The Good Phight: FanPosts

The Crazy Descision to Play Ryan Howard Against Lefties

christonabike — Sat, 23 Aug 2008 18:37:45 -0000

Ryan Howard has now had 752 PAs against left handed pitchers. His line?

.221/.304/.440 (OPS: .744) with strikeouts in 41.4% of ABs. In 2008 against LHP he has hit:

.184/.254/.337 (OPS: .591), striking out just over 44% of the time.

It is time to stop playing Ryan Howard against left handers. More evidence and ideas inside.

The most asinine part of playing Ryan Howard against lefties isn't that he plays at all. It's that he's still batting clean up. Ryan Howard has the highest leverage index (a measure of the importance of batting situations) of any player on the Phillies that hasn't seen significant pinch hitting duty.

For reference, here is the career OPS against left handers of every Phillie that typically starts against LHP*:

Jimmy Rollins: .796
Shane Victorino: .823
Chase Utley: .861
Pat Burrell: .949
Jayson Werth: .892
Pedro Feliz: .761
Chris Coste: .933

In case you couldn't tell from the above numbers, Ryan Howard is the worst hitter in the lineup against LHP. This year, when Ryan Howard has faced lefites, he's been worse than Carlos Ruiz.

Now, admittedly the Phillies don't have anyone else they can play at 1st that would hit better than Howard against lefties. If only there was someone available for the major league minimum...

Don't like Richie Sexson? The minors are packed with RH 1B that can only hit lefties. In fact, the Phillies already have one. HIs name is Jon Knott, he's 28 years old and has never seen significant playing time in the majors. Oh, and he's been crushing LHP at AAA to the tune of a 1.103 OPS (83 ABs) and is at .902 for his career.

If the Phillies want to be competitive this year or in the future, they need to find a solution for Ryan Howard's ineptitude against LHP.

*Bonus challenge: Can you construct a lineup better against LHP than the one the Phillies use? I'm prett sure a randomly generated line up would be better.

Best Phillies Attendance Year Ever?

lseltzer — Fri, 22 Aug 2008 01:13:08 -0000

In case you didn't notice, the Phillies are having a monster year for attendance.

I recommend the ESPN MLB Attendance Report, which has data for each team back to 2001.

Through yesterday, 61 games, the Phillies have an attendance total of 2,580,342, for an average of 42,300. ESPN calls this 97.2% capacity so they must be counting capacity as 43,519 (rounded). But the summer has been monstrous with frequent sellouts. For the last 11 games (going back to and including the Braves series at the end of July) the average attendance is 44,939 (source ESPN Phillies schedule).

Looking at average attendance per home game the order of first through fifth is Yankees, Mets, Dodgers, Phillies and Cardinals. The Phillies recently overtook the Cards, but it's impossible for the Phils to overtake the Dodgers whose current average attendance is 45,391, well above the capacity of Citizens Bank Park.The Yankees and Mets both have ballparks with much greater capacity, although next year the Mets at CitiField will have a capacity more in line with that of CBP. The new Yankee Stadium will still be much larger.

Looking at average percentage of capacity the Phillies are once again 4th, but behind the Red Sox (104.1%!), Tigers (99.5%) and Cubs (99.1%). The nearest team behind them is the Yankees at 92%. Incidentally, the Yankees are on pace for a final attendance of 4,282,427, slightly ahead of last year. On the one hand, once school starts it may be harder to get people into the seats, but on the other there are only 16 games left at The House That Ruth Built.

The Phillies are on pace for 3,426,342, but if you project their last 11 game average out for the last 20 games of the year you get 3,479,122, clearly their best year ever. 2004, the first year of Citizens Bank Park saw 3,206,532 and the best year at the Vet was 1993 at 3,137,674.

Another interesting point: The ESPN page lets you see away attendance too. For every year of this decade until this one the Yankees were #1 in away attendance, but this year they are way down to #7. Above them are the Cards, Dodgers, Mets, Cubs and Red Sox, and so the Red Sox also win the overall attendance numbers by a fair amount. The Phillies aren't a major draw away, #17 out of 30. And in spite of their impossible dream year the Rays are #26 out of 30 at home and dead last away. That one I don't understand because they play a lot of games in New York and Boston where every game gets good attendance. Then again, Toronto and Baltimore are both below average.

I look at this and figure the Phillies must be awash in money. Am I wrong? Let's hope they invest in players.

"WE GON' HIT" accompanying fanpost

MattS — Thu, 21 Aug 2008 02:23:52 -0000

I had a lot of difficulty trying to post the "WE GON' HIT" blog entry, so I left some analysis and some data for this fanpost.

Here is the table of BABIPs for each team in the league.

	08 BABIP	07 BABIP
chc	0.324	0.308
tex	0.322	0.305
bos	0.315	0.315
min	0.315	0.291
col	0.311	0.322
stl	0.308	0.303
det	0.306	0.323
atl	0.303	0.314
nyy	0.302	0.318
sfg	0.301	0.281
ari	0.300	0.282
lad	0.299	0.303
kcr	0.298	0.305
bal	0.298	0.302
nym	0.297	0.303
tbr	0.297	0.318
cle	0.297	0.310
fla	0.295	0.315
hou	0.295	0.291
laa	0.294	0.315
tor	0.293	0.290
pit	0.291	0.303
sea	0.291	0.313
oak	0.290	0.290
sdp	0.288	0.291
chw	0.287	0.278
mil	0.287	0.289
was	0.282	0.300
phi	0.279	0.311
cin	0.276	0.298

mean	0.298	0.303
stdev	0.012	0.013

	0.279	correlation

In the blog entry, I noted the low correlation between 2007 and 2008 BABIPs as an argument that hitters don't have enough control over it to justify an argument that the Phillies BABIP was .279 due to ability, and instead suggest that it was largely bad luck.

Also in the blog entry, I wrote some brief notes on each player's numbers. Here is some more detail on those player notes.

Rollins clearly has suffered a power outage this year. Since the all-star break, his groundball rate has risen; problematic as his BABIP on groundballs is .181. Given how fast Rollins is, he should not be as far below the league average of .228 on groundballs as he is. As his infield hit percentage remains about 5.5 as it has throughout his career, it seems pretty clear that Rollins should expect a few more balls to find their way between defenders.

While Victorino’s discipline is clearly not as good since the break as it was before, he is starting to hit for some power. His BABIP remains around league average despite a higher line drive rate.

Since the all-star break, Utley has been walking less and striking out more. That’s not a good sign. His low BABIP was causing a low batting average, and I would guess that he is making some adjustments that are more hurtful than helpful. Unfortunately, they seem to be reinforcing his low batting average. Utley’s low BABIP was primarily caused by his low BABIP on line-drives. While .725 is actually above the league average, his BABIP on line drives has been .811, .860, and .795 in 2005-07.

Howard’s line-drive rate has shot up from 20.0% to 21.8% in just 28 games. To do that, he probably has a line-drive rate of nearly 30% since play resumed, yet his BABIP still remains low. His BABIPs on line drives in play in 2005-07 have been .822, .795, and .750. This year, it is down to .702. It seems like Howard should expect some improvement there. Nate Silver of Baseball Prospectus was quoted in delawareonline.com about Howard and referred to him as “an average first basemen”. http://www.delawareonline.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080819/SPORTS01/808190369/1002/SPORTS

I have a hard time believing that. While Howard’s lower walk rate this year certainly is a bad sign, he is simply not a .230 hitter by skill. In only 38 games, I doubt he can improve it all that much, but look for a .270-.280 hitter from now until the end.

Burrell is similar to Utley in that I believe he is trying to make adjustments and they are hurting more than helping. He is swinging earlier in the count, as evidenced by his lower walk rate and strikeout rate. As a result, his groundball rate has gone up since the break, and his BABIP has gone back down below his career average. Even if he doesn’t keep up what he was doing, his BABIP is .242 BABIP since the break. That’s easily improved upon even if he continues with his unfortunate groundball hitting ways.

Geoff Jenkins numbers look identical to those before break, except groundballs have been replacing fly balls. I wouldn’t necessarily expect this to lead to a higher BABIP, though, as I think Jenkins is flailing, trying to think up adjustments as his body ages underneath him.

Pedro Feliz actually was playing a bit better as a Phillie before the break than he had over the course of his career. However, either regression to his mean or a bad back pushed his numbers back down since then. He returns Wednesday, and it remains to be seen whether he will be the good bad Pedro we have seen this year or the bad bad Pedro during whose at-bats we relaxed when he was a Giant.

Carlos Ruiz’s atrocious numbers have improved since the break. This is a good example of what I was writing about before and what I expect to happen with guys like Rollins, Utley, Howard, and Burrell. His preposterous .227 BABIP was due to rise even if he continued with his 55% groundball rate. Carlos is doing something very wrong at the plate to suddenly be grounding out over and over again like this. Still, expect Carlos to continue to progress further away from the Mendoza line despite a problem with his swing and approach.

Jayson Werth still has a very high line drive rate that has propelled his career BABIP up to .336. Despite maintaining a similarly high line drive rate this year, his BABIP is still quite low. I expect an improvement from him as well.

Coste is performing about as expected, but clearly has lost some plate discipline since the break. He’s not suffering much for it yet, though.

Bruntlett’s preposterous .247 BABIP is unsustainably low. I trust him to continue being bad at baseball and yet put up better numbers anyway. Even with Bruntlett’s fly balls staying in the infield a silly 19.6% of the time, he should not be hitting .039 on flyballs. And .655 on line-drives does seem a bit low, though it isn’t much lower than last year.

I wouldn’t hold your breath on Taguchi though. His numbers look like that of an old man.

Dobbs’ BABIP has come back down as expected, but all of a sudden he’s hitting homeruns. There’s still no reason why he should be hitting .906 on line drives, and he should continue coming down to earth on the BABIP front.

Here are the two tables included in the blog entry in case it's easier to read here rather than keep checking back.

Player	BABIP	BB%	K%	LD%	GB%	FB%	HR/FB	AVG	OBP	SLG
Rollins 08	0.280	8.8	10.1	22.0	45.2	32.2	6.8	0.266	0.333	0.431
08 ASB	0.283	8.5	10.0	24.4	42.6	32.9	7.1	0.270	0.334	0.433
career	0.300	7.4	13.3	21.6	42.0	36.4	7.8	0.276	0.331	0.441
Victorino 08	0.299	8.4	11.8	18.9	43.9	37.2	8.2	0.282	0.350	0.438
08 ASB	0.301	9.2	10.8	18.4	44.5	37.1	5.0	0.279	0.351	0.406
career	0.301	7.2	13.4	18.7	46.1	35.2	7.5	0.276	0.340	0.415
Utley 08	0.286	9.1	16.8	22.8	32.2	45.1	16.9	0.284	0.368	0.559
08 ASB	0.289	9.8	16.1	23.9	31.4	44.8	18.2	0.292	0.373	0.586
career	0.323	8.9	18.1	21.4	36.7	41.9	14.1	0.297	0.373	0.529
Howard 08	0.276	11.3	34.5	21.8	42.9	35.3	30.0	0.232	0.320	0.483
08 ASB	0.275	11.8	35.6	20.0	43.4	36.6	32.6	0.233	0.324	0.511
career	0.334	13.8	33.9	23.2	397.0	37.1	33.8	0.277	0.379	0.579
Burrell 08	0.286	17.6	24.9	20.0	35.2	44.8	20.9	0.266	0.393	0.559
08 ASB	0.301	18.3	25.2	20.9	32.9	46.2	20.4	0.275	0.406	0.570
career	0.300	14.9	28.1	21.0	32.8	46.2	17.0	0.259	0.369	0.489
Jenkins 08	0.284	7.8	23.0	20.9	44.1	35.0	11.7	0.241	0.300	0.387
08 ASB	0.286	6.9	23.6	20.8	38.8	40.4	9.7	0.240	0.292	0.384
career	0.325	8.2	25.2	22.7	42.3	35.1	16.9	0.275	0.344	0.490
Feliz 08	0.262	6.6	12.4	15.1	46.3	38.6	10.4	0.256	0.304	0.424
08 ASB	0.265	7.1	10.2	15.9	46.6	37.5	10.4	0.263	0.315	0.429
career	0.271	5.2	17.0	16.7	43.8	39.5	11.6	0.253	0.290	0.432
Ruiz 08	0.250	11.8	14.6	15.9	55.1	29.0	3.3	0.220	0.322	0.280
08 ASB	0.227	11.1	14.1	15.3	54.0	30.7	4.0	0.203	0.305	0.271
career	0.270	10.4	13.5	17.5	49.3	33.2	5.6	0.245	0.331	0.358
Werth 08	0.305	11.9	26.4	23.3	39.3	37.4	20.8	0.264	0.356	0.479
08 ASB	0.313	11.3	25.4	24.1	40.5	35.4	21.4	0.272	0.358	0.479
career	0.336	11.9	30.2	24.0	38.2	37.8	14.7	0.260	0.353	0.441
Coste 08	0.301	4.9	19.1	23.0	35.6	41.4	11.1	0.270	0.322	0.451
08 ASB	0.295	5.3	16.0	22.6	35.0	42.3	12.1	0.278	0.333	0.481
career	0.323	4.4	17.0	23.6	39.1	37.3	11.9	0.293	0.339	0.463
Bruntlett 08	0.247	9.3	15.9	19.6	49.1	31.3	3.9	0.215	0.298	0.292
08 ASB	0.261	9.0	14.2	20.0	47.5	32.5	5.1	0.234	0.316	0.319
career	0.282	9.5	19.0	20.6	41.8	37.5	5.4	0.240	0.316	0.343
Dobbs 08	0.360	5.1	21.7	23.7	31.3	45.0	8.5	0.301	0.339	0.458
08 ASB	0.404	5.6	22.2	23.9	34.8	41.3	5.3	0.325	0.365	0.444
career	0.324	6.3	20.5	20.0	36.3	43.7	6.8	0.274	0.320	0.421
Taguchi 08	0.254	9.1	16.3	17.9	59.7	22.4	0.0	0.213	0.284	0.275
08 ASB	0.250	9.6	15.2	17.9	60.7	21.4	0.0	0.212	0.288	0.273
career	0.314	7.0	14.1	21.3	48.7	30.0	5.5	0.279	0.333	0.385

Player	BABIP	LD%	GB%	FB%	LDBIP	GBBIP	FBBIP
Rollins 2007	0.300	0.20	0.36	0.44	0.717	0.257	0.130
2008	0.279	0.20	0.46	0.34	0.718	0.181	0.153
Victorino 2007	0.302	0.16	0.47	0.36	0.730	0.280	0.122
2008	0.299	0.19	0.43	0.38	0.710	0.288	0.092
Utley 2007	0.362	0.22	0.38	0.40	0.792	0.294	0.175
2008	0.281	0.22	0.33	0.46	0.725	0.200	0.123
Howard 2007	0.328	0.26	0.32	0.42	0.750	0.187	0.121
2008	0.272	0.20	0.43	0.38	0.702	0.164	0.159
Burrell 2007	0.276	0.20	0.31	0.49	0.714	0.243	0.094
2008	0.281	0.19	0.35	0.46	0.732	0.224	0.119
Jenkins 2007	0.301	0.22	0.42	0.36	0.766	0.192	0.130
2008	0.280	0.20	0.45	0.35	0.738	0.163	0.169
Feliz 2007	0.257	0.16	0.43	0.41	0.680	0.214	0.135
2008	0.261	0.14	0.47	0.38	0.667	0.248	0.117
Ruiz 2007	0.283	0.19	0.47	0.35	0.729	0.220	0.136
2008	0.250	0.17	0.55	0.29	0.714	0.195	0.070
Werth 2007	0.389	0.21	0.42	0.37	0.744	0.338	0.220
2008	0.302	0.19	0.39	0.42	0.718	0.222	0.171
Coste 2007	0.298	0.18	0.43	0.39	0.700	0.277	0.108
2008	0.299	0.21	0.37	0.43	0.657	0.266	0.149
Bruntlett 2007	0.306	0.23	0.47	0.30	0.680	0.235	0.152
2008	0.247	0.18	0.50	0.33	0.655	0.222	0.039
Dobbs 2007	0.311	0.16	0.38	0.46	0.718	0.286	0.182
2008	0.357	0.24	0.32	0.44	0.906	0.167	0.173
Taguchi 2007	0.315	0.21	0.50	0.29	0.707	0.277	0.079
2008	0.254	0.16	0.61	0.22	0.545	0.244	0.067

The Second Meyers

lseltzer — Thu, 21 Aug 2008 01:29:40 -0000

Meyers looks pretty good since he came back.

With tonight's shutout, by my calculation, since he came back from Allentown Myers is:

3-1

ERA 1.99

K/9 0.74

WHIP 0.98

in 6 appearances, 40 2/3 innings.

I'll never like him again since the wife-beating thing but it's good to have him back with some confidence.

I remember a time when he was a pretty good-hitting pitcher though, and he's utterly incompetent at the plate this year. He's especially bad at bunting, but the whole Phillies team is incompetent at bunting.

Phils talking with C David Ross

dajafi — Wed, 20 Aug 2008 21:15:34 -0000

So sayeth Zolecki:

Catcher David Ross cleared release waivers at 1 p.m. today and the Phillies have contacted his agent.

Phillies assistant general manager Ruben Amaro Jr. said they are hopeful they can work out an agreement with Ross, who the Cincinnati Reds released Monday.

Ross hit .231 with three home runs and 13 RBIs in 134 at-bats this season for the Reds. But he also had a .381 on-base percentage. It's unclear what would happen to Ross if he signs with the Phillies. The most likely scenario is Ross finishing the month in triple-A Lehigh Valley, then joining the team Sept. 1 when the Phillies can expand their roster.

I think this is worth a try. The guy at least is a tougher out than Ruiz or probably Coste; he draws walks and has hit for power in the past. His defensive reputation is reasonably good. What I'm not sure I grasp is why they'd wait until 9/1 to recall him, since if the idea is to free up Coste for PH duties (as Scott Lauber suggests), calling up Jason Jaramillo from Lehigh Valley would accomplish that just as easily.

Seanez back; Feliz on the way

dajafi — Mon, 18 Aug 2008 05:40:46 -0000

The Phillies get some reinforcements this week, with reliever Rudy Seanez activated off the disabled list over the weekend in San Diego and third baseman Pedro Feliz rehabbing in Florida with an eye toward joining the team Wednesday night against Washington. Infielder Mike Cervanek was optioned to triple-A Lehigh Valley for Seanez, temporarily giving the Phils eight relievers (Lidge, Romero, Madson, Durbin, Seanez, Condrey, Eyre, Walrond); presumably Les Walrond will cede his roster spot to Feliz.

As David Murphy reports, even the modest offensive contributions of Feliz will be a welcome addition to a Phillies offense mired in a horrific slump. I for one would be pretty much fine never seeing Eric Bruntlett take another swing for the Phils, and the aggressive plate approach of Greg Dobbs clearly works better off the bench than when he gets in the box four or five times (four recently, of course) in a game.

But even with Dobbs back on it, the bench, considered a strength at the start of the season, remains painfully unproductive. We've gone over the catching situation enough times that I won't do it again--though I'll be very curious to see if Jason Jaramillo and/or Lou Marson get some actual playing time in September. There must be a half-dozen bats in the Phillies' minor-league system, from journeymen like Rich Thompson and Andy Tracy to flawed prospects Greg Golson and Jeremy Slayden, who would represent improvement over So Taguchi, and arguably over Geoff Jenkins. Chris Snelling evidently is healthy this month; why not get him up to the bigs?

Do something. Do anything. Because "more of same" isn't working, even with the imminent happy return of Happy Pete.

Campaign Cheer

GMCarson — Mon, 18 Aug 2008 00:37:50 -0000

WSBGM's would like to establish Campaign Cheer to be unleashed upon Citizens Bank Park Tuesday August 19th at 7:05 pm. What we propose is a blind positivity so strong that it reverberates throughout the stadium from the time the Phillies take the field for the first pitch, until the last player walks off into the clubhouse. Everything must be cheered. The boos obviously aren't working, so why not go a different route.

http://pabaseball.blogspot.com/2008/08/campaign-cheer.html

Chad Durbin's latest blog...

SeaninSoCal — Thu, 14 Aug 2008 21:23:45 -0000

Phillies reliever Chad Durbin just posted a new blog entry where he writes about the rough west coast trip so far (both for the team and for him personally) and how he and the team are going to bounce back from running into the Manny freight train. It’s an interesting read and you gotta give the guy credit for putting himself out there after 2 rough outings:

http://www.prolebrity.com/bouncing-back-2/

Time to go pound on San Diego!

Jimmy calls fans frontrunners

phils11 — Thu, 14 Aug 2008 15:33:56 -0000

Rollins calls Philly fans front-runners

Philadelphia Daily News

Jimmy Rollins seems to have transitioned into one of those athletes who can make news simply by opening his mouth.

The latest example came yesterday, when Rollins offered his view on Philadelphia's notorious sports fans during yesterday's taping of Fox Sports' "Best Damn Sports Show Period."

After being asked whether Philadelphia was as tough a place to play as the national media sometimes portrays, Rollins answered:

"There are times," he said. "I might catch some flak for saying this, but, you know, they're front-runners. When you're doing good, they're on your side. When you're doing bad, they're completely against you."

Rollins then mentioned the hometown of teammate, and fellow show guest, Ryan Howard as a differently wired fan base.

"For example, Ryan is from St. Louis and St. Louis, it seems like they support their team, they're out there and encouraging. In Philly, can't be no punk." *

http://www.philly.com/philly/hp/news_update/20080814_Rollins_calls_Philly_fans_front-runners.html

Myers' Madness

PhilsPhan2010 — Sun, 10 Aug 2008 09:12:02 -0000

Myers' Madness

via d.yimg.com

Brett Myers was in tip-top form, as he just allowed 1 run on 5 hits and 1 walk in 7 2/3 innings Saturday night, but his exit was more eventful than his start. Upon seeing Manager Charlie Manager emerge from the dugout to take Myers out, Myers started muttering expletives to himself, and his teammates. As Charlie approached the mound, Myers met him, handed him the ball, and walked off, muttering more expletives, before tipping his cap to the Standing Ovation of 45 thousand plus. Upon returning to the Dugout, Myers and Manuel Exchanged words, face to face, for a good 20 seconds, until Myers headed down the tunnel towards the clubhouse.

This is not the 1st time that Myers has had public "anger-management" issues. Back in June of 2006, Myers was arrested and charged with hitting his wife in the face on a street not far from Fenway Park in Boston. Also, in August of last year, Myers gave up two home runs to lose the game for his team. After making light of the homers, Philadelphia Inquirer beat writer Sam Carchidi asked him if he thought the HR that he gave up were "pop ups". Myers responded with calling him a "retard", among other things, which Carchidi Responded by asking Myers to spell "retard". Myers than said "it’s in your fuc*ing vocabulary" which Carchidi responded sarcastically by telling Myers that he was "Classy". Eventually teammates had to restrain Myers from physically harming Carchidi.

After starting out the year horribly for the Phillies, Myers was sent down to AAA, since his return, he has pitched brilliantly. Myers is 2-0 in his 4 starts since his call-up.

Jose Vidro DFA'd; Phils interested?

dajafi — Wed, 06 Aug 2008 17:49:00 -0000

I suspect I'll get flamed for this, but I wonder if the Phillies would have any interest in trying to snap up Mariners DH Jose Vidro, who was designated for assignment yesterday.

There's no sugarcoating the fact that Vidro is having an all-time awful year for any designated hitter, with a hide-your-eyes .234/.274/.338 line. And he's actually been worse on the road than at Seattle's mammoth home park. But the Phillies are desperate for another bat off the bench, and as recently as 2007 Vidro was a pretty decent hitter: .314/.381/.394 in 548 at-bats, with more walks (63) than strikeouts (57).

Cot's indicates that he's signed through 2008 only, for $8.5 million this season; with less than a third of that remaining, the Phils likely either could flip a second- or third-tier prospect to the M's for Seattle to cover the bulk of the remainder, or essentially get the player for free and pay him whatever he's still owed. At the least, it seems worth Pat Gillick getting on the phone with his former (and likely future) employer to investigate.

Minors Notes: Carrasco promoted, Gordon rehabs

dajafi — Mon, 04 Aug 2008 03:35:55 -0000

The Phillies promoted top prospect Carlos Carrasco to triple-A Lehigh Valley to take the roster spot vacated by Les Walrond, who's now in the Phillies bullpen with Rudy Seanez on the DL. Carrasco made his IronPigs debut Sunday, and David Murphy reports that it was a good one:

Highly regarded Phillies pitching prospect Carlos Carrasco allowed two unearned runs over 6 2/3 innings Sunday night in his Triple A debut for Lehigh Valley.

Carrasco struck out four, walked two and allowed six hits as he got a no-decision in the IronPigs' 5-3 win over Rochester. He was lifted after 102 pitches, 67 of them strikes.

...

Carrasco consistently threw between 92 and 96 miles per hour, hitting 96 as late as the fourth inning.

“This is the best and healthiest I’ve been this year,” Carrasco admitted. “This is definitely the hardest I threw [this season]. I haven’t thrown 96 until today. I feel more mature. I want to stay here and get more experience. I want to do my job.”

While there was noise a month or two ago about Carrasco potentially joining the Phillies rotation this year, it now seems almost certain that he won't pitch meaningful innings for the major-league team. J.A. Happ, also currently in the big-league bullpen, is the club's #6 starter, and the recent good work by Kris Benson at Lehigh Valley suggests he would be next in line if the team needed two starters. Even after Benson, the likes of Travis Blackley, Brian Mazzone and Walrond might be in line ahead of Carrasco.

Not that there's anything wrong with that. Carrasco is still just 21, and this evening he crossed the 120-inning mark for 2008. Last year, he threw 140 innings between Clearwater and Reading; ideally, he'll finish 2008 with no more than 160. He'll make maybe five more starts for Lehigh Valley, so it's hard to imagine him cracking that number. My guess is that Carrasco won't be recalled on September 1--you've already got Benson, probably Adam Eaton, maybe R.J. Swindle and/or Joe Bisenius, maybe Fabio Castro (a hard-luck loser this afternoon for Reading) and the presumed returns from injury of Tom Gordon, Rudy Seanez and possibly even Matt Smith.

Speaking of Gordon, he made his return to the mound in Clearwater this afternoon. Gordon faced four batters and allowed two runs in two-thirds of an inning, getting a groundout and strikeout and surrendering a walk and a home run. Given the heavy workloads of Brad LIdge, J.C. Romero, Chad Durbin and Ryan Madson, and the team's reluctance to use either Happ or, evidently, Walrond out of the 'pen, they could use Gordon back healthy and recharged, as he was down the stretch last season.

The rehabbing Smith pitched today as well, allowing two hits, two walks and a run in one inning of work. He's now made a combined 13 appearances for the GCL Phillies and Clearwater, pitching to a 3.07 ERA. It would be a huge lift for the club if either Smith or Castro could reprise their decent situational work from 2006.

Shane's July

dajafi — Thu, 31 Jul 2008 20:05:52 -0000

He's mostly shown up in news reports as hyper-verbal and anxious over his trade status--which, as it's 4pm right now, presumably won't be a concern anymore--but Shane Victorino has had a monster month of July. With one game remaining in the month, he's put up a .327/.370/.624 line, with 33 hits in 101 at-bats. Perhaps most surprising is the seven home runs he's slugged in the month; that's TK percent of his career total. Victorino's July also included five doubles, two triples and five steals (in eight attempts, which isn't quite so good).

I'd be surprised if he gets serious Player of the Month consideration, but he's a worthy candidate.

Hamels hurt?

rdf8585 — Wed, 30 Jul 2008 22:22:22 -0000

Now I didn't hear this myself, but people on various websites (rotoworld, phillies.com) are saying Howard Eskin of 610 WIP said that a scout told him that Hamels has something like a stress fracture in his elbow?

Has anyone else heard about this and how credible is Eskin? Since people on a couple different sites are talking about this, I'm assuming Eskin did mention it - he's been on air since 3 PM today.

Jason Donald and Andy Tracy in the bigs

PhillyBruin — Tue, 29 Jul 2008 19:00:44 -0000

I have been wondering several things. First, why not bring Donald up eventually and play him at 3rd? We rave about Feliz's glove but if you put a good SS at 3rd he will be pretty good as well. He can hit and he can play defense.

Secondly, completely unrelated to Jason Donald, but why not entertain the idea of bringing up Andy Tracy to start at 1B when a lfty starts. Ryan Howard sucks against them and Tracy is hitting .295/.374/.547 agains them with an OPS of .921. Once a righty comes in from the pen, put Howard back in the game. Seems like a logical idea. Maybe I am missing something?

Vote for the Phanatic vs Southpaw

Eamus J Catuli — Tue, 29 Jul 2008 18:07:18 -0000

The Home Run Derby website is running a Baseball Mascot Tournament at homerderby.com. They're in the second round and the Phillie Phanatic is getting beaten by the Chicago White Sox' mascot, something named Southpaw - which appears to be just another ripoff of the Phanatic.

Are you kidding me? That Southpaw thing is currently beating the Phanatic by 82% to 18%.

What's wrong with this picture? Go Vote for the Phanatic !!

http://homerderby.com/archives/2376

Jason Donald for a 37 year old reliever...

foos05 — Tue, 29 Jul 2008 17:15:37 -0000

http://sports.espn.go.com/espn/blog/index?entryID=3509519&name=mlb_trade_deadline

And take this with a grain of salt... after all it's coming from the WWL, but I don't know if I like this idea.... Did Gillick just stress that Donald was our SS of the future... and we're ditching him for a 37 year old arm? ehhhhh

Opinions? Anyone think that this holds any water? Supposedly Stark has decent connections... I mean it can't be total bull right? Then again... we did just trade for Joe Blanton....

Mahay for Donald? Just kill me already

dajafi — Tue, 29 Jul 2008 17:12:49 -0000

Update, 1.50pm: Stark now says the Phillies are "not close."

Jayson Stark puts the bullet in the chamber:

Left-handed reliever Ron Mahay could be on the verge of heading to the Phillies.

According to clubs that have been speaking with the Royals, they've been having extensive conversations with the Phillies about a trade that would send Mahay to Philadelphia for shortstop prospect Jason Donald, a member of the U.S. Olympic baseball team.

It's believed that as many as 10 teams have contacted the Royals about Mahay, who is signed for next year at $4 million. Most of them have come away with the impression that the Royals aren't motivated to trade him. But in Donald, the Phillies have a commodity for which Kansas City has been searching aggressively. So the fit appears better with the Phillies than with any of the other teams on the Royals' list.

It would be hard to overstate what a #&%@^ disaster this would be. Mahay's 37. He's signed for $4 million next year; between him, Lidge, and Romero, we'd be back to the Ed Wade days as far as overspending on relief.

Donald, meanwhile, is a 23 year-old infielder with Reading who has hit better at every level he's played in the minors, and now projects as a low-cost, big-league contributor; by next spring, he could be an upgrade on Eric Bruntlett or even challenge Pedro Feliz for the third-base job.

Please, please, please don't let this one go through.

Manny Being Manny in Philly?

chewy wellington — Sun, 27 Jul 2008 12:36:35 -0000

Monday 7/28, 4:20pm--Promoted to the front page in a shameless bid for more traffic. I don't think it's happening, but if you want to indulge in speculation, Ken Rosenthal posits Geoff Jenkins and Lou Marson for Manny Ramirez here.

NY Post is reporting that Philly is a possible destination for Manny given his strong relationship with Cholly. link

I'm not that big a fan and would be totally fearful of what they would have to give up to get Manny. Plus his defense is beyond a total liability. The last thing this team needs is another guy who plays defense poorly and can become completely unfocused at the plate.

And if they get him, they better make sure the toilets are reinforced. Manny only uses regular towels, not toilet paper.

Happ to be promoted?

PhoenixPhilly — Mon, 28 Jul 2008 04:22:02 -0000

J.A. Happ was pulled after 2.2 yesterday. Nick Fierro is reporting that Happ will be promted and Eaton will be released or reassigned.

http://www.lehighvalleylive.com/nick...npigs_for.html

I guess the question now (assuming this is true) would be if Happ will be starting or going to the bullpen. I would assume he is going to the bullpen, however I imagine there is some chance that he could be inserted into the rotation and Myers could go to the pen, although I doubt it.