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This season, at the beginning of each series, MetsBlog will attempt to get the perspective of the opposition and their fans. From this, we hope to be better educated on the opposition going into a series. It also gives us a fine opportunity to highlight some of our favorite team blogs.
As the Mets look for revenge against the reeling Phillies, we revisit Tom Goyne of Balls, Sticks & Stuff.
What does losing a game like last Thursday’s against the Braves do to a team’s pysche?
It has to weigh on them somehow, whether they will admit it or not. What I have a hard time believing is that at some point, the position players don’t begin to thoroughly resent the pitching staff. They would probably never admit that either, but when the offense scores the way this one does and the pitching can’t even be average, it has to cause divisions on some level.
Have you ever seen a pitching staff this battered?
I’m sure you can go through the statistical archives and find staffs this terrible, but what is rare is to have such a good offense and such a poor pitching staff. They are first and next to last in the league, respectively. One team that comes to mind that had disparities such as this, but even bigger, just happened to also be another Phillies team. The 1930 Phillies, led by Chuck Klein, had a batting average of .315 and an ERA of 6.71.
Back to this year’s team for a second, the day after the loss to the Braves, I crunched some numbers and if this offense was coupled with just a league average number of runs allowed per game, their record would have been, at that time, exactly the same as your New York Mets.
Do you think there will be a few more Phillies fans at Shea Stadium than usual this weekend? If not, why?
Maybe a few, but really, I think most fans have decided that there just simply isn’t enough pitching to make the playoffs and its hard to keep up a vigorous interest when your mind has been made up on the outcome. Most Philly fans at this point are more concerned with the return of Reno Mahe.
Make a case for Jimmy Rollins as NL MVP.
First of all, he had the best quote of the offseason, right? Right? Since then, no one has had a more consistently excellent performance from Game 1 to Game 145 than Rollins (he’s played every game of the season too). He leads the league in runs scored for the team that’s scored the most runs in the league. Basically, he plays very good and sure defense at a premium position and is the ignition switch for a very good offense. Are you sold?
Do you have confidence that even if the Phils can play well in this series that they can sustain it for the final two weeks of the season?
Not at all. If Cole Hamels and Kyle Kendrick can get healthy, that is two out of every five games you have some confidence in a win, but for the other three out of five, you are just keeping your fingers crossed. In the end though, it’s usually Hamels, Kendrick, and Wish It Had Rained.
…thanks Tom…and no, if the Phillies don’t make the playoffs, Jimmy Rollins shouldn’t be a favorite for MVP…bottom line…just my opinion…another thing, it’s amazing to hear a fanbase so negative even though their team is only 1.5 games out…a lot can happen in two weeks, huh…
“…also, he plays 50% of his games in a bandbox that inflates offensive performance.”
JRoll, bandbox vs Road:
Home avg: .290
Road avg: .299
Home RBI: 43
Away RBI: 39
Home runs scored: 61
Road runs scored: 64
Home 2bs: 13
Road 2bs: 22
Home 3bs: 9
Road 3bs: 8
Home SBs: 15
Road SBs: 16
Home OBP: .328
Road OBP: .363
Home OPS: .877
Road OPS: ..876
You got him on HRs-17 home vs 10 away.
That park inflates all offensive performance, his and those behind him. Yes, his straight splits look much more even this year; that doesn’t negate the park factors for the offense he has there.
Rollins splits are surprisingly flat but if you look at Utley’s splits they are HUGE!! So does this mean Rollins is a below average player for half the season given the park he plays in?
and to back that statement:
a home OPS of .837 vs. road OPS of .796
41 pts difference over around 6,000 pa’s is significant.
rollins definitely deserves to be in the mvp race. he has been very good on the road unlike utley. the ballpark plays a role overall, but if you’ve seen rollins play it’s not the reason he impacts that team (speed, defense, leadership, consistency)
vs the best team in the nl and their divisional rival (mets): 15g 14r 6hr 12rbi .333avg 1,121ops
Again, I have never, ever said he doesn’t deserve to be in the conversation, or that he’s not a very good player, or that he hasn’t played particularly well against the Mets. I just think you have to consider that kind of circumstance in an mvp discussion. in my opinion, DW is more valuable (I won’t even get into vorp).
I’d love to continue this conversation, but I have to go to shea to watch the Phillies get their asses kicked.
I have seen him play plenty and his defense is stunningly overrated.
Now, in terms of the offense “resenting” the pitching staff, there you have the Philly fan mentality in a nutshell — “where do I point the finger?” The offense “scores like this one does” in large part for the same reason the pitching staff has been awful — cheap bandbox of a ballpark. Additionally, ERA is not just about the pitchers. The defense has to make plays. Rollins cannot go to his right, third base has been a revolving door, Burrell’s feet are stuck in cement, Rowand takes bad angles and has a puny arm, and Howard is abysmal over at first, which means there’s no margin for error for the other infielders. They have a couple of good defensive players on the right side — Victorino and Utley, but that’s about the extent of it. Remember, the hitters don’t head to the clubhouse to read magazine (or in Burrell’s case, looking at the pictures) when the other team is up — it’s their responsibility to stop the other team, too.
And let’s face it — the HR ball drives a lot of these conversations, like it or not. When people look at Rollins this season, the power jumps out, not the balance. If he had 19 or 20 HR, we wouldn’t be hearing his name very often in the MVP discussion. Sad but true.
Mr. Fallow, if you want to see what CBP does to stats vs. Shea, consider the OPS+ of Rollins and Wright:
Rollins — 121
Wright — 151
I think the home/away HR differential of Rollins goes a long way to explain why players at CBP are rated lower.
Rollins is a great player and I like that he backed up his early season trash talk with his performance. He’s a clutch player too. But I have to think Wright justifiably should be ahead of him in MVP consideration right now, especially since the Mets are in 1st and the Phillies aren’t even in the wildcard yet.
Wright is also a better defensive player this year than Rollins.
If you were to match the Mets pitching staff head to head, how many Phils pitchers would you take over the Mets equivalent (for example, Brett Myers or Billy Wagner, or Glavine vs Moyer)?
You might take Cole Hamels on your team, that’s about it.
So consider Wright gets 18 gms to hit against Eaton, Moyer, Alfonseca, Jose Frickin’ Mesa, Tom Gordon, JD Durbin, etc.
Rollins gets 18 gms vs the Mets clearly superior pitching staff.
18 games is a pretty fair chunk of your schedule.
And none of the Phillies road stats include games at CBP, obviously, yet Wright gets to pad his road stats there while Rollins has to get his road HRs instead at Shea.
Wright at CBP this season, vs lousy Phils pitching: 2 HRs.
Rollins at Shea this season vs superior Mets pitching:
3 HRs, with 3 gms to go.
You can argue the Mets are so good they don’t need to worry about how they perform vs any one club. Yeah, maybe so, but then they’re so good they’d win without Wright and thus he’s not the MVP.
consider that all year teams have manipulated their pitching staff so we see their aces, and you get that skew right back the other way.
atlanta comes to mind .. hudson and smoltz have faced us every time, and the Phillies have benefited from that being the next or prior series more than once
That’s a reach.
The Braves did it once. Cite some more examples.
I can remember occasions where Phils saw the best of the LA and SD staffs and the Mets got the dregs as well. That stuff evens out.
the braves did it in every series this year.
Fallow, that’s an interesting twist, but it’s hard to adequately assess the differences of hitting against the Mets staff vs. the Phillies’ without looking at the actual pitchers involved.
But, you should also note that the Mets had a vastly harder interleague schedule than the Phillies. The Mets faced every single playoff team from last year including the Yankees 6 times. The Phillies only faced 1 playoff team, the Tigers, and had the pleasure of facing KC and the White Sox, two of the worst teams in baseball this year. So I would think Wright had tougher pitchers to hit against during this time.
As for Wright hittting at CBP, that for only 9 games! Rollins gets to hit at that part for 81 games. That’s a humongous advantage.
Put Wright at CBP for 81 games a year and I bet his current numbers would be as much as 20-30% higher.
against the padres, we faced peavy twice, maddux, & young in 4 of the 6 games; against the dodgers it was penny twice, and lowe once… wells pitched for both teams, and returned to his big game form against the mets.
Let’s not even get started on the interleague games .. oh yeah, how’d you guys do against that power house Kansas City?
Aces VS. Mets & Phils:
Peavy – 2 vs. Mets, 1 vs Phils
Young – 1 vs Mets, 1 vs Phils
Penny – 3 vs Mets, 1 vs Phils
Lowe – 1 vs Mets, 1 vs Phils
Smoltz – 6 vs. Mets, 1 vs. Phils
Hudson – 4 vs Mets, 4 vs. Phils
Webb – 2 vs. Mets, 0 vs. Phils
So the Mets have faced the above ace pitchers 19 times this year while the phillies just 9 times. It’s true that many teams seemed to line up their aces to face the Mets.
So it seems that based on this plus the vastly harder interleague schedule this year for the Mets, Wright has faced much tougher pitchers than Rollins while not having the benefit of playing in CBP..
nice .. thanks ;)
You’re welcome. :grin:
What jumps out at me is how many times Smoltz faced the Mets. That says to me the Braves really knew who their main competition was from early on in the season and planned accordingly.
I know the Braves did it recently, but is there any link to stories of them doing it previously?
Did the Padres really manipulate Peavy to pitch against the Mets or did his turn come up?
As for playing the Yanks, you did play them when they were playing their worst baseball of the year.
I think KC had a better month the month the Phils played them than the Yanks did the month the Mets played them.
Fallow, I listed the number of times each team faced those aces. The Mets faced them in 10 more games than the Phillies did. Whether it was done on purpose or was coincidental, who knows? But the disparity is too great to think that it was anything but planned. Regardless, the cause isn’t relevant to the discussion.
And we’re not really talking about strength of competition here but instead strength of opposing pitcher. So regardless of the way teams are playing at the time, the pitchers on the Yankees, Athletics, and Twins (Santana!), are going to be better than on the Blue Jays, KC, and White Sox who had a particularly horrid pitching staff this year.
And, yes, the Mets faced faced Santana this year!
And here are their Win Shares as of 9/8:
Wright — 30
Rollins — 23
Rollins is considerably behind. In fact, Wright leads the entire NL in Win Shares.
The guys that vote for MVP don’t look at VORP or Win Shares much, I’m guessing.
Wright may well win the MVP, but it will be for his grittiness, his leadership, his 30/30 stats, and for the ability of his teammates to pitch and field successfully.
You put Wright on the Phillies and Rollins on the Mets and I don’t see the standings being much different.
Yeah, I know they don’t look at Win Shares. But they should. I think what they look at are the obvious power numbers — HRs, RBIs — plus OPS. But they should look at defense too.
As for what impact switching players would have for each team, I don’t know how relevant that is. If you switched out Magglio Ordonez for A-Rod, do you think that would really change the fortunes of their teams this year? I don’t. But that doesn’t mean A-Rod shouldn’t get the MVP.
You’re right. Wright’s Win Shares were better than last year’s MVP.
The switching players bit is relevant only when you hear the argument that so and so can’t win because his team finished 2nd or whatever-if that’s true, then the award should be named Best Player on a Team that Makes the Playoffs.
Well, value is often simply inferred by a team’s standing. The voters usually go for a playoff team unless someone’s performance is just so outstanding that it really stands out. Like Howard’s last year. I think he realy deserved it.
“His splits look much more even”=he has unfair advantage of playing home games in Philly?
Huh?
If his road stats were better in every category instead of just some of them, would you still claim he’s only good at home? How much better does he have to do on the road?
He’s hitting .370 at Shea, 3 HRs, 7 RBIs, in 27 ABs, not bad. Must be the bandbox in Queens.
I don’t claim “he’s only good at home”, nor that he’s not a good player. He’s having a great year. But his offensive production is A. directly tied to the rest of the lineup–he doesn’t knock in or score those runs by himself, does he?–, and B. that lineup, as well as his individual production, is positvely influenced by the park factors in Philly. (as opposed the run suppressing factors in Shea) Again, I’m not saying he’s not any good by any means; but his production is absolutely affected by that park.
Wow, you mean in all of 27 abs he’s produced those monster numbers? Boy, that’s really significant.
East Fallowfield = a tiny, podunk, nothing of a town in southeast PA.
This guy always shows up during losses.
This guy is always coming to the rescue of Yankees.
This guy is likely a Phils fan.
This guy is definitely a troll.
What’s more, I remember the home/road arguments being made about certain of the Colorado Rockies who hit well on the road in the pre-humidor days. The thing is, I think you can carry the park with you, so to speak, to the extent you’re staying “hot” with a lot of games in a hitter-friendly park. Hitting is about streaks, and there’s a large psychological component to streaks. I think, for some players, where they play the most will have an effect on their performance everywhere.
isn’t he blatantly a phillie phan here to rile us? At least then we don’t argue with each other ;)
This is what happens when your blog has their chats with other teams blogs.
They must like the traffic or the debate or they’d stop doing it.
You’re arguing that Phils lineup is superior, yet Beltran and Reyes are all as high or higher in Win Shares than anyone on the Phils.
well the mets do have a good number more wins to share
:P
He’s a legit MVP candidate, is Rollins. Excellent defense at a key position as well. But, to me, Wright playing in Shea and putting up the numbers he’s put up, plus the better average and OBP, and producing not only in one slot, but as needed in the 3-4- and 5 holes as production and injuries took their toll on the Mets lineup puts him ahead of Rollins.
I can totally see the argument the other way, though. If Rollins got MVP and David got a World Series right, who do you think would be happier?
This is the key. Rollins has had a very good season, but his numbers are similar to Wright’s, but lesser in most categories. Wright hits better, better OBP, better slugging, and does it all in a park that is much more difficult to hit in than the bandbox in Philly.
If Rollins had 75 stolen bases, or a .320 average, there would be more of a case for him, but right now he’s a watered down version of Wright.
wow utleys splits are alarming i just looked at them, cant wait to bring that up to my phillies fan roommate. I actually had an argument with him last week saying I dont think the phillies will win a WS in their stadium for a long time unless they just loaded their roster with chin meing wang types who get like 26 outs via ground balls.
Actually the splits for most of philly’s primary hitters are alarming with the exception of Rollins and Howard. Their numbers are pretty much “flat”…
Burrell and Rowand both slug more than .100 points higher at home vs. road…
Burrell and Utley both have avgs. .080+ points higher at home than on the road…
Rollins, Rowand and Utley all have at LEAST 40% more HRs at home than on the road…
Burrell has 24 MORE RBIs at home…keep in mind for all these stats, they are in almost identical ABs (home vs. road)
All this to say: J’Troll will definitely be hurt by voters who will most assuredly take where he plays into consideration. AND there is a good chance his team will not make the playoffs….dagger.
I didn’t realize you guys have never had an MVP.
I guess that’s why you’re so hyped over Wright.
I’m pretty sure Wright will win barring miraculous finish from someone else. Once the media gets behind a candidate it’s pretty much over and it sounds like they’re all getting closer to anointing him.
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