Game chat: Debuts abound in Phillies' spring opener

Jonathan Papelbon, Dontrelle Willis, Chad Qualls and Jim Thome are among the off-season additions making their first appearances with the Phillies this afternoon as the Grapefruit League, and Beerleaguer chat schedule, begins against the Yankees at Bright House Field. First pitch is 1 p.m. ET with the game set to air on Comcast SportsNet. Cole Hamels and Ivan Nova are the scheduled starters. Lineups are posted: Rollins SS, Victorino CF, Pence RF, Thome DH, Wigginton 3B, Mayberry 1B, Brown LF, Kratz C, Martinez 2B. Raul Ibanez makes his Yankees debut and hits fifth.

Beerleaguer: The first televised game of spring marks one of true highlights of the baseball calendar, and for this Phillies team, it’s a chance for a new beginning. That’s also true for guys like Papelbon, who starts fresh in the National League and is one of the focal points of today’s contest. Meanwhile, for veterans like Chase Utley, Ryan Howard, Placido Polanco and Carlos Ruiz, this month will serve a different purpose, one of pace and preparedness. And then there’s Thome, who’s pulling out all the stops - first baseman’s glove and all - for one last run at a World Series.

As spring trainings go, it's one of the more compelling. And cheers to the start of another great season on Beerleaguer.

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Comments

[J. Weitzel]

Let's do this.

[GBrettfan]

Play ball!

[Little Ollie]

Time to subscribe to the MLB package.

[EastFallowfield]

Also, RaUUUUUUl.

[Brett]

Anyway this can be heard online?

[terry harmon]

You may want to take a look at your last paragraph 1 more time.

th

[awh]

From the previous thread:

"
Awh: Of course any individual pitcher affects the running game. But catchers catch the entire staff, including pitchers who are good at holding runners and pitchers who aren't. It all sort of evens out over a season, you know?

If you want to say that Ruiz being 12th out of 15 qualified catchers with a 23 percent caught stealing rate last year was a factor of a Phillies pitching staff that is composed entirely of pitchers who can't hold runners, then nothing I say can disabuse you of that notion.

But it strikes me that the rational inference to draw is that Ruiz, who is a very good baseball player, simply isn't that good at throwing out base stealers."

Actually Jack, that is only ONE 'rational' albeit incomplete inference that one can draw.

In order to do a complete analysis you'd have to run the data on the individual pitchers that Chooch catches, and what the pitcher's CS percentage is for their careers - regardless of who was catching.

If, then, other catchers they have worked with in the past have better CS results than Chooch you still might only be partially correct.

You'd also have to compare the other catchers results with different pitchers than those Phillies' pitchers that Chooch has caught.

Sure, it would be a lot of work, but I'm not sure you can draw more than a passing inference from a catcher's CS percentage alone until you did a complete analysis.

It's possible that a couple of pitchers with horrible skills at holding runners on could skew the results.

I'm not saying Chooch is the best (that's clearly not true), but have a couple of the pitchers he's worked with been responsible for a disproportionate amount of the result?

[Bob]

Cheers, J and everyone else who follows this site. Looking forward to another great season of Phillies baseball and BL.

[slappy]

Looks like it's going to be aired on MLB network too.

[bullit]

i'm super psyched. come on 1:00!!

[Fatalotti]

awh, Carlos Ruiz has been below average at throwing out runners for at least the last 3 seasons. (He was right around league average in 2009).

The simplest explanation is that he is simply below average at throwing out runners. Certainly, the pitchers with whom he works affect his ability to throw out runners, whether positively or negatively.

But when we have 3 years (and more) worth of data showing him as being below average at throwing out runners, the simplest explanation is that he is below average at that part of the game.

If you want to show that pitchers have affected his ability more negatively than positively, the burden of proof is on you.

[phargo]

It's baseball!

[Jack]

Ibanez was out at 2nd. First bad call of the season!

[gobaystars]

Rauuuuuul!!!
If he hurt Martinez he has already done more for us than he did last year.

[lorecore]

yeeaaaa raul taking out minimart.

[Jack]

Of course, had Raul been called out, we would have had to acknowledge that Dom Brown threw out a baserunner from LF.

And we all know that could not possibly have happened, since he's the worst defensive player of all time. So the call must have been right.

[Len39]

Hamels has obviously lost it. Let's trade him while we can still get some value.

[gobaystars]

Small ball is over!!

[lorecore]

Pence does good job getting good part of bat on balls out of the zone.

[Brett]

Anyone feel like providing a play-by-play?

[Greg]

Pence is an absolute monster...

[Greg]

Kratz was actually pretty quick for A: His size, and B: Being a catcher.

[bullit]

minimart is sporting bobby wine's old number 7.

[SLO Phan]

I'm not following the game, but I'm going to guess that Martinez is sucking and is well on his way to having a BA south of the Martinez line.

[Muuurgh]

1 K already for him, SLO Phan.

Granderson just finished what he started in his first AB. Whew.

[NEPP]

PLAY BALL!!!

[NEPP]

Jonathan's my guy!!!

[NEPP]

Nice catch by RFD.

[Muuurgh]

Yeah, RFD hasn't done anything for hitting yet, but he still looks real solid at 1B.

[NEPP]

Luckily, 1B is a defense first position.

[NEPP]

Willis showing why he is strictly a LOOGY.

[Greg]

Agreed, NEPP, along with the fact that his control is definitely not too sharp. Then again, it's the first day of Spring Training Games, and I'm not about to write him off just yet.

[mm]

So when does Nix fail his first PED Test...

[Greg]

Qualls quickly gives up 4 runs lol.

[AL]

Nix and Luna are both thick dudes.

[NEPP]

Qualls is looking great so far.

[Greg]

3, sorry.

[Alex]

Glad they signed Qualls.

[GTown_Dave]

Chad Qualls is AWESOME. Great pick-up.

[Mike G]

OMG...you guys are hilarious! It's the first spring training game.

[SLO Phan]

Yeah, guys. Remember, last year Baez had a terrible first spring training game and look how that turned out. Oh, wait....

[Hugh Mulcahy]

Spring training homer - send it up into the wind an dwatch it fly.

[Jack]

Clout's favorite prospect Tyson Gillies went 2-3 with a double, which is nice to see.

[aksmith]

Actually, Gillies had one of the oddest at bats I've ever seen in a first ST game. He bunted with one out and a guy on second. The fact that he bunted it hard right to the pitcher seems almost secondary. Did he miss a sign?

And since pitchers are usually ahead of the hitters at this time of year, this may be Qualls' high water mark. He stinks and of course this is one ST game and is meaningless, but I expect exactly the same thing from Qualls over and over for a full season, if they don't cut him. I wondered why Rube bothered to sign him when he did it, and I still wonder why.

[Fatalotti]

Did they win today?

Are they shoo-ins for the World Series now?

[Bubba]

Let's count the FSU game as our firstsprong training game since we won that one.

They don't count anyway, so why not ?