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Singles function
By egrissom | November 18, 2009
Continuing with the numbers from the last post, for the eight Phillies regulars, here’s how often they got hits or walks, singles or walks or extra-base hits or walks per 100 plate appearances in 2009:
| H or BB | 1B or BB | XBH or BB | |
| Howard | 35.1 | 22.9 | 22.9 |
| Utley | 36.2 | 27.1 | 22.0 |
| Feliz | 30.2 | 23.2 | 12.6 |
| Rollins | 29.2 | 19.7 | 15.6 |
| Ibanez | 34.0 | 21.8 | 22.1 |
| Victorino | 34.7 | 25.8 | 17.6 |
| Werth | 36.1 | 26.8 | 22.8 |
| Ruiz | 34.0 | 24.5 | 21.9 |
If you order them by their chance to get any kind of hit or a walk, the list looks like this:
- Utley
- Werth
- Howard
- Victorino
- Ruiz
- Ibanez
- Feliz
- Rollins
That order is the same as it would be if you ordered the players by their ‘09 on-base percentage.
Leadoff man Jimmy Rollins didn’t have much of a chance to get a hit or a walk compared to the other players on his team last year. Victorino would clearly have been the better choice to lead off, but arguably any player, including Feliz, would have done a better job of getting on base.
The list changes if you order the players by their chances to get a single or a walk — the group below is order by the numbers of singles plus walks per 100 plate appearances:
- Utley
- Werth
- Victorino
- Ruiz
- Feliz
- Howard
- Ibanez
- Rollins
Victorino, Ruiz and Feliz bounce up in that group while Howard and Ibanez fall and Rollins stays at the bottom.
You know who hit a lot of singles last year? Pedro Feliz. Feliz had 110 of his 154 hits this season go for singles. That’s 71.4%, which is the highest percentage of singles for this group of Phillies. Of the 103 NL players who got at least 400 plate appearances last season, just 28 of them had more than 71.4% go as singles. Highest percentage of singles goes to the Mets’ Luis Castillo, who had 89.1% of his 147 hits go for singles.
You know who didn’t hit a lot of singles last year? Raul Ibanez. Just 49.3% of his hits went for singles, which was second-fewest of the 103 NLers with 400 plate appearances. The Diamondbacks’ Chris Young was the only player of that group with a lower percentage of hits going for singles (48.9%).
If you order the list by the player’s chance to walk or deliver an extra-base hit last year, the list goes like this:
- Howard
- Werth
- Ibanez
- Utley
- Ruiz
- Victorino
- Rollins
- Feliz
Rollins finally gets out of the basement, passing up Feliz. Feliz really isn’t going to do well in any categories you can think of that have a lot to do with walks or extra-base hits. Feliz got 246 more plate appearances than Carlos Ruiz this year and had eight more extra-base hits.
While we’re on the subject of guys who hit lots of singles, JA Happ finished second in the voting for NL Rookie of the Year behind Chris Coghlan. Coghlan hit .321 this year for the Fish, but was one of the 28 NLers with more than 400 plate appearances who had a higher percentage of their hits go for singles than Feliz. 71.6% of Coghlan’s hits went for singles this season.
Bruntlett, Walker, Hoover, Ennis and Tracy are all off of the Phillies 40-man roster. The linked article suggests that this means it’s likely that Bruntlett and Walker will not be back in 2010. It says the other three could return.
I don’t quite understand what it is with the Phillies and Tyler Walker. He pitched well in 2009 for a team that had a lot of problems in the pen at the end of the year and made under a million dollars. He wasn’t part of the Phillies post-season plans and it looks like he isn’t part of their plans for 2010.
The Phillies added outfielder Quintin Berry, left-handed pitcher Yohan Flande and right-handed pitcher Jesus Sanchez to their 40-man roster.
Free agent Chan Ho Park is looking for a team that would give him a chance to start. 7.29 ERA and a 1.74 ratio in seven starts in 2009 and a 2.52 ERA and a 1.18 ratio as a reliever.
The Phillies apparently see keeping a guy who can’t play defense and hits 194/357/379 on your team all year as not in the best interests of the team.
The Manager of the Year will be announced today.
Topics: offense |
November 18th, 2009 at 9:32 am
Jedi beards are no longer bulletproof cases for making six-figure salaries. Good to know and good riddance.
November 18th, 2009 at 9:43 am
Yeah. I did kinda of like Bruntlett, but he was just awful last year. I still think he can hit lefties a little and if you’re going to be weak somewhere backup shortstop is the way to go. Miserable season and I think the Phils can obviously do better with the roster spot, but I do have fond memories of him from the ‘08 World Series.
November 18th, 2009 at 9:48 am
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November 18th, 2009 at 10:02 am
Very interesting numbers. It would be great to see where the Feliz replacements fall on the same scale.
Looks like its been made pretty clear that Rollins should not be batting leadoff.
November 18th, 2009 at 10:14 am
I’ll try to do something similar for the popular candidates sometime soon. My problem with that is that, as we’ve mentioned before, I’m not sure we really know who the other candidates are.
The Rollins thing is a little harder for me. I think the numbers do make clear that the Phillies would have been better off hitting someone else leadoff last year. Not as convinced that they necessarily mean he shouldn’t be leading off next year. For me a big part of the issue is that I think that Rollins is a less effective offensive player when he’s not hitting leadoff. It’s surely going to happen sometime, I’m just not sure when. I would be pretty happy with Victorino, Utley, Howard, Werth, Ibanez, Rollins at the top of the order.
November 18th, 2009 at 10:45 am
Charlie Manuel has a strange habit of, whenever someone questions someone’s credentials (Jimmy Rollins shouldn’t be leading off, Brad Lidge shouldn’t be closing, saying “X is my Y” as if that simple statement will suddenly make X effective in their Y role. So far, so bad. I’m not willing to give up on Brad Lidge as a closer yet. 2009 wasn’t a career study so much as an awful year.
Jimmy Rollins has not been a prototypical leadoff hitter…well…maybe ever. He’s gotta ton of leadoff homers for his career not because he’s some kind of dynamo…the guy just seems to wanna swing for the fences. What’s getting on base after all if you can just get through ALL the bases at the same time, right? The problem there is that Jimmy doesn’t have tremendous power, merely good power. He’s shown he can still hit a good pitcher when he pulls an Utley and shortens up his stroke, swinging for contact, but how much can you expect a guy to change the way he plays when he can just point to the MVP trophy on his wall as a response?
Jimmy Rollins needs to be hitting far lower in the lineup. The problem is, barring someone like Figgins coming in, I don’t know who you fit into the number 2 spot (assuming you throw Victorino up top). I think Werth would do a good job in the two-hole but you end up wasting a lot of pop and then you’re looking at lefty-lefty-lefty (unless you put Rollins 5th which…please, no) behind him.
Of course if you DO bring in Figgins, then you’ve got something nifty like either he or Victorino leading off with the other batting #2. Rollins-Ruiz-Pitcher looks a lot more attractive to me than Feliz-Anything-Anything. I have a strange feeling Jimmy would object to moving to a less prestigious slot in the order on a permanentish basis, though.
November 18th, 2009 at 11:41 am
Rollins just hasn’t been a good offensive player in the last few years. To me that’s a bigger problem than where he’s hitting in the lineup. Two years in a row of being pretty bad means I wouldn’t be unhappy if they took him out of the leadoff spot. Pretty much I just don’t think it’s going to happen, so I’m resigned that we’re going to see Rollins hitting leadoff in 2010.
I think you have a legit criticism of Manuel. I think another thing he doesn’t do well is change the plan he went into the game with during the game. What’s a little odd to me given his history is that during the post-season this year he didn’t just say Blanton is my third starter. He messed around with what he had been doing and it didn’t work.
I think on Lidge part of the blame has to go to Manuel, but he did try some other guys and the Phillies did not bring in an elite reliever to replace Lidge despite how bad Lidge was pitching.
November 18th, 2009 at 12:26 pm
Hmm.. I was expecting a recap of JA’s season and the ROY voting with a headline of Didn’t Happ-en.. very disappointed.
November 18th, 2009 at 1:25 pm
If the headline “Didn’t Happ-en” didn’t Happ-en, does a quantum singularity open up, threatening to implode our dimension of reality? Oh god, my chair is starting to move across the floor by itself.
November 18th, 2009 at 1:47 pm
I think the implosion of my dimension of reality has Happ-ened already.
November 18th, 2009 at 3:19 pm
Philliesflow.com, for all your Pun and Phake Physics needs.
November 18th, 2009 at 3:45 pm
Yep. I should say for the sake of full disclosure that I stopped knowing what we were talking about like three hours ago.
November 18th, 2009 at 4:34 pm
Thankfully, to clear up any potential confusion, this is not a thread about Desi Relaford.
November 19th, 2009 at 7:55 am
That would be a fun game…let’s compare all of the current Phillies to whom we would least like them to be on past Phillies teams. Like, the team “ace” Pat Combs.
November 19th, 2009 at 9:36 am
Ricky Otero has been a favorite anti-hero of mine from recent history.
November 19th, 2009 at 9:58 am
Remember when Jason Grimsley was the aspiring star?
November 19th, 2009 at 10:06 am
You know baseball-reference.com’s “Simularity Score” math is wonky when it determines the batter most similar to Ricky Otero is Tony Gwynn.
November 19th, 2009 at 10:07 am
Did I really just spell similarity with a u?
November 19th, 2009 at 2:46 pm
Combs and Ron Jones were two of my favorites. I had so many Ron Jones baseball cards it was ridiculous.
Wasn’t Grimsley at least in the Schilling trade? If so, one could argue that he brought value to the organization.
Sorry to totally derail the conversation.
November 19th, 2009 at 3:15 pm
Yes. Grimsley for Schilling in April, 1992. That there is a good trade. Grimsley would go on to break into the umpires room during a game in 1994 to replace an Albert Belle bat that had been confiscated with one of Paul Sorrento’s. It didn’t work.
http://espn.go.com/page2/s/list/cheaters/ballplayers.html