{"id":1997,"date":"2011-06-28T16:54:56","date_gmt":"2011-06-28T20:54:56","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.broadstreetbelievers.com\/?p=1997"},"modified":"2011-06-28T16:56:11","modified_gmt":"2011-06-28T20:56:11","slug":"phillies-mid-season-report-card-3","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/broadstreetbelievers.com\/?p=1997","title":{"rendered":"Phillies Mid-Season Report Card"},"content":{"rendered":"
OK, so the Phillies don\u2019t officially hit the mid-season point (81 games) until Wednesday night, but we operate on a \u201ctime-permitting\u201d basis here at BSB, so the 2011 edition of the Mid-Season Report Card is being rolled out two days early.\u00a0 In the mid-season Report Card, we like to go a little deeper into the performance of each individual position and hand out grades based on the entire season\u2019s performance, not just the previous ten games or so.
\n<\/span><\/div>\n
For all the offensive woes and injuries the Phils have dealt with so far, us fans have to keep reminding ourselves that they have the best record in baseball.\u00a0 It’s hard to believe that at this point last season, the team was in third place in the NL East, and trailed the Braves by six games.\u00a0 Not only did they end up winning the division, but they entered the playoffs as the favorites to win it all.\u00a0 That thought should help the optimism level as we move into the second half of 2011.<\/span><\/div>\n

Ruben Amaro may not have as much financial flexibility as he did last year (when he\u00a0added Oswalt’s contract) but it still seems likely that he will make some move to add a right-handed bat that can slot into a corner outfield position.\u00a0 That speculation and discussion will dominate much of the next month for media and fans following the team.\u00a0 Amaro will also be kicking the tires on available relief pitchers, mostly because injuries have forced a heavy workload on some young arms.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u00a0On to the grades.\u00a0 Any player that has started at least five games at a position is listed (with the number in parentheses representing the number of starts they’ve made there).<\/p>\n

<\/span><\/p>\n

Catcher, <\/strong>Carlos Ruiz (53), Brian Schneider (14), Dane Sardinha (12):\u00a0 No one could have expected Ruiz to match last year’s production (.302 BA, .400 OBP, and a handful of MVP votes), and the hitter he’s been this year is definitely closer to who he really is.\u00a0 Still, like just about every hitter on the team, he’s at least slightly underperformed, with just a .346 slugging percentage.\u00a0 Schneider has had a\u00a0disappointing Phillies tenure.\u00a0 He’s hitting .161, and seems to\u00a0end up on the DL every couple\u00a0of months, even though he only plays once a week.\u00a0 Sardinha is a fine AAA catcher, I’m sure.<\/p>\n

Grade:\u00a0 <\/em>C+<\/strong>\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"\"

Ryan's still looking for his old power stroke<\/p><\/div>\n

First Base, <\/strong>Ryan Howard (78):\u00a0 One underrated aspect of Ryan Howard is his durability.\u00a0 For as big ashe is, it’s impressive that he’s out there every single day.\u00a0 He’s well on his way to 500+ at-bats, which would mean he’s done that in every one of his full ML seasons.\u00a0 Now, the question is whether or not he’ll ever be the 45-50 home run guy that he was up until last year.\u00a0 It’s true that home runs have been down across the game the last couple of years, but Howard’s have dropped by about 33%.\u00a0 Right now, he’s on pace to about match his total of 31 last year, and his slugging percentage is below .500.\u00a0 With Howard, you always expect a second-half surge, but it’s worth noting that that surge didn’t come last year.\u00a0 His 62 RBI do rank 2nd in the NL, but I’d argue that the lack of production from the 3-hole has left a ton of RBI opportunities sitting there for the big guy.\u00a0 He gets a bonus grade bump for only committing one error so far.<\/p>\n

Grade:\u00a0 <\/em>C+<\/strong><\/p>\n

Second Base, <\/strong>Wilson Valdez (31), Chase Utley (28), Pete Orr (16):\u00a0 Second base this year resembles shortstop at the mid-season point last year, with Valdez seeing a lot of playing time in place of the injured starter.\u00a0 One problem: though his defense continued to be excellent, he hasn’t hit as much as he did last year, sporting a miserable .306 slugging percentage.\u00a0 That opened the door for some starts by Orr, who wasn’t any better, slugging .279\u00a0before exiting to AAA upon Utley’s return.<\/p>\n

It’s difficult to draw any conclusions on Utley because of the spring training injury and the somewhat limited time he’s played so far.\u00a0 On the plus side, he appears to be running well on the knee and looks as healthy as we could hope.\u00a0 On the negative side, his offensive numbers have steadily declined every year since 2007.\u00a0 This year, he’s hitting .270, with a solid .375 OBP, and a run-of-the mill .435 slugging.\u00a0 It’s possible that that’s just who he is now, and the days of him being a .300\/30 homer player appear to be over.<\/p>\n

Grade:\u00a0 <\/em>C<\/strong><\/p>\n

Third Base, <\/strong>Placido Polanco (73), Valdez (6):\u00a0 For the season’s first month, Polanco was the ONLY bright spot offensively.\u00a0 But his .398 April average dropped to .248 in May, and he’s sitting at just .207 in June.\u00a0 What does it all add up to?\u00a0 Well, shockingly, if he were to match his 1st half performance in the 2nd half, it just may add up to the worst season of his long career.\u00a0 While that says something about how consistent and good he’s been throughout that career, it’s also pretty terrible news for a Phillie team dying for hitting, especially from the right side of the plate.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Still, assuming he can rebound from this downward trajectory his season has taken, he brings so much to the table in ways that don’t appear in the statistics, and the Phillies would be happy with a .290\/9 home run season from their third baseman.<\/p>\n

Grade:\u00a0 <\/em>C+<\/strong><\/p>\n

Shortstop, <\/strong>Jimmy Rollins (73), Valdez (5):\u00a0 Much like we probably have to adjust our expectations for Utley, we’ve already had to adjust our expectations for the aging J-Roll.\u00a0 He’s hitting .260 and on pace for 15 homers and 30 steals.\u00a0 If you’re looking for any more than that from him at this point, you’re fooling yourself.\u00a0 He’s also\u00a0on pace for a career-high in walks.\u00a0 It will be interesting to see if he returns next year (I don’t think he will) and, obviously, his performance over these next few months will go a long way in determining that.\u00a0 He’s just starting to slip defensively, so any sort of long-term commitment is probably ill-advised.<\/p>\n

Grade:\u00a0 <\/em>B-<\/strong><\/p>\n

Left Field, <\/strong>Raul Ibanez (69), John Mayberry (5):\u00a0 So, three-year contracts for 37-year-olds may not be the best idea, huh?\u00a0 Ibanez turned in a great 2009 season, and will most likely always be remembered fondly by Phillie fans, if for nothing more than the fun of the “Rauuuuuuullll!” cheer every time he got a big hit.\u00a0 But he was mediocre last year and has been downright terrible at the plate in ’11.\u00a0 His time as a Phillie, and very possibly his career, will wind down over these next few months.\u00a0 If he doesn’t start hitting, it could possibly wind down on the bench.<\/p>\n

Grade:\u00a0 <\/em>D<\/strong>\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"\"

The little Hawaiian leads the team in slugging<\/p><\/div>\n

Center Field<\/strong>, Shane Victorino (60), Mayberry (13), Michael Martinez (6):\u00a0 Pretty quietly, the Flyin’ Hawaiian has been the best offensive player on the\u00a0Phils this season.\u00a0 Victorino leads the team in average (.291), on-base percentage (.359), and even slugging percentage (.498).\u00a0 He’s also second on the team in steals (12) and third in the NL in triples (8).\u00a0 He’s accomplished all this despite being bounced all around the line-up.\u00a0 He could be headed for his second All-Star game and earn his fourth straight Gold Glove.<\/p>\n

Mayberry didn’t hit much when he was up, but he did\u00a0help his value going forward by showing that he’s a capable center fielder.\u00a0 He could possibly be a throw-in to a trade in the next month.\u00a0 Martinez hasn’t even hit enough to justify a utility role (2 extra-base hits in 63 AB’s), but he’s a versatile defender, useful pinch-runner, and a Rule 5 pick, so he’s most likely here for the rest of the season.<\/p>\n

Grade:\u00a0 <\/em>A-<\/strong><\/p>\n

Right Field: <\/strong>Ben Francisco (45), Domonic Brown (27):\u00a0 After a decent-enough April, Francisco missed his chance to claim the right field job when he couldn’t buy a hit in May, and his season average is just .225.\u00a0 That opened the door for Brown, but he too has failed to find the way through that wide\u00a0open doorway.\u00a0 After tearing up AAA in a brief stint after coming back from the broken hand injury, Brown came back to the majors and reverted right back to being the guy that couldn’t hit in his brief time in the majors last year.\u00a0 He’s shown some raw power but has not yet shown the ability to hit a major league fastball.\u00a0 A platoon with Francisco doesn’t even look feasible, with Brown hitting just .202 vs. right-handers.<\/p>\n

Grade:\u00a0 <\/em>D<\/strong><\/p>\n

Starting Pitchers:
\n<\/strong>One of the many, many wonderful things about going into a season with four <\/em>aces is that if one of them is forced to deal with injuries and a family crisis, you still have three other aces to fall back on.\u00a0 That’s the position the Phils find themselves in, with Roy Oswalt <\/strong>heading to the DL for the second time with back issues, after also missing a week to deal with damage from\u00a0tornadoes that ripped through his hometown in Mississippi.\u00a0 Despite all that, and despite not\u00a0picking up many wins, he was pitching really well through June 1st, with a 2.70 ERA.\u00a0 In his four starts since\u00a0then he struggled, and you have to wonder if the back problems were affecting his performance.\u00a0 Hopefully he can get healthy and come back\u00a0strong at some point this season.<\/p>\n

As for the other three, it wouldn’t\u00a0be a surprise right now to\u00a0see either\u00a0Roy Halladay, Cole Hamels, <\/strong>or Cliff Lee <\/strong>walk <\/strong>away with a Cy Young Award come season’s end.\u00a0 Their NL ranks, respectively: 2nd, 4th and 8th in ERA.\u00a0 T1st, T3rd, and T7th in Wins.\u00a0 4th, 1st, and 12th in WHIP.\u00a0 1st, 5th, and 4th in Innings Pitched.\u00a0 1st, 2nd, and 3rd in K\/BB ratio.\u00a0 And they’re doing all this in one of the best hitter’s parks in the game.\u00a0 Just amazing.<\/p>\n

It’s really only fair to compare Halladay to himself.\u00a0 His numbers are just slightly better (but almost eerily similar) to his numbers of last year, when he won the Cy Young.\u00a0 At 34-years-old, he’s showing zero signs of slowing down.\u00a0 He’s basically a carbon-copy of the guy that was out there last year.\u00a0 He’s almost mechanical in his ability to repeat the same pitches and the same delivery, pitch after pitch, game after game.<\/p>\n

At this point last year, Hamels was still having some of the same struggles he had during his poor ’09 season.\u00a0 I said in last season’s Mid-Season Report Card that he would never be a complete pitcher until he mastered a third pitch to go with his fastball and change-up.\u00a0 Well, I think shortly thereafter he started really finding success with his cutter.\u00a0 This year, though he still doesn’t throw it much, his curveball has been there for him when he needs it.\u00a0 Suddenly, he’s a four-pitch pitcher, and one of the best in the game.\u00a0 He’s having his best season by any measure, with a 2.49 ERA and an obscene 0.95 WHIP.\u00a0 He’s cut his\u00a0HR rate\u00a0in half and is posting career best rates in walks and strike-outs as well.<\/p>\n

Lee had some shaky outings in April and May, but in four June starts he’s allowed 1 run in 33 innings, taking back-to-back shutouts into his next start.\u00a0 With that dominance, he can’t be counted out as challenging Halladay and Hamels for supremacy over the next few months.<\/p>\n

The young guys that find themselves currently in the rotation, Vance Worley <\/strong>and Kyle Kendrick, <\/strong>with Oswalt and Joe Blanton <\/strong>on the DL, have held their own.\u00a0 In six starts, Worley has a 2.83 ERA and has shown a lot of promise as a future key member of this rotation.\u00a0 He needs to work on his control though.\u00a0 With 16 walks in 35 innings, he’s very fortunate to have such\u00a0a low ERA.\u00a0 Splitting his time between the pen and the rotation, Kendrick has quietly pitched really well, with a 3.23 ERA and 1.27 WHIP.<\/p>\n

The only starter that didn’t pitch too well was Blanton, who’s been out since mid-May with an elbow injury.\u00a0 He was actually pitching pretty solidly in his last few starts before hitting the DL.\u00a0 If he can make it back this season, Charlie and Rich Dubee may have some decisions to make on whether or not they want Big Joe back in the rotation.\u00a0 He does have big game experience, and with Oswalt a question mark, it’s not entirely out of the realm of possibility that Blanton could be making a postseason start or two for this team.<\/p>\n

Grade: <\/em>A<\/strong><\/p>\n

Bullpen:
\n<\/strong>It’s been an interesting half-season for the Phillie bullpen.\u00a0 In these few months, Ryan Madson <\/strong>has gone from the guy we were all sure could never be a closer, to the guy who looks like the prime candidate to be the team’s closer for the next few years.\u00a0 With Brad Lidge <\/strong>missing the whole season so far, and Jose Contreras <\/strong>limited to just 14 innings because of two DL stints, Madson was the default closer choice, and he’s been great.\u00a0 He has a 2.03 ERA and has converted 15 of 16 save opportunities.\u00a0 With his and Lidge’s contracts expiring after this year, it seems very possible that the Phillies could hand Madson a closer-type contract and plan to keep him in that role for the next three or four years.\"\"<\/p>\n

With Lidge and Contreras out, and Madson stepping into the closer role, the Phils’ needed some unproven arms to step up, and Antonio Bastardo <\/strong>and Michael Stutes <\/strong>have done just that.\u00a0 Bastardo has been a revelation, allowing just 3 earned runs in 28 innings.\u00a0 He’s been nearly unhittable, with opponents hitting .120 against him.\u00a0 He does need to cut down on his walks though.\u00a0 Stutes has looked up to the task of a 7th inning role in front of Bastardo and Madson.\u00a0 Like the team’s other promising young arms, Worley and Bastardo, he needs to improve his control, but he’s got the stuff to get Big League hitters out, as his 2.92 ERA attests.<\/p>\n

After Madson, Bastardo, and Stutes, the pen gets thin real quick, with the likes of David Herndon <\/strong>and Danys Baez.\u00a0 <\/strong>J.C. Romero was released for ineffectiveness, and there are no other remotely proven pitchers available.\u00a0 Even if Lidge and Contreras do return, they can’t be counted on to stay healthy, so Amaro will certainly be interested in adding at least one veteran to this bullpen.<\/p>\n

Still, despite the injuries and inexperience, the pen has done a commendable job.\u00a0 It helps that the starters eat so many innings, but with the offense not producing, the pen has still had to get the job done in a lot of close games.<\/p>\n

Grade:\u00a0 <\/em>B+<\/strong><\/p>\n

Overall Team:\u00a0 <\/strong>Yes, the team has the best record in baseball, but that doesn’t mean we can just hand them an automatic ‘A’.\u00a0 We grade on a curve here, and when you come into the season with one of the best starting rotations in the history of the game, and a largely intact offense that carried this team to a world championship three years ago, the bar is set high.<\/p>\n

Going into the NLCS last year, we said that the Phillies needed to play effective small ball.\u00a0 They had the pitching to keep the Giants off the board, but they weren’t hitting and the Giants’ vaunted pitching staff wasn’t going to help matters.\u00a0 They couldn’t do it, and they lost in six games.\u00a0 It just might be time for Charlie, the coaching staff, and the players to come to grips with the fact that Rollins, Utley, and Howard are not the hitters they were three years ago, and Jayson Werth is gone.\u00a0 They need to learn how to manufacture runs when they’re not getting hits.\u00a0 Their pitchers will keep them in every game, and will often hold the opponent to zero or one or two runs.\u00a0 On those nights, they have to be able to push a couple runs across the board.\u00a0 Too often this year, they haven’t even mustered that.<\/p>\n

All that being said, not only do they have the best record in baseball, but they have the best record in the NL by 4.5 games.\u00a0 The pitching has been amazing to watch.\u00a0 We just may end up hoping that the offense can get hot at the right time: October.\u00a0 Because\u00a0the pitchers are all but guaranteeing that\u00a0the team will be there.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Grade:\u00a0 <\/em>B+<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

OK, so the Phillies don\u2019t officially hit the mid-season point (81 games) until Wednesday night, but we operate on a \u201ctime-permitting\u201d basis here at BSB, so the 2011 edition of the Mid-Season Report Card is being rolled out two days … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[628,377,30,655,222,807,14,1213,16,788,408,309,322,213,369,1043],"class_list":["post-1997","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-mlb","tag-antonio-bastardo","tag-carlos-ruiz","tag-chase-utley","tag-cliff-lee","tag-cole-hamels","tag-domonic-brown","tag-jimmy-rollins","tag-michael-stutes","tag-phillies","tag-placido-polanco","tag-raul-ibanez","tag-roy-halladay","tag-roy-oswalt","tag-ryan-madson","tag-shane-victorino","tag-wilson-valdez"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/broadstreetbelievers.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1997","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/broadstreetbelievers.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/broadstreetbelievers.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/broadstreetbelievers.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/broadstreetbelievers.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1997"}],"version-history":[{"count":19,"href":"http:\/\/broadstreetbelievers.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1997\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2017,"href":"http:\/\/broadstreetbelievers.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1997\/revisions\/2017"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/broadstreetbelievers.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1997"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/broadstreetbelievers.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1997"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/broadstreetbelievers.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1997"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}