Is the Phillies offense good enough right now? A rough projection
As you may have read elsewhere on Philly.com yesterday, Ruben Amaro Jr. thinks that his offseason work is likely complete. Given the options remaining on the free agent market, you can't blame him for feeling that way.
Is the Phillies offense good enough right now? A rough projection
David Murphy, Daily News Staff Writer
By DAVID MURPHY
As you may have read elsewhere on Philly.com yesterday, Ruben Amaro Jr. thinks that his offseason work is likely complete. Given the options remaining on the free agent market, you can't blame him for feeling that way. I still would not be surprised if the Phillies landed a right-handed power bat like Scott Hairston, but any such player is likely to be a part-time player struggled against right-handed pitching while mashing lefties.
We'll give a deeper review of the Phillies offseason in the coming weeks. For now, though, let's look at how this offense might look, with unproven players starting the season in a rotation in both left and right field (and, frankly, I'm not sure that you can say that Ben Revere is proven in center field either).
I took each player's totals over the last three seasons combined and used those rates to project a 2013 season based on a specific number of plate appearances. Here is what I got, and how those numbers compare to last season's totals.
| Player | PAs | BA | OBP | SLG | OPS | HR | SB | CS |
| Darin Ruf | 450 | .305 | .386 | .520 | .906 | 16 | 2 | 1 |
| Carlos Ruiz | 425 | .303 | .387 | .454 | .841 | 10 | 2 | 0 |
| Ryan Howard | 675 | .256 | .339 | .483 | .822 | 34 | 1 | 0 |
| Chase Utley | 675 | .264 | .366 | .433 | .800 | 19 | 19 | 2 |
| Michael Young | 675 | .299 | .341 | .430 | .771 | 13 | 4 | 2 |
| Jimmy Rollins | 675 | .255 | .324 | .405 | .729 | 18 | 30 | 5 |
| Ben Revere | 675 | .278 | .317 | .323 | .639 | 0 | 47 | 12 |
| Domonic Brown | 450 | .236 | .315 | .388 | .703 | 11 | 5 | 2 |
| Laynce Nix | 300 | .260 | .315 | .444 | .760 | 10 | 1 | 1 |
| John Mayberry Jr. | 325 | .257 | .317 | .446 | .763 | 13 | 4 | 2 |
| Erik Kratz | 300 | .227 | .281 | .431 | .712 | 14 | 0 | 0 |
| Kevin Frandsen | 183 | .299 | .339 | .392 | .731 | 1 | 1 | 0 |
| PROJECTED 2013 | 6172 | .263 | .328 | .412 | .741 | 160 | 116 | 30 |
| 2012 TOTALS | 6172 | .255 | .317 | .400 | .716 | 158 | 116 | 23 |
These numbers don't really tell you much of anything except that even in a near-perfect world in which Michael Young, Chase Utley, Jimmy Rollins and Ryan Howard stay healthy for an entire season and log 675 plate appearances and Darin Ruf continues to hit at the ridiculous pace that marked his minor league career and Carlos Ruiz makes 425 plate appearances, the numbers still aren't overwhelming. A .741 team OPS would have ranked sixth in the National League last year (the Phillies .716 ranked eighth). The 160 home runs would have ranked seventh. The .328 OBP would have tied for third. The Nationals, for example, finished the season with a .261/.322/.428 battling line and 194 home runs, in addition to boasting the best pitching staff in the league.
Again, these numbers are assuming everybody stays healthy, and it assumes that each player will come close to producing as he has over the previous three seasons. In other words, it pretty much plans on an absolute best case scenario. The only potential wild card is Domonic Brown, who has hit .236/.315/.388 in two major league stints but certainly has the potential for more.
In fact, if everything remains as it is, the Phillies formula for offense in 2013 will essentially be the hope that young players like Brown, Ruf and Revere take huge steps forward while veterans like Utley, Rollins, Young and Howard remain healthy and stave off any precipitous decline in production (like the one that Young experienced last year).
goin into a season with swagger versus keeping your fingers crossed. lets hope they put it together one more time.— FunCakes
The numbers are useless as predictors. Whom will bat lead-off? Who will bat in the 2 hole? What will be the platoon scheme to mitigate the lack of RH bats in the lineup? Will Cholly be able to make the tactical moves that he failed to make last season? Who will be the team leaders and motivators? How will Cholly deal with Rollins' attitude and effect on Young players. What will Cholly do if Young/Utley/Howard don't bounce back - just play them anyway because he always sticks with the established veterans? All that has more to do with how the offense will perform in 2013 than numbers from the last three years. Sorry in a word the article was stupid.- I think you low balled the home run totals of Ruf, Howard and Young. Ruf showed last year during his short audition ( thanks to Charlie) that he hits the ball hard 3 out 4 trips to the plate and in this ballpark that translates into 28 to 30 homers. A healthy and in shape Howard can easily knock 40 homers. Young played 81 games last year in a pitchers park and I look for 20 to 25 round trippers out of him. Murph, don't know what your problem is with Ruf, you try to make him seem mediocre at every opportunity, but I believe the kid has a big future in front of him.— bigtbone
- So Michael Young, who has 19 HRs in his last 1200 at bats, never hit 25 HRs in his long career, and has seen a significant increase in his ground ball rate in recent years is going to suddenly become a power hitter at age 36? Good call. — jtj06
- bigtbone - Ballpark in Arlington is one of the best hitter's parks in MLB, not sure where you're gathering your information from. It's better for hitters than CBP.— dcs2008
- Agree those numbers are useless. This team is looking at sub-.500 with this group and that outfield. Hate to be Negadelphia but I just don't see anything good from this another-year-older core group.— PhillySubsMac
- Where's the projections for bad pitches swung at, run-scoring droughts, Jimmy Rollins pop-ups, etc?— pic man
- Seriously, guys - this is a pretty unreal look at the predictors. I mean, who KNOWS who is going to have a break-out year, who's going to get injured, or how the lineup will perform with each other. This is where the sabermetrics-mentality can sometimes get a little bit carried away. Like the idea of this post, but sometimes data is not as useful as it might seem...— Philth
- Just want to see Charlie pinch hit Ruf for Howard when facing a left handed pitcher with runners on base late in a game. That blind devotion to veterans is maddening. If Charlie would shake things up a little maybe Howard would be willing to learn to hit to the opposite field in certain situations— bmayer1865
- GOOD..it looks like the Ruf and Brown platoon in left field will hit a combined 30 HOME RUNS....and Mayberry/ Nix right field platoon hit about 25 HOME RUNS.....That's good corner outfield power.— jim35
- I think we'll have no real idea about the outfield until sometime in May. But if they weren't going for Hamilton then I understand why no other moves were made. Any bottom feeding move for a guy like Hairston now most likely just takes ABs away from Ruf unless they trade a guy like Nix somehow.
If the offense reverses the trend and moves back toward 2008/2009 even a little over last year, then pitching is the other variable. A better bullpen and rotation can keep them in it to the trade deadline if the offense doesn't continue the downward trend we've seen over the past 4 years. With that in mind (and I've said it before) I might go for another bullpen arm.— s - In 2007 & 2008 the Phillies offense was full of guys who worked counts and got on base. Since Amaro has been at the helm he has decreased that aspect of the team with every move. For example M. Young saw the fewest pitches per at bat last year and had a horrible OBP. We can only hope the home grown players- Ruf and Brown- who appear to have some patience at the plate will come through and compensate for Amaro's foolishness. I expect him to bring in Hairston because he loves to collect low OBP guys. You can't find many veteran outfielder with a career OBP as low as Hairston's .302, but Amaro has Nix with a career .290 OBP. Pa-thet-ic. — jtj06
- Correction: M. Young was third worst in pitches per plate appearance with 3.44. Revere was 16th with 3.67 (slightly worse than Victorino). In the NL Rollins was 17th worst at 3.72. Amaro likes to get the games started off easy for opposing pitchers. — jtj06
- Correction: M. Young was third worst in pitches per plate appearance with 3.44. Revere was 16th with 3.67 (slightly worse than Victorino). In the NL Rollins was 17th worst at 3.72. Amaro likes to get the games started off easy for opposing pitchers. — jtj06
- Geez, ANOTHER season of John Mayberry? Seriously? Whom does he have photos of in the Phillies organization? And let's be real, when has anyone come up from the Phillies minors as a rookie and pounded opposing pitchers, so let's take Ruf game to game and see what happens. They never have an "impact" player produce first season. Even MJ Schmidt struggled.— chescoguy
