages between 75mph and 85mph floats into the strike zone with little movement, as a bad knuckle ball does, MLB hitters will generally crush the ball. In addition, despite Dickey's high number of strikeouts, his BB/9 are not very good either. Gio Gonzalez overcomes a higher walk rate by allowing almost zero home runs and striking out hitters more often than Dickey, while Clayton Kershaw's more innings combined with his low HR/9 gives him the edge over R.A.

Here is something to consider. As a former pitcher, I can vouch for the fact that it is easier to pitch with a lead. Certainly, all pitchers should be able to perform just as well with or without a lead. On the other hand, the more a pitcher pitches with the lead, oftentimes the more chances he can take in order to get hitters out. The pitcher/batter battle is a chess game, with each player attempting to outthink his opponent. The pitcher, who pitches with the lead, can do more that a batter cannot predict, than the pitcher who pitches with a deficit. So, R.A. Dickey gets the 15th best run support from his team in the National League at 4.61 runs/game while Clayton Kershaw, who ranks second in fWAR and rWAR, has had the NL's 8th worst run support at 3.77 runs/game. Maybe, Dickey has it easier because the Mets give him a lead more often than the pitchers ahead of him. Whether this is true or not, it does not mean he is necessarily a worse pitcher than Kershaw.

So, should R.A. Dickey win the NL Cy Young award. Looking only at the statistics, I have to say I think Gio Gonzalez deserves the Cy Young award. Walks can get a pitcher into trouble quickly, and while Gonzalez has a 3.4 BB/9, his inability to give up homeruns means that those walks do not come back to bite him as much as other pitchers'. In addition, Gonzalez strikes hitters out. He does so to the tune of 9.36 K/9, second only to his teammate Steven Strasburg. Gonzalez even satisfies old school voters with 20 wins, 2.84 ERA, and 201 strikeouts.

Okay, Gio is good. In fact, he's been incredibly good, but what about my man R.A.? Well, Dickey has statistics fairly comparable to Gonzalez's and one thing that Gio doesn't. Dickey does it all throwing essentially one pitch. Everyone praises Yankees Closer Mariano Rivera for getting out three batters a game with one pitch, but R.A. performs a similar feat but multiplied by 7. Now, the knuckleball is different from the cutter. The cutter is merely a variation of a fastball, whereas the knuckleball is as similar to a fastball as a rocket ship. It is almost impossible to prepare for a knuckleball because event he pitcher doesn't know how the pitch will move and where it might go. While the knuckleball is difficult to hit, it is even more difficult to throw properly. When thrown improperly, a knuckleball is as straight as an arrow and looks as big as a beach ball to opposing hitters. This fact is seen by Dickey's homerun percentage.

Dickey throws the most difficult pitch known to man and does so incredibly well. Gio Gonzalez does the job a hair better than Dickey, but uses the typical pitcher's arsenal. Were Gonzalez above and beyond the better pitcher, I would award him the Cy Young without question, but due to the difficulty it takes to control a knuckleball, and the even greater difficulty it takes to dominate opposing hitter with said pitch, I think Dickey deserves the award. Phil Niekro is known as one of the best pitchers to ever throw a knuckleball, yet he never attained the success that Dickey has. The same is true of Tim Wakefield, the most recent pitcher to throw a knuckleball. Dickey's numbers show he is one of the best pitchers in the National League this year, and the way in which he has dominated NL hitters warrants him the Cy Young Award. So, here are my top 3 in the NL as of today:
1. R.A. Dickey
2. Gio Gonzalez
3. Cliff Lee

Wins and Losses

Losing isn't easy.  From heartbreak losses to nail biters to blowouts, one fact remains: losing is hard.  Ask anyone. The 12-year-old Little Leaguer, the multiple-time Super Bowl champion quarterback, and everyone in between will say the same thing.  Thirty-six-year-old Celtics center Kevin Garnett said it best after game 5 of the Eastern Conference Finals against the Heat.  Sideline reporter Doris Burke asked the former MVP, "What fuels you?" to which Garnett responded, "Competition."

When I first began playing truly competitive baseball I was 11 years old.  Up until this point my playing career consisted of having a daily catch with my father in the cul-de-sac outside of our house, and the bi-weekly games played in the local Jewish Community Center league.  Hubris and arrogance aside, most would say that for me, playing in the JCC league was unfair.  An early growth spurt allowed me to tower over most other players, most of whom did not care about winning or losing but wanted more than anything for their parents to take them out for ice cream after the game.  My perspective remained extremely different.  As the best pitcher in the league I loved racking up the strikeouts, forcing my Dad to record the number of pitches I threw and to analyze the stats in order to fix my mistakes during the cul-de-sac sessions.  Many say that competition is a natural instinct, a statement I agree with, but competition is like an unlit match, dormant until a quick strike causes the match to burn itself into extinction.

In JCC baseball my competitive attitude surfaced.  After only a few seasons, my parents and I realized that I needed better competition. After all, it is difficult to keep the competitive fire stoked when half of the batters I faced stood barely above 4 feet and wore long skirts that disguised the bottom of the strike zone.  I immediately moved from the JCC league to the Lower Merion Little League.  Here I was matched up against 10-12 year olds from all over the township, a much greater source of talent that hopefully would feed this recently cultivated competitive nature.  Finally, to play in a league in which my teammates and the coaches all took the games seriously and wanted to win, as opposed to merely "have fun" and yearn for the post game ice cream.  This experience began with "fall ball," which obviously occurs in the fall and not the spring.  Only the truly dedicated play baseball in the fall, right? This led me to believe that the other players would be committed to winning.  To my dismay, few of the  players and coaches interested in winning in the fall resided on my team. My coach viewed fall ball as a counterbalance to the competitive spring Little League season. Instead of playing the best players at their most effective positions, he played everyone where they wanted to play, so everyone pitched, in rotation.

I distinctly remember driving home with my Dad after one game, complaining to the point of anger about playing center field.  Another player on our team with little athletic talent but a strong desire to pitch gave up the lead and lost us the game.  For some reason I exclaimed, "no one else wants to win but me."  Now Dad has never been a sports playing type of person. Despite not being a great ballplayer, he has experienced loss and gave me some good advice.  He said, "Be patient, in the spring you will play for a different team, one where you'll feel more comfortable."  As an 11 year old I didn't truly understand patience, so I continued to complain, lamenting my team's lack of desire to compete and win.  Obviously, losing did not sit well with me.

Skip forward to next spring.  A whole winter of growth and practice behind me, I was ready for baseball to start again.  This time I intended to play for a team with a coach and teammates who shared my competitive desire to win.  Due to the high volume of players in the spring in comparison to the fall, the league holds tryouts to determine at what level everyone should play, the majors or the minors.  I felt confident in my abilities to make a team in the majors, but even still I hoped that the team on which I was placed would be a better fit for my competitive nature.  Luckily, I was drafted to a team coached by a father my parents and I both knew.  Let's call him coach "K," but not because his coaching skills measured up to the famous Coach K at Duke.  He and his son both wanted to win very badly; he had thus strategically constructed a team with experience, talent, and most importantly, a will to win. 

Our team performed well, winning most of our games, and making it to the playoffs.  I was named to the township All-star team along with three of my teammates.  In the first game of the playoffs, we faced a team that had won fewer games than us and against whom we felt very confident.  Most likely due to our over-confident demeanors, and probably a little bad luck, we lost the game, thus moving into the losers bracket.  This meant that another loss would end our hopes of capturing 1st place.  Following that first playoff game I remember feeling frustrated.  I blamed others, my teammates, my coach, and even the weather.  Losing isn't easy.  True competitors, the ones spoken of in stories, never blame their teammates; they look within themselves for answers and push themselves to be better.  This was a lesson I had not yet learned.  After 3 more games we found ourselves playing in the championship game against the second best team in the league.  I was charged with pitching and I promised myself that no matter what happened I would put forth everything I had.  I pitched well for 5 innings.  In the 6th and final inning, with the game tied the other team's best hitter came up.  Instead of using my best pitch, my fastball, I decided that with 2 strikes on the batter I would fool him by throwing a changeup, something I almost never did.  I hoped that the batter would swing through and strike out, thus giving us a good chance to win the game in the bottom of the inning.  Instead, he hit the first and only home run I ever surrendered in Little League.  We lost the game.  

A sign from the Phillies 10,000th loss

Losing isn't easy, no matter level competition.  When a franchise has compiled 10,000 losses at the professional level, losing becomes the default culture of the fans and the organization.  Just ask the Phillies, still the only professional sports team to compile at least 10,000 losses.  I attended the Phillies 10,000th loss, a Sunday night against the St. Louis Cardinals.  That loss felt similar to the hundreds of other losses I had witnessed as a fan.  Each loss stung, but every successive loss brought less frustration and more acceptance.  Fortunately, the Phillies forsook their losing ways, made the playoffs in 2007, and then won the World Series in 2008.  Since 2007, the Phillies have not missed the post-season, a testament to the change not only in the product on the field, but in the attitudes of the players, coaches, front office staff, and even the fans.  For as much as losing is difficult, winning is easy.   Why do Yankees fans bemoan every Yankee loss, thus making a name for themselves as the crankiest and some would say most annoying fans in baseball? Perhaps, to a large extent, because they are used to winning.

Jimmy Rollins and the Phillies are last in the NL East

Losing isn't easy, no matter level competition.  When a franchise has compiled 10,000 losses at the professional level, losing becomes the default culture of the fans and the organization.  Just ask the Phillies, still the only professional sports team to compile at least 10,000 losses.  I attended the Phillies 10,000th loss, a Sunday night against the St. Louis Cardinals.  That loss felt similar to the hundreds of other losses I had witnessed as a fan.  Each loss stung, but every successive loss brought less frustration and more acceptance.  Fortunately, the Phillies forsook their losing ways, made the playoffs in 2007, and then won the World Series in 2008.  Since 2007, the Phillies have not missed the post-season, a testament to the change not only in the product on the field, but in the attitudes of the players, coaches, front office staff, and even the fans.  For as much as losing is difficult, winning is easy.   Why do Yankees fans bemoan every Yankee loss, thus making a name for themselves as the crankiest and some would say most annoying fans in baseball? Perhaps, to a large extent, because they are used to winning.

Recently, Phillies fans have had to deal with the difficulty of losing (28-31 record to this point).  The other day, I read an on-line article on the Philadelphia Daily News sport page.  It concerned the no-trade clauses in Chase Utley and Cliff Lee's contracts.  In the comments section, an obviously frustrated fan claimed that General Manager Ruben Amaro is awful and that his "raj" needed to end in order for the Phillies to regain their winning ways.  Can this fan write off all of the Phillies recent success, calling for a man to be fired due to one bad third of a season?  I too disagree with many of the Phillies recent moves, but instead of complaining about the past, I hope the Phillies rebuild their underwhelming farm system by trading big names like Cole Hamels, Hunter Pence, and Shane Victorino. 

As my father taught me back in Little League, "patience is key."  Sometimes you have to experience the frustration of losing to properly value the joy of victory.  Winning is difficult to sustain, and often times teams need to prepare to win in the future by accepting failure in the short term.  Little League taught me that losing is grueling, exhausting, and above all else, disappointing.  Competition and the will to win fuels all of us, from Kevin Garnett, to the young Little Leaguer, to every Phillies fan out there.  So with all this in mind, let's take a lesson from our Little League selves: while losing may be difficult, we must respond with patience and discipline.  Instead of bitching and moaning about the Phillies recent losses, including a current 6-game losing streak, let us think critically about the team's issues and how best to resolve them in order to bring back the winning spirit that has fueled Citizens Bank Park and the entire city for the last 5 seasons.  Complaining gets us nowhere; just as Kevin Garnett uses his desire to compete to get himself ready to play every game, Phillies fans should channel their competitive spirit in constructive ways, instead of complaining like petulant children.