So is Brett Myers definitely going to be a closer and not a starter going forward?

Also, how many teams have a player with the big club appear so far down the ZiPS list? Abraham Nunez is really, really bad.

That's right, the man who is now and forever listed as the 2007 Phillies' 3B on BB-Ref.com, and was just barely beaten out for that position in 2006 as well, is projected to have a worse 2008 than Gookie Dawkins, Pedro Swann, and Mike "Crudale" Spidale. Why is it that people keep rolling their eyes when I say that Pedro Feliz would be a significant upgrade?

Also it's great to see the Alfomesa twins right next to each other. Though somewhat less great to see them projected with better ERAs than every single one of the Phillies' pitching prospects who are supposedly very close to the majors.

Gotta go for now...going to look at this again tomorrow.

every single one of the Phillies' pitching prospects who are supposedly very close to the majors

Also I did not realize that Happ, Bisenius and Segovia were already 25. Well, at least we didn't trade Gio Gonzalez's entire career for one year of a guy who had no value at all and whose career might be over.

Model Dictator Fabio Castro to the rotation?

I'll change the Myers projection if it looks like he's going to start again.

OK, I looked at it a little more. I'm expecting Garcia, Lieber, and Lohse to not be back with the team.

So, those projected to be starters if they are in the majors:



Yeah, that might be a problem.

On the other hand, I don't know why Mathieson is predicted to have such a bad ERA.

Speaking of Myers, how do people familiar with DMB expect players like him (or Joba for another possible example) to be rated? As relievers only, or as starters/relievers with poor stamina?

I'd expect both to be listerd as starters/relievers

The starters look bretty bad, but at least Josh Outman has a much better pitching name than Grant Balfour.

In my experience, players who do not start are typically listed by DMB as relievers only. Likewise, starters with one or zero relief appearances are usually listed as starters only.

On the projection disk, they'll get both.

Some real nice frontline talent in Philly. Shame about the depth, but stars can take you a long way.

Not that it's out of line with reality, but wow... a mean projection of 50 home runs!

Aaron Rowand cf 30 .276 .339 .444

It surprises me somewhat to learn that although this projection is far below what he accomplished in 2007 and 2004, it's actually better than what he accomplished in any of the other 5 years of his career.

And with that I note that 2004 and 2007 were the two seasons after which he signed new contracts.

And with that I predict that he will be significantly overpaid for his performance in the next three or four years.

that should be "in each of the next three or four years".

Does anyone know where I can find career leaders in on-contact BA? Even though it fits with his career average, a mean projection of .440 for Howard seems optimistic.

Of course, the nice thing about the frontline stars is that if you get a little lucky at dumpster diving, like picking up Morgan Ensberg for 3B and he has a bounce back year, you can veer into Big Red machine territory.

A little off the wall request, does that Zips contraption give you any kind of numbers for Greg Jacobs, the pitcher turned outfielder, who hit very well at Reading last season. If Rowand is gone, I'd like the Phils to have a Chris Duncan/Ryan Church type guy to throw into the mix with Victorino and Werth in CF-RF and while Jacobs might be a long shot, I'm curious what the numbers say.

Does anyone know where I can find career leaders in on-contact BA?

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You can see individual career at Fangraph and Howard has a career .353 BABIP
http://www.fangraphs.com/statss.aspx?playerid=2154&position=1B

I know fangraphs has BABIP. How useful is it going to be for Howard since 1/3 of his hits are homers? I don't see either on the PI.

There were more fertile farms than this in Oklahoma during the Dust Bowl days.

Of course, the nice thing about the frontline stars is that if you get a little lucky at dumpster diving, like picking up Morgan Ensberg for 3B and he has a bounce back year, you can veer into Big Red machine territory.

Or even getting lucky with your existing players. If Wes Helms had hit in 2007 like he'd hit in 2006, the Phillies would have won comfortably. Ditto if the bullpen had been a strength, which is often a complete crapshoot.

That seems kinda optimistic for Lohse in Citizens Bank Ballpark to me. Man, is he going to get overpaid. Any ideas on what his numbers would be if he went back to the AL?

Aaron Rowand cf 30 .276 .339 .444

Reading that line, you can almost hear the splash of cold water.

And with that I note that 2004 and 2007 were the two seasons after which he signed new contracts.

Amazing ... you won't hear much about that in the media, will you? If it were J.D. Drew though ...

Wow, those are some bad starting options. I can't see how they can keep Myers in the pen, unless they know something health-wise that would prevent him from starting.

How are those bad starting options? I see six starters, plus Myers, all of whom are better than, or within a third of a run of, the league average. Then there's Castro, who has significant upside. It's not top-of-the-league quality, but they're not in desperate shape.

I should note that the above BABIP for Howard is .344.

Sign Mariano and move Myers back to the rotation?

If you are the Phillies GM, do you offer Howard a contract to buy out his arb and FA years, or just pay him year by year for arb, and bet that he doesn't age too well.
With their barren system, the Phillies window of opportunity doesn't look too big, so I might do the latter and cash Howard in for some premo prospects in a year or two.

I don't think JD Durbin and JC Romero should be allowed to play for the same team. It's too confusing.

How are those bad starting options? I see six starters, plus Myers, all of whom are better than, or within a third of a run of, the league average.

The problem is that of those 6, Garcia won't be back and will miss at least another half a season with a rather serious labrum tear, and neither Lieber or Lohse are expected back. And a 4th one turns 45 in a month.

I don't think JD Durbin and JC Romero should be allowed to play for the same team. It's too confusing.

It's not that confusing....one's a left handed head-case who doesn't pitch well, and one is a right handed head-case who doesn't pitch well.

Wow, Rowand and Victorino are practically the same person!

The problem is that of those 6, Garcia won't be back and will miss at least another half a season with a rather serious labrum tear, and neither Lieber or Lohse are expected back. And a 4th one turns 45 in a month.

Dan seems to be distancing himself from his "age 45" adjustment algorithm. He must've watched Moyer pitch in the second half.

I don't think JD Durbin and JC Romero should be allowed to play for the same team. It's too confusing.

Think of the fun when J.A. Happ comes up! Of course, if you're like me, you constantly call him A.J. Happ ... so I guess being perpetually confused can help reduce the confusion, sort of.

Rowand and Victorino do have slightly different upsides and downsides. OK, not really.

Optimistic
Rowand: 301/374/500
Victorino: 297/365/496

Pessimistic
Rowand: 259/312/398
Victorino: 253/305/382

How are those bad starting options? I see six starters, plus Myers, all of whom are better than, or within a third of a run of, the league average.

You're disregarding my "assuming Garcia, Lieber and Lohse leave". That leaves three such starters. One of whom is 45 and falls off a cliff after 70 pitches.

I don't think JD Durbin and JC Romero should be allowed to play for the same team. It's too confusing.

Just imagine if Dan had written "J.A. Happ", which is what I've always read, instead of "James Happ"!

Of course, if you're like me, you constantly call him A.J. Happ ... so I guess being perpetually confused can help reduce the confusion, sort of.

Make sure that you don't think of this guy, either.

Did anyone ever find any athletes with F.J. or I.J? I know we got from A to M with only those 2 missing.

There's F.P. Santangelo, and I.P. Freely.

Kilkenny, just use the Lahman db for that. I assume the formula for on-contact BA is H/AB-SO, right?

Here's what I get, career for seasons after 1945 min 500 ABs (this doesn't include 2007 data):

playerID_ ConAvg ABs
howarry01 0.4436 0932
ramirma02 0.4032 6575
bayja01__ 0.4021 1667
thomeji01 0.4013 6409
cabremi01 0.3985 2106
penawi01_ 0.3970 1106
hafnetr01 0.3951 1775
vaughmo01 0.3948 5532
abreubo01 0.3895 5276
edmonji01 0.3889 5907

So howard was a freakish historical outlier going into this year (and he hit .430 on contact in 2007). interesting how all of those guys are active except mo vaughn - maybe the mets need a new first baseman?

Yikes, here's the average line of Philly's Phab Phour: .283/.373/.524, 32 homers, 112 RBI, 101 runs, 123 k, 77 strikeouts. That's just awesome.

Obviously, that's supposed to be 77 walks in #37.

Michael Costanzo may be the starter at 3b
Baseball America likes him, ranking him among the Top 20 prospects in the Eastern (AA) league
Bourn also has the potential to become Shane Victorino

The system is weak but not completely dry
Remember that the core of this team came from the farm

Kyle S. You have to factor out HRs also. The correct formula is (H-HR)/(AB-HR-K). I'd be curious to see the corrected list, though.

Bourn also has the potential to become Shane Victorino

The chance of Michael Bourn becoming as good as Victorino can't be more than 10-20%. Bourn is a very useful 4th/5th OF, especially with a team with Pat Burrell on it. Barring some uncommon development, like turning into a .300-.330 hitter, Bourn is a backup.
I'll give the Phillies farm system credit for getting position players ready for the majors. Guys like Ruiz and Bourn came along seamlessly and pretty much played up to their talents. So did Chris Coste but I don't think the farm system can take credit there. :)

Kyle S. You have to factor out HRs also. The correct formula is (H-HR)/(AB-HR-K). I'd be curious to see the corrected list, though.

That's actually what I was looking for. It seems to me that on-contact BA would be better suited for someone like Howard (and maybe hitters in general) since he has relatively few non-HR hits. Maybe I'm off-base here.

Kyle, thanks for doing that. I did download the database you referred to just now, but apparently sorting it is going to make my computer explode.

I'll give the Phillies farm system credit for getting position players ready for the majors.

I'm imagining you writing "players" there, and then remembering Gavin Floyd, and changing it to "position players".

Guys like Ruiz and Bourn came along seamlessly and pretty much played up to their talents.

Somehow I didn't realize that the average catcher nowadays is such an unimpressive hitter that Ruiz has actually not been a disappointment.

Anyway, the farm system has no solution for the two obvious holes - 3B and starting pitching. Combined with the lack of holes anywhere else (assuming both Dobbs and Werth return, although I thought they were both free agents right now, so why should we assume that) - I hope free agency works better than it did last off-season. Goodbye Rowand.

I'm really surprised by how bad Michael Bourn's projection is. He certainly isn't a power hitter and I could see his walk rate being lower at the major league level than it had been in the minors, but it seems surprising that his batting average could be projected that low-- .249. That corresponds with a BABIP of .310, which seems very pessimistic for a very fast runner who has a groundball rate over 50%.

MattSO makes a good point. Maybe it's just that Bourn's talent was contrasted this season with Chris Roberson's lack of talent, but I think Bourn is going to have a decade-long career in the majors, even if he's rarely a starter. And not just because of his fielding ability, either.

at least Josh Outman has a much better pitching name than Grant Balfour.

And Homer Bailey.

Michael Costanzo may be the starter at 3b

Not to be a Negative Nate, but last I heard Costanzo was down in AA striking out once every three ups and making an error once every three games. Looking him up now ... wow, that's quite the power development ... but geez, I intended one K per 3 ups to be an exaggeration. The front office is really hitting the Kyle Kendrick crackpipe heavy if they think he can bring that game straight up from AA and be a contributor.

I'm really surprised by how bad Michael Bourn's projection is.

I don't know ... Dan uses, what, the last three years? In that time, Bourn has about 100 at bats in AAA last August and about 80 at bats spread over three months in the middle of this season that indicate he can hit major league pitching.

And with that I predict that he will be significantly overpaid for his performance in the next three or four years.

Could be. But then, even by the standards of arb-eligible players, Rowand wasn't overpaid in the last three years -- if anything rather underpaid at 2/3.25/4.35.

Rowand's worth is entirely tied up in how good he really is defensively. If he's just average as Dan rates him above, then in combo with his roughly average or just above bat for his position, he's a roughly average CF. Of course roughly average (or worse) CFs were getting $9-10 M last year, so $12 M for Rowand would be perfectly reasonable. And we're only talking about paying for his age 30-33 seasons, not generally a period of dramatic decline.

And of course most folks consider Rowand to be way above average defensively.

Of course from the Phils perspective, I'd let Rowand go, shift Victorino to CF and find a real RF. But if I was a team that needed a CF, I'd probably be a lot more interested in Rowand at his price than Jones/Hunter at their prices. I still expect Rowand to be one of the bargains of the offseason -- although Dan's average defensive rating for him gives me pause.

Kyle S. You have to factor out HRs also. The correct formula is (H-HR)/(AB-HR-K). I'd be curious to see the corrected list, though.

No, you've given the formula for BABIP.

What was asked for (and is more interesting IMHO) is on-contact BA, which does include HR and Kyle's list looks correct (though I'd never noticed Jason Bay before). The all-time leader is Ruth (408 off the top of my head) and he also is the all-time leader in SLG on-contact (810 or so). Thome is close, Manny falls a bit short on SLG.

Howard's numbers so far rank among the best seasons of all time and so his career numbers are simply off the charts. They need to be to be successful with that K-rate. The question is whether we are seeing an historic level of "true talent" or just a cluster of outstanding seasons (Ruth, Sosa, Thome, McGwire, Bonds and some others have had similar seasons) which will be followed by more typical seasons pulling his career numbers back to the historical "norm." Howard's unusual career arc means that his career numbers will consist only of prime and (presumably) decline and therefore no early career struggles also bringing his ML numbers down, so he's probably a good bet to end up the all-time leader.

And yes, both the career and seasons list are dominated by contemporary players. However, so is the list of K/AB (Howard is entering Rob Deer territory). It's a different style of hitting these days. But if you look at the few older players with K-rates which are similar, you'll find similar sorts of on-contact numbers (and some great players up until about 1 K per 4 or so ... below that it gets more dicey). This suggests trading strikeouts for power is a good tradeoff and that this is what today's players have done. Unfortunately, there's substantial selection bias here -- if you K at these rates and don't kill the ball on-contact, your won't hit well enough to stay in the majors. (It's also a huge help if you walk a lot) For example, even with near historic on-contact numbers, Wily Mo Pena is a career 259/472 hitter and since he doesn't walk much and is poor defensively, he's a below-average corner OF.

Anyway, I've been saying for some time, when discussing someone like Pena when they have these amazing on-contact seasons, that you can't expect them to outhit 400/800 on-contact and that at a 1 per 3 or 1 per 3.3 AB K-rate, that's not really all that amazingly productive. And of course, to hit 400/800, they only have to be as good as Ruth and nobody should be projected to even be that good. Mr. Howard is causing me to start questioning that.

Still, this season, BJ Upton K'd 1 per 3.1 AB. On-contact, he hit 444/753. He ain't doing that on a regular basis and he needs to cut down on his Ks. In the first half of the year, he was hitting nearly 500 on-contact. His overall 2nd half numbers of 285/379/482 might be sustainable though that's still 415/702.

the phils pharm system for pitching may not have been awesome, thanks to Gavin Floyds etc...but realize that one this team you had Myers, Hamels, and Kendrick as three big contributors to the "success" of the pitching this year. I'd argue the problem was more with the front office's evaluation of free agent pitching (Eaton, Garcia, Alfonseca, Mesa, Gordon). JC Romero was the lone guy good pickup.

I'm not arguing the Phils farm system hasn't been productive - Howard, Burrell, Utley, Myers, and Hamels is a pretty impressive group. Just that they don't have much future help down there at the moment.

Only 20 stolen bases for Victorino. Do you think that his hamstring injury will become nagging, or was his 07 sb output a fluke. I think the speed is for real, and see no reason why not to expect 40sb.

The Phillies won't keep Iguchi right?

#52 -- The Phils hired Davey Lopes prior to '97 and he is credited with teaching Victorino how to steal, so it's likely that the SB was not a fluke.

#53 -- Since Iguchi can really only play 2B, the Phils have no need for Iguchi. He was a great help when Utley was down though.

If Wes Helms had hit in 2007 like he'd hit in 2006, the Phillies would have won comfortably.

Helms had a .390 BABIP in 2006. Who, in their right minds, would have expected him to put up a 329/390/575 line in 07.

Dan Szymborski Posted: October 24, 2007 at 07:47 PM (#2592208)

I'll change the Myers projection if it looks like he's going to start again.

Dan, is this projection available anywhere. Thanks.

I did do Myers in a subsequent thread (Lidge trade?), but I'll have to find it!

John Sickels has the top 20 Phillies prospects list.

Philadelphia Phillies Top 20 Prospects for 2008

Carrasco, Cardenas, Outman are 1, 2, 3

I like Jamie Moyer a little more now. He seems like he is really genuinely going nuts about the Seahawks game, like a real fan

I can't seem to find the updated Myers projection as a starter. Anyone got a link?

SimaTime: Here's one recent article from the media in Philadelphia: http://www.philly.com/philly/sports/phillies/20080123_John_Smallwood__Myers_not_balking_about_return_to_rotation.html. HTH.

Great article, thanks for the link.