Philadelphia Phillies: The right mix, or a vulnerable one?
The Philadelphia Phillies have shot out of the blocks in 2019, featuring a frightening offense that may allow them to lap the NL field.
Despite one of the most impressive Hot Stove seasons in MLB history, the 2019 Philadelphia Phillies came out of the gate this spring with a surprisingly ordinary amount carping from Negadelphia fans and media.
One writer found the lineup to be “botched”; another pointed to their “invisible left-handed starter”; a third found the lineup, despite vast improvement, to have “hurdles.” Imagine what would have happened if Phillies management hadn’t added four former All-Stars, two of whom had been MVPs.
What if they hadn’t pounded the hell out of Atlanta in their first three games?
However, are there early signs of vulnerability as writer Tal Venada implied might arise in the long run? (Tal’s the “hurdles” guy and a fellow CttP writer.) What we want to examine here are the early Phillies numbers related to batting efficiency (walks and strikeouts) and resulting production.
Of course, those first three games against the Braves were very promising. Eight home runs! Twenty-three runs scored! Those are, respectively, the best performance in team history and the second-ranking performance in the past 30 years. However, let’s go a bit more global in spite of the still relatively small sample size, with a quick look backward.
The Current Starters Last Year
The current Phillies have a very static starting lineup thus far: Andrew McCutchen, Jean Segura, Bryce Harper, Rhys Hoskins, J.T. Realmuto, Odubel Herrera, Cesar Hernandez, and Maikel Franco – and always in that order through Apr. 5. In 2018 these players included exactly one hitter who was “excellent,” Fangraphs highest rating, at walking – Harper, who walked in 18.7 percent of his plate appearances. (That Fangraphs scale runs: excellent, great, above average, average, below average, poor, and awful.)
The Phillies also have two hitters here who were “great,” but very nearly “excellent,” last season in walking and avoiding strikeouts – McCutchen, who walked at a 13.9 percent rate, and Segura, who struck out at a 10.9 percent rate.
But for the most part, these current Phillies produced ordinary ratings last year. Nine of the 16 walk and strikeout rate figures posted by these eight players were “average” or below. However, in a sneaky but interesting indictment of baseball analytics as such, the one “awful” rating belonged to Segura, the only consistent legitimate threat to post a .300 batting average for a season. Segura’s walk rate in ’18 was only 5.1 percent.
So, clearly, the rebuilt Phillies lineup has the potential to be offensively mediocre. Anyone who has watched Herrera and Franco the last three years knows this about them already. Many Phillies fans have also been less than enthusiastic about Hernandez despite the fact he led the team in 2016 and ‘17 in batting average, both years posting (weirdly) the same, very respectable .294 figure.
And before he started this season very well, McCutchen was called “done” by several Phillies watchers, who may not have actually been watching him very closely.
However, in their first six games, the starting Phillies have produced these figures: an aggregate walk rate of 18.1 percent, and an aggregate strikeout rate of 19 percent. Fangraphs would call these figures excellent and above average, respectively. The walk figure exceeds the excellence threshold by 3.1 percentage points – for the entire lineup. This is despite the fact that Segura has not yet walked.
In terms of these two metrics, through six games, the Phillies starters have put 13 of their 16 total numbers at above average or better on Fangraph’s scale.
Individually, the Phillies currently have two players who are wildly exceeding MVP Christian Yelich’s OPS figure in ’18, which was a nice round 1.000. Maikel Franco’s figure before play on Apr. 6 was 1.537, and Bryce Harper was running him down with a 1.521. After six games five players had higher OBP figures than Yelich’s .402 for last season (McCutchen, Harper, Hoskins, Herrera, and Franco).
Does It Mean Much This Early?
Yes, you can argue the sample size is too small and cherry-picked, but the Phillies have gone 5-1 in their first six games. Along the way, they defeated Washington’s ace, Max Scherzer.
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They didn’t lose their first game until they did something they’re unlikely to do often – commit three errors in one contest, Apr. 3 in Washington. In that game, however, they rallied from a 6-2 deficit to take an 8-6 lead before collapsing behind a key error.
Before their sixth game, someone pointed out Harper and Franco were each on pace to rack up 227 walks this season.
They’ve already beaten three teams predicted by many to be serious contenders for at least division titles, and are averaging 8.2 runs a game. That’s fairly sick.
It’s still incredibly early, but also reasonably clear the ‘19 Phillies can score runs. They’ve proven they can in the short term. Maybe the chemistry is right; maybe it will last. What’s less clear is whether the team can pitch against other good offensive teams, but let’s not go all Negadelphia here.
Bryce Harper Owns DC in Debut. dark. Next
The Philadelphia Phillies can rake. That doesn’t hurt even a little after a week.