I congratulate you, Mr. Ryan Howard.
With your home run in your hometown tonight - and big, big brother watching - you moved into fourth place on the Phillies all-time homer list. I say with certainty that Chuck Klein will not be the last name you pass. Watch out Pat the Bat, you're next.
It's late July and it's almost expected that you're leading the league in RBI by this point in the season. Your ability to drive in runs consistently over multiple seasons is matched only by the man occupying your space for the team you grew up cheering on from your home. People will say what they will about your strikeouts, but it's still fun watching you play the game.
It's been especially fun over the past week as we Phillie fans try and reach for anything positive. Right now, you are the only hitter on the team playing like he wants to make the postseason. You have at least one hit in every game since the start of the second half, and of the Phillies' 25 runs over the span, you have knocked in 10 of them. The way you're seeing the ball at the plate gives off the impression that you're feeling the increased importance of every game as September gets closer. You don't know any other feeling than helping the team win when it matters the most.
What a shame that none of your brethren are feeding off the same passion. What a shame they haven't discovered the ability inside themselves to turn up the intensity. It must not be much fun walking the path alone, but if nothing else brings you comfort in these tough times, you did your family proud tonight and you checked off yet another item on the list of your growing legacy in the history of the Phillies and Major League Baseball.
Again, I say congratulations.
Showing posts with label home runs. Show all posts
Showing posts with label home runs. Show all posts
Wednesday, July 21, 2010
Tuesday, July 20, 2010
My Bad
I promised a post about Shane Victorino concerning the rate at which the ball is flyin' out for the Hawaiin this season. This is a lesson to me to never again preview a post based on an assumption.
I figured there had to be some explanation as to why with 45 percent of the season left to play Victorino had already exceeded his season high in home runs. I was planning on making the grand claim that he was drawing from the bad example of Jimmy Rollins, whose power numbers had increased in recent years without regard to his on-base percentage. Referring to the theme of yesterday's posting, I reasoned that Victorino was trying to hit more home runs.
I deferred to Victorino's 2010 stats, expecting to find a significant difference in certain areas from past seasons. Specifically, a player trying to hit more home runs would have a lower ground-ball/fly-ball ratio and would tend to be less selective at the plate, resulting less pitches per plate appearance, more strikeouts and less walks.
Unfortunately, the verdict was not in my favor. Victorino's numbers in all the areas I just mentioned don't differ significantly from past years, and neither do J-Roll's for that matter (comparing his 20-plus home run seasons to the rest). In fact, I didn't even take into account that Rollins began hitting more home runs after the Phillies moved from the Vet to Citizens Bank and he cut down on his strikeouts, which contradicts the assumptions I made about Victorino.
The only significant difference in both their cases is in the years with more homers, their home run percentage on fly balls was much higher. Basically, Victorino is hitting the same amount of fly balls as he always did, it's just more of them are leaving the yard. That could be chalked up to a quicker bat speed, and not to mention that most of Victorino's blasts barely make it over the fence anyway. He's always been a fly-ball hitter and it's paying off for him more than ever.
Victorino has suffered from a lower batting average this season, but that has nothing to do with his increased power. Bad luck is a big factor there as his average on balls in play this season is just .258. He's simply hitting balls right at people more often than before.
If there's one thing I have learned from this rather humbling discovery is Charlie Manuel has the wrong guys in the leadoff spot. He's being blinded by Rollins' and Victorino's size and speed. It's true that the two of them will steal a healthy amount of bags and have a good chance of scoring when they reach base. The trouble is their collective OBP (.333) is far too low, and even though they're both switch hitters, they don't hit to all fields consistently enough. Placido Polanco, on the other hand, sprays the ball all over the place and is one of the best two-strike hitters in baseball. As for reaching base, no one is better at that on the Phillies than Chase Utley. I wonder what would happen if Manuel stuck Utley in the leadoff spot for a few weeks after he returned from the DL. Given the chance, he could definitely swipe more bags and is a smart base runner. The modified lineup would look something like this:
1. Chase Utley (L)
2. Placido Polanco (R)
3. Jimmy Rollins (S)
4. Ryan Howard (L)
5. Jayson Werth (R) (assuming he's still with the team in August)
6. Shane Victorino (S)
7. Raul Ibanez (L)
8. Carlos Ruiz (R)
The two-hole has always belonged to Polanco, obviously, but with Utley in front of him, there's more of a chance he would come to plate with a man on, and the distribution of righties and lefties in the order wouldn't be compromised. After dealing with a patient Utley and a pesky Polanco, a starting pitcher won't enjoy the first inning as much.
I guess this is how you learn and grow from making mistakes. I realized some errors in my logic and the journey to correct them led to a new batting order for the Phillies. At this point, it would behoove them to try anything new.
I figured there had to be some explanation as to why with 45 percent of the season left to play Victorino had already exceeded his season high in home runs. I was planning on making the grand claim that he was drawing from the bad example of Jimmy Rollins, whose power numbers had increased in recent years without regard to his on-base percentage. Referring to the theme of yesterday's posting, I reasoned that Victorino was trying to hit more home runs.
I deferred to Victorino's 2010 stats, expecting to find a significant difference in certain areas from past seasons. Specifically, a player trying to hit more home runs would have a lower ground-ball/fly-ball ratio and would tend to be less selective at the plate, resulting less pitches per plate appearance, more strikeouts and less walks.
Unfortunately, the verdict was not in my favor. Victorino's numbers in all the areas I just mentioned don't differ significantly from past years, and neither do J-Roll's for that matter (comparing his 20-plus home run seasons to the rest). In fact, I didn't even take into account that Rollins began hitting more home runs after the Phillies moved from the Vet to Citizens Bank and he cut down on his strikeouts, which contradicts the assumptions I made about Victorino.
The only significant difference in both their cases is in the years with more homers, their home run percentage on fly balls was much higher. Basically, Victorino is hitting the same amount of fly balls as he always did, it's just more of them are leaving the yard. That could be chalked up to a quicker bat speed, and not to mention that most of Victorino's blasts barely make it over the fence anyway. He's always been a fly-ball hitter and it's paying off for him more than ever.
Victorino has suffered from a lower batting average this season, but that has nothing to do with his increased power. Bad luck is a big factor there as his average on balls in play this season is just .258. He's simply hitting balls right at people more often than before.
If there's one thing I have learned from this rather humbling discovery is Charlie Manuel has the wrong guys in the leadoff spot. He's being blinded by Rollins' and Victorino's size and speed. It's true that the two of them will steal a healthy amount of bags and have a good chance of scoring when they reach base. The trouble is their collective OBP (.333) is far too low, and even though they're both switch hitters, they don't hit to all fields consistently enough. Placido Polanco, on the other hand, sprays the ball all over the place and is one of the best two-strike hitters in baseball. As for reaching base, no one is better at that on the Phillies than Chase Utley. I wonder what would happen if Manuel stuck Utley in the leadoff spot for a few weeks after he returned from the DL. Given the chance, he could definitely swipe more bags and is a smart base runner. The modified lineup would look something like this:
1. Chase Utley (L)
2. Placido Polanco (R)
3. Jimmy Rollins (S)
4. Ryan Howard (L)
5. Jayson Werth (R) (assuming he's still with the team in August)
6. Shane Victorino (S)
7. Raul Ibanez (L)
8. Carlos Ruiz (R)
The two-hole has always belonged to Polanco, obviously, but with Utley in front of him, there's more of a chance he would come to plate with a man on, and the distribution of righties and lefties in the order wouldn't be compromised. After dealing with a patient Utley and a pesky Polanco, a starting pitcher won't enjoy the first inning as much.
I guess this is how you learn and grow from making mistakes. I realized some errors in my logic and the journey to correct them led to a new batting order for the Phillies. At this point, it would behoove them to try anything new.
Monday, July 19, 2010
Stop trying so hard!
The thing that I've grown a greater appreciation for as I've delved deeper into my understanding of baseball is the infinite number of things that can result from a pitch to the plate. I suppose the same is true after a snap of the football, a tee shot or a serve in tennis, but those things don't flood me right to the core with anticipation like baseball...
How lovely - the Phillies hit three home runs tonight. It's just a pity all of them came when the game was already lost and with no one on base. Four of the team's six runs Sunday night came via the fly ball. None of them threatened the Cubs' lead, so the pressure was more or less off in each case. Therein lies the point of my posting, which I'm embarrassed to say was unearthed by one of the game's most despised color analysts, Joe Morgan.
Then again, it makes perfect sense. How else would a team full of sluggers try and rid itself of a slump? Swing for the fences to try and be a hero and get the offense going. This is not the right mindset to have in a slump, but everyone in the lineup (except Placido Polanco) has home run on the brain every time they step to the plate. That may be fine for Ryan Howard, who's in the zone right now, but Jayson Werth and Raul Ibanez are in too much of a rut, while Jimmy Rollins and Shane Victorino (the subject of my next posting) need to worry more about working the count and getting on base.
On the other hand, I can understand how frustrating this long stretch has been. The Philadelphia offense is not known to hit for average, hit well with runners in scoring position or post a high on-base percentage (they're presently among the bottom half of NL teams in all three categories), but they always had the home run to fall back on. Though the Phillies are presently fourth among NL teams in home runs with 98, they're on pace to finish well below last year's league-leading total of 224.
Injuries to Chase Utley and Rollins are partially to blame, but you see the great number of swings and misses at pitches out of the zone, the wasted pitches pulled foul and the countless pop-ups in the infield, it's not hard to guess where the rest of those missing bombs went. The hitters have spent so much time trying to crush every pitch that they've forgotten to look for the right one.
Being down by eight runs can sometimes clear a player's mind. It's easier to focus on your at-bat when the singular act of hitting a home run or reaching base will not affect the outcome of the game. The Phillies got down, way down, and then the home runs followed. The runs arrived far too late and once again, did not help Roy Halladay.
This will be a tough pattern to break, and it's hard to believe it's been going on for two months. A four-game sweep of the Reds is oddly bookended by six losses in eight total games to the Cubs and Pirates. The Reds weren't exactly at their best when the Phils faced them, and the St. Louis Cardinals are entering their series with Philly revitalized from a three-game sweep of the Dodgers that put them back in first place. This is not a good sign for a team that isn't hitting. Maybe instead of swinging for the fence, just aim for patches of grass unoccupied by white uniforms...
How lovely - the Phillies hit three home runs tonight. It's just a pity all of them came when the game was already lost and with no one on base. Four of the team's six runs Sunday night came via the fly ball. None of them threatened the Cubs' lead, so the pressure was more or less off in each case. Therein lies the point of my posting, which I'm embarrassed to say was unearthed by one of the game's most despised color analysts, Joe Morgan.
Then again, it makes perfect sense. How else would a team full of sluggers try and rid itself of a slump? Swing for the fences to try and be a hero and get the offense going. This is not the right mindset to have in a slump, but everyone in the lineup (except Placido Polanco) has home run on the brain every time they step to the plate. That may be fine for Ryan Howard, who's in the zone right now, but Jayson Werth and Raul Ibanez are in too much of a rut, while Jimmy Rollins and Shane Victorino (the subject of my next posting) need to worry more about working the count and getting on base.
On the other hand, I can understand how frustrating this long stretch has been. The Philadelphia offense is not known to hit for average, hit well with runners in scoring position or post a high on-base percentage (they're presently among the bottom half of NL teams in all three categories), but they always had the home run to fall back on. Though the Phillies are presently fourth among NL teams in home runs with 98, they're on pace to finish well below last year's league-leading total of 224.
Injuries to Chase Utley and Rollins are partially to blame, but you see the great number of swings and misses at pitches out of the zone, the wasted pitches pulled foul and the countless pop-ups in the infield, it's not hard to guess where the rest of those missing bombs went. The hitters have spent so much time trying to crush every pitch that they've forgotten to look for the right one.
Being down by eight runs can sometimes clear a player's mind. It's easier to focus on your at-bat when the singular act of hitting a home run or reaching base will not affect the outcome of the game. The Phillies got down, way down, and then the home runs followed. The runs arrived far too late and once again, did not help Roy Halladay.
This will be a tough pattern to break, and it's hard to believe it's been going on for two months. A four-game sweep of the Reds is oddly bookended by six losses in eight total games to the Cubs and Pirates. The Reds weren't exactly at their best when the Phils faced them, and the St. Louis Cardinals are entering their series with Philly revitalized from a three-game sweep of the Dodgers that put them back in first place. This is not a good sign for a team that isn't hitting. Maybe instead of swinging for the fence, just aim for patches of grass unoccupied by white uniforms...
Saturday, July 3, 2010
Rolling the wrong way
My initially-shallow well of useful information to dispense about a Phillies loss has been now been completely tapped, so I won't even make the effort this time.
I will instead reveal a troubling realization I made a mere 12 hours ago: Jimmy Rollins does not represent what I believe to be a model baseball player - particularly as a leadoff hitter, the role he's occupied for the majority of his career.
My discovery of this was first made possible from Jimmy's own mouth and strengthened by my current reading of "Moneyball," Michael Lewis's bestseller, which I'm utilizing to sharpen my baseball knowledge and observations of the game. The information I've soaked in has cast the game in an even more negative light than the Steroids Era.
It started with an interview Bob Costas conducted with Rollins and Ryan Howard for MLB Network in late May. It aired a month later and I finally caught it yesterday afternoon. The interview, like many before it, fell short of my expectations. The majority of Costas's questions were fluff-dominated, and Howard gave his usual cliche answers without a hint of clarity or intellect (I get more substance out of high school athletes), while J-Roll did his typical job of looking cute for the camera and the audience.
The only meaty question Costas aimed at the stars concerned an infamous incident in 2008 when Rollins got chewed out by Charlie Manuel for not hustling down the line on an infield pop-up that was dropped. At the time, Rollins didn't question his manager's disappointment and immediately owned up to his mistake. While he repeated those words to Costas, he then tried to justify why he didn't charge out of the batter's box. I can't recall his exact words, but no justification should have ever been attempted. You don't hustle, you hurt the team. Period.
Costas remained on this topic for a few minutes and asked Rollins what the point was of walking out of the batter's box and admiring a home run, rather than running on contact to try and reach second base in case the ball didn't leave the yard. Jimmy's response was something like this:
"When you've been around long enough, you get a good feel for which balls are going to be home runs. Sometimes you hit balls that you're not sure if they're going to go out or not, but you've got to make it look like you know."
Before making that ridiculous comment, Rollins had already said what most devoted Phillies fans knew, that his idol growing up was Rickey Henderson. The thing Jimmy loved the most about Rickey was his showmanship; how he worked the entertainment aspect of the game. His cocky statement about admiring home runs only confirmed the fact that he didn't adapt the right aspects of Rickey's game to his own.
It's true that Rickey showed off and he displayed a remarkable mix of power and speed, but the area of the game he absolutely dominated was the very definition of a leadoff hitter - getting on base. In addition to all of his stolen bases, runs and homers, Henderson walked 2,190 times in his career, which was briefly an all-time record before being broken by Barry Bonds (a ton of Phillies fans, including myself, saw his record-setting free pass with the Padres in 2001, as it came in a game against the Phils). Jimmy Rollins' 484 walks barely scratches the surface.
In even more glaring example of the colossal gap separating the two players, Henderson's career on-base percentage of .401 ranks 43rd all-time among non-active players. Jimmy Rollins does not even have the highest career OBP on his team. In fact, of all the starters in the lineup, J-Roll's career OBP of .330 is dead last. As the students of the Bill James School of Baseball will tell you, OBP is the best tool we have of measuring a hitter's performance for his team.
This realization is damning to say the least, but I have always believed that hustle and putting forth your absolute best effort all the time are the highest responsibilities of any athlete. Many baseball players today are too blinded by their bank accounts and star status to give their all on the field, and J-Roll is no exception. We've all watched as his home run totals have ballooned over the past four years (an average of 12 in his first five seasons to an average of 22 from '06-'09), and he most likely stood and stared at each one with a smugness Rickey would applaud. Unfortunately, those shots don't mean much when he's not reaching base with any kind of regularity.
I'm not saying that Rollins isn't a valuable piece of the team, as his MVP year in 2007 will prove, but he could be helping out the Phillies so much more just by making small adjustments most leadoff hitters should perfect in the minor leagues like working the count better and hitting to all parts of the field.
And Jimmy, don't stand and watch the ball. Bust out of the box and think about second base.
I will instead reveal a troubling realization I made a mere 12 hours ago: Jimmy Rollins does not represent what I believe to be a model baseball player - particularly as a leadoff hitter, the role he's occupied for the majority of his career.
My discovery of this was first made possible from Jimmy's own mouth and strengthened by my current reading of "Moneyball," Michael Lewis's bestseller, which I'm utilizing to sharpen my baseball knowledge and observations of the game. The information I've soaked in has cast the game in an even more negative light than the Steroids Era.
It started with an interview Bob Costas conducted with Rollins and Ryan Howard for MLB Network in late May. It aired a month later and I finally caught it yesterday afternoon. The interview, like many before it, fell short of my expectations. The majority of Costas's questions were fluff-dominated, and Howard gave his usual cliche answers without a hint of clarity or intellect (I get more substance out of high school athletes), while J-Roll did his typical job of looking cute for the camera and the audience.
The only meaty question Costas aimed at the stars concerned an infamous incident in 2008 when Rollins got chewed out by Charlie Manuel for not hustling down the line on an infield pop-up that was dropped. At the time, Rollins didn't question his manager's disappointment and immediately owned up to his mistake. While he repeated those words to Costas, he then tried to justify why he didn't charge out of the batter's box. I can't recall his exact words, but no justification should have ever been attempted. You don't hustle, you hurt the team. Period.
Costas remained on this topic for a few minutes and asked Rollins what the point was of walking out of the batter's box and admiring a home run, rather than running on contact to try and reach second base in case the ball didn't leave the yard. Jimmy's response was something like this:
"When you've been around long enough, you get a good feel for which balls are going to be home runs. Sometimes you hit balls that you're not sure if they're going to go out or not, but you've got to make it look like you know."
Before making that ridiculous comment, Rollins had already said what most devoted Phillies fans knew, that his idol growing up was Rickey Henderson. The thing Jimmy loved the most about Rickey was his showmanship; how he worked the entertainment aspect of the game. His cocky statement about admiring home runs only confirmed the fact that he didn't adapt the right aspects of Rickey's game to his own.
It's true that Rickey showed off and he displayed a remarkable mix of power and speed, but the area of the game he absolutely dominated was the very definition of a leadoff hitter - getting on base. In addition to all of his stolen bases, runs and homers, Henderson walked 2,190 times in his career, which was briefly an all-time record before being broken by Barry Bonds (a ton of Phillies fans, including myself, saw his record-setting free pass with the Padres in 2001, as it came in a game against the Phils). Jimmy Rollins' 484 walks barely scratches the surface.
In even more glaring example of the colossal gap separating the two players, Henderson's career on-base percentage of .401 ranks 43rd all-time among non-active players. Jimmy Rollins does not even have the highest career OBP on his team. In fact, of all the starters in the lineup, J-Roll's career OBP of .330 is dead last. As the students of the Bill James School of Baseball will tell you, OBP is the best tool we have of measuring a hitter's performance for his team.
This realization is damning to say the least, but I have always believed that hustle and putting forth your absolute best effort all the time are the highest responsibilities of any athlete. Many baseball players today are too blinded by their bank accounts and star status to give their all on the field, and J-Roll is no exception. We've all watched as his home run totals have ballooned over the past four years (an average of 12 in his first five seasons to an average of 22 from '06-'09), and he most likely stood and stared at each one with a smugness Rickey would applaud. Unfortunately, those shots don't mean much when he's not reaching base with any kind of regularity.
I'm not saying that Rollins isn't a valuable piece of the team, as his MVP year in 2007 will prove, but he could be helping out the Phillies so much more just by making small adjustments most leadoff hitters should perfect in the minor leagues like working the count better and hitting to all parts of the field.
And Jimmy, don't stand and watch the ball. Bust out of the box and think about second base.
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