Manuel: 'We have to get better hitting'
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Manuel: 'We have to get better hitting'
Daily News staff
Phillies manager Charlie Manuel held a news conference Wednesday at Citizens Bank Park to wrap up the season. Here are some highlights:
On what Amaro said yesterday about changing the approach at the plate: “I think I’m definitely on board with what Ruben says when I talked to him. At the same time, if you guys listen to me during the course of the year and last couple of years, I touch on it when I talked about hitting. He would like to see us grind out more at-bats, learn how to work more counts, plate discipline. All those things he talks about, I talked about, I teach that … It’s a matter of keep reminding guys. We definitely will have meetings and things like that in spring training and carry it out during the season. We have to get better hitting … You have to know what kind of hitter you are. I’m definitely on board with what Ruben says.”
On the current hitters: “I take it very personal. I talk about the fact that we used to have .300 hitters .. If you have listened to me in the past, especially in the last two years you’ve heard me say that over and over again. Utley used to be a .300 hitter. He’s had injury problems … Victorino can be a .300 hitter. He can be better and can hit .300. He’s got talent and capable. Howard hit .300 hit one year. He hasn’t hit .300 since. I know he hit in the .280s … We’ve got some guys who can hit .300.”
On can these hitters adjust: “I go back to pitchers and scouting reports. You make adjustments, the pitchers make adjustments and the hitters have to make adjustments. If you don’t like to or are afraid to go deep in the count or to hit with two strikes on you, you are going to get anxious, you’ll be aggressive and chase bad balls. At times, we’ll take a fastball right down the middle, some guy will throw a breaking ball down and we’ll roll over it and swing at it and miss. That’s not good hitting. We talk about that all the time. That’s how I talk to our hitters and so goes [Greg Gross]. At the same time, pitching in baseball is getting better .. They know who likes to swing, who won’t walk, who doesn’t take pitches, who will go out of strike zone and take bad pitches. At lot of times they don’t like to go deep in the counts.”
Should the expectations be lowered moving ahead: “Absolutely not. That’s the way I like it. We play the every day game. You can put expectations on all you want to, it’s the expectations that they put on themselves and how we look at things. Right now when we go to spring training, what we will be talking about is getting to the World Series and win. That’s been our goal ever since we won after 2008."
Age of core players?: "From an offensive standpoint, with the core players, the health thing definitely comes into play, having them on the field for a period of time and instead of having a disarray of lineups. We would get a better look at how good they can do, the health part and being on the field counts as much or more than anything. Talking about guys anywhere from 31 to 34 years old. That’s at the backside of their career but near the top of what their production should be … When I say together, I don’t know how many lineups changes we had, if we have same guys in our lineup for a long period of time we get a better read on it. The last 2-3 years we just haven’t had that.”
Is the message getting through? “Do the players listen to me? Without a doubt. I know they listen to me. Do every one of them? There might be somebody who didn’t get to play or who’s upset or something, he’ll tell you. The only way to find out is if you ask them and I’m sure they will tell you. I think they listen to me.”
On can he make the changes happen? “I take a lot of pride in hitters. … I know how good a hitting coach I am and I don’t care whether you want to believe that or not. We will get better.”
What is the biggest need right now? “We have to wait and see what our roster is going to be. We have a lot of question marks. We’ve got some guys, Rollins, Madson, Ibanez, Gload. We’ve got guys like who are question marks at the moment.”
More on expectations: “When we added Hunter Pence, that improved our team and gave us a big lift and gave us a player that we desperately needed. We became a better team with Hunter Pence. Our expectation coming out of spring training, we wanted to go to the World Series and win. That was our ultimate goal. We did not fulfill that goal. We had a tremendous regular season, we got to the first round of the playoffs and got beat. I look at it that we didn’t reach our goal. We got into a 2-2 situation, we lost the third game in a shutout. Baseball is a game you’re asking a whole lot when you say we gotta win a World Series. That’s high stakes. With the talent assembled on our team people and the media put expectations that we had to win the World Series. It didn’t happen .. . I’m sorry for that."
On the home run total: “If we need to upgrade and we can, we should do it … Our home run production is down. I think Hunter Pence, he ended up hitting 11-12 home runs for us. I think we ‘re going to get 25 or 30 out of him. That will up our total … I think Utley can hit anywhere from 20 to 30, if he stays healthy. If we can stay healthy, it gets back to that being a key. Being healthy and being on the field is going to take care of a lot of things."
About the bench and whether that needs to be upgraded: “This year, I felt like that you’ll notice we carried Michael Martinez and Wilson Valdez, two utility players that are similar players. The reason we did that was because of the health problems of Chase and Polanco and Jimmy has missed time with injuries. If we had both of those guys in the lineup at the same time, it was good that we had those guys … Gload was our lefthanded hitter off the bench and we had Ben Francisco and at times we had Mayberry at times. We had Petey Orr. Any way we thought we can improve our team, I definitely will talk to Ruben about this. We can do some things, if we can upgrade our order. I had a meeting with Ruben the other day and it was very positive, him and I talking quite a bit about the team and our bench is one of those positions.”
Do you need a more vocal leader in the clubhouse? “I think that might be the key to it. It’s the team and everything together. We do have some guys who can do that. That will get the message across too. That is one of the steps we are going to take to get better.”
On John Mayberry: "John Mayberry is going to get a chance to be a regular player. I think he will get to play more this coming season than he did this year. When I talked to John Mayberry last year at this time, Ruben Amaro and I thought it was time at his age and with the time he spent in minor leagues, to see if he could play in the big leagues. He proved that he can be a good big-league player. He will get every chance in the world to be a regular player.”
On Jimmy Rollins: “Jimmy has had some injuries that definitely have cut into his running and the fact that he was a top profile base stelaer. He was one of these guys to get on first base, raise his hand and say I’m going, throw me out. I don’t think he can do that anymore. When I watch him play defense and Jimmy knows his hitting, he is capable of having a better year than he had this year. “
On getting some older players more rest: “I’m a best lineup guy. Most managers are that way. The reasons sometimes you see us flip flop players or rotate players or run a platoon system, there are guys in baseball that do that and can be very successful at it. I have had success with it in Cleveland and here. I am a best lineup guy for that day, whoever’s pitching that day I want to put the best lineup on the field. That win on the first of April is just as important as the game in September. If you can give down time at the end of the year that makes some sense."
On being among the top teams in runs scored: “Runs scored can be very misleading. What I saw was a team that had good starting pitcher. Our pitching is better than what I thought it would be. Pitching covered over some mistakes. If we did score we had a chance to win games. We won 102 games, the most games the Phillies have ever won. What happened was we didn’t get it done and that happens a lot … Baseball is a funny game.”
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Cholly the players dont listen to you. Case in point is your horible lead off hitter. He wants to hit a homer most times and fails to get on base which your lead off hitter is supposed to do. Time for a change cholly. you had the best team in baseball 2 years in a row and blew it.- i'd say 3 years in a row. if he didn't blow out lidge (pitching him 4 days in a row on two separate occasions BEFORE august) in 09 like he did durbin in 2010, and contrearas, bastardo and stutes this year, we would've beat yanks. i think hitting comes and goes,but pitching is a more known facet of the game. and i know people in phils scouting hierarchy told me RAJ was furious when he blew out Jose in April when it was cold and Chol ran him out there day after day. Managing a bullpen better may have led to Cliff Lee not having to labor through game two and a series 2-0 lead.
- For guys who are over 34, they spend a LOT of time on the DL. We could build a hospital just for Phillies players. These guys are only part-time players.— 4thand10
- Sounds like ol Cholly has been harping on his boys to be better hitters for a long long time. Clearly they haven't listened. Who takes the fall for that? Is he too easy on them? Do they need to start getting fined for not moving runners, etc? I don't expect much to change next year...— skipintro
- Be upfront with J Roll. If you re-sign you are going to be hitting sixth in the lineup. JRoll IS NOT a leadoff hitter, last 3 years avg only 25 stolen bases, .320 OBP. You cant have him leading off. Let him swing out of his shoes in the sixth spot or let him go.
Cholly needs to tighten that ship up. Ruben gave him 3 hall of fame starting pitchers since the WS team and the team has regressed every year in the playoffs. Rube has the patience of a Saint, I would have already brought in a new manager.
This window is closing quick, there already should have been multiple championships.— argonne - So who bats leadoff?— cliff1954
- Phillies never bunt, don't move runners, play basically station-to-station baseball waiting for the 3-run HR. Nobody who sees a lot of pitches, one big thing they lost in Werth. It was a great season but when you come up that short with this team, something's gotta give. With Chuck, he seems to ride his team too hard. The Aces were gassed from what I saw; too many CG's and innings. And Hamels ended it hurt. It's not gonna be easy but you have to trust Amaro with this one given the moves he's made in the past. They're in good hands.— PhillySubsMac
- I don't have to trust anyone, and I don't trust RAJ. He is OK with Uncle Chollie, and that says all I need to know about him.
As far as who leads off...— justacarpenter - PhillySubsMac: You called people "dopes" this year when they questioned the Phils' ability to win a WS, which tells us all we need to know about your qualifications to comment. — n62
- Galvis— justacarpenter
Ryan Howard definitely is not afraid to hit with two strikes. He just needs to get a lot better at it.— jp8899- "Garsh, I dint evn see dat dey wernt hittin. Shucks I gess dey better hit da ball better next year."
Fans have been SCREEMING for 2 years about this lineup that's only improvement has been Pence. Now cholly is just noticing this...please dump this load. His decision to stick with Ibanez, Polly, and maybe even Howard cost this team a run to the WS. And I'm certain he'd do the same thing all over again. I mean this is a guy who used John Bowker as a pinch hitter night after night.
XMAS List
New manager
New hitting
New 3rd baseman
Potential replacement for Utley
Shinny new bullpen.
Oh and just for the hell of it a O line and Lbacker core for the Igles.
— ziggy26 - Zig... you are really, really funny...however, you have been very naughty this year (or smoking some wacky weed), either way I think Santa may just leave you a lump of coal (if you're lucky)...Merry, Merry anyway... — stan the man too
- Cholly and Ruben need to read the papers from the day after Milt Thompson was fired. Jimmy Rollins said that it didn't make a difference because he was a major leaguer and didn't need a hitting coach. I think that was coming off a season where he had the 3rd lowest OBP in the NL (or you can call him the 3rd best outmaker in the league that year if you want to look at it another way). Look it up. I'm sure others feel the same way.— jtj10
- “the hitters have to make adjustments. If you don’t like to or are afraid to go deep in the count or to hit with two strikes on you, you are going to get anxious, you’ll be aggressive and chase bad balls. At times, we’ll take a fastball right down the middle, some guy will throw a breaking ball down and we’ll roll over it and swing at it and miss. That’s not good hitting. We talk about that all the time. That’s how I talk to our hitters and so goes [Greg Gross]. At the same time, pitching in baseball is getting better .. They know who likes to swing, who won’t walk, who doesn’t take pitches, who will go out of strike zone and take bad pitches. At lot of times they don’t like to go deep in the counts.” Absolutely right. First pitch hitting should only happen when - as it often does - they get a fastball down the middle. Rollins & Utley are the worst at this but all of them need to be prepared to stop pitches from getting the first strike. When the pitchers start throwing junk up there, these guys have to stop chasing. Ryan is amazingly impatient. And when they put on the shift, hit it "where they ain't" as the saying goes. It will take a few at bats but that shift will soon disappear. Smart hitters make the pitchers throw strikes. Watching this team for the past 2 yrs., I get the impression that they're over anxious at the plate and watch them swing at ball 4 so often, it's disgusting
— jjthree
