After hitting 279/329/327 in 711 plate appearances for the White Sox last year, Pierre has hit 277/335/322 in 1,445 plate appearances over the last two seasons. In 2011, he stole 27 bases, which tied him for 21st-best in all of baseball. He was caught 17 times, which was more than any other player. There were only four players in either league who were caught stealing more than 12 times. In his defense, Pierre was a far more effective base-stealer with the White Sox in 2010. The active career leader in stolen bases swiped an AL-best 68 bases and was caught just 18 times.

Despite on-basing .329 last year, Pierre still has a career on-base percentage of .345. And if he can get on base, that would go a long way towards making up for the gaping lack of power and diminishing speed. But in six of the last seven years he’s on-based under .345. From 2000 to 2004, he on-based .361. Since the end of 2004 he’s on-based .334. And that makes things tough for an outfielder without power who hasn’t appeared in a game at center field since 2009.

Pierre has never hit for a lot of power. He arrived on the scene with Colorado in 2000 and had two extra-base hits in 219 plate appearances, both doubles. He hit .310 that year and slugged .320, giving him and isolated power of .010. No player with 200 plate appearances in either league has posted an isolated power that low since. His isolated power topped out in 2006 with the Cubs at .096 as he hit 292/330/388 with 32 doubles, 13 triples and three home runs over 750 plate appearances.

Over the last two seasons, Pierre has hit .277 and slugged .322, giving him an isolated power of .045. In 2011, among the 146 players in either league with 500 plate appearances, his isolated power of .049 was 146th. In 2010 his isolated power of .041 was 149 of 151 as he topped infielders Cesar Izturis and Elvis Andrus in the category.

Pierre’s isolated power for his career is .067, and he’s hit that mark or better just once in the last five seasons (.084 with the Dodgers in 2009). By comparison, Wilson Valdez has a career isolated power of .087 and an isolated power of .097 while with the Phillies. Martinez’s isolated power last year was .086. Polanco’s for his career is .105, last year it was .062.

Here’s what Mayberry, Ibanez, Pierre and the average NL left fielder did in 2011:

The NL average for left fielders in 2011 for wOBA was .327. Pierre’s career wOBA is .315. Over the past five seasons, he’s posted a wOBA of .327 or better just once — in 2009 in his 425 plate appearances with the Dodgers. Pierre put up a wOBA in the .293 to .298 range in each of the other four seasons.

The Phillies signed 33-year-old right-handed reliever Chad Qualls to a one-year, $1.15 million contract. Qualls was great from 2004-2008 and pretty good in 2009 before a miserable 2010 season in which he threw to a 7.32 ERA and allowed 85 hits and 21 walks in 59 innings. Last year he bounced back some, if not to his ’04-’08 levels, throwing to a 3.51 ERA with a 1.25 ratio for the Padres.

This article points out some of the recent issues involved with trying to use Chad Qualls against lefties or if you’re not playing at Petco.

Locks for the pen at this point look to me to include Kendrick, Papelbon, Qualls, Willis and Bastardo. Contreras seems likely to take the sixth of seven spots if he’s healthy. Stutes seems close to a sure thing and Herndon would be my first guess to take Conteras’s spot if Contreras can’t go.

If you’re interested in baseball handicapping, check out our sponsor Kevin’s MLB picks blog at http://www.mlbpredictions.org.

Nix’s role with the Phillies looks likely to be as the left-handed part of a platoon in left with John Mayberry — especially early in the season when Howard’s absence at first should open up some opportunities for Mayberry to play there.

Nix offers power against right-handed pitching, he’s pounded out 48 doubles and 35 home runs against righties in 817 plate appearances over the last three season, but it will come with a low average and not enough walks. And he can’t play at all against lefties. He comes into 2012 with just 216 plate appearances against lefties for his career and a 181/235/271 line against them. The bigger concern about Nix, though, is not what he does against his bad side (lefites), but that he has a career .296 on-base percentage on his good side (against righties).

Question for today is whether Ben Francisco or Laynce Nix is a better choice offensively against right-handed pitchers, given that there’s no question that the righty Francisco is better than the lefty Nix against lefties.

I think the answer for today is no. Nix is probably better against right-handed pitching offensively than Francisco. But it’s close and I think it’s close enough to make you wonder if Francisco’s huge advantages against left-handed pitching make him the more valuable offensive player overall.

Nix was clearly better than Francisco against righties in 2012. Here’s what each of them did for the year:

Both Nix and Francisco walked 19 times against right-handed pitching in 2011. Francisco got his walks in 167 plate appearances while Nix got his in 320. Francisco walked nearly twice as often, drawing walks in about 11.4% of his plate appearances against righties while Nix walked in about 5.9% of his.

Nix was more likely to get a hit (24.4% of his PA vs righties compared to 20.4% for Francisco).

They hit doubles at almost the same rate. 4.2% of PA for Francisco and 4.1% for Nix. Nix was more than twice as likely to hit a home run, knocking out 16 in his 320 plate appearances (5.0%) while Francisco hit four in 167 (2.4%).

Almost inarguably, Nix was better against right-handed pitching in 2011.

2011 was the worst year of Francisco’s career, though. It’s a different story if you look at their career numbers against righties.

Francisco still walks more if you look at their career numbers (7.4% to 5.6%) and is still more likely to double in a given plate appearance (6.4% to 5.6%).

The gap in how likely they each are to get a hit narrows, but Nix still comes out ahead. 23.5% for Nix and 23.1% for Francisco. Nix is still way more likely to hit the ball out of the yard, homering in about 3.9% of his plate appearances against righties compared to about 2.9% for Francisco.

Over their careers, Francisco has been at least as good against righties. But not over the last three seasons.

Nix’s career to this point can be looked at in three three-year blocks — three years with Texas where he was pretty bad, three years where he didn’t play much and the last three years, when he’s been a lot better offensively than he was early in his career.

From 2002-2005 he was pretty awful, hitting 247/285/426 over 835 plate appearances in those three years combined. He played his last game of the ’05 with the Rangers in July of that year and had shoulder surgery. From 2006 to 2008 he hardly played at all in the majors, getting just 95 plate appearances between the Brewers and Rangers combined. He spent 2009 and 2010 with the Reds, hitting 257/311/468 over 519 plate appearances in those two years combined, before hitting 250/299/451 over 351 plate appearances for the Nats last year.

Here’s the wOBA each of them has posted against righties for the past three seasons:

Nix tops Francisco in two of the three years, but with Francisco posting the best mark against righties in 2009 at .349. I put asterisks next to the three seasons where the player got less than 170 plate appearances against righties for the season. In the non-asterisk seasons, Nix or Francisco got between 300 and 350 plate appearances against righties that year.

This article says that Amaro doesn’t expect Howard back for Opening Day and would be happy if he’s back in May, that Polanco should be close to 100% for Spring Training, that the Phils will be cautious with how they handle Utley and his knees during Spring Training and that Contreras should be ready near Opening Day.

The Phillies signed Juan Pierre to a minor league deal. The linked article suggests Pierre is an option for the Phils in left. That would be an exceptionally poor idea. Happily, in the same article, Amaro suggests the bulk of the time in left will go to Mayberry and Nix and mentions Brown as being in the mix as well.

The Phils have avoided arbitration with Hunter Pence as Pence has agreed to a one-year, $10.4 million deal.

Pat Burrell is retiring.

The list of guys who might hit fourth for the Phils while Howard is sidelined is apparently long.

FanGraphs has UZR data starting in 2002. Among Phillie outfielders who played at least 100 innings in each of the last ten seasons, here’s who posted the best and worst UZR/150 and the number of innings they played that year:

And you thought you might go your whole day without thinking about Chris Roberson or Ricky Ledee even once, didn’t you?

In 2007, Pat Burrell put up an UZR/150 of -29.6 while stumbling about in left field for the Phils. That’s the only outfielder for the team, though, that played 100 innings in the outfield in a season over the past ten years and posted a mark worse than the -26.0 that Brown put up over 451 innings in 2011. No outfielder on the team over the past ten seasons has played at least 100 innings for the Phils with an UZR/150 worse than his -37.9 in 2010.

Over the last ten years combined, the Phillies have 15 players who played at least 500 innings in the outfield. Of those, Brown’s combined UZR/150 of -27.8 is fifteenth. By a lot. Ricky Ledee has the second-worst mark at -8.8.

Notably, Burrell, the poster boy for awful defensive outfielders in recent Phillie history, has an UZR/150 of -8.0 over 8,140 innings as an outfielder with the Phils since the start of 2002, considerably better than Brown, but also better than Ibanez (-8.6) or Ledee (-8.8) and the same as Francisco (-8.0). Unlike Brown, whose defensive numbers early in his career have been hideous, Burrell’s defensive numbers weren’t awful early in his career but got bad when he got older. From 2002 to 2004, his age 25, 26 and 27 seasons, Burrell played 3,629 2/3 innings in the outfield for the Phils with an UZR/150 of -0.1.

Ibanez, while we’re on the subject, also had a terrible UZR/150 of -21.8 while playing left field for the Phillies in 2011 (topped in defensive feebleness on the list above only by Brown (twice), Burrell in 2007 and Mayberry in 2009, although Mayberry did a whole lot less damage being terrible in 127 innings in 2009 than Ibanez did in 1,196 2/3 in 2011).

Since the start of 2002, there are 242 NL players that have played at least 500 innings in the outfield. Brown’s combined UZR/150 of -27.8 tops only one of them (Lucas Duda of the Mets).

The Phils traded Wilson Valdez to the Reds for 26-year-old left-handed reliever Jeremy Horst. In the linked article, Amaro mentions Michael Martinez and Freddy Galvis as players who give the Phils utility depth, but also suggests that Galvis will start the year at Triple-A. Valdez should be pretty replaceable, but trying to replace him with Michael Martinez sure seems like a move that would make the Phillies worse. The article also mentions Pete Orr, Kevin Frandsen and Hector Luna as options.

The Valdez era ends with Valdez having hit 254/300/351 in 663 plate appearances with the Phils in 2010 and 2011 combined. Valdez got at least 300 plate appearances with the teams in each of those years. Prior to coming to the Phillies, he had never gotten 150 plate appearances in a season.

On October 6, 2010, Valdez started at third for the Phils in game one of the NLDS against the the Reds, which was somehow overshadowed by Halladay throwing a no-hitter. On October 23 of the same year, he was the pinch-runner at second for Polanco when Brian Wilson struck Howard out looking to end game six of the NLCS with the Giants having topped the Phillies 3-2 to take the series.

Three Phillie pitchers made MLB.com’s list of the top 100 pitching prospects. Righty Trevor May was 54th, lefty Jesse Biddle 78th and righty Brody Colvin 80th.

I think this says that Larry Bowa will be shocked if the Phillies don’t go to the World Series. Hoping for the best, but I will not be shocked if the Phils don’t go to the World Series.

This suggests that Brad Lidge and the Nats have agreed to a deal.

Notable no-shows on that list include Ryan Howard, still recovering, Domonic Brown and Michael Martinez.

Assuming you don’t count Wigginton, there are just four outfielders on that list including one, Nix, who can never, ever be used against lefties. On a related note, I have some trouble buying completely into the idea that Wigginton is the nearly every day first baseman while Howard is out. If Thome can play first at all (he probably can’t) he’s clearly the better choice. I think Mayberry is a better choice offensively as well, but to give him much time at first the Phils are going to need someone who can man left field against left-handed pitching. Maybe someone like Ben Francisco? Oh, wait.

I see one or two hitting spots as open, depending on how many pitchers the Phils decide to carry. I think one of them is filled by a fifth outfielder, either Domonic Brown or someone not currently on the roster who hits right-handed.

I think these 12 pitchers are likely to start the year with the Phils:

That assumes Contreras is healthy enough to start the year, of course, which is far from a sure thing. After Contreras, Stutes and Herndon seem like the two pitchers with the least solid hold on their slot. Brian Sanches, Phillippe Aumont and Justin De Fratus seem like the most likely candidates to squeeze past them or take Contreras’s spot if he’s not ready to go.

I have trouble seeing the Phils carrying more than two lefties out of the pen to start 2012. Unless Bastardo or Willis get hurt, or are consistently and resoundingly awful in spring training, I’d be surprised to see Joe Savery or Jake Diekman start the year with the Phils.

Joe Blanton says he’s feeling and throwing well. If he’s healthy he seems like a lock for the rotation. If he’s not I’d guess Kendrick takes his turns in the rotation, barring a big effort in the spring from NRIs Dave Bush and Joel Pineiro.

If the Phillies went with 14 hitters to start the year, my guess would be that Stutes and Herndon would be fighting for the eleventh pitching slot, advantage Stutes.

Cesar Hernandez was fifth on MLB.com’s list of the top ten second base prospects. Sebastian Valle ninth on the list of catching prospects.

Thome says that Spring Training will be the true test for his back in terms of when and how often he might be able to place defensively at first this year. I’m going to be surprised if we see much at all of Thome at first in 2012.

This says the Phillies are one of four teams still in the mix to land Francisco Cordero.

Update: Wilson Valdez was traded to the Reds for 26-year-old left-handed reliever Jeremy Horst.

In 2011, though, he had a miserable year with the Angels and finished the season with a 5.13 ERA and a 1.51 ratio. Through 14 starts in ’11 Pineiro sported a 3.90 ERA that hid the true story. He had a 1.43 ratio to go with it, having allowed 106 hits in 90 1/3 innings. Over his last 13 appearances, ten of which were starts, things blew up as he threw to a 7.11 ERA with a 1.63 ratio. In his last 23 appearances on the season, from May 21 to the end of the year, he allowed 160 hits in 118 1/3 innings pitched.

So allowing a ton of hits in 2011 was a big part of the problem for Pineiro. But there were others. Here are his combined numbers for 2009 and 2010 and for 2011 (in 2009 he threw 214 innings with St Louis in the NL, in 2010 152 1/3 with the Angels):

And here’s what righties and lefties did against him in those two years combined and in 2011:

It’s not on the chart above, but in both 2009 and 2010 combined and in 2011, Pineiro gave up a double or a triple to about 6.0% of the batters he faced. Just about everything else got worse in 2011. Pineiro doesn’t rack up strikeouts, even when he’s pitching well, but his strikeouts were down in ’11. He gave up way more singles, walked a lot more hitters and gave up home runs at a higher rate. The walks were up more dramatically than the hits. Compared to his ’09-’10 numbers, his walks rose at about the same rate against lefties and righties.

Important to remember is that coming into the 2009 season with the Cardinals, Pineiro hadn’t been good for a while. From 2004 to 2008, he pitched for the Mariners, Red Sox and Cardinals, throwing to a 5.34 ERA and a 1.47 ratio. Over those five seasons, he allowed way too many hits, giving up 867 in 741 2/3 innings.

From 2001 to 2003, Pineiro pitched for Seattle and allowed just 431 hits in 481 1/3 innings (8.1 hits per nine). In ’03 he was seventh in the AL in fewest hits allowed per nine at 8.16. That was the end of that, though. From 2004 to 2008, he allowed 10.5 hits per nine innings and he hasn’t allowed fewer than nine hits per nine innings in any year since 2003.

I think the other things to be wary about Pineiro’s recent history are 1) his 2010 season with the Angels wasn’t that fantastic and 2) his 2009 season with the Cardinals was pretty fantastic, but during that year he prevented walks at an outstanding rate he has never matched in his career and likely won’t ever match again.

In 2010 with the Angels, Pineiro threw to an ERA+ of 104. He allowed more than a hit per inning and his walk rate from 2009 jumped.

In 2009, Pineiro walked 27 batters in 214 innings. That’s 1.14 per nine innings and in 2009 he led the NL in the category. By a lot. Arizona’s Dan Haren was second and he allowed 1.49 walks per nine that year.

Pineiro hasn’t been in the top ten in his league in fewest walks per nine innings in any other year of his career. From the start of his career in 2000 through the end of 2008, he walked 7.2% of the batters that he faced. In 2009, he walked 3.1% of the batters he faced. He faced 445 right-handed batters that year and walked ten of them (2.2%). Over the last two years, his walk rate has been down, but nowhere near as low as it was in 2009. He’s walked about 5.7% of the batters he’s faced since the start of the 2010 season and about 4.3% of the righties.

Both sides seem to think that Hamels and the Phillies will discussed a long-term contract during spring training.

In this article, Hamels’s agent suggests that the pitcher’s next contract will reflect his eliteness. Or at least it would if that was a word. The agent also suggests that Jared Weaver left a lot of money on the table in signing his five-year, $85 million deal.

This says that Jeremy Accardo has agreed to a minor league deal with the Indians.

This suggests that Amaro said left field will be a Mayberry/Nix platoon and Brown will start the year in the minors barring a monster spring training.

This suggests that Amaro said Ty Wigginton will be the primary first baseman for the Phils while Howard is out with Thome backing him up.

The left-right splits on the power drop aren’t as dramatic for Howard as it was for Utley, but Howard has also seen his power against righties drop more than it has against lefties over the past two seasons.

Howard arrived in Philly during the 2004 season, getting his first plate appearance on September 1, pinch-hitting for Vicente Padilla with one out in the fifth, Marlon Byrd on first and the Phils down 5-2. Atlanta’s Jaret Wright struck him out looking. Howard got just 42 plate appearances in 2004, but was off and running in 2005. In ’05 he hit .288 with 22 homers in just 348 plate appearances as he won Rookie of the Year in the NL (despite the fact that Willy Tavares and his 291/325/341 line in Colorado managed more than 20% of the first-place votes).

Howard didn’t exactly shine against left-handed pitching in 2005, going a meager 9-for-61 against them with a 148/175/246 line and striking out in about 41.3% of his plate appearances.

If his ’05 performance elevated concerns about whether he would ever hit lefties or not, he appeared to respond in dramatic fashion in 2006. He hit a monster 279/364/558 against lefties with 16 home runs in 225 plate appearances.

That was, however, as good as it would get for Howard against lefties. In the five seasons since the end of 2005, Howard has hit better than .225 against left-handed pitching just once (.264 in 2010). Since the start of the ’06 season, Howard has gotten 1,164 plate appearances against left-handed pitchers and struck out 32.6% of the time while posting a 228/309/430 line.

It’s enough to make some people wonder if what he did against lefties in 2006 might have been a little flukey.

Back to the power, though. Utley and Howard have both seen their power drop off in 2010 and 2011. Utley’s dropoff overall for those two years has been far more dramatic against righties. Howard has also seen a bigger drop in his isolated power against righties than lefties, but without results that are quite as severe as they are for Utley.

Here’s Howard’s at-bats, average, slugging and isolated power against lefties and righties for the years 2005-2009 combined as well as 2010 and 2011 combined:

First things first and the first things is this — from 2005 through 2009, Howard slugged .661 against right-handed pitching. That’s silly. In 2006, thanks in large part to his success against left-handed pitching, Howard hit 58 homers and slugged .659 for the year year overall. That’s good enough for 80th all time on the list of single season slugging percentage.

In 2010 and 2011 combined, Howard’s isolated power against lefties dropped from .220 in the ’05-’09 period to .179. His power against righties started out a lot higher, but also fell a lot more. It dropped more than twice as much, falling from .354 to .258.

Notably, Utley has posted a higher isolated power mark than Howard against left-handed pitching over the past two years. Since the start of 2010, Utley’s isolated power against lefties is .214 compared to .179 for Howard. From 2005 to 2009, Utley and Howard has similar numbers for isolated power against lefties — .220 for Howard and .216 for Utley.

Finally, Howard’s isolated power against lefties for 2011 was .124 as he hit a rather miserable 224/286/347 against left-handed pitching. His fellow Phillie, fellow lefty Raul Ibanez put up a better isolated power number of .143 in what was a horrid season with the bat for Ibanez — he hit just 211/232/353 against lefties in 2011. There were 15 left-handed batters in the NL who got at least 125 plate appearances against left-handed pitchers. Of those, Howard’s isolated power of .124 was 11th-best. In addition to Ibanez, Jay Bruce (.251), Joey Votto (.236), Brian McCann (.219), Carlos Pena (.200), Carlos Gonzalez (.177), Prince Fielder (.176), Logan Morrison (.158), Freddie Freeman (.156) and Todd Helton (.146) all topped him.

Remember the bench-clearing incident from May 24, 2007 when Willis, with the Marlins at the time, threw behind Jon Lieber? Read all about it. And here, too.

In this article, Amaro seems to suggest that the best case with Thome would have him playing first base four or five times a month. So I wouldn’t be looking for him there every day while Howard is out. Since the end of the 2006 season, Thome has made as many appearances at third base as he has at first (one). He was at third for one pitch in 2011.

This suggests that Jamie Moyer may sign a minor league deal with the Rockies.

This and this suggest the Phillies and right-handed free-agent pitcher Joel Pineiro have agreed to a minor league contract. The 33-year-old Pineiro was awful for the Angels last year, throwing to a 5.13 ERA and a 1.51 ratio over 27 appearances, 24 of which were starts. He was very good the two previous years, throwing to a 3.64 ERA with a 1.18 ratio in 55 starts with the Cardinals and Angels. Great move by the Phils.

First things first — a .367 on-base percentage over the last two years is better than fine. In 2011, there were 99 NL batters who got at least 400 plate appearances and 16 of them on-based better than .367. Even in his two down years combined, Utley still hit for more power than an average NL second baseman. Over the last two years, his isolated power is .168. Last year in the NL, the average NL second baseman’s isolated power was .123. But a lot better than average or not, it’s not 301/388/535 and the Chase Utley of the last two years hasn’t been the same guy we saw earlier in his career.

Here’s the percentage of plate appearances for Chase Utley that have ended in hits, walks, strikeouts, singles, doubles, triples, home runs or an extra-base hit of any kind for the years 2005 through 2009 and for 2010 and 2011:

The good news is that over the last two years, Utley has been more likely to walk in a plate appearance and less likely to strike out. His triples are up a tiny bit and the percentage of his plate appearances in which he got a single is only down a little. The bad news is pretty much everything else — hits overall are way down and his plate appearances were far less likely to end in a double or a home run.

Not shown on the table above are the overall percentage of his hits that went for extra-bases. From 2005 through 2009 it was 41.7%, in 2010 and 2011 combined it was 34.5%.

Over the last two years, Utley has hit 27 home runs in 965 plate appearances. From 2005 to 2009, he averaged 29.2 home runs a season. If he had hit home runs at his 2005-2009 rate over his 965 plate appearances in ’10 and ’11 combined, he would have hit about 41.8.

When you look at his left-right power over the last two years, it’s up and down. In 2010 he was a monster against lefties and miserable against righties. In 2011, he was up against righties, but still way below his ’05-’09 numbers, and way down against lefties.

When you combine his isolated power numbers for ’05-’09 against lefties and righties, though, and compare them to the same numbers in 2010 and 2011 combined, the numbers are dramatic:

So, against lefties, despite the up and down over the last two years, in 2010 and 2011 his isolated power is almost exactly what it was from 2005 through 2009 (.216 from ’05 to ’09 and .214 from ’10 to ’11).

Against righties it was .242 from 2005 to 2009, but .148 in 2010 and 2011 combined. Utley’s numbers took a dive against righties in 2010 when he hit just 266/371/381 against them. He got better in 2011, while at the same time dropping off dramatically after a huge year against left-handed pitching. Even in 2011, though, he wasn’t hitting with as much power against righties as he had from ’05 to ’09. In 2011, Utley hit 285/362/467 against righties, giving him an isolated power mark of .182. That’s a whole lot better than the .114 he put up in 2010, but still a lot worse than anything he did in the six-year span from 2005 to 2009. During that stretch, his worst mark for isolated power was in 2009 — that season he hit 279/387/489 against righties, giving with an isolated power of .211 (nearly a hundred points better than in 2011).

Final note is that his isolated power against lefties over the last two years matches up with the previous six only because of his huge results against lefties in 2010. In 2011, his isolated power mark against lefties was .121 as he hit just .187 and slugged .308 against lefties. That’s almost as bad as the .114 against righties in 2010. Against lefties, his worst mark in any year 2005 to 2009 was 2006 when he put up and isolated power of .162 against left-handed pitching.

Ryan Madson’s agent and Amaro seem to have differing opinions about what happened before Madson agreed to pitch for the Reds.

The Phils will get two picks for losing Madson.

This says that the Phillies released John Bowker so he could sign a deal to play in Japan.

This suggests the Phils may be trying to sign right-handed reliever Jeremy Accardo to a minor league deal. Accardo was great with the Blue Jays in 2007 and good in limited action with them in 2009. He was bad in 2008 and threw to a 6.09 ERA in 44 1/3 innings in 2010 and 2011 combined.

This says the Phillies are hopeful that Howard will return to the lineup sometime in May.

The fact that the Phils had the highest-scoring offense in the league from May 23 to the end of the year sure makes it look like Utley turned things around single-handedly. And while he may have been the single biggest factor, he wasn’t the only one. As I mentioned in a recent post, Utley hammered the ball in June, hitting 297/387/470, but the Phils were still just eleventh in the league in runs scored for that month. Other factors in the resurgence included the addition of Pence to the lineup, a monster end of the season for Mayberry and improved offensive performances from Rollins and Ruiz during the second half of the year.

I think most would agree that either Pence or Utley was the key player in the offensive rebirth for the Phils. But which helped the Phillies more in 2011 — the return of Utley or the addition on Pence?

Overall for the year, Pence was way better with the bat, hitting an eye-popping 324/394/560 for the season with the Phils while Utley hit a much less impressive 259/344/425. But Utley’s return, despite an un-Utleylike performance with the bat, still helped the Phils more for several reasons, including:

• The guys Utley replaced at second were a lot worse offensively than the guys Pence replaced in right
• Utley came back much sooner. He was back on May 23 while Pence didn’t get his first plate appearance with the Phillies until July 30.

First point is that the Phillie 2B other than Utley were a lot worse than the right fielders other than Pence offensively compared to the average production for their positions in the NL. Here’s what the right fielders other than Pence did with the bat in ’11 and the second basemen other than Utley did, as well as the NL-averages for each of those positions:

The guys who played right for the Phils other than Pence, Brown and Francisco got about the same amount of plate appearances and combined for about about 91% of the non-Pence plate appearances at the position, hit just .240 for the season while the NL-average for right fielders was .271. What they did do, though, is walk a lot, drawing walks in about 11.5% of their plate appearances (NL players walked in about 8.1% of their plate appearances overall). All those walks helped the non-Pence right fielders for the Phillies up their on-base percentage almost to the level of the NL-average right fielder despite hitting for an average that was 31 points lower.

The non-Pence right fielders for the Phils didn’t hit for NL-average power at the position, but they weren’t off the mark by too much. The isolated power for the average NL right fielder was .178. For the Phillies other than Pence it was .153.

At second base, the Phillies other than Utley on-based just .283, which was bad even compared to the NL-average of .319 for the position. NL second basemen walked in just 7.2% of their plate appearances, but the non-Utley second basemen for the Phillies walked just 5.4% of the time.

The non-Utleys at second base also hit for very little power, combining not to hit a home run on the year. They flashed an isolated power of .060 for the season. The NL average for the position was .123. How bad is an isolated power of .060? Well, it’s not good. There were 188 NL players who got at least 200 plate appearances in 2011. Of those, seven put up isolated power numbers that were worse than .060. Among the 248 NL players who got at least 100 plate appearances, Pete Orr, who started 22 games at second for the Phils in 2011, posted an isolated power of .031 for the year, which was 247th among those 248 players.

When Utley did play for the Phils, he showed above-average power for an NL second baseman, delivering 38 extra-base hits in just 454 plate appearances with an isolated power mark of .166. That’s the worst mark of his career in any season where he got at least 200 plate appearances — but that’s less the point than that it was way, way better than the guys he replaced.

Overall, the Phillies other than Pence who played right field for the team came a lot closer to matching league average for the position than the second basemen other than Utley did. Compared to league averages for the position, they were closer to getting on-base at a league average clip and hit for almost as much power, while their second base counterparts got on base at a worse clip and hit for a lot less power.

There’s no question that Pence was a far more effective offensive player than Utley in 2011, but the combination of the fact that Utley simply got many more chances to hit and was replacing a group of players much worse offensively than Pence was means that the Phils benefited more from the addition of Utley.

And Utley got a lot more chances because he was back so much sooner. Here’s the percentage of the plate appearances at second that went to Utley and anyone other than Utley in 2011 and the same numbers for Pence and right field:

As a percentage, Utley got nearly twice as many of the plate appearances at second base than Pence got at right field. So Pence would have to be enormously better than Utley to have the same impact. He was enormously better in Utley in the chances he got — he just didn’t have nearly enough plate appearances to catch him.

The table below looks at each of the position and what they actually did in terms of the three slash categories plus wOBA and wRAA. It also looks at what the Phillies would have done at those positions without Pence or Utley — if they had simply continued to give the non-Utley and Pence players plate appearances distributed the way they were actually distributed and got the same number of plate appearances at the position.

As you can see, it’s not very close. The difference in the actual wRAA the Phillies RF put up compared to what they would have without Pence is 17.0 (20.0-3.0), which is just more than half of the difference for Utley (30.4).

Again, the issue is that the non-Pence right fielders for the Phils weren’t nearly as terrible as the non-Utley second basemen. The actual right fielders, including Pence, put up 29 doubles, four triples and 24 home runs over 688 plate appearances. Without Pence, had everyone continued to produce at their same levels, they would have hit 26 doubles, three triples and 20 home runs over the same number of plate appearances. They would have walked more (79 times to 78) over the 688 plate appearances, cause the walk rate for the non-Pences was better than it was for Pence. Pence did give the position a huge boost by adding a lot of power and a huge number of hits overall (again, Pence hit .325 while playing right while the non-Pence options combined to hit .240).

The non-Utley second basemen were atrocious. At their ’11 rates, they would have gotten 690 plate appearances without a home run. Utley hit 11 while playing second base last year. In addition to the power, despite hitting just .257, Utley also offered more hits than they had gotten without him and walked at a better rate. But mostly, compared to Pence, he just played a whole lot more and displaced offensive players who were a lot worse.

If you’re interested in calculating wOBA, wRAA, wRC or wRC+ for yourself, you may find this page at The Hardball Times and the link to the spreadsheet provided by the author very helpful.

This article says that Ryan Howard should be able to start baseball activities around mid-February. If you were expecting to see him in the lineup on Opening Day, I’d consider resetting your expectations.

In this article, Amaro says he hopes that Conteras will be ready close to Opening Day.

Non-roster invitees to Spring Training for the Phils this year look like they will include pitchers Austin Hyatt, B.J. Rosenberg, Dave Bush, Scott Elarton, Brian Sanches, David Purcey, Pat Misch and Raul Valdes, catchers Steven Lerud and Tuffy Gosewisch, infielders Pete Orr, Kevin Frandsen and Hector Luna and outfielders Scott Podsednik and Luis Montanez. Bush was a pretty solid starter for the Brewers in 2006 and 2008. Former Phil Brian Sanches was great for the Fish in 2009 and 2010, throwing to a 2.40 ERA with a 1.22 ratio and 105 strikeouts in 120 innings, before falling off last year. Raul Valdes is left-handed and pitched well in very limited action (12 innings) last year. Dave Purcey is left-handed and was pretty good in 2010. Pat Misch is left-handed.

This suggests the Phils are interested in reliever Kerry Wood.

This article on relievers in the system that could help the Phils in 2012 includes commentary on Phillippe Aumont, Justin De Fratus, Jake Diekman, Austin Hyatt and Tyler Cloyd.

Using slugging percentage minus average as the formula for Isolated Power, the Phils were 16th in the 16-team NL in the category. Phillie third basemen combined to hit .266 for the year and slug .342, which gives them an .076 Isolated Power. Here’s how that stacks up with the rest of the NL for last year:

The Phils just barely out-feebled the Fish, who were pretty atrocious at generating power at 3B theirownselves. During the ’11 season, the Phils third baseman hit for a solid enough average, .266 compared to the positional average of .257, but slugged just .342 — .045 lower than the positional average of .387.

So they were bad. But how bad? When was the last time that an NL team saw their 3B combine to put up an Isolated Power mark of .076 or worse? It’s been a while. Here’s what the Phillies, as well as the team in the NL with the worst mark in the category for the year, have done over the last eight seasons:

So, in three of the last eight years, the Phillie third baseman have had the worst isolated power in the NL. The last time an NL team saw their 3B put up a worse Isolated Power number than the Phillies did 2011 was the 2004 San Diego Padres. Sean Burroughs led the charge for the Padres at third that year and hit nearly .300 for the season, but with very little power and just two home runs (one of which came as a pinch-hitter and not a third baseman) over 564 plate appearances, posting a 298/348/365 line (and an isolated power mark of .067). In the defense on Burroughs, some of the damage at third was done by Rich Aurilia, Jeff Cirillo, Ramon Vasquez and Dave Hansen. That group combined to hit for no power as well, but hit just .211 over 166 at-bats while doing so.

The list above is rather ugly for the Phils. In terms of power at the position, the Phils best mark over the past eight seasons came in 2004. David Bell had the best year of his career for the Phils in 2004, hitting 291/363/458 over 603 plate appearances. That was good enough for a career best OPS+ of 107 for Bell.

Back with the 2011 Phillies, the problems with their power aren’t just about hitting home runs. Phillie third basemen hit eight in 2011, which isn’t a lot, but still better than two other NL teams (Florida and San Diego). The problem was doubles — the ’11 Phillies got just 18 doubles from their third basemen combined.

Including the 2011 Phillie team, over the last 15 years there have only been three teams that got less than 20 doubles from their third baseman in a season and only one team saw their third basemen deliver less than 18 doubles. The 3B for the 2002 Padres doubled 18 times, tying the Phillies mark from 2011. The 3B for the 1997 Dodgers hit just 17 doubles, but smoked 31 home runs at the position. Todd Zeile got all but ten of the plate appearances for the team at the position for the year, hitting 17 doubles and 31 bombs. The ’02 Padres were just bad at the position, with Burroughs (again) and Phil Nevin doing most of the damage.

Here’s a look back at what the offense did by position, breaking the season down into two halves — the 82 games through the end of June and the 80 games after the start of July.

Catcher:

Ruiz served as the primary catcher for the Phils in both the first and second half of the season. He was simply much better during the second half (after the end of June) than he was in the first.

Ruiz played a little more in the second half and showed more power, but mostly just got a lot more hits, hitting .317 in the second half after hitting .243 in the first. He actually walked a little less regularly in the second half, about 9.2% of his plate appearances compared to about 11.3% in the first half, but his on-base percentage was a whole lot better thanks to the much better batting average.

First base:

At first, Howard fared about as well after the end of June as he had in the first 82 games of the year:

Very similar numbers for Howard in both halves. He walked more regularly in the first half, but hit for nearly the same average with about the same power.

The Phils did see a benefit at the position in the second half of the year thanks to John Mayberry. Mayberry started just ten games at first the whole year, but nine of those starts came after the end of June. Mayberry crushed the ball in 2011 while playing first for the Phillies — in his 45 plate appearances while playing first he put up a monster 409/422/682 line.

Second:

Second base was an offensive disaster for the Phils in the early part of the season. Chase Utley returned at the end of May and hit .222 in 27 May at-bats, but followed that up with a fantastic June in which he hit 297/387/470. He was even better in July as he hit 293/369/550. From August 1 to the end of the regular season he hit a meager 227/305/343. Here’s what his numbers first and second half look like:

Utley was simply not good after the end of June, hitting just .250 and on-basing .328. As uninspired as those numbers are, they still were a significant improvement for a team that struggled to find offense from the position while Utley was out.

Here’s the numbers of games started at second base for the Phils in the first and second halves of the year:

So Utley started about 38% of the games at second through the end of June and about 86% of the games after June. And even though he wasn’t hitting particularly Utley-like, that’s still important. Cause even a sluggish Utley is a whole lot better offensively than those other guys. Here’s what the four guys who started games for the Phillies at second did offensively while playing that position in 2011:

Even an Utley way off his game was way better than the rest of those guys, most notably out on-basing the second-best on-base percentage in the group (Valdez) by more than fifty points.

After Utley returned to the Phillies on May 23, the Phils led the NL in runs scored the rest of the way. That was despite the fact that the offense wasn’t good at all in June, though, as the Phils finished eleventh in the NL that month. Because the offense was so terrible in June (despite a monster 297/387/470 line for Utley for the month) it’s hard for me to see his return as the turnaround point for the offense. The offense was best in the NL after that date because 1) they were fantastic in July, better than any other NL team, and very strong in August and September and 2) in the nine games from May 23 to the end of May, the Phils played nine games and scored 51 runs or 5.67 runs per game.

Third base:

Polanco, you may have noticed, was atrocious in 2011. He didn’t start out that way, though. He hit nearly .400 in April, putting up a 398/447/524 line over 114 plate appearances. After that he hit 243/304/287 the rest of the way.

He played a lot less in the second half of the season, and without the huge April his numbers were a lot worse:

When he did play in the second half, Polanco’s walk rate rose a little (8.7% of plate appearances compared to 7.6% in the first half), but his average was way off and his power nearly gone altogether. He had four extra-base hits from July 1 to the end of the year.

Here’s who started at third for the Phils through the end of June and after the start of July:

Polanco got more than 90% of the starts in the first 82 games of the year for the Phils. After the start of July, Valdez, Martinez and Orr combined to start more often at third than he did.

Here’s what the guys did offensively while playing third for the Phils this year:

Unlike second base, there was not a huge improvement at the position when the Phils got their starter on the field. For the year, Valdez and Martinez both offered significantly more power from the position while getting on base a little less. Not to be forgotten is that Polanco hit 243/304/287 for the year after the end of April — both Martinez and Valdez gave the Phils more offense at third when they played than Polanco did after his strong April.

Short:

At shortstop, Jimmy Rollins was a much better offensive player in the second half of the year than he was in the first.

More hits and more power for Rollins in the second half of the season than the first. His walk rate was down, but just a tiny bit, and thanks to all the hits his on-base percentage was up to .351. From June 26 through August 20, Rollins hit 298/372/461 over 215 plate appearances.

He didn’t play nearly as much in the second half as he did the first. Valdez made 20 starts at short on the season and 15 of them came after the start of July. Valdez had solid numbers while playing short for the Phils in 2011, though, posting a 278/338/414 line over 81 plate appearances. That’s very similar to the 272/340/417 line that Rollins put up while playing short in 2011.

While playing short for the Phils in 2011, Valdez posted a 278/338/414 line over 81 plate appearances. He got 219 plate appearances as something other than a shortstop. In those plate appearances he hit 239/277/313.

Left field:

Ibanez didn’t play as much in left field in the second half of the season, but when he did he was a little better:

He was still terrible at getting on base, but Ibanez did show a bit more power in the second half of the year.

Ibanez started in left in 72 of the first 82 (87.8%) games of the season for the Phils. After the start of July the Phils played 80 games and he started just 59 (73.7%). The other 21 second-half starts were made by Mayberry (12) and Francisco (nine).

Both of those guys were fantastic in the second half. Here’s what the two did after the start of July (at all positions, not just left field):

Mayberry was absolutely fantastic in the second half, hitting 12 home runs in 179 plate appearances while on-basing .358. That’s a lot of home runs — at that pace he would hit about 37 over a season of 550 plate appearances. For the season, he actually hit 15 over 296 plate appearances, which would have him at about 25 over 550 plate appearances.

Francisco hardly played at all after the start of July, but when he did he hit .322. That’s more than a hundred points higher than the .220 he hit in 228 plate appearances in the first 82 games of the season when he had a chance to cement his status as an everyday player. Just a tiny number of chances for Francisco in the second half, but I do think it’s curious that he seemingly forgot all about try to walk and hit .322. In the first 82 games of the season he walked in 12.7% of his plate appearances and in the last 80 he got just 65 plate appearances but walked in only 6.2% of them.

As bad as Francisco was with the Phils in 2011, he on-based .340 for the season, which was a career high. I think there’s a good chance that the Phils are going to regret having given him away.

Center Field:

Victorino played about as much in center the first and second halves of the season with about the same results.

More hits in the first half, more walks in the second with about the same power all season long. Victorino started 63 of the 82 first half games (76.8%) and 63 of the 80 second-half games (78.5%). He really only had one month of the season where he wasn’t an outstanding offensive player in 2011 and that was September. After going 2-for-4 with a walk against the Fish on September 2, Victorino was hitting a silly 308/384/542 for the season. He would hit 163/237/288 in 115 plate appearances the rest of the way. Curiously the Phils kept playing him and playing him down the stretch, even after they clinched and he continued to slump. Victorino got 125 plate appearances in September, which led the team and was also the most he had in any month in 2011.

There were 34 games for the Phils in 2011 when Victorino didn’t start at center. Mayberry started 26 of them and Martinez eight. Martinez was predictably terrible, going 5-for-39 with five singles and no walks (128/128/128).

Overall for the year, Mayberry didn’t get on base a whole lot in his 115 plate appearances as a center fielder, but he did show a ton of power. He posted a 236/296/472 line in center for the season.

In his 13 starts in center field in the first half of the year, Mayberry was wretched. In those 13 games he hit 191/255/277. In the second half he started 13 games as well, but with much different results, posting a 291/328/673. In 13 second-half starts in center, Mayberry went 16-for-55 with 12 of the 16 hits going for extra-bases — seven doubles, a triple and four home runs. Four home over 13 starts is impressive, but so is seven doubles. At that pace, over 162 starts you would tally about 50 home runs and 87 doubles.

Right field:

Hunter Pence was traded from the Astros in late July and played his first game with the Phils on July 30. He was great in August (340/413/600) and almost as great in September (317/385/550).

For the 2011 season, Pence hit 325/396/563 in 235 plate appearances as the right field fielder for the Phillies.

This is what the guys for the Phils other than Pence who played right field for the Phils did in 2011 while playing right field:

Mayberry had some nifty numbers in 26 plate appearances and Gload went 3-for-10, but those guys were bad overall. Most notably, Brown and Francisco combined to get 413 plate appearances in which they hit a meager 236/333/379 combined.

To summarize:

• In right, Pence arrived at the end of July and was not just good but great, hitting 324/394/560 over 236 plate appearances with the Phils.
• At second, the first half production was miserable. Utley returned on May 23 and gave the Phils an enormous boost, replacing at-bats by Valdez, Orr and Martinez with Utley at-bats. He didn’t have a Chase Utley-like performance after the start of July, hitting just 250/328/414 from the start July to the end of the season, but it was still enough to give the Phils a huge boost at the position.
• At catcher, Ruiz was a better hitter after the start of July. Getting about the same playing time in both halves, Ruiz hit 243/348/333 before the start of July and 317/391/425 from the start of July to the end of the regular season.
• At short, Rollins, like Ruiz, was just better at offensively during the second half, hitting 286/351/437 after the start of July having ended June with a 254/327/368 line.
• In left, Ibanez was bad both halves, but did get better in the second half and showed more power. He also played less in the second half as Francisco and Mayberry combined to make 21 starts in left. Francisco was good in limited time in the second half and Mayberry was great, hitting 301/358/607.
• In center, Victorino had similar numbers both halves with a little drop off after July. Mayberry started the same number of games in center in the first and second halves (13), but had much better numbers in his 13 starts in center after July than before it. In 13 starts in center before the end of June he hit 191/255/277. In his 13 starts in center after the start of July he hit 291/328/673.
• At first base, Ryan Howard had similar numbers in both halves. The Phils got a small bump at the position from Mayberry at the second half when Mayberry started nine of the ten games he started at first for the season. For the year, Mayberry hit a silly 409/422/682 as a 1B.
• At third, Polanco, awful with the bat in 2011, did see less time at third during the second half of the year, but his fantastic April plus the fact that the guys who replaced him at third when he didn’t play in the second half didn’t do much of anything to help the Phillies.

Again, the Phils got a huge boost from Mayberry in the last 80 games, helping out in left, center and at first base.

A big question about the second-half surge seems to be whether Utley’s return or Pence’s arrival was a bigger factor. My thinking is that Pence was a bigger factor from July to the end of the year, but Utley’s return was likely a bigger factor for the year. More on that soon.

The comments close two weeks after a post is published, which is why we could not continue the discussion from the previous about whether or not David Wright is coming to the Phils. He’s not. Or at least a lot of people are going to be real surprised if he is.