Get Me Melky

I'll admit it: I'm a sucker for high batting average guys. Mix in a little bit of plate discipline and some opposite field ability and I go completely gaga. Get on base at a .390 clip and I'll probably do your laundry too.

Get me Melky Cabrera.

Yeah, the guy tested positive for a known banned substance. Naturally, the knee jerk reaction is "he's a cheater, his stats are fraudulent and everything he's done over the last two years should be wiped clean." And it's a logical reaction given that most of sports fans in our twenties have had our childhood memories tainted by the steroid cloud. And while I don't agree with that notion, I'm not going to sit here and praise the guy for his honesty either. He's a cheater, an admitted cheater, but a cheater nonetheless. But man would I like to see his redemption story take place in red pinstripes.

A little Melky history for those who aren't aware... He was signed out of the Dominican Republic at the age of 16, was called up to the Yankees at the age of 20, was and a full time player (or at the very least, the more popular part of a platoon) by the age of 21. The guys who have managed a progression like that and stuck in the majors over the past decade or so can be counted on two hands. While his development time in he minors was limited, one thing was clear: he could hit. Said AA coach Bill Masse prior to his call up:

"The thing about Melky is, he has such hand-eye coordination that if there's a fastball up around his chin, he can still hit, and if there is a breaking ball that bounces in the dirt before the plate, he may hit that, too."

Baseball America also chimed in back in 2005 with the following:

"Strengths: Cabrera’s swing and hand-eye coordination make him the best hitter for average in the system. One club official compared his offensive game to Jose Vidro's. Cabrera has a quick stroke from both sides of the plate, with quick hands that allow him to catch up to quality fastballs. He also punishes breaking balls and lashes line drives from gap to gap. He has an above-average throwing arm."

So here's a raw, yet unpolished, talent from the Dominican Republic who is rushed to the majors to save a flailing Yankees outfield who performs averagely for a few seasons. He's traded to Atlanta and performs dismally (this is the guy who once threw a ball backwards). So bad in fact that he's outright released at the end of 2010. So after a string of failures, and at the still young age of 26 (to put things into perspective, Ryan Howard's first full season in the majors was at the age of 26... Melky had already had nearly 2,400 ABs by the time he was 26!), he drops 20 lbs, finds a groove at the plate with Kansas City, and follows it up with 3/4 of All-Star / MVP caliber baseball in San Francisco.

Then BOOM: Positive for Testosterone. Season over, free agency payday gone, career tainted... says the casual fan.

Luckily, I'm here to tell you he's worth the risk.

• He's not the first "damaged" product to play in Philadelphia. Brett Myers' transgressions were forgiven when he led the team to their first playoff appearance in 15 years, JC Romero's return from PED suspension was embraced (I own a "free JC" tshirt!), and I can't tell you one Phillies fan who doesn't want to see Pete Rose in the Hall of Fame.. If anyone can appreciate a comeback, it's Philadelphia fans.

• He'll come at a discount. The happiest guys in baseball right now: Michael Bourn and Shane Victorino. The Phillies aren't the only team looking for outfielders next year. Bourn is expected to be the cream of the crop despite the fact that he strikes out a ton, he'll be north of 30, and has seen his biggest weapon (SBs) nearly cut in half this year with one month to play. Nevertheless, he's still expected to something in the neighborhood of 5 years, $80M.  Victorino's piggy bank will be slightly less stout, but still out of the Phillies price range (in both years and dollars). Melky? He'll be looking for an opportunity to clear his name. It's virtually unprecedented that a player hitting his peak tests positive for PEDS before signing a long term deal. No one knows for sure how the market will unfold, but all indications are that teams aren't going to give a 4-5 year deal to a guy who is coming off a suspension. At age 28, he still has the opportunity to play out 2013 on a one year deal, prove that his numbers aren't a fluke, and sign that long term high dollar deal that he was on pace for as recent as last week.

• He's young by free agent outfield standards. Face it, our outfield is barren with the departure of Shane Victorino and Hunter Pence. Pencil Domonic Brown in right field for 2013 and you're still left with two holes. Cross you fingers that you can get away with some sort of Nate Schierholtz/John Mayberry platoon in one of those holes. Hell, you can even beg Juan Pierre to stick around for pennies on the dollar again. But the outfield is still mighty shaky. Scan the list of free agent outfielders for guys under 30, here's what you get: B.J. Upton, Delmon Young, and Melky. That's it. Trade for a young outfielder? What trade chips of value are left? With an infield that averages about 34 years old, your outfield has got to be young. Even if he can't be retained long term, the Phillies core isn't getting any younger. The Phils have only one or two more shots at making a run with the team they have in place. Jimmy Rollins is your lead off hitter, why not pair him with the best #2 hitter in baseball this season and hope the unjury gods are on your side for a change in 2013.

• Isn't it possible that we're giving too much credit to the PEDs? I'm not a sabremetric geek, but something doesn't quite add up. Melky's power numbers aren't particularly gaudy this season. Okay, so this is the part where I get a little nerdy on you... His HR/FB percentage is less than it was in both 2011 and 2009 and his line drive percentage is right here with his career norms. The percentage of his hits that fall for extra bases is less than it was in each of the past three years. So what's different? Batting average on balls in play. His BABIP is an obnoxious and improbable .379. That means that when Melky hits the ball between the lines, it's going to land for a hit of some sort 38% of the time. That's 70 points higher than his career average! Whether it be the spacious outfield in San Francisco allowing more balls to fall in, an improved batting eye, just plain dumb luck, or some combination of the three, balls that come off Melky's bat have gotten him on base at an amazing pace. His ground ball to fly ball ratio is a career high 1.09 suggesting even further that it's the ability to drive the ball hard on the ground that has helped his number spike rather than a Bonds like power binge. 

Sure when you see his .346/.390/.516 stat line with career highs across the board, red flags are raised. But we're talking about a guy who is reaching his prime offensive age, has moved beyond the accusations of laziness that plagued him in the past, and whose metric indicate not just a spike in power, but a steady increase in hitting ability. Maybe he's a bust next year and washes out of the game. Maybe he goes onto another decade of hitting .340. Given the narrow window of opportunity we have in front of us and the potential payoff, I'm willing to make that $10M gamble for a season or two.

Five Guys The Phillies Were Fools To Let Go

"C'mon, Pat... It's been like 3 months since your last blog entry and you're going to throw out a cookie cutter piece like this?"

Yes, it's been too long, but seeing how blogging doesn't pay the bills and the job that DOES keep a roof over my head has been so demanding, I've had to settle for venting in 160 character or less blurbs on twitter. Besides, I've given full Blogging privileges to at least four other dudes and I know for a fact that they've been swimming in free time!

Back to the point at hand... The Phillies are a dozen games out of the division, most of my fantasy baseball teams are barely treading water, and every prediction I had for the season has already gone down the drain. So naturally, it's time for second guessing!

The Phillies woes in 2012 have been well pronounced. You don't need me to tell you that they've come up short on offense, pitching, defense, and coaching. But what I can do is remind you of a handful of guys that if were still wearing Phillies uniforms, the season may look a little brighter. There's the obvious guys like Gio Gonzalez who we unloaded in the failed Freddy Garcia experiment. And then there's Brett Myers who has proven to be an effective starter and closer since leaving Philadelphia. And there's a slew of prospects who have been traded away or otherwise unloaded in recent years. But I'd like to focus on some of the names that don't always come to mind when you think of what could have been...

Ryan Vogelsong - RHP - San Francisco Giants
In a rotation that includes two Cy Young award winners, a $140M man, and a 22 year old budding star, who would have expected that a 34 year old who was pitching in Japan just a few years ago is the ace of the staff. Following a few years of ball in Japan, the Phillies wisely were the first to kick the tires on Vogelsong. He bounced between starter and the bullpen for the Lehigh Valley Iron Pigs with limited success and was released mid 2010. Since then he's gone 23-12 with a 2.51 ERA for the Giants. Sometimes a prospect is overlooked by an organization, but what happened with Vogelsong was a flat out mistake. A guy in his mid thirties doesn't just turn on a light switch and figure out how to play. The raw talent had to be there from the start and the Giants succeeded where the Phillies failed at unleashing it. Here's a guy that immediately upon signing with a new team went on to pitch in the all star game and follow it up with a CY Young caliber season.  AND HE WAS IN OUR GRASP!

Jason Grilli - RHP - Pittsburgh Pirates
I know what you're thinking: "Who?" What has been the Phillies biggest weakness in 2012? A shaky bullpen. With Jose Contreras, Michale Stutes, and David Herndon making early season exits to the DL and the Chad Qualls experiment not working out as planned, the Phillies have been forced to piecemeal their bullpen together with AAAA ballplayers and an array of young arms. Meanwhile, on the other side of the state, Jason Grilli has made a name for himself as one of the top setup men in baseball.  But just last year he was wearing the uniform of a Phillies affiliate as he pitched in Lehigh Valley to the tune of a 1.93 ERA. Come July, he was released by the Phillies due to an opt out clause that allowed him to walk if another team wanted to add him to their major league roster. Grilli has excelled in Pittsburgh as an excellent bridge to Joel Hanrahan. He's pitching to a 2.66 ERA through 40.2 innings with a K/9 of 13.9. Even worse, he's only making about $1M. Just this week, Grilli finally proved he was human by giving up his first 8th inning lead of the season. The Phillies gave up an 8th inning lead in game 3 of the season.

Chad Qualls - RHP - Pittsburgh Pirates
Clearly I'm off my rocker with this pick, but hear me out. Sure, Qualls was a complete bust in a Phillies uniform. But I'm not looking at Chad Qualls the player, I'm looking at Chad Qualls the trade chip. When he was released by the Phillies, the Yankees swooped in and gobbled him up. After pitching much the same way he had in Philadelphia, New York shopped him around the league. Low and behold, Chad Qualls turned into third baseman Casey McGehee. McGehee has struggled this year and last, but he's still in his 20s and only two years removed from a .285 23 HR 104 RBI campaign. His first year of arbitration eligibility isn't even until next season. But most importantly, he plays third base! You know, that black hole on the left side of the infield that the Kevin Fransden is currently guarding! With a dreadful free agent market for third basemen, the Phillies are either going to have to convert a player to the position or get creative with trades. What's more creative than the Yankees turning a 33 year old dead armed Chad Qualls into a hitter capable of 20+ HR seasons on the cheap?

Scott Podsednik - OF - Boston Red Sox
Despite his impressive spring, Scott Podsednik lost his battle with Juan Pierre for the Phillies 4th outfielder job. Moving onto the Red Sox, Scotty Pods managed to hit .385 with extra base power and swipe 6 bags in his brief 73 ABs. Not to say that Juan Pierre hasn't been a better piece than I expected, but a healthy Podsednik is Pierre Plus. Even better, the Red Sox managed to flip him to the Arizona Diamondbacks for relief pitcher Craig Breslow, THEN picked him back up when the Diamondbacks released him. So the Phillies essentially let a better version of Juan Pierre escape with zero compensation and the Red Sox turned him into a quality relief pitcher AND Scott Podsednik!

Kyle Lohse - RHP - St Louis Cardnials
Remember him? Of course you do, he struck out 7 Phillies and pitched 7 innings of 1 run ball against us just last night! What you might not remember, though, is that there was a time when the Phillies big mid season splash didn't turn into the Cliff Lees of the world, but instead they were Kyle Lohse. Newsflash, though, Lohse has outperformed Lee this season! As a key cog that got the Phillies back into the playoffs in 2007 Lohse pitched average. But he was granted free agency at the end of the season as the Phillies chose to go with Adam Eaton and Kyle Kendrick in their rotation start 2008 (remind me again how we managed to win a World Series...). Lohse has been paid nearly identical money as Joe Blanton over the past two years and has outperformed him in every category. This year he's 12-2 with a 2.72 ERA and with no real front runner for NL Cy Young, he has the potential to be in the discussion.

The .500 Mark

As Hector Luna puts this game out of reach with his 1st career Grand Slam in his first AB in a Phillies uniform, I'm reminded that a victory brings the Phillies back to even baseball. 38 games into the season, 4 consecutive wins, and now the entire NL East is .500.

But what does the number .500 mean? Well it had been almost 3 years since the Phillies had a full month of baseball that was below .500 when they finished April at the 11-12 mark.

More importantly, I steer you towards an article on The Hardball Times that shows it's been 90 years (and 2 days) since the Phillies were last at the .500 mark as a franchise! The "Losing-est team in professional sports" as they've been called currently sits at 1055 games below the .500 mark with a 9256-10311 record. That's good for a .473 mark. Not the worst Win % in pro sports, but when you've been at it since 1883, the numbers tend to pile up.

I'm no Isaac Newton here, but I believe my math is correct...
If the Phils were to average the same record as they have for the last 5 seasons in which they've won the NL East, you end up with a 94-68 record good for a .584 Win %. It would STILL take 40+ years of .584 baseball (and likely 40 more playoff appearances which would make me completely broke) before the Phillies would be back at .500 as a franchise. So what if they just managed to win 85 games a year as they have managed to eek out for each year of the past decade... It would take almost 132 full seasons before they hit the .500 mark. I'll be sure to tell my great grand kids to throw a parade for that event! A more attainable goal? Catch the Orioles who at 895 games below .500 are the next closest team in terms of futility.

Around The Diamond

They stitch those things by hand? No wonder Official MLB balls cost like $12 each. 

Though I bet those dudes make about $.17 an hour...

Dimitri Young made about $53M dollars during 13 year career. And while the Young brothers have quite a history of childlike behavior on the field, there’s nothing childish abouthis massive collection of unblemished rookie cards from some of baseball’sall-time greats. I collect cards, though not as crazily as I once did. I’ll buy a few packs a year, and always pick up the Topps hobby set and the Phillies team set at the end of the year. But a collection of 500+ PSA Gem Mint 10 rated rookie cards is something I can’t even fathom. I own one card that’s rated even an 8. It’s a nice to see a ballplayer as interested in the industry that surrounds his sport as much as the fans are. 

Speaking of the sports memorabilia collections, one of the most valuable collections in history was auctioned off last week as song writer and author Seth Swirsky parted ways with items that ranged from the hat worn by Jose Canseco when a ball bounced off his head for a homerun to the original letter sent by Kennesaw Landis to Shoeless Joe Jackson telling him that he would not be reinstated into baseball following the Blacksox Scandal. The Hall of Very Good interviewed Swirsky prior to the auction. One of the more popular draws to the auction ended up being the infamous Bill Buckner ballthat sold for more than $400,000!  Poor Buckner...

Last week, baseball manager evaluation expert (seriously, he has an award from The Sporting News for writing a book on the topic!), Chris Jaffe from the Hardball Times steered me towards an article he wrote on Evaluating Charlie Manuel. It seems like perfect timing for all the Cholly hate that seems to be creeping up right now. Most telling line of the piece for me:

“In his nine full seasons on the job, he’s never had a losing record. Six times his teams won the division, and three others times they came in second place. Only once in those nine full seasons has one of his teams finished more than a game out of the postseason hunt, and that squad was just three games out of the wild card race.”

Not bad for a guy some want to run out of town. The article begs the question as to whether Manuel is lucky for having so much talent at his disposal or whether the talent is lucky to have been developed by a lifelong baseball guy like Manuel. I would suspect that the answer lies somewhere in the middle. Manuel sure milked guys like Jayson Werth and JC Romero for everything they were worth, didn’t he?

Another Hardball Times link and all-around fun topic to follow is their anniversary series. Fortyyears ago (plus 2.5 weeks now that it’s taken me so long to get this post up),Steve Carlton threw the most dominant game of his most dominant season. 300+ wins and not a single no-hitter, but his 14K, 1 hit, 1 BB performance was every bit as impressive as most no-hitters.  Read the article for a nice play by play and check out the series of anniversaries and day-versaries for a cool walk down memory lane.

Not that I have anywhere left in my man cave to hang things, but I picked up the above Phillies print by local artist Stan Ping throughPhilliesNation.com the other day. It should go well with my Dan Duffy canvas wrapped print. Grab one, they look cool.

I've Advised My Client, Mr. Charles Fuqua Manuel Jr., to Plead Insanity

When 68 year olds start to make silly decisions, we point to their age. Dementia or Alzheimer's is starting to kick in. When they do it night in and night out, we send them to a retirement home. If Charlie Manuel stepped out of the dugout without any pants on, it would be both hilarious and harmless.  But when he calls for bunts by the dozens, marches out 25 different lineups in 25 different games, and misuses his bullpen it might be time for him to pack his bags too.

Even I, one of the most steadfast Cholly supporters, am running out of excuses. In fact, if I were his defense attorney in the case of The People of The Delaware Valley v. Charlie Manuel, I'd just simply point to the bench/bullpen and say "What do you want me to do with that?" and rest my case.

It's not all his fault... Roy Halladay labors during the 5th inning of tonight's game, but who do you bring in? Joe Savery who was a minor league hitter this time last year? Brian Sanchez who's on his 2nd or 3rd stint with the team without ever hanging on? Jose Contreras whose Cuban to American age exchange rate likely means he's 57 instead of 40? Schwimmer, Bastardo, Qualls? Or should he just bring in Papelbon in the 5th and hope he can go 4+ strong? A one lung-ed, blindfolded Halladay is still likely going to perform better than just about every other option out of the bullpen and in a game where you have a solid lead and can afford to give up a few runs, you let your ace (107-0 when given a 4 run lead) try to work his way out of a jamb... it just didn't work so well tonight.

That said, there is plenty to be critical of:

• Bunting for Base-hits: Small ball is a necessity right now, but averaging almost two bunt for a base hit attempts per game takes any element of surprise out of the play. Bunt hits have only been successful 6 times all season.
• Constantly slotting your best hitter in the 7 hole: Chooch leads the team in every offensive statistic other than SBs, yet has the fewer plate appearances than Freddy Galvis and only 4 more than Ty Wigginton. Meanwhile the SS position has been the least productive on the field offensively for the Phillies and has only batted in the top 3 lineup spots. Fewer RBI than anyone other than the pitcher and zero HRs on the season from the SS.
• Signing  Using Jim Thome... ever: His homecoming was a heartwarming story, but to put things into perspective: The last time Jim Thome had an extra base hit in a Phillies uniform, Cory Lidle was the losing pitcher (and was still alive). 
• Lineup Juggling: This isn't the circus, it's baseball! March the same two teams out there two days in a row, will you! I'm tired of this pull names out of a hat while in the locker room to see who is going to play where and bat when.
• Saving your closer for a lead: Traditional baseball wisdom suggests... blah blah blah. When your 6-7-8 guys can't hold a lead, dig into the Tony LaRusa bag of tricks (not the lineup juggling bag, the other one!) and have your closer make 5 or 6 outs. 1) He's making $50M 2) If he's unavailable, he shouldn't be warming up in the pen multiple times and 3) Chances are he's going to sit on the bench later in the season and watch more complete game efforts from his starters than any other closer in baseball. You cannot in one breath say that Cliff Lee pitching ten innings is no big deal (and I don't think it is) because his pitch count was still low, and then in another say that you refuse to use Jonathan Papelbon for more than one inning this early in the season. Which is your pitcher freshness criteria, innings or pitches? It can't be both.

I'm tired, it's late... feel free to contribute to the list yourselves!