The Phillies Would Finish 5th in the AL East
Posted by Johnny Goodtimes on June 18th, 2009
The Phillies are currently in the midst of being humiliated by a decent but by no means dominant Blue Jays team. They are nothing short of dreadful against the American League, going 20-36 (.357) since 2006 (keep in mind, this has been during their greatest run since the early 80s.) The butt kicking they received from the Red Sox and now the Jays makes it look like they would be way over their heads in the AL East. Their home record, meanwhile, continues to be an epic disaster. At 13-18, they have the 3rd worst home record in baseball, behind only the hapless Nationals and the hopeless D’Backs. They are 0-8 in home series against teams that know how to spell their own names. The verdict: mediocre team lucky to be in a weak division. They’d be the Orioles if they played in the AL East. And one last thing that we hate to say but that must be said: Jamie Moyer (4-6, 6.35), it’s time to hang up the cleats. For the sake of the team. Your legacy is secure. We’ll remember you digging up the rubber after Game 5 and forget all about a loss to the Blue Jays in the rain. Seriously. But it is time to call it quits.
June 18th, 2009 at 9:59 am
Am I actually going to defend the Phillies? They are the defending champions…yes the same teamt that all but destroyed the Rays last year (one of those alleged superior AL East teams)…They have basically the same team as last year with the exception of Ibanez. Yes, Lidge is struggling (before the DL stint) and Moyer is acting his age but a baseball season has mean peaks and many troughs. This is still the same team that was a blown 9th inning save away from sweeping the Yankees in New York and the same team that went to LA and outplayed the team with the best record in baseball thoroughly. Finally, the Mets who have been swept by the likes of the Pirates this year took 2 out of 3 in Boston and would have taken 2 out of 3 against the Yankees if Castillo hadn’t dropped a ball a Pop Warner bench player could have caught.
I love the hyperbole that Phillies fans use…I remember in August last year that JGT was mulling the hopelessness of the Phillies as he is doing this year. This team is battle tested, talented and full of players who know how to win when it is on the line. They are in first though they have played some horrendous baseball. Let us stop with the hysterionics.
June 18th, 2009 at 11:23 am
The Phillies against a Double A team (the Nationals): 11-2. The Phillies against everyone else: 25-25. Mediocre. Perhaps 5th in the AL East was a bit harsh. 4th is probably more realistic. The are not as good as the Yankees, Red Sox, or Blue Jays (they are getting destroyed and they don’t even have to face Halladay.) Garrett: blame the pitchers, not Dubee or the catchers. This team really doesn’t have good pitchers besides Cole. I think Ruiz calls a pretty good game.
June 18th, 2009 at 11:53 am
well aware of the Nationals disparity, which while troubling does not condemn the Phillies as a quality team. You play the teams on your schedule. And while it is true that they’ve been beaten by most other teams, there is no such thing as domination in baseball. It’s not like basketball, football, hockey, where the final score indicates how badly the team was beaten. You say the Blue Jays are dominating the Phillies. They did last night, but on Tuesday night the Phillies had the lead going into the bottom of the 9th (how did they get dominated there). The Red Sox beat the Phillies twice in extra-innings and lost to them once, how is that domination? The Yankees could’ve gotten swept by the Phillies if not for 2 blown Lidge saves. So again, not sure if they’ve been dominated by the AL East. Bottom line is that the Phillies went 3-15 vs. the AL last season and beat the AL Champ Rays 4-1 in the WS. Interleague is meaningless. All that matters is that they win the division and have enough to beat the Dodgers, Mets/Marlins, Cardinals/Brewers in the playoffs. Which they do. You’ll see them playing October ball.
June 18th, 2009 at 12:04 pm
The Phillies had their ace on the mound Tuesday, the Blue Jays did not. The Blue Jays outplayed the Phils throughout, but fortunately Barajas kept popping up with the bases loaded. The Phillies were thoroughly outplayed, and lucky to get into extra innings. That being said, you are correct, all they have to do is get to the playoffs. Then it’s almost a crapshoot (see 2006 Cardinals). Of course, I am extremely hopeful that they pick up a quality pitcher (Halladay) and not another bum (Marquis).
June 18th, 2009 at 12:12 pm
I shouldn’t have called Marquis a bum. He’s 8-4 with a 3.77 ERA. But he’s 50-48 with a high 4 ERA in the four years previous. He’s a #3 or #4. This team needs a #2.
June 18th, 2009 at 12:14 pm
As strange as it sounds, the World Series is a significantly worse test of which league is better than is Interleague play. If for no other reason than the sample size, the World Series is (at most) 7 game played between team that have won a two-series tournament. Obviously (and I would never argue with this), a World Series win is the most important thing for any team in a given season.
With that said, if the discussion is about ranking teams during the season (projection, guesswork and opinion, for sure) then it has to be said that the Phillies really don’t look that great. You can run on forever about how they “should” have won games but that argument can be applied to every single game that falls into the “L” column for every team in baseball. The bottom line is that through 63 games they are this good. If you want to dismiss the conversation on the grounds that “we’ll see what happens” then we really shouldn’t be having any conversations at all.
The bottom line is that the Phillies are 3-5 against the AL East. I don’t know that this necessarily tells us anything, but please stop with the BCS argument of how they “should have” or “would have” done this or that. They didn’t and that’s the great thing about baseball vs. college football or figure skating: the only numbers that matter are wins and losses.
June 18th, 2009 at 12:16 pm
The Phillies beat the best team in baseball, the Boston Red Sox with JA Happ on the hill vs. Boston’s ACE and second best pitcher in baseball, Josh Beckett. They chased Beckett in 6 innings with 6 runs and 11 hits. By your logic The Red Sox are in big trouble, which they’re not. I know you don’t mean it Johnny. Blog Traffic is Blog Traffic.
June 18th, 2009 at 12:21 pm
@BMT I would never use the should have won argument. And if you look again you’ll realize I never did. I was just calling into question the domination claim Johnny was making by pointing out the fact that it’s hard to claim a team was dominated in a game they nearly won. Now did the Mets get dominated by the Yankees in that 15-0 game. Of course, but that doesn’t mean the Mets would finish 5th in the AL East either. If you wanna talk about strength of schedule let’s talk about the Dodgers and that division they play in.
June 18th, 2009 at 12:26 pm
Beckett is not in big trouble for the reason that BMT just expounded on: that you can’t take a sample size out of one game (.006 of the season). You can take it after 63 games (39%) of the season, however. And the bottom line is that after 63 games, the Phillies are a decent but not very good team. They beat up on the Nationals and are .500 against everyone else. I will, however, allow for the fact that they always seem to play their best baseball in August and September, so there is hope.
June 18th, 2009 at 12:29 pm
There’s always hope for the Phillies because they have great hitting and mediocre pitching that (historically) has found a way to solidify and pitch very well from August onwards. All I’m saying is that right now, the Phils don’t look that great and the only thing we’ve got to go on to suggest they’ll pick it up is what they’ve done in the last 2 season, which ain’t too shabby.
June 18th, 2009 at 12:44 pm
Well, I guess your point is valid Johnny, if you’re allowed to throw out the Phillies Nationals wins. I say let’s throw away the Dodgers record vs. the Nationals, the D’backs, the Rockies (hot of late but not during most of those Dodgers games), and the Padres (who after a solid start are now as bad as the Nats). So really the dodgers are just 21-16 against the non-shitty in the league. My point is you can’t just throw away the Nats games, when evaluating the Phillies season. Those wins are in the bank, they get to keep them. But if we’re just talking wins/losses like BMT suggests, then the Phillies are the 4th best team in baseball after 39% of the season,even if right now they are not playing very well.
June 18th, 2009 at 12:56 pm
That’s the point BMT…playing 8 games against the AL East and being 3-5 doesn’t dictate anything, it’s too small of a sample size. There are roughly 100 games to be played and the Phillies have the second best record in the NL…this team will make the playoffs which is more than I can say for sure regarding the Rays, the Yankees, etc.
June 18th, 2009 at 1:19 pm
Well I guess we’ll never get to a consensus about how good the Phillies are. Yes, they have the 2nd best record in the NL. They are a .500 team against every team in baseball other than the historically-bad Nationals and they lose 2 games at home for every one they win. Yes, they should beat the Nats (which they and everyone else do) but if we’re having a discussion about how we think they rate then these factors come into play. We are not arguing the standings here, we’re talking about things “power rankings” style. In that ways, wins and losses are the most important number, of course. But once you get past that, you have to look at the quality of opponents and for a team that plays in a relatively-weak division and has racked up 1/3 of its victories against a truly-awful team, there are reasons to be apprehensive about how good this team is.
June 18th, 2009 at 6:26 pm
Don’t get the wrong idea, Johnny, the pitchers certainly deserve most of the blame; they’re professionals and have shown some ability at success, therefore it’s reasonable to expect them to perform better. However, it is still the responsibility of the coaching staff and the catchers to help them work through their funks. I wonder at what they are doing about these recent problems. Since I am not in a position to watch games regularly, I’m not aware of how good or bad Ruiz is at calling a game.
I think the Phils need to get off their duffs and make a big trade-deadline deal for one more starter. Talk to teams loaded with starters like the BoSox. Talk to Seattle about Erik Bedard if they start to slip and think they won’t be in contention. The Phils have assets, they need to do something with them.