2011 MLB Thread

downtown said:
I told you! I had to watch Fransisco before. He is what we thought he was.

In other news, holy crap the Indians won 19-1 last night. Good God.
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He started his collapse as soon as we started talking about him...

And that was absolutely crazy last night. That would have been a fun game to be at (at least as an Indians fan:p)
 
Scratch said:
I understand why Larussa moved Pujols away from 1st because of Berkman, but I don't think Pujols is going to be a quality fielder at 3rd. I guess the question is whether you lose more on defense by having Berkman in the outfield or Pujols at 3rd.
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The move was unrelated to Berkman. It was about freeing up right field for Allen Craig and Tony's hobby of lineup tinkering.
 
Indians! Indians! Indians! Holy crap 19-1!!! This helps their run differential (even though it's already the best in the MLB :p).
 
Nice bounce back from that bad sweep in Cincinnati by the Cardinals. 2 wins against Lee and Oswalt in 2 days. :)

It does seem like that "incredible rotation" by the Phillies is not yet really on track... In fact, outside of Roy Halladay, I'd take Jaime Garcia over any of them right now...
 
El Justo said:
phils rotation is just fine. you can have garcia and i'll gladly take lee, oswalt or hamels, thank you :) let's talk in september. it's not even memorial day yet...
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I'm not saying that Garcia is better than the three of them combined! ;)

I'm just saying that he has outperformed them so far in this season. I have no doubt that Lee, Oswalt and Hamels will form a fine rotation with Halladay, but injuries and some uncharacteristic lapses (like Lee's 6 walks monday night) seem to have condemned them to a slower start than I had anticipated. 2-4 in nine starts with a 3.84 ERA is not what I expected from Cliff Lee...

We'll see how it looks in september though... :)
 
Some of Lee's 6 walks the other night may have been due to the strike zone being called.

Lee's not off to a great start, but he's really been jobbed for run support.

Garcia's a good young pitcher.
 
If the rain holds up, I'm going to see my Tribe battle the White Sox today. i think Peavy is actually throwing for the South Siders? Should be interesting to see his condition. They're going to really need him if they want to claw back into contention.
 
Darkness said:
Nice bounce back from that bad sweep in Cincinnati by the Cardinals. 2 wins against Lee and Oswalt in 2 days. :)

It does seem like that "incredible rotation" by the Phillies is not yet really on track... In fact, outside of Roy Halladay, I'd take Jaime Garcia over any of them right now...
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Oswalt only played for 5 innings yesterday becuase he was just getting back from the DL. In fact when he left the game was still 1-1 so Oswalt didn't even get a loss. The Phillies pitchers have to shutout the opposing teams to earn a W because our offence is in it's biggest slum since suumer of '08. If the offence was actually playing you wouldn't be saying this and the phills would likely have a .700 win %.
 
Darkness said:
I'm not saying that Garcia is better than the three of them combined! ;)

I'm just saying that he has outperformed them so far in this season.
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Now, now, Darkness, you know know the rules here - thou shalt not criticise the Phillies unless thou art a fan of the Phillies. And comparing a non-Philly pitcher favourably to the super-duper four is tantamount to heresy, even if one or two of the super-duper four are perhaps under-performing so far. ;)

Nonetheless, while Garcia has been brilliant so far, he needs to put up a few years of those numbers to be considered at Oswalt or Lee's level. On the other hand, taking his age into account, I wouldn't thank the Cards for trading him 1 for 1 for Hamels or Oswalt, though (in the unlikely situation that such a trade would ever be on the table).
 
Lambert Simnel said:
Now, now, Darkness, you know know the rules here - thou shalt not criticise the Phillies unless thou art a fan of the Phillies.
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Sorry about that Lambert. Please allow me to apologize.... I will never ever again assess the Phillies objectively again... ;)


All sillyness aside: Lee's been unimpressive so far this season, Oswalt has been hurt. Hamels has been decent this season. Only Halladay has truly dominated like the pre-season hype said the Phillies pitching would. Sure, they've been hurt by Philadelphia's lack of offense, but are there really Phillie fans around that can honestly say they weren't hoping/expecting better from their "Fantastic Four"? :confused:
 
Darkness said:
All sillyness aside: Lee's been unimpressive so far this season, Oswalt has been hurt. Hamels has been decent this season. Only Halladay has truly dominated like the pre-season hype said the Phillies pitching would. Sure, they've been hurt by Philadelphia's lack of offense, but are there really Phillie fans around that can honestly say they weren't hoping/expecting better from their "Fantastic Four"? :confused:
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Hoping for? Maybe. Expecting? No. I realize there's a certain amount of randomness or luck -- I can reasonably hope for something amazing and all 4 of them to be uninjured and perfectly on top of their games. I can be perfectly happy with the numbers that the 4 of them have combined for so far:

15-10, 2.95 ERA, 33 GS, 6 CG, 1 SHO, 221.1 IP, 195 HA, 73 ER, 13 HR, 45 BB, 229 SO.

That's quality. Without what they've done, there's no way the Phils would be 26-16.

Halladay has been excellent, which is no surprise. Lee's had one really bad start which hurts his numbers, and some middling starts where he hasn't dominated; on the other hand, he's showing an ability to strikeout even more batters than before and I think we're likely to see his numbers improve as the season goes along. Hamels? Hamels has had one awful start where he gave up 6 ER which account for 30% of the runs he has given up so far in his 9 starts. He's also had one not-so-good other start, but otherwise he's been ranging from good to dominant in his games.

Oswalt of course has been hurting some, but it's encouraging that he came back looking good against the Cards this week and his fastball was where it should be.

Hamels and Halladay have combined for 4.7 WAR. The next close pair of starters on one team is Lohse and Garcia of the Cards, 4.3 WAR. Then comes Kershaw and Kuroda of LA with 3.8 WAR.

If you look at the top 4 starters for teams, it goes Phils 6.5, LA 5.3, STL 5.2. Also of interest with ATL at 3.7 and SFG at 3.5.

A drop from 6.5 to 5.3 WAR between the top 2.

The 4 of them have pitched extremely well. If the Phils had the offense that they had from a couple of years ago, the team might have over 30 wins.

ETA: Also note that in Lee's last 5 starts, the Phils have scored 7 runs, 5 of those in 1 game. They've been shutout 2 times and scored 1 run 2 times.
 
Darkness said:
Sorry about that Lambert. Please allow me to apologize.... I will never ever again assess the Phillies objectively again... ;)


All sillyness aside: Lee's been unimpressive so far this season, Oswalt has been hurt. Hamels has been decent this season. Only Halladay has truly dominated like the pre-season hype said the Phillies pitching would. Sure, they've been hurt by Philadelphia's lack of offense, but are there really Phillie fans around that can honestly say they weren't hoping/expecting better from their "Fantastic Four"? :confused:
Click to expand...

I personally just hope they make the playoffs... then the 'Fantastic Four' will kick into gear. That's what I expect. :scan:
 
Here is something else that is interesting about the Phillies pitching staff for this year. So far, 10.7 WAR and if that keeps on this pace, the Phils staff will total 41.2 WAR for the season.

Here are WAR totals for the leading NL team since 2000:

2000 ARI 17.0
2001 ARI 22.1
2002 ARI 24.3
2003 LAD 24.6
2004 CHC 21.1
2005 WSN 19.2
2006 LAD 16.9
2007 LAD 19.3
2008 CHC 20.8
2009 SFG 20.1
2010 SFG 22.6

The prior 10 seasons, no pitching staff in the NL has had a cumulative WAR of 30 or more. The Phils are presently on pace to break 40 WAR. Of course, pitching WAR is a lot higher this year so far across the league, the Braves are on pace to get 27.8 WAR. Even so, if both kept that pace, the Phils margin would be 13.4 WAR above the next highest team.
 
snarky comments indirectly fired in my direction :)

garcia is a nice young pitcher. but it's unfair to compare him to any of the top 4 in philly. all 4 are tested, seasoned, and all have hardware of some kind while garcia hasn't even put up full season yet. he broke down at the end of last year. let's hope he can build on his success from last year, not break down so much later in the year, and the cards stay competitive :) how's that? ;)
 
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