May 18th vs. Colorado after a brisk 8 game three city road trip.

ek wrote:i don't know. he was quoted as saying it's still a long process unfortunately the other day so i'm not getting my hopes up.

Pretty sure "a long process" for a guy like Chase is a day off after playing the night before

Do you bring up Belliard at this point? .320/.404/.460 in AAA with a homer and 7 RBI, 4 of 16 hits are XBH. Might as well try to strike the iron while it's hot.

smitty wrote:If, when he comes back, he stays back and hits like crazy and plays great defense and does all that Utley stuff we're used to we may look back on the "Pete Orr Era" and laugh some day.

Nay! The Pete Orr Era shall always be held in the highest reverence.

I don't see them making that move now because Valdez has played well but when Wilson inevitably goes 3-40, I could easily see Belliard up

You know, with an offense doing its best impression of a corpse, this team is on a pace to basically be the 1998 Yankees in terms of victories.

God the pitching is good.

mozartpc27 wrote:You know, with an offense doing its best impression of a corpse, this team is on a pace to basically be the 1998 Yankees in terms of victories.

God the pitching is good.

I came here to mention something along these lines.

This is going exactly as scripted. Two ways to win: outscore your opponents, or make them underscore you. This team was built for the latter.

:smugs:

CFP wrote:Do you bring up Belliard at this point? .320/.404/.460 in AAA with a homer and 7 RBI, 4 of 16 hits are XBH. Might as well try to strike the iron while it's hot.

Not sure why he he hasn't been here all along. Martinez is probably a nice story and all, and would probably be a nice rule 5 pickup for a rebuilding team, but why are the Phillies using a roster spot for him exactly? When Chase is back there is a good chance he goes anyway, at least IMO they should keep Orr over him.

Also, what up with Herndog? Why is he here over Stutes?

I don't know, on a team that is unlikely to *need* its 25th man to win, I'd rather use that spot on acquiring someone who might of some use like Martinez than on a tried-and-washed-out retread like Orr.

Bucky wrote:

mozartpc27 wrote:You know, with an offense doing its best impression of a corpse, this team is on a pace to basically be the 1998 Yankees in terms of victories.

God the pitching is good.

I came here to mention something along these lines.

This is going exactly as scripted. Two ways to win: outscore your opponents, or make them underscore you. This team was built for the latter.

:smugs:

I love low-scoring games that are closer to two hours than four, but I don't think we can take all that much from the Padres series. If I've ever seen a worse group of hitters than the SD lineup through the first two games, I can't remember who. A decent lineup might have torched Madson last night, as he was obviously too amped up; with the combination of shitty approach and little talent that characterizes the Padres hitters, he got them 1-2-3.

Hopefully the way it works is that by the time we face competent lineups on a regular basis, the bats are a bit more productive. In the meantime, the Rotation of Doom is pretty friggin great.

Since the last time we scored more than 4 runs, we are 7-4. Braves/Nats/Marlins/Brewers/Pads.

dajafi wrote:

Bucky wrote:

mozartpc27 wrote:You know, with an offense doing its best impression of a corpse, this team is on a pace to basically be the 1998 Yankees in terms of victories.

God the pitching is good.

I came here to mention something along these lines.

This is going exactly as scripted. Two ways to win: outscore your opponents, or make them underscore you. This team was built for the latter.

:smugs:

I love low-scoring games that are closer to two hours than four, but I don't think we can take all that much from the Padres series. If I've ever seen a worse group of hitters than the SD lineup through the first two games, I can't remember who. A decent lineup might have torched Madson last night, as he was obviously too amped up; with the combination of $#@! approach and little talent that characterizes the Padres hitters, he got them 1-2-3.

Hopefully the way it works is that by the time we face competent lineups on a regular basis, the bats are a bit more productive. In the meantime, the Rotation of Doom is pretty friggin great.

You're right that the Padre hitters are awful but the whole West Coast is lousy with hitters who can't hit. The Mariners were historically awful last year and haven't really shown much improvement this year. But the A's are even worse. The Dodgers are also not reaching the 4 run per game mark. The Giants and LA Angels of Somewhere near LA are both below league average. It's kinda amazing.

Anyways, you acre correct that the Padres are the worst of the bunch. But there are contenders as well. Minnesota, Tampa Bay and Pittsburgh all all worse than the Mariners so far this season (The Ms are my standard of hitting futility). The Twins are tied with the Padres with a minuscule 3.00 runs per game average for the young season.

It's been a lower scoring season than last years' Year of the Pitcher so far this year.

Some scattered thoughs on the season so far

1) The record they've been able to put in the can so far is hugely important. Putting up a 5 game lead on the Braves in less than 20 games gives us a nice margin for error

Right now the offense has played at a 750 runs per 162 pace. Seems worse, I know, since most of that was front-loaded into the first few series. The pitching/defense is playing to a 562 RA per 162 pace. So if you think those are stable rates, plug that into the pythagorean calculator and account for the current 13-6 record and the pythag projection for the end of the season is 101 wins (!). By contrast, the leader in pythag wins at the end of the year last year was at 98 (Rays and Yanks tied for this). So even with this very uninspiring offense, gross pen outside of Wump-Mad-Bastardo, the computer numbers are very promising

http://replacementlevel.com/stuff/sg/Calculators.html

But, let's say you are a little more pessimistic about how the rest of the year will go. Let's say you assume that the true talent of the offense is about 700 runs per 162: this would be basically equivalent to the 2010 Giants offense (697 runs scored, 257/321/408 aggregate slash line), and 75 runs less than the much maligned 2010 Phils offense.

And maybe you think a little regression from Oswalt and Baez and Contreras will happen and the true talent of the run prevention is actually 600 runs per 162 (which would put them somewhere between the SF and Atlanta staffs from 2010)

Plug this into the above calculator (the way I did it was just say they scored 82 and allowed 70 in the first 19 games, which accounts for the 750/600 assumptions), and the pythag expectancy is still 95 wins at the end of the season because of the boost they have already received from the hot start. You can mess around and put your own assumptions into the link and see how it projects (just do assumed true talent runs/game * 19 and assumed true talent runs allowed/game in the first two fields, 143 games remaining, 13 current wins). Can't take those 13 wins away no matter what happens

2) On the other hand, we should have started really well because our sked has been very soft. If you look at the opponents we have had from start of season until May 5th, the combined 2010 records of these teams was 627-669 (.483). This is the softest month-long stretch of schedule we will have all season. Now 13-6 is good no matter what opponents you have faced, because crap teams beat good teams in the MLB all the time. But I guess what I am saying is that harder times are ahead. Please try to keep this in mind when the Phils have a 3-7 stretch and you are tempted to go on a rant about how we're doomed if Rube doesn't acquire 4 new hitters at the deadline

3) Polanco is due to cool off but it's not impossible that he could just ride a BABIP heater all year. In 2007 he somehow maintained his BABIP voodoo for an entire season, finishing at .346. We should probably expect him to go down to his usual .315 BABIP range before the season ends but I guess it's not impossible that he could just hit .335 this year. It has happened before

I'm mildly worried about Rollins' start but at the same time, I am going to wait until mid June before I get very worried/change my outlook for him. Once again the plate discipline stats are good, but they were last year and he never turned around. The LD% is good this year too so that bodes well for an uptick eventually. If he's still under .090 ISO on June 15th though, I'll be very sad/worried.

Similar for Rule, I need to remind myself how hopeless he looked during much of April and May last season, and he still ended up with a solid offensive season. This is a very interesting piece from Phils guy Eric Seidman about when, statistically speaking, current trends become significant. I try to keep this in mind when I am tempted to have a strong opinion based on 100 ABs

http://www.fangraphs.com/blogs/index.ph ... this-week/

Two things that could help the club as the season progresses. 1) Utley returning. I choose to believe he will return and be at least good if not really good. That is a massive improvement over the suck that is Wilson Martinez Orr (sorry Wheels). 2) Dominique will return and could provide a boost -- I'm much less sanguine about this one because he is unproven and missing some of his hamate bone.

I also like that we have some bullpen depth with some upside as opposed to previous years bringing up guys like Ennis and Trashner and Nate Robertson and guys like that.

I agree that there will be some internal pen shuffling at some point. Hopefully the troika of suck of Herndon-Kendrick-Baez will be broken up soon. Stutes is mentioned a lot as a potential option, he threw well this spring and I agree he'd likely be an upgrade over those 3 because of his strikeout ability. I am not super high on him as a MLB reliever though because in the past he's been pretty wild and has had poor splits vs LHB (at least before minor league splits got shut down). He seems like a best case ROOGY in the mold of Durbin (can rack up Ks but can be sketchy with the walks and vs lefties)

I really think Aumont can contribute to the big league team this year. So far in Reading he's given up 1 hit in 7 2/3 with 9 Ks. Also has a 67% GB rate to add up to a 1.48 FIP. We know when he's at his best he can have overpowering stuff (going back to WBC). I hope he stays healthy and keeps up the good work, making himself an option as a callup

Yup. Worleybird may yet help this club -- even out of the pen and I even have hopes for Mathiesen although those fade with each passing season. If Rosenberg can stay healthy, I think he might be a guy but he hasn't really been all that healthy in a long time.

stutes or even aumont has to get a chance over herndog sometime soon , right ?

Rollins' OPS last 5 seasons:

2007: .875
2008: .786
2009: .719
2010: .694
2011: .624

I can't imagine we wouldn't see Aumont in the Phils bullpen down the stretch, possibly in a significant role, if he keeps this up for a couple months at Reading.

I'm not a big Rollins fan as most of you probably know, but specifically with Rollins I doubt picking any 3 week period in any one of his seasons would tell you much of anything. I'm sure he had a run similar to this in his MVP year in 2007.

That being said, I'm worried his injuries over the past few years might have completely eroded his power. Even with his defense I'm not sure a powerless Rollins is worth rolling with even the rest of this year, if in say July he is still pushing a .100 ISO Rube is going to have to make some interesting decisions.