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Multiple articles at the end of last week raised doubts that Delmon Young would be able to start the year on the active roster for the Phillies.

This suggests he could miss much or all of April.

That puts a dent in my efforts to guess who the hitters are who will start the year with the Phillies. You can see the post about my most recent guess, from the end of January, here.

Here’s how I thought the guys on the team and other candidates looked at that point:

I had guessed that Quintero and Frandsen would fill out the two remaining spots, assuming the Phils go into the year with 13 hitters.

Since then, in addition to the news that there’s a good chance Delmon Young will start the season on the DL, the Phillies have added Yuniesky Betancourt, who will be in camp as a non-roster invitee, and signed second baseman Matt Tolbert to a minor league deal.

Here’s how I think the locked up slots look now on the hitter side:

I moved Galvis and Delmon Young from the column on the left to the column on the right and added Betancourt to the list of candidates.

If those nine players are truly on the team and the Phils start the year with 13 hitters, that leaves them four open spots.

Of those four, one would have to be filled by a backup catcher and the other by someone who can backup short.

I still think Quintero beats out Lerud to be the backup catcher.

I’d also guess Galvis gets a roster spot to backup short, beating out competition for the job that would presumably include Betancourt, Blanco and Martinez.

I would still guess that one slot goes to Frandsen. Not sure the Phillies need him, but I’m guessing they were impressed with his .338 batting average from last year.

That leaves one slot. Of the 12 slots I’ve filled, four are filled with outfielders — Revere, Brown, Nix and Mayberry. If Delmon Young is healthy it seems clear to me that he’s the final guy. Based on what we read at the end of last week, it sounds like that’s not going to happen. I think that means that Ruf gets the final spot and starts the year with the team.

It seems like the key issue there is whether or not the Phillies truly believe that Mayberry can backup center field. As a Phillie fan, I don’t think you want to see Mayberry spend much more time playing center. I’d guess they will feel okay with that, though, and give the final spot to Ruf. If Revere gets hurt it’s going to be a big problem, but the Phils are, hopefully, going to need to solve it by acquiring or calling up another center fielder, not by giving Mayberry defensive innings there.

Anyway — four slots left based on my table above. My guesses are Galvis, Quintero, Frandsen and Ruf. That would give the Phillies 13 hitters — Kratz, Quintero, Howard, Utley, Rollins, Michael Young, Brown, Mayberry, Revere, Nix, Galvis, Frandsen and Ruf.

Michael Schwimer is still in the mix for the Phils, but I’m going be pretty surprised if we see him pitch a whole lot for the team in 2013.

This article reviews the backup catching options. Humberto Quintero is an elite defensive player — I think that’s why the Phillies acquired him and that’s why I think he’ll win the job. He’s a really bad hitter.

Freddy Galvis doesn’t care what people think of him.

The most recent post suggested that there are two positions where the total number of walks the Phillies drew in 2012, when they were terrible at drawing walks overall, was better than it was in 2007, when the Phillies were very good at drawing walks. One was center field and the other was shortstop.

Shortstop for the Phils is all about Jimmy Rollins and has been for years. He got about 95% of the team’s plate appearances as a shortstop in 2012 and just over 99% in 2007. For years we had been pleading with Jimmy Rollins to improve his walk rate. Not sure everybody noticed, but he did.

Through the end of the 2009 season, J-Roll had one year in his career in which he walked in 8% or more of his plate appearances (9.3% in 2008). Over the last three years his lowest walk rate is 8.9%. Here are his career numbers through 2009 and for 2010-2012:

From 2003 to 2007, the Phillies were either first or second in the NL in walk rate in every season. Rollins was the everyday guy at shortstop, walking in the same 7.2% of his plate appearances as his career mark for walk rate going into 2010.

So even when the Phillies were an elite walking team, they didn’t draw a ton of walks at the position. They’re no longer an elite group of walkers, but they are getting more walks from short because Rollins has improved his rate.

Center field is the other position where the Phils drew more walks in 2012 than they did in 2007. Again, the issue there is that their walk rate in center was pretty low in 2007. Rowand was miserable at drawing walks in 2006, walking in just about 4.1% of his plate appearances in center. He got better in ’07, getting the vast majority of the PA at the position and walking in about 6.9% of his chances to help get the team’s rate up to 7.0%. Led by Victorino, the team has been in the 8% range over the past four years and were at 8.5% in 2012. Victorino walked in just 8.1% of his PA with the Phils in ’12, his worst mark since 2008, but the Phils got up to 8.5% at the position with some unexpected help from Mayberry. You probably don’t think of Mayberry as a walk machine, but he walked in about 9.7% of his 227 plate appearances as a center fielder in 2012.

Delmon Young is coming off of surgery on his right ankle. Amaro suggests that he might not be able to play in games competitively until the middle of March in this article. The same article suggests that Valdes and Stutes could both be near 100%.

The Phillies have added three key offensive players this off-season. Two of them are bad defensive players who don’t walk and the other is a good defensive player who doesn’t walk.

All three of them join a team that doesn’t walk anymore.

Here’s the walk rate for Phillie batters over the last ten years and the rank of that walk rate in the NL for that season:

That’s obviously not going in the direction one would hope. In five of the last ten years, and every year from 2003 to 2007, the Phillies were first or second in the NL in walk percentage. In 2012, they were 15th in the league. The Rockies were the only team to walk in a lower percentage of their plate appearances than the Phillies.

In 2012, the team’s walk rate was down for the fifth year in a row (it’s actually 9.34% in ’08 and 9.29% in ’09).

And then the Phils added three guys that look likely to 1) play just about every day and 2) walk even less than the 7.4% of plate appearances that Phillie batters walked in 2012.

Even with the disappointment of 2012 and the playoff loses in ’10 and ’11, Amaro’s time as the GM of the Phils has been a success. The Phillies had the best record in baseball in 2011 and the best record in baseball in 2010. In 2009, they went to the World Series and lost to a better team.

So it’s been a good run.

What is true, though, is that the Phillies hitters have walked a whole lot less in the four years since Amaro has arrived than they did in the four seasons before his arrival.

Amaro became the team’s GM in November of 2008. Here’s the team’s walk rate over the four years he’s been at the helm (2009-2012) compared to the teams’ walk rate in the previous four seasons (2005-2008):

In the four years since Amaro joined the team, the Phillies have averaged 535.5 walks per season. In the four years previous to 2009, they walked an average of 623 times a year. So they’re down about 87.5 walks a season on average since Amaro took over compared to ’05 to ’08.

Not to be forgotten in all of this is that, declining walk rate or not, the Phils led the NL in runs scored per game in 2009 and were second in 2010. In ’09, they led the league in runs scored per game despite having the eighth-best walk rate in the NL.

There’s a lot of differences between the ’09 and ’10 teams than the 2012 team, though. The biggest one is that the ’09 and ’10 teams won a whole lot of games and the 2012 team did not.

The walk rate of 7.4% for the Phillies in 2012 is really low. How low? If you run out of stuff to do this weekend, look up how long it has been since Phillie batters walked in 7.4% of their plate appearances or less. It might take you longer than you would have guessed.

Michael Young’s walk rate is bad. Unlike Delmon Young’s, though, it’s not atrocious. And I think it’s more reasonable to expect Michael Young’s walk rate to significantly improve in 2013 than it is to expect Delmon’s to improve. And it’s definitely more likely we’ll see Michael Young’s walk rate approach league average than it is to see Delmon’s.

In 2000, Young got two plate appearances and didn’t walk in either of them. He made his debut pinch-running for Pedro Valdes with two outs in the top of the ninth and his Rangers down 7-5 on September 29, 2000. The next day he entered in the sixth inning and went 0-for-2 in the game. Scott Service struck him out swinging in his first career at-bat and lefty Todd Belitz got him on a fly ball to deep left to end the game. The A’s beat Young’s Rangers 23-2 that day.

The table below shows Michael Young’s walk rates overall and against lefties and righties in every year since 2000. It also shows the average MLB walk rate for that season:

So Young has failed to match the NL walk rate for any year of his career. That’s less than ideal. The best offensive year of his career is 2005 and it’s also the year he came the closest. He hit .331 for the Rangers that season with 24 home runs, but walked in just 58 of his 732 plate appearances. There were 150 players across both leagues in 2005 with at last 500 plate appearances and Young’s walk rate among those was in the middle of the pack. 7.9% put him at 84th among the 150.

In 2012, Young’s walk rate was 5.1%, which is the worst mark of his career other than 2003. His walk rate against righties of 4.8% was the worst for his career and his 6.0% walk rate against lefties was the worst it had been since 2003.

His walk rate against lefties was down, but it’s the walk rate against righties that really hammered him in 2012.

From 2003 to 2010, Young’s walk rate against lefties ranged from 7.7% to 11.8% and averaged 8.9%. That dropped way off in 2011, down to 6.5%, and dropped again down to 6.0% in 2012.

The bigger drop, though, was against right-handed pitching. Coming into 2012, Young’s walk percentage against rigties over the last five seasons had ranged from 6.4% to 7.4% with an average of 6.7%. In ’12, that plummeted all the way to 4.8%.

As I pointed out in this post, the right-handed Michael Young was simply atrocious against righties in 2012, hitting 277/312/370 with a wOBA of .280. That’s coming off of a 2011 in which he hit 330/373/465 against righties with a wOBA of .363.

Bottom line is that Michael Young has been way better at hitting righties (and walking against them) over his career than he was in 2012, as evidenced by his career 297/341/435 line and .340 wOBA against righties. And it’s not like he’s been undergoing a consistent and gradual decline against right-handed pitching. His drop from 2011 to 2012 against righties was dramatic. If he doesn’t improve against righties relative to his 2012 numbers, his career, at least as an everyday player, is just about over. But there’s also reason to believe that his chances of bouncing back against righties in 2013 are good.

Todd Zolecki takes a guess at the batting order for the Phillies here. It goes:

1. Rollins (SS)
2. M Young (3B)
3. Utley (2B)
4. Howard (1B)
5. D Young (RF)
6. Brown/Ruf/Mayberry (LF)
7. Kratz (C)
8. Revere (CF)

The Phillies are really going to have to start Delmon Young in right field before I’m willing to believe they think he should be playng there. I think Michael Young will hit lower than that and the left-handed Revere will hit higher, at least against right-handed pitching — he stole 40 bases last year and I don’t think the Phillies want him doing that in front of the pitcher in 2013.

If Domonic Brown is healthy on Opening Day and not in the starting lineup against a righty, I will be very surprised.

Here’s my guess for Opening Day, in which the Phils seem likely to face righty Tim Hudson:

1. Rollins (SS)
2. Revere (CF)
3. Utley (2B)
4. M Young (3B)
5. Howard (1B)
6. D Young (LF)
7. Brown (RF)
8. Kratz (C)

Biggest thing there is that Utley and Howard and not hitting 3/4 in the order. Howard is fifth with the righty Michael Young splitting the lefties Utley and Howard. Would the Phillies really hit Ryan Howard fifth? Against a righty? On Opening Day? I think they should. If they don’t on Opening Day, I think they will before long. When’s the last time Howard started a game hitting anywhere but cleanup in the order? June 29, 2008 against the Rangers in a DH game. Utley third, Burrell fourth, Howard fifth and Dobbs the DH sixth. Burrell breaking up the lefties Utley and Howard. Howard hit fifth in four games in ’08, all DH games — 6/25, 6/27, 6/28 and 6/29.

They’re all DH games for the Phillies in 2013 given they’re an NL team with three of them. Howard is just about a lock to be awful defensively. Both of the Youngs started more games at DH in 2012 than any other position.

Michael Young hitting cleanup against a righty to break up Utley and Howard isn’t exactly ideal, given that he’s right-handed and hit 257/291/352 against right-handed pitching in 2012.

I could easily see another catcher, like Quintero, starting instead of Kratz. I think it makes sense to hit Brown ahead of Young against a righty, but would guess that the Phillies do it the other way around. It seems to me like Revere will likely hit at the bottom of the lineup against left-handed pitching. I’d guess he hits higher against righties.

In 2012, NL batters walked in about 7.9% of their plate appearances. Right-handed hitters like Delmon Young walked in about 7.3% of their plate appearances. In their chances against righties they drew walks about 6.9% of the time and in their chances against lefties they walked about 8.0% of the time.

Delmon Young walks less than that and he always has.

The table below shows Young’s walk percentages for every year of his career except 2006. In 2006, he got 131 plate appearances and walked once (0.8% walk rate). Not saying it matters, but the walk came against righty Huston Street.

His walk rate has just about always been bad. The years when it’s been really atrocious are 2009 and 2012. As I mentioned yesterday, in 2012 there were 222 players other than Young across both leagues with at least 350 plate appearances and 221 of them had a better walk rate than he did. In 2009 his 2.9% walk rate was 249th of 252 players across both leagues with at least 350 plate appearances.

In both of those years, Young’s walk rate against lefties was down super low, almost to 2%. You’ll notice that in 2010, his walk rate against righties was similar to his walk rate in ’09 and ’12, but he got his overall walk rate up to 4.6% thanks to walks in 6.7% of his plate appearances against lefties.

Young’s best walk rate of his career was 2008 when he walked in about 5.6% of his plate appearances. That still isn’t good. In Phillies context, among the players with 100 plate appearances in 2012, Polanco walked in about 5.5% of his PA and Pieree in about 5.2%. They were all below the team rate of 7.4%. And the team rate of 7.4% was terrible.

Brian Schneider seems to be retiring at age 36. Schneider spent the last three years of his career with the Phillies, hitting 212/295/327 over 384 plate appearances.

MLB.com’s top 100 prospect list is now available. It includes left-handed pitcher Jesse Biddle at number 60 and right-handed pitcher Ethan Martin at number 80. Given that there are 30 MLB teams, having your best prospect on the list appear at number 60 isn’t a good sign.

Shortly after the addition of Ben Revere, I whipped through a couple of posts in which I lamented the fact that, given his complete lack of power, Revere was likely either going to have to significantly up his walk rate or hit for a very high average to be able to post a league-average wOBA.

In this post, I put Revere’s 5.2% walk rate from last season in the context of the 2012 Phillies.

Delmon Young’s walk rate for 2012 was 3.3%. Here’s what the table looks like if we add him (I’ve also added Michael Young, so we can look at all three new players together):

So the table now includes the walk rate for every Phillies with at least 100 plate appearances, Revere, both Youngs, the Phillie team average and the NL average walk rates in 2012.

One of the differences between the Youngs and Revere is Revere’s near total lack of power. There’s not much reason to walk Revere if you believe he has little change to do worse than single anyway. That’s not the case with the Youngs.

Michael Young’s walk rate in 2012 was bad. Delmon Young’s walk rate in 2012 was atrocious.

Across both leagues, there were 223 players who got at least 350 plate appearances in 2012. Delmon Young’s walk rate of 3.3% was better than just one of the 223. Alexei Ramirez walked in 2.6% of his 621 plate appearances. Michael Young’s walk rate of 5.1% was 201st of the 223 players.

While we’re here, I don’t think you want to let Domonic Brown’s walk rate pass you by without notice. Especially in relation to the walk rates of Young and Young, and double especially Delmon. In 2012, Domonic Brown walked 21 times in 212 plate appearances. That’s more walks overall than Delmon Young had (20) in 608 plate appearances. Brown’s walk rate for his career is 10.4% — and he’s not even a good hitter yet. I think he will be. And I think we’re not going to have to wait that much longer.

The Phillies have agreed to a one-year deal, $1.1 million deal with 35-year-old right-handed reliever Chad Durbin. Durbin last pitched with the Phillies in 2010. He struggled with the Indians in 2011, throwing to a 5.53 with a 1.64 ratio, but bounced back nicely with Atlanta in 2012 as he pitched to a 3.10 ERA with a 1.31 ratio. He has thrown at least 60 innings in relief in each of the last five years and appears to be a lock for a bullpen spot, joining Papelbon, Adams and Bastardo in the pen and leaving two or three open slots, depending on whether the Phils start the year with 13 or 14 hitters.

Durbin was with the Phillies from 2008 to 2010, throwing to a 3.62 ERA with a 1.37 ratio in those seasons combined. 2008 was the best year of his career — he threw to a 1.56 ERA in his first 56 appearances with the Phils that season and ended the year having pitched to a 2.87 ERA and a 1.32 ratio over 87 2/3 innings. He pitched for the Phillies in the post-season in ’08, ’09 and ’10 and was particularly good in the 2009 NLCS as the Phils topped the Dodgers in five games. He pitched in four of the five games in that set, facing nine batters and retiring all nine.

The Phillies signed Yuniesky Betancourt to a minor league deal. He’ll be with the team in spring training as a NRI and try to make the squad as a utility guy. Betancourt is 30-years-old and hits right-handed. He was Milwaukee’s everyday shortstop in 2011 and Kansas City’s in 2010. He got 228 plate appearances with the Royals in 2012, playing mostly second base. He hits for a low average and doesn’t walk. He’s hit 36 home runs and 70 doubles over his last 1,400 plate appearances, which is an average of about 13 homers and 25 doubles over 500 plate appearances. He was bad defensively at second for the Royals in 2012 and put UZR/150s of -7.4 and -9.2 at short in 2011 and 2010. He’s posted a negative bWAR for six straight years and a negative fWAR in two of the last four.

Hamels seems to think we should all calm down about his shoulder.