Archive for March 16th, 2010

Time for part two in my WAR prediction series, up this time: Bullpen. Relief pitchers are very hard to predict anything about, each year someone can be amazing and then be complete trash the next. But I am going to do my best to give it a shot. So follow me after the jump for the predictions…

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VOTE OR DIE!

Check out the bracket, and follow @ThePhield on Twitter.

(Song Credit: Turbonegro – All My Friends Are Dead)

Whew, boy. This one is actually pretty tame by Conlin’s standards, but that still makes it one of the worst articles I’ve read in a while. The article is entitled “Why Phillies are looking at 98 wins.” Not an outlandish prediction, but maybe a little optimistic. Unfortunately, the rest of the column is full of vintage Conlin craziness.

In 1993, I sensed a special set of intangibles in the crazies that GM Lee Thomas turned over to manager Jim Fregosi. Coming off a dead-last finish in 1992, picking the reinforced cast of baseball’s “Animal House” to win the pennant was more than a little risky; it was nuts. But I did and the Phillies jumped out to a huge lead, hung on for the East title, then took out the favored Braves in six.

Mystery solved.

Now, I’ll give the man credit for this much: He freely admits that predicting the pennant in ’93 was certifiably insane. Of course, he’s mentioning this to lend credence to his supposed prognostication prowess, so it still makes no sense at all. Especially since he claims to have divined this result via Spidey Sense or whatever, rather than something crazy, like facts and objective evidence.

Charlie Manuel never held out during a six-season major league baseball career that spanned 432 plate appearances and yielded a .198 career batting average. He held on like a remora to a shark’s underbelly.

Charlie should bring this up at his next contract negotiation. The ability to hold on like a remora is, like, 99 percent of what makes a good manager.

The big redhead went to Japan and finally learned to hit. He became the most popular “Gaijin” to ever play there. He even challenged the sacred single-season home-run record of Sadaharu Oh. By the time he climbed the minor league managing ladder and became the Cleveland Indians’ batting coach, then manager, he had become the Will Rogers of hitting, a folksy master of homespun malapropisms who never met a hitting man he didn’t like.

And that is why the Phillies will win 98 games this year.

Ruben Amaro Jr. had a similar if more privileged baseball upbringing. He was born to baseball royalty. His grandfather, Santos Amaro, is enshrined in the Cuban and Mexican halls of fame. Santos would have been a candidate for Cooperstown, as well, had his Cuban skin been a few shades lighter. Ruben’s father of the same name had hands so soft during his major league career with the Phillies and Cardinals you would have entrusted him with catching an infant dropped from the sixth floor of a burning building. Junior was an All-America outfielder at Stanford. He had been a ball-rat from Day 1. Ruben’s big-league career was a scuffle. He played eight seasons, five of them here, batted .235 and learned his front-office skills from a variety of eminent professors in the College of Base Knocks, including Pat Gillick.

Ruben Amaro’s grandfather is a Hall of Famer in other countries. His father had soft hands, presumably because he moisturized. Amaro himself played baseball, though he was pretty crappy at it, and went on to earn an Associate’s Degree in General Management from the esteemed Base Knocks University in Hoboken, N.J. (Go Whitefish!). All of these things are more relevant to the Phillies’ success than Roy Halladay, Chase Utley, Ryan Howard, Cole Hamels, or anyone else who will put on a uniform and take the field for them in 2010.

It is not easy to find a major league ballclub that has a GM and manager who held on instead of holding out. And rarer still to find one where two advisers to the GM, Charley Kerfeld and Dallas Green, are pups from that same loving-the-game litter. Manuel . . . Amaro . . . Green . . . Kerfeld. They are four reasons why the best team in Phillies history will duck the complacency bullet and should win as many as 98 games.

Manuel went to Japan because he couldn’t hit here. Amaro retired after seven seasons because he couldn’t hit at all. How is that “holding on”? What does “holding out” mean in this context? What does any of this paragraph mean?

Conlin predicts a fourth straight division title, third straight pennant, and a seven-game victory in the World Series over the Red Sox. This is a rather plausible series of events, but here’s how he justifies it:

The Yankees have lost a lot of late-inning clutch work with the sayonara to Hideki Matsui, the World Series MVP, and the seeya to run-producer Johnny Damon.

The Yankees replaced Matsui with Nick Johnson and Damon with Curtis Granderson. Yes, Johnson is as brittle as a Mets fan’s ego and Granderson is Mr. Magoo against lefties, but overall, those are probable upgrades. They also added Javier Vazquez to the rotation. I’ve actually got the Yankees missing the playoffs, but that’s because I am a closet Rays fan, and I’m anticipating a lot of injury and regression for the Yankees next season, because they are old as balls at a lot of positions. This is a much better argument than losing “clutch work.”

Conlin finally starts talking about players in the National League about three-quarters of the way into the article, and none of his observations are particularly egregious. Still, he manages to spend nearly a thousand words making a case for the Phillies winning 98 games and a second championship in three seasons without mentioning Utley, Halladay, or Howard once.

Ladies and gentleman: This man has a Hall of Fame vote.

Moyer, mulling over changes to his AARP member benefits

Last update I cited comments from Rich Dubee saying Kyle Kendrick would have to take the 5th starters job from Moyer.  Moyer is not helping his case after getting lit up in a ‘B’ game. It’s impossible to find meaning in spring training statistics because there are too many bad players in camp or vets working on things. Moyer especially is known to work on things like throwing only cutters or changeups. That said, Moyer has yet to appear in Grapefruit League action while KK has compiled 9 scoreless frames on 4 hits, 0 bb’s, and 2 k’s.  Neither candidate is a very attractive choice for the rotation, but it’s very possible that Kendrick would be the more consistent option.  As long as he limits walks, he could have decent success in the Joel Pineiro/Most-Twins-Pitchers vein.  I still expect Moyer to start the season in the rotation regardless of how both he and KK do this March.  Just don’t be surprised if Moyer has a short leash.

Drew Carpenter’s micro-sample looks tantalizing with 8 IP, 5H, 1BB, 1R, and 9K.  Scouts complain about his across the body motion, suspect control, and mediocre secondary offerings, but I’m reminded a little of another dimmed prospect who our evaluators pretty much gave up on.  I’ve advocated him as a potential #5 pitcher all off season after he succeeded against AAA hitters last season. A team deeper in SP would convert him to the pen now, but I think he’s probably more useful to us if we keep him stretched out.

The Phillies cut a number of players from camp recently.  Most notable are potential 5th OF Quintin Berry, the Cliff Lee trio, and Scott Mathieson.  Berry was never a candidate for a bench spot this spring and the trio all still have plenty of work to do on the farm.  Mathieson is a little more surprising, but it makes perfect sense.  He’s lost a lot of developmental time to injury and has never had great secondary stuff.  He will head back to minor league camp and AAA to work on his control and repertoire.  The Phillies will look to add him to the ML roster when his stuff dictates it.

Finally, on the relief front, Brad Lidge is confident he will make opening day, but J.C. Romero is set to join the club 7-10 days after the start of the season.  That makes the current opening day bullpen Lidge, Ryan Madson, Antonio Bastardo, Danys Baez, Jose Contreras, and Chad Durbin.  The Phillies still have Mike Zagurski, Sergio Escalona, and Rule V pick David Herndon in camp.  I wouldn’t be surprised if Kendrick or Carpenter went north with the team as the temporary mop-up man while Romero recovers.  My guess is they will choose between Escalona and Zagurski so as to carry two lefties. They could also opt to break camp with another bench player, probably John Mayberry Jr. who’s having a fine camp or 34 year old Cody Ransom, who, despite a despicable glove, would actually probably be an improvement to Juan Castro.

This was Verlander’s reaction. Brown took a 3-2 pitch from Verlander and absolutely crushed it. The ball went out of the stadium and reportedly hit Chris Wheeler’s Prius. OK, maybe it didn’t hit Wheels’ car but we can pretend.

Have you ever seen a grown man naked?

In this post, I pay tribute to Peter Graves, actor extraordinaire, Mr. Mission Impossible and Mr. Airplane! all rolled into one.

Well… and I get to make an ass out of the Mets.

RIP

And don’t worry, I plan on creating an MS Paint masterpiece today, to possibly replace this homoeroticism we have going on up top.