Philliesflow.com

In recent posts I have pointed out that in each of the last two years, Phillies starters have thrown at least 70% of the total innings pitched by the team. They’ve also thrown at least 1,000 innings each of the past two years.

To get 1,000 innings from your starting pitchers over 162 games, they need to average about 6.17 innings per start.

Will the starters throw 1,000 innings again in 2012? They’re going to need to keep Halladay, Hamels and Lee healthy and making a whole lot of starts if they are. In 2011, Hallady and Lee combined to make 64 starts and throw 466 1/3 innings. That’s about 7.29 innings per start. In the other 98 games, starters averaged 6.11 innings per start. 6.11 innings per start over 162 games is about 990 innings.

In 2011, Halladay, Hamels and Lee combined to make 95 starts in which they threw 682 1/3 innings (7.18 innings per start). Pitchers other than that trio combined to make 67 starts and threw 382 innings, which is 5.70 innings per start.

Hamels was the member of that group who threw the fewest innings per start in 2011 and he went about 6.87 — if your starters averaged 6.87 innings per start over 162 games, they would throw about 1,113 over 162 starts. As I mentioned above, the non-Halladay, Lee and Hamels starters for the Phils in 2011 averaged 5.70 innings per start. 5.70 innings per start over 162 games is 923 innings from your starting pitchers — that would have been 16th of the 16 NL teams in 2011 (as it was, the Pirates were the team that saw their starters go the fewest number of total innings at 923 1/3).

Roy Oswalt won’t be a Phillie in 2012, at least not to start the year, which seems sure to be a blow to the total number of innings thrown by the starters for the year. Oswalt was well off his career mark for innings pitched per start in 2011, but still averaged 6.04 innings in his 23 starts, a mark that was fourth-best on the team behind Halladay, Lee and Hamels.

It’s not going to happen, but the point for today is that if you wanted to make a case for Joel Piniero in the rotation for the Phils, a big part of it would likely be that he is a good bet to go a lot deeper into games than Worley or Kendrick.

Here’s a look at some of the guys who we could see starting games for the Phillies this year as well as for the former Phil Oswalt. Guys that have been in both the AL and NL have separate entries for their career and NL-only.

First of all, none of those guys on the list comes very close to going as deep into games as Oswalt does. But Piniero is the closest. Piniero was terrible last year, throwing to a 5.10 ERA over his 24 starts and going about 5.74 innings per start. In 2010, though, Piniero averaged 6.62 innings per start over his 23 outings for the Angels while throwing to a 3.84 ERA.

Kendrick doesn’t have much chance to start the year in the rotation barring an injury, but he does seem a good bet to start some games for the Phils this year. In 2011 he started 15 and went 5.53 innings per start, a little worse than his career mark of 5.59.

The rotation to start the year is almost likely to be Halladay, Lee, Hamels, Blanton and Worley. As mentioned above, Halladay, Lee and Hamels are a pretty fantastic trio to have at the top of the rotation if you’re looking to have your starters pitch deep into games. Aside from who’s going to be healthy and stay healthy, the real questions in the rotation for the Phils are Blanton and Worley.

Last year Blanton made eight starts for the Phils and threw an average of 4.79 innings per start. This misleading, though. He made a small number of starts and two of them were starts by committee at the end of the year when he had been pitching out of the bullpen in which he threw two innings. If Blanton doesn’t go close to or more than six innings a start in 2012, it’s going to be a symptom of a bigger problem. Other symptoms will be a ballooning era and a bunch of guys from the other team running around and around the bases.

Worley, though, is another matter. He went 5.95 innings per start last year and I think it’s likely he’ll be near that mark or worse in 2012. There is, of course, an issue with the age of the pitcher and the number of innings they throw per start. A good example of that is Dave Bush’s career and NL numbers, which show he has thrown more innings per start in the NL than he has in the DH-loving American League. A big part of that was the workload management he saw early in his career — for example, with the Blue Jays in 2005 at age 25, Bush thew just 134 innings in 24 starts, or about 5.58 innings per start. Those numbers may have more to do about not wanting to push him too hard at an early age than the number of innings he could have thrown.

The Phils play Florida State this afternoon. This from the Phillies web site says that righty Austin Hyatt will start with Utley, Ruiz and Polanco not in the starting lineup. The lineup posted in that article suggests Pierre will DH, Brown will play left and Wigginton third with Mayberry at first and Martinez at second.

If I get one wish for Spring Training it’s that nobody gets hurt. If I get two wishes, number two is that Domonic Brown tears it up.

Ryan Howard saw a foot surgeon yesterday.

Shane Victorino sure seems to want to stay in Philadelphia.

In my previous post, I pointed out that Phillie starters led the NL in innings pitched in 2011 with 1,064 2/3. So when was the last time an NL team saw its starters throw that many innings? 1998, when the Braves did it.

Here’s the list of the teams that led the league in innings by starting pitcher over the past 14 years:

In the past six seasons, the only NL team other than the Phillies to get 1,000 innings from their starters is the 2009 St Louis Cardinals.

No team has gotten more innings from their starter since the 1998 Atlanta Braves threw 1,074 2/3. Greg Maddux, Tom Glavine, John Smoltz, Danny Neagle all made at least 26 starts for the Braves that year and all of them threw an average of at least 6.45 innings per start. Maddux led the group, making 34 starts in which he threw 251 innings, which is about 7.38 innings per start.

In the DL-loving American League, getting a thousand innings from your starters has happened a little more often in recent history. In each of the past two seasons there were four AL teams that saw their starters toss a 1,000 frames. The Mariners, White Sox and Angels have all had their starters go a thousand innings in each of the last two years while the Rays and Red Sox have each done it once.

This suggests the Phils are going to work more on bunting and mentions Rollins, Victorino, Michael Martinez and Juan Pierre as bunt-for-a-hit candidates. Really hoping we don’t see Victorino bunting 15-20 more times a year in 2012.

The article linked above also says that Conteras’s bullpen session went well yesterday and he could still be ready for Opening Day.

This article suggests that Brian Sanches and David Herndon might be battling for a bullpen spot. I do like Sanches and think there’s a chance he can help the Phils this year, but have some trouble forgetting him allowing four home runs in relief the night the Phils lost their ten thousandth game in team history.

Danys Baez retired. Between 2010 and 2011, Baez made 80 relief appearances for the Phils in which he threw to a 5.81 ERA with a 1.60 ratio.

As I pointed out in this post from last January, in 2010 the Phillies asked their relievers to throw just 421 innings. Not only was that the lowest number of innings for any NL team in 2010, but it was also the fewest number of innings any NL team had thrown since the 2005 Cardinals bullpen threw 397 2/3.

In 2011, the Phils again threw the fewest relief innings in the NL, but dropped their bullpen innings even lower to 412 1/3.

Here’s how many innings the starters and relievers have thrown for the Phils over the past ten years:

So in 2011, 72.1% of the innings thrown by the Phillies were thrown by their starting pitchers. That’s the highest percentage it’s been for the team over the past ten years. In four of the past five seasons, the starters for the team have thrown more innings (and a higher percentage of the innings compared to the relievers) than they did in the previous season.

The percentage of innings thrown by starters presumably would have been higher in 2011 had Oswalt made more starts.

While we’re reminiscing about posts from last year, remember this one where I looked at the average number of starts the group of Halladay, Lee, Hamels and Oswalt had made over the past five seasons? I’m guessing you don’t, but the range for the group for the previous five years going into 2011 was 107-138, the average for the previous five years was 124 and the average for the three previous years was 138.

In 2011, Halladay, Lee, Hamels and Oswalt combined to make 118 starts. Halladay and Lee made 32 each, Hamels 31 and Oswalt 23. Oswalt came in to 2011 having averaged 31.6 starts a season over the past five seasons.

Charlie Manuel said that Ryan Howard had a “little setback” in his recovery. Pretty much everyone in the from trainers to GMs went all there’s-nothing-to-see-here after that.

The article linked above also points out that both Joel Piniero and Juan Pierre can ask for their release if they’re not on the major league-roster by March 31.

Forget the Howard setback-not-a-setback stuff. In the things that should absolutely terrify you category, I offer the following quote from Amaro on Juan Pierre: “He had a very, very good year last year. He had more hits than anybody on our team.” In 2011, Pierre on-based .329. He hit .279 and slugged .327, posting an OPS of .657 in a season where he got at least 700 plate appearances for the second year in a row. As I pointed out in this post, his isolated power of .049 was 146th of the 146 players in either league with 500 plate appearances. He’s really not a good choice for left field, even if you don’t have John Mayberry, Domonic Brown and Laynce Nix in your organization.

This says Cliff Lee threw on Sunday, showed no signs of an abdominal strain and will throw again tomorrow.

Remember this? Earlier this month I pointed out that the 2010 Phillies called on their relievers to throw fewer innings than any NL team had over the past five seasons. That’s not the only remarkable achievement of the pitching staff, however.

In 2010, Phillies pitchers combined to walk 416 batters on the season. That was the not only the fewest number of walks issued by a National League team in 2010, but the fewest number of walks issued by an NL team since 1995.

The table below shows the NL team that walked the fewest batters in each of the past 16 seasons:

In 1995, the Expos also issued 416 walks, finishing second in the league in the category.

In 2010, it wasn’t close. The Phillies walked 416 batters for the year. The team that issued the second-fewest number of walks overall was the Cardinals — they walked 477.

Charlie Manuel continues to talk as if John Mayberry has a real chance to get significant time in right field this season. Ross Gload notably does not appear on his list of potential right fielders.

Last week’s post pointed out that both the bullpen and the starters for the 2010 Phils posted a winning percentage that was .109 higher than the average winning percentage for a National League pen and rotation. The thing that seems odd about that, of course, is that the starters were great in 2010 and the bullpen was mediocre. Shouldn’t the winning percentage for the starters have been a lot better than the winning percentage for the pen, given that they shared the same excellent offense?

Whether we think the winning percentage for the relievers should have been worse or not, it wasn’t. The pen had a record of 27-17, a .614 winning percentage. The Phils had a better winning percentage in games where the pen got the decision than they did overall (97-65 overall, for a .599 winning percentage) or in the games where their starter got the decision (.593).

Given how small the number of decisions the bullpen got in 2010, a fluke seems like the best guess as to why the winning percentage was so good. The .614 winning percentage for the bullpen was third-best in the NL last year. By runs allowed per nine innings, the Phils were the eighth-best team at preventing runs. Was the difference in the ranking of the win percentage and the ranks allowed per nine innings unusual? Not really.

The table below shows the rank for runs allowed per nine innings pitched for the 16 NL teams this year, the team’s rank in that category, the bullpen winning percentage rank and the difference between the two:

So the Phils had the eighth-best bullpen in the league by runs allowed per nine innings pitched, but the third best winning percentage. That’s a difference of five. There were three NL teams that had a bigger difference between the rankings of their runs allowed per nine innings and winning percentages. The Nats and Cardinals both had good pens with bad winning percentages. The Pirates had a miserable pen at preventing runs, but saw their relievers combine to post a 23-21 record (it wasn’t really enough to make up for the hide-your-eyes 34-84 put up by their starting pitching).

Here’s the table for the starters:

By runs allowed per nine innings pitched, the Phillies had the second-best rotation in 2010. The 70-48 mark put up by their starters gave them a league-best .593 winning percentage for the rotation. The teams that showed the biggest differences between the ranks of their winning percentage and runs allowed per nine innings pitched were the Giants, Reds and Rockies. The Giants had fantastic pitching, the best in the league, and an unimpressive offense that finished ninth in the NL in runs scored. The Reds and the Rockies are the other two teams that had the biggest differences between the rank of their runs allowed per nine innings pitched for their starters and the winning percentage for their starters. For each of those teams, the rotation’s winning percentage was much better than their rank for runs allowed per nine innings. The Reds and Colorado finished first and the third in the league in runs scored — Cincinnati led the league in runs scored and the Rockies finished third, just behind the Phils.

Here’s how the winning percentage for starters and relievers compare to the overall winning percentage for the team for each of the NL teams last season:

Using the Phillies as the example, the way to interpret the table above is that the Phils overall played to a .599 winning percentage last year, the winning percentage for their relievers was .614 and the winning percentage for their starters was .593. The bullpen winning percentage was .015 higher than the winning percentage overall for the team and the winning percentage for the starting pitchers was .006 lower than the overall winning percentage for the team.

The table shows that the Pirates were the team whose bullpen winning percentage was better than the overall winning percentage for their team by the largest margin (followed not so closely by the Giants). At the other end of the scale, the Cubs had the bullpen winning percentage that was worse than their overall team winning percentage by the most.

It was the also the Cubs who had the biggest positive gap between the winning percentage for their starters and the team overall. As was mentioned above, the Pirates starting pitchers threw to a miserable record. Pittsburgh had the biggest negative gap between the winning percentage for their starting pitchers and their team overall.

Back to the Phillies, though. The point about the Phillies is that both the difference between their winning percentage for the starting pitchers and the winning percentage for the bullpen are very small. If you take the absolute value of each of the differences, only three teams, the Mets, Brewers and Reds, had a smaller difference between the winning percentage for the bullpen and the winning percentage for the team. Only two teams, the Mets and the Reds, had a smaller difference between the winning percentage for the rotation and the winning percentage for the team. If you combine the absolute values of both, there are three teams with a smaller combined difference (Mets, Reds, Brewers). So while it is a bit surprising that the Phillies got such an impressive winning percentage out of a so-so bullpen, it may be even more remarkable that the both of their winning percentages were so similar to the team’s winning percentage overall.

In this Q&A from the Phillies web site, Todd Zolecki suggests that it might make sense for the Phils to keep Blanton in case Oswalt is not back in 2012. Blanton will make $8.5 million in 2011 and $8.5 million in 2012.

Manuel talks about the possibility that John Mayberry would start the year with the team here. I’m enthusiastic about the runs like a deer part, but less so about the .330 career on-base percentage in the minor leagues. Mayberry turned 27 in December.

Domonic Brown was fourth on the recent list of the top 50 prospects by MLB.com. He also hits left-handed, unlike Ben Francisco, and can play the outfield, unlike Ross Gload. Also runs like a deer and without the .330 career on-based percentage in the minors (.373, for the record). My concern about what the Phillies are doing in right field is that everything seems to be based on the idea of finding a stopgap in the short term to get to Brown shortly after the season starts. If Brown is ready to play regularly soon after the season starts, I don’t think it matters a whole ton what the combination of Francisco, Mayberry and Gload man right until he does. What if he’s not, though? And how much difference is another couple of weeks or months in the minors going to make? A whole season of Francisco, Gload and Mayberry in right would combine to put up some ugly numbers. If Gload has to play defense regularly in right, they would put up some real ugly defensive numbers as well.

Here’s the bullpen record by starting pitcher for the Phils for 2010:

The bullpen had a total of three decisions in the 52 games started by Halladay or Moyer, but 13 in the 18 games started by Blanton.

Halladay pitched well enough to win in the games he didn’t get a decision, too. On July 10, Halladay threw nine shutout innings against the Reds, but the Phillies didn’t score until the eleventh when a double by Ruiz and a walkoff single by Rollins gave them a 1-0 win. Halladay wasn’t as dominant in his other no-decision in 2010. On May 12, he allowed three runs over 6 1/3 innings against Colorado. That game was also decided in extra innings — this time when Miguel Olivo homered off of Chad Durbin in the bottom of the tenth to give the Rockies a 4-3 win (it was Olivo’s fifth hit of the game).

Moyer had a decision in each of his first 18 starts on the season. His 19th start came on July 20 and he went just one scoreless inning before leaving the game with a strained elbow. Carpenter and Baez combined to allow six runs over the next four innings and the Phils lost the game 7-1.

Overall for the season in the NL in 2010, the teams that weren’t the Phillies saw their starter get a decision in 70.5% of their starts. As you know, the Phillies had the best winning percentage in the NL last year. Here’s how the difference in winning percentage breaks down between the starting pitchers and the bullpen:

The Phillies starting pitchers went 70-48 for a .593 winning percentage. The starting pitchers for the other teams in the league that weren’t the Phillies went 829-884, a .484 winning percentage. So the winning percentage for the starters was .109 higher than the winning percentage for the teams in the league other than the Phils. The winning percentage for the bullpen was also .109 higher. The pen went 27-17 for a .614 winning percentage. The bullpens of every team in the league other than the Phils combined to go 362-355, a .505 winning percentage. .614 minus .505 is .109.