For the 11 Phillies who got the most plate appearances in 2008, here’s how many total plate appearances each had and how many of them came with the bases empty and how many came with at least one man on base:

Player PA PA bases
empty		 PA
runner(s) on		 % empty % on
Utley 707 369 338 52.2 47.8
Howard 700 349 351 49.9 50.1
Burrell 645 377 268 58.4 41.6
Victorino 627 360 267 57.4 42.6
Rollins 625 406 219 65.0 35.0
Werth 482 275 207 57.1 42.9
Feliz 463 240 223 51.8 48.2
Ruiz 373 214 159 57.4 42.6
Jenkins 322 187 135 58.1 41.9
Coste 305 160 145 52.5 47.5
Dobbs 240 128 112 53.3 46.7

And here’s the same 11 players ranked by their OPS for the season and the percentage of their plate appearances that came with men on base:

  Ranked by
OPS		 Ranked by
% of PA with runners on base
1 Utley Howard
2 Howard Feliz
3 Burrell Utley
4 Werth Coste
5 Dobbs Dobbs
6 Victorino Werth
7 Rollins Ruiz
8 Coste Victorino
9 Feliz Jenkins
10 Jenkins Burrell
11 Ruiz Rollins

It’s not surprising to see the leadoff man Rollins at the bottom of the list, but it’s a little surprising to me to see Burrell right above him. Feliz isn’t the guy you want getting the second-highest percentage of his plate appearances with men on base.

There’s also a big dropoff between the percentage of plate appearances with men on that Dobbs (fifth on the list) had compared to Werth (sixth on the list). 46.7% of Dobb’s plate appearances came with men aboard compared to 42.9% for Werth. There were five guys, Dobbs, Coste, Utley, Feliz and Howard, who got between 46.1% and 50.1% of their plate appearances with men on and another group of five, Werth, Ruiz, Victorino, Jenkins and Burrell, who all got between 41.6% and 42.9% of their plate appearances with men aboard. And then there’s Rollins, who was way below everyone.

Ryan Howard won’t be in the World Baseball Classic.

Former Phil Travis Blackley was signed by the Diamondbacks.

Article about Mike Arbuckle here.

Interview with Doug Glanville at Jimmy Scott’s High and Tight.

Next post will be around December 29.