Playing Pepper 2009: Philadelphia Phillies

As the players start getting themselves ready for another season, I thought it'd be a good idea to do the same.  I contacted a blogger for each major league team and asked them five questions. This is the result. You can find the tentative schedule of teams here and today's main post is right here.

A long drought of suffering was wiped out last October as the Phillies finally took another World Series title. It didn't quite have the same impact nationally as the Red Sox in 2004 or the White Sox in 2005, but it still was quite a wonderful time for Philadelphia fans after 28 years.

Those Philly fans can be on the rough side (as the Cardinals saw when they went into the Vet with JD Drew and Scott Rolen) but one man's insanity is another man's passion.

Bill from Crashburn Alley is one of those passionate fans. I asked him about what the 2009 season means and how the bullpen will stack up. Programming note: this exchange happened before Ryan Howard signed his recent three-year extension.

C70: Does this season even matter or are fans still just basking in 2008?

CA: Every season matters, even if you've won the last 10 World Series. Of course the '08 championship will be with us all year, but don't think for a second that the boobirds won't be there if the Phillies start sliding. I don't think there will be anyone in the Phillies' clubhouse who will feel content resting on his laurels and phoning it in in 2009.

C70: Will Ryan Howard sign a long-term contract with the Phillies?

CA: I hope not, but it's definitely plausible that Ruben Amaro signs Howard long-term. Howard's numbers have been trending in the wrong direction since '06, yet his salary demands have gone up. He and his father think that he's an "unprecedented" player, but they're delusional.

(Note: Here's the Alley post after Howard's signing, for reference.)

C70: Will the new contract affect Cole Hamels at all?

CA: I don't know Hamels personally, so I can't give you an honest answer about that, but if his playoff performances are clues, then we can figure that he will handleseverything in stride. So, I don't think Hamels will try to do too much in trying to prove that he is worth the money the Phillies will be paying him.

The big question with Hamels is staying healthy. He proved last season that he can handle a large workload, but he's always been fragile, so his injury concerns are still pertinent.

C70: Will the bullpen be as strong as it was last year?

CA: Unfortunately, no. There were a lot of things that went exactly right for the bullpen to be as strong as it was last year. Odds are Brad Lidge blows some saves next year, ya know?

J.C. Romero is going to miss about one-third of the season thanks to the unwillingness of the MLBPA and his team's front office to stand by him.

Barring any further acquisitions, the only lefty in the 'pen is Scott Eyre, which hampers the Phillies' ability to find favorable pitching match-ups.

A glance at Chad Durbin's peripherals leads one to believe he was very fortunate last year, and if you had watched him at all, it was evident he ran out of gas by the time August rolled around.

After putting up ERA's of 1.42, 2.51, 0.87, and 1.72 from April through July, he put up 4.32 and 6.94 ERA's in August and September. He was overused by Charlie Manuel, and there's been no indication that his manager realizes this, nor that things will be different in '09.

I've harped about this numerous times on my blog, but I think the Phillies' pitching staff as a whole pitched a bit worse than the numbers would indicate, simply because the defense—particularly the middle infield—way out-performed expectations. In other words, the Phillies' strong defense was fluky.

The Phillies' defense, overall, was +74 according to Dewan's +/- system of measuring defense. The ML average was -0.3 with a standard deviation of about 43 and a half. This means that the Phillies' defensive production was nearly two standard deviations above the mean. Not an outlier, of course, but definitely out there.

Specifically, the middle infield was +71, the corner infield was +7, and the outfield was -4. In 2007, overall, they were +18 with +25 MI, -2 CI, and -5 OF. Obviously, there weren't any changes in the middle infielders ([Jimmy] Rollins and [Chase] Utley) from '07 to '08. Utley was +47 in '08 and +22 in '07.

Mark Ellis was the second-best-fielding second baseman at +26 last season. Utley's good, but not +47 good. Plus, we don't know how much mobility he'll have given his hip surgery.

But my point with that long, long diatribe is that the Phillies' pitching staff as a whole was very fortunate to have Utley and Rollins behind them. With an expectation of regression to the mean, I think that all of the pitchers will have to rely more on their own ability to induce outs as opposed to watching Utley snag line drives out of mid-air as he did so often last season.

C70: Has the changeover in the general manager job been noticable?

CA: Yes, there has been a difference from Gillick to Amaro. We've seen Gillick hand out a few bad contracts (Adam Eaton, anyone?), so who knows if he would have signed Raul Ibanez to a similar contract.

Gillick never really had to deal with arbitration the way Amaro has had to already, and Amaro handled seven of the eight arb-eligible players excellently. The only blemish on Amaro's record so far is the Ibanez contract; he won with the minor trades: Golson-for-Mayberry, Jaramillo-for-Paulino.

Gillick's strength was making the finishing touches—he has rarely made a deal at the trading deadline that backfired. One might bring up the Abreu trade, but that was simply a salary dump, nothing more. So, we'll see if Amaro can match up well when July rolls around.

Amaro's biggest test is going on this moment: the Ryan Howard situation. If the Ibanez contract is any indication, player evaluation isn't his strong suit, so there is probably a good chance that he is overrating Howard and will bite on giving him a long-term deal for lots of money.

My thanks for Bill taking the time to answer those questions.  With the Mets shoring up their bullpen and the odds of the Phillies' pen slipping some, it could make for a tight race in the NL East.