Replacing Pat Burrell with Raul Ibanez almost surely means the Phils will be seeing more left-handed pitching in 2009. If we look back at the NL teams from 2008, here’s how many plate appearances they had and how many of their plate appearances came against lefties and righties:
| Team | PA v L | PA v R | Total PA | % v L | % v R |
| ATL | 2004 | 4364 | 6368 | 31.5 | 68.5 |
| SD | 1959 | 4285 | 6244 | 31.4 | 68.6 |
| STL | 1971 | 4399 | 6370 | 30.9 | 69.1 |
| CIN | 1913 | 4275 | 6188 | 30.9 | 69.1 |
| PHI | 1902 | 4371 | 6273 | 30.3 | 69.7 |
| NYM | 1880 | 4508 | 6388 | 29.4 | 70.6 |
| WAS | 1816 | 4376 | 6192 | 29.3 | 70.7 |
| LA | 1806 | 4388 | 6194 | 29.2 | 70.8 |
| MIL | 1740 | 4512 | 6252 | 27.8 | 72.2 |
| ARI | 1662 | 4494 | 6156 | 27.0 | 73.0 |
| CHI | 1696 | 4688 | 6384 | 26.6 | 73.4 |
| FLA | 1620 | 4586 | 6206 | 26.1 | 73.9 |
| HOU | 1572 | 4479 | 6051 | 26.0 | 74.0 |
| SF | 1583 | 4562 | 6145 | 25.8 | 74.2 |
| COL | 1574 | 4738 | 6312 | 24.9 | 75.1 |
| PIT | 1506 | 4772 | 6278 | 24.0 | 76.0 |
Three NL teams, the Braves, Padres and Reds, all 1) had more plate appearances than the Phillies against lefties in 2008 2) had a higher percentage of their plate appearances come against lefties 3) had fewer plate appearances against righties and 4) had a lower percentage of their plate appearances come against righties.
Three of those things are true for the Cardinals as well, but the number of plate appearances that St Louis had against righties was higher than the number of plate appearances that the Phillies had against righties.
In 2008, the average NL team got 6,250 plate appearances. About 28.2% of them came against lefties and about 71.8% of them came against righties.
While the Phillies did see a lot of lefties in 2008, they weren’t in the top quarter of the league in either the number of plate appearances they had against lefties or the percentage of their plate appearances that came against lefties. That seems likely to change in 2009, so if you know of any good right-handed hitters available I wouldn’t wait much longer.
The Phillies signed 28-year-old right-handed reliever Gary Majewski to a minor league contract. Majewski will be a long shot to make the team out of spring training. It currently looks as if there is no spot available in the bullpen — if one opened, Majewski and fellow veteran righty Mike Koplove would likely be in the mix for the spot.
Majewski was good for Montreal and Washington in 2004 and 2005. In those two seasons combined, he threw to a 3.11 ERA over 107 innings. He’s always allowed a lot of base runners, though, even in ’04 and ’05 his ratio for those seasons combined was 1.40.
Since 2005, he’s thrown to a 5.81 ERA 133 1/3 innings with a 1.70 ratio.
The Reds put him on the DL with a sore shoulder after trading for him in 2006, causing some problems.
At ALStradeup.com, Ed Foley started with a 2007 Charlie Manuel baseball card and is trying to trade it enough times for enough other stuff that he donates to ALS research to get the Phillies to let him throw out the first pitch at a game.
