Who is Karim Garcia? (Pedro Martinez)
January 9
2007
Yesterday we looked at
home and away home run numbers for a handful of Phillies' hitters, and the
numbers seemed to suggest they didn't gain much of an advantage in terms of
hitting home runs at Citizens Bank Park last season. There are some
numbers, however,
that may suggest that Phillies' pitchers did suffer a disadvantage at CBP in
'06. Or at least that they simply pitched worse there.
First of all, the Phillies allow a lot of home runs and they have since
Citizens Bank Park opened in 2004. For each of those three years, the team
has been in the top three in the National League in terms of home runs
allowed. And for the last two years, the difference between the number of
home runs hit by opponents in Philadelphia and the number of home runs they
hit against Phils' pitching away from Philadelphia has grown.
Here's a look at the home runs that Phillies' pitchers have allowed over the
past four seasons at home and away, remembering that 2003 was the final year
the team played at the Vet:
| Year | HR | NL-Rank | Home HR | NL-Rank | % @ Home | Away HR | NL-Rank | % Away | HR H - HR A |
| 2006 | 211 | 2 | 121 | 2 | 57.3 | 90 | 7 | 42.7 | 31 |
| 2005 | 189 | 3 | 107 | 2 | 56.6 | 82 | 6 | 43.4 | 25 |
| 2004 | 214 | 2 | 115 | 2 | 53.7 | 99 | 4 | 46.3 | 16 |
| 2003 | 142 | 13 | 61 | 14 | 43.0 | 81 | 8 | 57.0 | -20 |
One thing that is for
sure: CBP is playing a lot different than the Vet. In 2003 and 2005, for
example, Phillies' pitchers allowed about the same number of home runs in
their away games. In their home games, Phils' pitchers surrendered 46 more
pitching at CBP in 2005 than their 2003 counterparts did playing in the Vet.
The Phillies have pitched more innings at home than away in the last three
years. They threw about 51% of their innings at home in '05 and '06 and
about 52% of their innings at home in 2004. In their games on the road the
Phillies have improved at preventing the home run recently, falling to down
near the middle of the pack of NL teams in '06 by allowing just the
seventh-most home runs. They continue, however, to allow a percentage of
their home runs at home that exceeds the percentage of the innings they
pitch at home, and they have since they started pitching at Citizens Bank
Park.
In the same way that pitchers throw more of their innings at home, hitters
get more of their at-bats on the road. Over the past four seasons,
Phillies' hitters as a team have gotten about 51-52% of their at-bats away
from home. And, for every year CBP has been around, Phillies' hitters have
hit more home runs there than they have on the road:
| Year | HR | NL-Rank | Home HR | NL-Rank | % @ Home | Away HR | NL-Rank | % Away |
| 2006 | 216 | 3 | 112 | 2 | 51.9 | 104 | 4 | 48.1 |
| 2005 | 167 | 8 | 94 | 4 | 56.3 | 73 | 10 | 43.7 |
| 2004 | 215 | 2 | 113 | 2 | 52.6 | 102 | T-3 | 47.4 |
| 2003 | 166 | 9 | 83 | 8 | 50.0 | 83 | 10 | 50.0 |
One could argue that when
it came to home runs, the Phillies' pitchers were hurt more last season by
CBP than the team's hitters benefited.
Also, for the sake of sanity, all of the hitters we looked at yesterday hit
about the same or more home runs away than they did at home. If the
Phillies as a team hit more at home than on the road, there must have been
some Phils hitters that hit more at home, right? And there were. Rollins
hit five more home runs at home than on the road. Bell hit two more and
Lieberthal, Abreu and Coste all homered once more at home than on the road.
This Blue Jays mailbag says Toronto and the Phils talked about Lieber and it didn't go anywhere.
Karim Garcia has agreed to a minor league contract with the Phillies. The left-handed outfielder turned 31 in October and has played in Japan for the past two seasons. In 2004 he hit 229/265/388 with 10 home runs in 258 at-bats between the Yankees and Orioles. He may be most remembered for his role in the brawl between the Red Sox and the Yankees in Game 3 of the 2003 ALCS.
Garcia could become the best hitter in a weak Phillies' minor league system. The Phillies have about a zillion guys that can play center field and be good defensively with excellent speed while on-basing about .300. At Triple-A last season they had two players that hit ten or more home runs. At Double-A they had one. By comparison, in 2005 they had ten guys that hit ten or more home runs between Double-A and Triple-A. On the other hand, if Garcia is the Phillies' fifth outfielder you have to be at least a little disappointed if not worried about the outfield.
The bottom line for the Phillies in the outfield seems to be whether or not they can acquire a better hitter than Aaron Rowand. If they can, they can trade Rowand and play Victorino in center. So far, apparently, they can't or don't want to, which means they may go into the season with two center fielders, one of who is playing right field where he seems likely to produce significantly less offense than other right fielders.
Here you can review an account of the time in 2004 when Garcia may have done his best to put the pee in pizzeria while at Spring Training with the Mets. No charges were filed.
This article mentions free agent Mike DeJean, who missed almost all of 2006 and is coming back from shoulder surgery. The 36-year-old DeJean saved 27 games in 2002 for the Brewers while throwing to a 3.12 ERA. Between 2003 and 2005 he posted ERA's in the mid-fours pitching for the Brewers, Cardinals, Orioles, Mets and Rockies. No word on any public urination issues.