Other Sports: Philadelphia Phillies: The Road To .500 (2023 Edition)

[wankstifier]

I'm not talking about just this season. I'm talking about in general, but at this point I'm also talking about next season. We got an abnormally bad version of Turner for the first part of the season. I'm guessing that post "ovation" his numbers were more in line with his career numbers. And if guys at the top of the order aren't getting on base then you're not winning anything anyway and that's the problem you have to fix.

Sure, let's take a look at that stretch:

Which of those looks more sustainable to you? I want MVP Turner as bad as you, but that's not realistic to expect over a full season

 

[Jack Straw]

Sure, let's take a look at that stretch:

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Which of those looks more sustainable to you? I want MVP Turner as bad as you, but that's not realistic to expect over a full season

You're disagreeing with me by posting stats that support what I said?

 

[WIP CALLER]

Honestly I think this was a situation of being too big for your britches. They were flying so high like nothing could stop them, then they hit a wall and just it seemed like the big guns swung at every single pitch regardless of where it was and expected good things to happen because they were on such a tear (with the exception of Schwarber). It just ran out. With more time they could have righted the ship but you don't get more time in the playoffs. Maybe we can blame the playoff format like Braves fans? We shouldn't have had to play the Braves because we were a higher seed than AZ so we were tired! Wahhhhh!

A team like Arizona that finished 6 games over .500 doesn't even belong in the postseason where how you perform in the longest regular season in sports should actually mean something and no one will ever convince me otherwise. But MLB has made their bed and now they have to lay in it. This is the best possible world series for shoving their stupid playoff expansion in their face. Honestly at this point, I hope the the Dbacks win it all and they expand it to 8 teams in each league making it so we can watch a team that finishes under .500 win the whole thing while the only people that might care are from that city because everyone else knows what a farce the entire thing is. If MLB was truly concerned about determining the best team in the postseason, the only change they'd of made was doing away with divisions, playing equal schedules, and just letting the top 4 teams in each league duke it out in 7 game series so that you wouldn't have a 85 win team from a shitty division in the playoffs while a 100 win team in another division is at home. Instead we get this nonsense.

 

[Halladay]

I would go after Montgomery if they were to sign a free agent pitcher. But he is another lefty.

 

[Embiid]

Thomson is not a good manager. Plain and simple.

He is also plain and simple..yes

 

[Gregor Samsa]

A team like Arizona that finished 6 games over .500 doesn't even belong in the postseason where how you perform in the longest regular season in sports should actually mean something and no one will ever convince me otherwise. But MLB has made their bed and now they have to lay in it. This is the best possible world series for shoving their stupid playoff expansion in their face. Honestly at this point, I hope the the Dbacks win it all and they expand it to 8 teams in each league making it so we can watch a team that finishes under .500 win the whole thing while the only people that might care are from that city because everyone else knows what a farce the entire thing is. If MLB was truly concerned about determining the best team in the postseason, the only change they'd of made was doing away with divisions, playing equal schedules, and just letting the top 4 teams in each league duke it out in 7 game series so that you wouldn't have a 85 win team from a shitty division in the playoffs while a 100 win team in another division is at home. Instead we get this nonsense.

This is in Braves’ fans territory. Upsets are part of what make playoffs great. It just sucks when it’s your team being upset. You wouldn’t have posted this if the Phillies took care of business. They didn’t .

 

[Svechhammer]

Topper is the Doc Rivers of MLB managers. He can make sure a really stacked roster doesn't shit itself, so he's not Girardi levels of bad, but he f***ing sucks when it matters most.

We will not win a World Series with him. And its only a matter of time before he mismanages the bullpen to the extent that he torches his reputation for free agents. How the f*** Walker never got into a single game this playoff run is beyond me. We should have gone to him in Game 3, at the very least to keep the bullpen healthy for the rest of the series. But no, numbnuts had to go and f*** it all up because his gut feeling was more important than the f***ing analytics this team is built upon.

 

[Jack Straw]

 

[wankstifier]

Okay, I just think we fundamentally disagree. A recap for my convenience:

We're talking about this season. Turner's career OBP is driven be his speed and ability to make contact. I can see an argument for peak Turner leading off over peak Schwarber. But we didn't get those players this season. I get that Turner is an awesome baserunner and Schwarber clogs the paths for guys with speed. However, at his worst, Turner is in a pitcher's count and either whiffing or fighting to make weak contact, whereas Schwarber is at least making the opposition work for an out.

I'm not talking about just this season. I'm talking about in general, but at this point I'm also talking about next season. We got an abnormally bad version of Turner for the first part of the season. I'm guessing that post "ovation" his numbers were more in line with his career numbers. And if guys at the top of the order aren't getting on base then you're not winning anything anyway and that's the problem you have to fix.

You're disagreeing with me by posting stats that support what I said?

I want Schwarber getting more ABs than Turner because dingers are king. Also, I'm willing to bet on Schwarber's approach leading to him getting on base more than Turner in a key moment. If the team is down and they desperately need to grind out a run with Schwarber on base, then they can make a substitution.

 

[LegionOfDoom91]

 

[Jack Straw]

Okay, I just think we fundamentally disagree. A recap for my convenience:




I want Schwarber getting more ABs than Turner because dingers are king. Also, I'm willing to bet on Schwarber's approach leading to him getting on base more than Turner in a key moment. If the team is down and they desperately need to grind out a run with Schwarber on base, then they can make a substitution.

We can agree to disagree. I'm fine with that.

 

[Gregor Samsa]

You don’t pinch hit with two outs and a lead for your best defensive player. The bench isn’t exactly great and those guys haven’t had competitive ABs in weeks.


I’ll be honest. I’m a stat nerd and I have no idea what those metrics are. Trea was slightly above average offensively this year. Kyle Schwarber, despite hitting under .200 was a top 50 hitter this year by wOBA and wRC+ - the two most universally accepted offensive stats.

Trea has been a productive hitter throughout his career. That’s why he got a $300 million contract. I still have some confidence he will be closer to the August Turner than May Turner, but for much of this year and this series, his approach was dog shit and it undermined his true talent level. Schwarber’s approach never wavers. Even when he’s not locked in, he works counts and pitchers. That’s valuable. If Trea was running those really low strikeout rates like he has at times in the past I could see the case to have him as the no doubt lead off hitter but he swings and misses just as much as Schwarber. Think about that for a second. Doesn’t walk. Swings and misses at a high clip. That’s a bad combo at any spot in the lineup much less lead off.

Trea still had a good postseason overall but he was not good in the close out games in large part to chasing pitches and getting in bad counts again. The result doesn’t change if he’s leading off. And Schwarber was great this series. It’s a strange hill to die on.

I disagree. You should manage to win the game. It’s a game 7, 2-1 game halfway through, there is a chance to blow it open. You have to take that chance and try to win. It’s not like Schwarber was going to be put in CF. Rojas wasn’t going to do anything there. Everyone knew it. The other guys at least give you a better chance. They are guys recently up from AA obviously over their head at the plate in the playoffs.

And if Topper was so focused on defense and preventing runs, Ranger should have been taken out of the game for the 3rd time through the lineup vs the top of the order, or at least the base stealer who had Ranger’s number that game and was 2-2. Topper was too passive all postseason and it killed them

 

[Svechhammer]

Giglio probably masturbated all night to the loss. He lives to shit on our teams.

 

[WIP CALLER]

This is in Braves’ fans territory. Upsets are part of what make playoffs great. It just sucks when it’s your team being upset. You wouldn’t have posted this if the Phillies took care of business. They didn’t .

Upsets are great in other sports because their regular season isn't 162 games long. Football it works because it's any given Sunday. Basketball, upsets are the rarity, the better team wins over 7 games 95% of the time so it's actually shocking when it happens and there's so much parity in hockey that anyone who gets in always has a shot. Baseball there's a large enough sample size to say definitively who the top 4 teams are over a season. And I've said this from day 1 when they announced the playoff expansion. In baseball, it makes a complete mockery of the regular season and just creates artificial parity. We'll see how that works out for them down the line. My guess is baseball's popularity continues to tail off and this world series is among the lowest rated ever. Why even bother paying any attention to 162 games when a .500 team can get hot at the right time and be crowned "champions".

 

[FLYguy3911]

I disagree. You should manage to win the game. It’s a game 7, 2-1 game halfway through, there is a chance to blow it open. You have to take that chance and try to win. It’s not like Schwarber was going to be put in CF. Rojas wasn’t going to do anything there. Everyone knew it. The other guys at least give you a better chance. They are guys recently up from AA obviously over their head at the plate in the playoffs.

And if Topper was so focused on defense and preventing runs, Ranger should have been taken out of the game for the 3rd time through the lineup vs the top of the order, or at least the base stealer who had Ranger’s number that game and was 2-2. Topper was too passive all postseason and it killed them

The option was Cave. And then they probably bring in the lefty with 3 of the next 4 batters being lefty hitters. So you’re going to burn another PH with two outs and rely on a career .173 hitter to get a hit?

That inning was toast when Castellanos shit down his leg.

 

[Gregor Samsa]

Upsets are great in other sports because their regular season isn't 162 games long. Football it works because it's any given Sunday. Basketball, upsets are the rarity, the better team wins over 7 games 95% of the time so it's actually shocking when it happens and there's so much parity in hockey that anyone who gets in always has a shot. Baseball there's a large enough sample size to say definitively who the top 4 teams are over a season. And I've said this from day 1 when they announced the playoff expansion. In baseball, it makes a complete mockery of the regular season and just creates artificial parity. We'll see how that works out for them down the line. My guess is baseball's popularity continues to tail off and this world series is among the lowest rated ever. Why even bother paying any attention to 162 games when a .500 team can get hot at the right time and be crowned "champions".

Why bother playing the 162 games? Because it is entertainment. That’s all the league is. Postseason baseball and hockey have always been a different animal. That’s part of what makes them entertaining. Plenty of 80-92 win teams have made noise in the MLB playoffs. Hitters are unsuccessful most of the time, so it’s hard to tell what will happen in a 5 or 7 game series. You can tell how good a player is over 600 AB’s. It’s hard to know what he’ll do over 20 AB’s where everything is micromanaged. It’s part of the fun and drama. If you have the right group of players you have a chance. Maybe you don’t like playoffs or upsets. That’s fine, but many do including myself

 

[Svechhammer]

Man, just running the numbers on Castellanos, he's so bad in the playoffs.

Against Atlanta he caught fire in a big way. 7 for 11 with 4 HRs. We all knew that was unsustainable, but maybe he was finally finding his groove. Nope, he regressed back to his mean, and boy is his mean terrible.

For the Phillies, excluding the Atlanta series he's 15 for 101 (.148 BA) and 1 HR and 6 doubles drawing only 4 walks over 26 games.
For his postseason career, excluding the Atlanta series he's 19 for 121 (.157 BA) with 2 HRs, 7 doubles and drawing 6 walks over 31 games.

His career postseason batting average is .197 with an OBP of .252. Even when you include the slugging from the Atlanta series his career numbers are still a SLG of .386 and OPS of .638.

He's terrible. Absolutely terrible.

 

[Gregor Samsa]

The option was Cave. And then they probably bring in the lefty with 3 of the next 4 batters being lefty hitters. So you’re going to burn another PH with two outs and rely on a career .173 hitter to get a hit?

That inning was toast when Castellanos shit down his leg.

Yes, burn another pinch hitter if needed. That was a key spot and one of the biggest of the year. Rojas was overmatched all postseason long. If you have a 1/5- 1/3 chance to break open a low scoring game 7 where your offense has struggled lately you take it

 

[FLYguy3911]

Yes, burn another pinch hitter if needed. That was a key spot and one of the biggest of the year. Rojas was overmatched all postseason long. If you have a 1/5- 1/3 chance to break open a low scoring game 7 where your offense has struggled lately you take it

But the chance was less than 1/5…

Even if they manage to score a run there, 3 wasn’t going to be enough.

 

[Gregor Samsa]

But the chance was less than 1/5…

That is still better than Rojas. Even a walk would be huge. And if you’re going to play defensively and cautious then the handling of Ranger next inning was poor. You don’t sit on your hands both ways

 

[FLYguy3911]

I really need to stay out of baseball discussions on a hockey message board.

 

[Rebels57]

But the chance was less than 1/5…

Even if they manage to score a run there, 3 wasn’t going to be enough.

You can't say for sure 3 wouldn't have been enough...and a single would have likely plated 2 there so we are looking at a 4-1 lead. Then they could have gone to Wheeler or Hoffman with a clean slate to start the 5th. It would have changed every at-bat for Arizona after that. The events don't just unfold exactly the same way.

 

[FLYguy3911]

You can't say for sure 3 wouldn't have been enough...and a single would have likely plated 2 there so we are looking at a 4-1 lead. Then they could have gone to Wheeler or Hoffman with a clean slate to start the 5th. It would have changed every at-bat for Arizona after that. The events don't just unfold exactly the same way.

I’m being generous when I say one. Relying on Pache, a career .173 hitter, to get a two out hit, you’re more likely to get 0 than 2. If you want to retro analyze, not sending Stott on the ball in the OF and Castellanos flailing in a must contact situation were much bigger what-ifs.

I’m talking generally when I say 3 runs isn’t enough. You lose most games if you only score 3 runs. That’s just a fact. And I don’t think I have to comment on the state of the team if we are talking about needing to keep a team to 2 runs or less in an elimination game to win. That’s a hell of a standard.

 

[DrinkFightFlyers]

A team like Arizona that finished 6 games over .500 doesn't even belong in the postseason where how you perform in the longest regular season in sports should actually mean something and no one will ever convince me otherwise. But MLB has made their bed and now they have to lay in it. This is the best possible world series for shoving their stupid playoff expansion in their face. Honestly at this point, I hope the the Dbacks win it all and they expand it to 8 teams in each league making it so we can watch a team that finishes under .500 win the whole thing while the only people that might care are from that city because everyone else knows what a farce the entire thing is. If MLB was truly concerned about determining the best team in the postseason, the only change they'd of made was doing away with divisions, playing equal schedules, and just letting the top 4 teams in each league duke it out in 7 game series so that you wouldn't have a 85 win team from a shitty division in the playoffs while a 100 win team in another division is at home. Instead we get this nonsense.

Nah, the Phillies choked. That's it. Doesn't matter why, they choked. This series was theirs for the taking and they couldn't hit the ball. Same thing happened last year. There's nothing wrong with the rules or the playoff format or anything. There is a problem with the lineup completely and totally collapsing. The DBacks didn't even play that well. The Phillies just sucked when it mattered most.

 

[Magua]

I really need to stay out of baseball discussions on a hockey message board.

The next lesson is to stay out of hockey discussions on a hockey message board.