Beerleaguer for breakfast: Blanton gets back on track

CLEARWATER - Bright House Field had an eye-of-the-hurricane vibe yesterday as the Phillies beat the Tigers 4-0. Fans didn't have to endure the dark skies and heavy winds for too long however, as the Phillies' pitchers combined for a three-hitter, helping end the game in just over two hours. Joe Blanton started things off with four sharp innings, inducing 11 grounders and a couple double plays started by Placido Polanco, who is settling back in nicely at the hot corner. Phillies' starters are off to a terrific start this spring. Offensively, the Phils made solid contact against fireball ace Justin Verlander, with Raul Ibanez being the only strikeout victim (he k'd twice off of Verlander, but later homered off of Joel Zumaya). Shane Victorino looked great as leadoff man, and Ryan Howard hit a nice RBI single to the opposite field off of a lefty. After Blanton, David Herndon and Joe Savery pitched well in the middle innings, and Yohan Flande and Scott Mathieson closed it out. (Courtesy of Monsterdouble)

Comments

[mvptommyd]

I am not going to waste any more space trying to defend my point that some of the newer stats are ridiculous and how I WILL NEVER appreciate a stat that is based on "luck".

With that said a poster said this to me regarding the newer "stats":

"If you are just a casual fan and don't really care to understand baseball better, feel free to disregard the article."

Hmm, yea so because I don't care to pay attention to some newer stats based on "luck" then I must just be a casual fan, yea ok that makes sense.

If spending hours a week discussing baseball and purchasing a full season ticket plan, never leaving a game early and spending the year following every move the team does makes me a "casual fan", then I wonder what it takes to be a "true fan"?

[kilbillrain]

"Phillies' starters are off to a terrific start this spring."

I feel like everytime we say that, there will be equal and unflinching retribution come the regular season.

[Little Ollie]

I for one would like to see Victorino with his blazing speed batting leadoff, but I don't think it will ever happen on a regular basis.

[mvptommyd]

JW, just a question.

Why have you been just copying and pasting write-ups from "Monster Double" onto your site?

If we wanted to read what he had to say, we would go there.

Anyway Blanton did sound like he looked good and if our rotation continues on this path we will be in really good shape. Although some posters here may disagree because as we have discussed the longer the starters are in the game, than the less AB's for the bench guys.

According to some if the bench guys don't get enough AB's they won't be sharp like a butcher knife but instead dull like a butter knife.

Sorry, but I will take my chances with the bench guys. If this team can generate a solid roation to pitch deep into games than we will be in excellent shape.

[Jbird]

Sometimes the posters to this board act like a bunch of 13 year old girls. Maybe there could be a separate thread where people can just call each other names? Can we set that up?

[Furnstein]

MVPTommy, Jonesman and I did write ups from Spring Training last year. We recently started our own blog for fun, but really love Beerleaguer and wanted to contribute. We are writing independent summaries for both sites, so it isn't a simple cut and paste. Beerleaguer is just crediting the blog rather than us as posters as he did last year.

Blanton looked really good yesterday, burning through some tough Tigers batters. Today's game is rained out. I guess we have to explore the non-baseball side of Florida.

[Jbird]

Luck in baseball as in anything else is undeniable. Otherwise, the year to year fluctuation of stats would be much more tightly grouped in a straight line up to the peak ages and back down again from there. In some ways, a player can make his own luck by hustling and attitude and dedication, but when only a handful of hits per month can cause a huge swing in percentages, then you have to say there is some luck element. A hard hit ball can be an out because of the way the sun is shining or wind is blowing or the defense is aligned, while a softly hit ball can be a hit for the same reasons. THe difference between a K and a hit is often that the hitter guessed what and where the pitcher would throw a ball. Given a large enough sample size the luck evens out, just like if you flip a coin 10 times you might get heads 7 times (70%)even though the percentages say it should be 5 times. Flip the same coin 1,000 and the percentage of times you get heads should regress to the mean (in this case, 50% or 500 times). I don't accept luck as the be all end all to explain everything. I think there was more than luck going on with Hamels last year. Luck explains some of it, but not all of it.

[Jbird]

There was a nice writeup on Herndon on Philly.com this morning. should be interesting to see how those last couple bullpen spots play out.

[mvptommyd]

Furstein: Ahh, ok. I thought it was just an blog that had no ties to JW or BLer.

In that case, carry on....

[J T. Ramsay]

I'm guessing the whole new baby thing may be behind the Monster Double syndication, Tommy D. You may recall the call for contributors to write post-game summaries earlier in the year, too.

[mvptommyd]

JBird: You in a way described why I don't care for BABIP and FIP.

In BABIP, hard balls and soft balls are counted as the same. Which doesn't make sense. Also as I have mentioned before HR's and pitchers strikeouts don't count.

Then you say, "Luck explains some of it, but not all of it". Well in those two stats, luck is a major portion. So which side of the fence are you on?

You are either for it or against using "luck" to describe a player's season, can't be in the middle and only use it in certain cases.

[thephaithful]

Anyone with a pitch count for Blanton thru 4 or Mathieson's velocity?

I really hope Mathieson can find the big leagues this year. Best case scenario has him groomed to take over for Lidge and Aumont remains a starter.

[NEPP]

From Philly.com: This off-season, Andrew Carpenter decided to resume exercises to strengthen his right arm that he last did four years ago in college.

When he was at Long Beach State, his fastball hit 94 m.p.h. Now it hovers between 88 and 92 m.p.h., and Carpenter is looking for any sort of extra edge that could prolong his next major-league stay beyond 21 days."

Seriously Drew? You decided NOW might be the time to finally do the arm exercises? You gotta wonder at the motivation levels of guys sometimes. What if he did a huge fitness routine last 4 years? He might have actually stuck as a 5th starter somewhere by now.

[thephaithful]

tommy: you obviously didnt read the bp link that someone offered you last thread. Until you read that, please stop trying to argue over BABIP. And if you already read it and still made the above post, then i apologize to everyone else for even responding.

[Jbird]

Back to luckless stats for a minute. I think they are useful in the sense that you can look at them and say, "given what the player is most in control of, he should have done X, but instead he did Y" Once you get outside of some set standard deviation from what "should" have happened, from there you can try to find reasons. Hamels played in front of a very good defense, so you shouldn't be able to blame that for much of what happened. Hits just falling at an abnormal rate? It's possible, but as you get further from the mean, this becomes less likely. From there you can look at linedrive rates etc. At somepoint though, you have to look at stuff that is less quantifiable like scouting reports, tipping pitches, conditioning, pitch selection, etc.

[Jbird]

I think how hard or soft a ball is hit gets into linedrive rates, flyball rates. There's a batfx now isn't there? how fast the ball comes off the bat. I'm not a stathead myself, I got B's in math. But you have to say luck isn't totally absent from baseball.

[Jbird]

I think you can appreciate "advanced metrics" and learn some valuable things from them without being married to them.

[Furnstein]

Unfortunately, Brighthouse Networks Field doesn't have pitching speed posted in the stadium. The Phillies spring training park really is the nicest facility in their area, but that is the one real improvement they could make. Even the bare-bones Blue Jays stadium in Dunedin has pitching speed on the scoreboard.

[J. Weitzel]

"I'm guessing the whole new baby thing may be behind the Monster Double syndication"

No. What Furnstein said. They were correspondents last spring. I'm not in Clearwater. They are. Their photos and observations are a good addition to the site in March, just as Billy Mac's are when he sends reports.

[Hugh Mulcahy]

I love the first hand reports by the BL correspondents.