The Phillies were second in the NL in runs scored in 2010. That’s great news, but the bad news is that their offensive production fell off compared to the rest of the league at an alarming number of positions. Here is the NL rank by OPS for the Phils at the eight positions over the past three years:
| Position | 2010 | 2009 | 2008 |
| C | 2 | 5 | 10 |
| 1B | 6 | 5 | 4 |
| 2B | 5 | 1 | 1 |
| 3B | 14 | 12 | 15 |
| SS | 11 | 10 | 6 |
| LF | 5 | 4 | 5 |
| CF | 4 | 2 | 4 |
| RF | 1 | 1 | 12 |
Or, to put it another way, relative to the rest of the league and using OPS as the measure, the Phils got worse at six of the eight offensive positions in 2010 compared to 2009:
| Position | 2009 to 2010 |
| C | Better |
| 1B | Worse |
| 2B | Worse |
| 3B | Worse |
| SS | Worse |
| LF | Worse |
| CF | Worse |
| RF | Same |
One of the positions where they didn’t get worse was right field, where they seem sure to see a drop off in 2011. Given that Jayson Werth is coming off the best year of his career and probably won’t be on the team anymore, it seems like a good bet they will be worse in right in ’11 than they were in 2010.
Right field, catcher and third base have been the positions where the Phillies had the most opportunities to improve since 2008. And improve they did, at least at catcher, where Ruiz has led the charge from tenth-best by OPS in the NL in ’08 to second-best in 2010, and in right.
No such luck at third base, where the Phils have been in the bottom five in the NL for six straight seasons and probably will be again next year. The last time the Phils were better than twelfth in the league in OPS at third base was 2004, when David Bell hit 291/363/458 with 18 home runs.
If they’ve been bad and stayed bad for a while at third, the bigger area of worry may be the places where they’ve been good recently and weren’t in 2010. From 2008 to 2010 they’ve dropped from first to fifth at second base and from sixth to eleventh at short. Ryan Howard hit 58 home runs while batting .313 in his MVP season in 2006. The Phils led the NL in OPS at first base in that year. Since then their rank has fallen every year — third in 2007, fourth in 2008, fifth in 2009 and sixth in 2010.
The Giants win the World Series. The Giants win the World Series. The Giants win the World Series. And they’re going crazy. Heey-ohh.
November 2nd, 2010 on 10:05 am
Wow…this is a depressing post. Thanks for that this morning.
I *think* this good news from this is that 2B should improve in 2011, although maybe not back to #1. 3B should improve somewhat just because hopefully Polanco won’t be playing with a broken elbow. I’m holding out hope that SS can improve somewhat, if for no other reason than Valdez hopefully won’t start 70+ games there.
I think 1B is probably middle of the pack, Catcher will be tough to improve upon, LF and CF will probably stay in the 4-6 range, and RF will surely get worse.
The question in my mind is how much of that is offset by having Oswalt all year and a (hopefully) healthy Blanton as your #4 starter? If Madsen can avoid any chairs and Lidge is semi-reliable again, the bullpen should be somewhat stable as well. I think we’re just going to have to start thinking of this team as more of a pitching power than an offensive power.
November 2nd, 2010 on 10:29 am
Yeah, I’m kind of feeling like a little storm cloud.
I agree there’s opportunity for improvement at third base. The problem is that the Phils can’t get good in 2011 with Polanco there compared to the rest of the league, even if they can get a little better. I know you don’t like the if-your-2b-is-good-you-can-have-a-bad-hitter-at-3b logic either, but I think people should be aware that using OPS as the measure, the average of the Phillies rank of their offensive production at those positions in 2010 was 9 1/2. So they were worse than average than the league in 2010 at 2B + 3B.
Again, the biggest problem in my mind is that the Phillies offense is built around the assumption that Howard and Utley are going to be elite offensive players. They weren’t in 2010. Maybe they can be in 2011, cause I don’t really know what went wrong in 2010, but they were merely good in 2010. The Phils had a higher rank by OPS at center field than they did at first or second.
Two awful years in a row for Rollins is enough for me to lose a lot of hope he’s coming back as a good offensive player. Sure hope I’m wrong. He’s not as old as he looks, so maybe he can.
Overall, I don’t think it’s time to give up hope. I think there’s a lot of room to improve the bullpen and the starting pitching is already outstanding. I think there’s good opportunity for the same players to produce more offensively in 2011 than they did in 2010 — especially Howard and Utley. If the Phils try to replace Werth straight up with Domonic Brown, their offense is going to tumble. I don’t think they will do that, but I don’t know what they will do.
November 2nd, 2010 on 11:15 am
Oh…and I can’t believe you mention David Bell in an article. Just the sound of his name makes me cringe. I used to call him “Rally Killer” because it seemed like every time he came up with a runner on base in a big situation, he’d hit into a double play. It was remarkable.
November 2nd, 2010 on 11:31 am
I know what you mean. 291/363/458 with 18 home runs would look pretty good for the Phils these days, though. In 2004, Bell hit into 14 double-plays in 603 plate appearances. In 2010, Polanco hit into 14 double-plays in 602 plate appearances. A dominating performance by Bell in terms of not hitting into double-plays.
November 2nd, 2010 on 11:50 am
Must’ve been selective memory on my part then. What was the final tally on Valdez DP’s/walks? Did he stay in the top 5?
November 2nd, 2010 on 12:13 pm
I’d love to see this chart done by batting order, rather than position. It will be easier to compare the 2B-hitter-playing 3rd and 3B-hitting-playing 2nd situation then.
Two things jump out at me right away:
1) By OPS, Polanco + subs was outperformed by Feliz + subs? Really?
2) If anything screams “Sign Werth!!”, this is it. We need to pay him like a cleanup guy and use him in that spot occasionally, especially if Utley and Howard are going to continue driving off a cliff.
November 4th, 2010 on 7:32 am
Jim, to your #1, I believe the answer is No. Polanco+subs had a higher OPS in 2010, but compared to the rest of the NL 3B-men, they ranked lower (14th vs. 12th).
November 2nd, 2010 on 1:53 pm
I did not get to see this post until just now. Eric, I am not going to invite you to my New Years Eve party. You would flat out suck the joy out of it. “Abandon hope all ye who enter here.” (I am kidding. But yikes. What a sorry set of stats.)
Um. Do the Phillies really want to try to go forward with this cast MINUS Werth? Do they really think that Gload/Brown/Francisco is/are the way to go? I cannot believe they think that. I just cannot believe it.
I’m kind of hoping 3rd will be helped a lot by Polly’s elbow being healthy again. It will, won’t it? He’s no kid either.
November 2nd, 2010 on 1:59 pm
On Jim’s two-item list, it’s not really true that the Phillies 2009 3B outperformed the 2010 3B by OPS. It’s only true that the ’10 3B had the 14th-best OPS in the NL and the ’09 3B had the 12th-best.
In 2010, Polanco et all put up a 272/324/373 line. That’s a .697 OPS, which is better than the 259/304/382 (.686) that Feliz and pals put up in ’09. It’s the rest of the league that changed, making .697 in ’10 not rank as high as .686 did in ’09. By OPS, the Phils got more offensive production at third that the Reds, Astros, Cardinals and Marlins in 2009. In 2010 they still out-OPSed the Astros and Cardinals, but the Reds hammered them (.824 and third in the league) and the Fish passed them (.725 and eighth in the league).
November 2nd, 2010 on 2:05 pm
I feel 100% confident they know that Gload/Francisco/Brown would be a huge drop off from Werth in right. I hope they don’t feel like they have to do that. Even if they did, though, I think they still have a chance just cause the starting pitching looks so solid and there’s the possibility they could get more out of Howard, Utley, Ibanez, etc.
I think Polanco can get better in 2011, too. I think the problem is that he can’t get a lot better.
November 2nd, 2010 on 3:48 pm
MLB.com says the Phillies will make a serious run at Cliff Lee.
November 2nd, 2010 on 3:53 pm
yeah…and watch them trade Halladay right after they sign Lee.
November 2nd, 2010 on 3:59 pm
I don’t really believe them. At least I don’t believe the Phillies might have all of Halladay, Oswalt, Hamels and Lee in their rotation. I guess they could add Lee and flip one of those guys out. I’d be really surprised to see them trade Halladay or Hamels.
November 2nd, 2010 on 4:31 pm
Phils are playing the wrong park to be a serious pitching club.
But let’s play make believe for a moment. Who is the #4 starter in that mix? Oswalt?
November 4th, 2010 on 7:34 am
CBP has been hitting-neutral for the past several years. See here: http://espn.go.com/mlb/stats/parkfactor
and here: http://www.thegoodphight.com/2010/10/14/1737862/the-phillies-home-fairest-in-the-land
November 2nd, 2010 on 4:52 pm
It’s gotta be Hamels, cause he’s the one not making $15-$20 million a year. Yet.
November 2nd, 2010 on 5:20 pm
Yeah, but isn’t it fun to imagine those four starting for us next year? Oh my goodness.
November 2nd, 2010 on 6:46 pm
Yeah, if only we had prevented more runs than our opponent in the NLCS..
Oh wait, we did.
November 3rd, 2010 on 10:02 pm
Well. I just read that there seems to be a bit of a difference between Reuben and Jaysen. In years and dollars. Imagine that.
November 4th, 2010 on 10:32 am
I’m betting the difference is somewhere around 50%. On both fronts.