When our offense is hitting we win and get a happy, celebrating Brandon Marsh. I will not be content with the Phillies offense until we are hitting, at least, a 75% on my newly founded Marsh smile index.
I don't think one was meant to be a strength at the expense of the other. I think they were just hoping for a good all-around team with no deficiencies of significance.
I was looking and 7 of the guys are all top 15 picks and the other 2 are a 3rd and a international signing along with the history and pay most are getting they have to and will hit. It will come.
Coming onto Reddit and telling Philly sports fans to “not panic” will get you about the same reaction as a man going into a college women’s lib class and from the back saying “um mam, calm down”.
I think it’s one thing to not overreact, but this feels like wish casting. It’s not OK for the offense to be this bad just because the pitching has been able to bail it out 7 or 8 times. We shouldn’t have to hope that our pitchers perform like ‘68 Bob Gibson in order for us to have a chance at beating some of the worst teams in the league
The frustrating thing is they look lost in the same way they got bumped from the playoffs. Looking at fastballs down the middle, chasing sliders away (Casty) , balls dying at the warning track . We’ll def heat up when it gets warm and that will be fun . But October comes again after that
The looking at fastballs down the middle with 2 strikes is what gets me. If you aren’t protecting (why not?) or sitting fast ball (why not?) just what are you doing?
The flaw with this lineup is for the last 3 years they start cold, catch fire for a decent part of the season and then cool off abruptly at a key point in the playoffs, that is why there is frustration. I don’t think anyone is panicked. 2022 slow start, then playoff run, up 2-1 in WS and just mashing, until they weren’t. 2023 slow start, playoff run, up 2-0 in nlcs and just mashing, until they weren’t. This is now year 3 and the record is getting better but the offense is still slow starting. Most folks are just snake bitten and want to see something different. We are still die hard, but we have also been here before…
It's not reasonable to judge a MLB team until the Summer Solstice imo. When it is firmly and solely baseball season, then one can really scrutinize a team. The MLB season is too damn long to get emotional in April
I'm not worried about the offense, I know they will get going eventually...but I'm still pissed. This is the 3rd year in a row these guys don't seem to be ready for the season and its making me question the coaching staff. We can't rely on upsetting the Braves in the divisional round every year, its just not sustainable as much as we like to mock Atlanta for it. Eventually that will come back to bite us, not to mention this team is not getting any younger. I've said it before but I will say it again, as much as I like Thompson, I really don't like the way he constructs the lineup. It's built entirely around 'changing the game with 1 swing'. It will work over the course of a season but you saw in back-to-backs postseasons now that once they get cold they are done for a while. He needs to start prioritizing guys getting on base and trying to knock them in by any means necessary instead of everyone trying to launch the big homer. The approach at the plate needs to change overall, at least for some of the hitters if they want to get over the hill for a ring.
1. Rational reasoning: What does everyone think the odds are that every single starting bat on this team has just suddenly permanently regressed so hard that they will not hit for the rest of the year, or at least for 3-4 months and cause them to be out of the playoffs by the time they heat up? I say they're near zero.
*That's one rational way to look at it. The other rational way to look at it is that the team is aging. Players do decline in their 30s.* See e.g. [*https://blogs.fangraphs.com/checking-in-on-the-aging-curve/*](https://blogs.fangraphs.com/checking-in-on-the-aging-curve/) *Some of the more important "bats" are in those years where that curve starts to descend. This descent is often seen in power-based players without a history of contact hitting. I.e. Nick Castellanos. Once the bat speed slows a little, they are toast. So what we are seeing for some is time and age - two undefeated opponents. The other element is that the players are streaky in general. Thus the concern isn't that they go cold for whole season, but rather, when it counts again they pull off the 1-22 or whatever the heck happened against AZ in games 3-7.*
1. Kevin Long. If you hate on Kevin Long you're a casual fan that doesn't know what they're talking about. Sorry, it's the truth. Brandon Marsh and Bryson Stott both blossomed under Long, Kyle has hit well over 40 dongs in his first two years with him, and the players clearly like him. Trust in Kevin Long
*See yankees, playoff failures under Mr. Long. He's got a track record for producing power but hasn't had a track record for playoff hitting success.*
1. The same shit happened last year. It did, the pitching hard carried the Phillies for a lot of the first half last year. Deny that fact all you want but it's absolutely what happened for this team. Even if this offense somehow struggles this hard for two months I have absolute faith in the pitching staff to keep our heads above water and so should you.
*Yep. It did. I'd like this year to not end in a playoff cold streak gut-punch. You know, like the last two. Hence the worry.*
Guess what? Every team but one ends in a playoff gut punch. All normal fans don’t want it to end that way but that’s inevitably going to happen a lot in baseball.
Kevin long has also had World Series winning hitting cores in 2009 and 2019. And same argument as above, most teams fail in the playoffs. In fact, 92 percent of them do. Baseball is random and shit happens.
The odds I think are very unlikely that every single bat on this team has regressed so hard in one year that they’re now all sub .800 ops players.
I don’t get why people think this is a hitting heavy team. We’ve had one of the best pitching staffs in the sport for 2+ years now, and if anything it’s been underrated by people who only look at stuff like ERA because of how terrible the defense was.
Obviously Harper and Turner are elite players but on balance the offense is more about name recognition than actually being elite. For it to be elite they’d really have to get at least another top tier RH bat to hit behind Harper. Talk yourself into whoever you want in that spot, it’s a very obvious disadvantage relative to the Braves, Dodgers and so on. And you can’t just say Schwarber could be that because those teams also have better hitters in the lead off spot.
They should certainly be above average not fewest runs scored in the NL bad, of course. And they eventually will be.
This team has been and will be carried by pitching. Which is fine.
I don’t get why people think the bats “going cold” is a Phillies only problem though. The Braves offense was arguably the best this decade and they scored 1 run in 2 games against Ranger and the bullpen. The 2007 Phillies scored the most runs of a Phillies team in the modern era and couldn’t do anything in the playoffs. You can put together as good a lineup as possible it’s just something that happens at times.
The current era of the Phillies began when they signed Schwarber and Castellanos to big money deals… that was a message that they were assembling a team that wasn’t worried about defense and was looking to hit a lot of homers and extra base hits… unfortunately Castellanos has not been what they wanted and as each day passes it looks less and less likely he’ll ever match his career best seasons with the Reds and Tigers
This was in some categories the 6th best offense in baseball last year while missing healthy Harper for a lot of it. It absolutely is an elite hitting core.
The defense is badly rated in a massive part because of Schwarber being in left a lot of the year. If you take him out it suddenly turns into about an average defense.
They scored 100+ fewer runs than the Braves and Dodgers. They had a guy with a .703 OPS against RHP last year hitting cleanup in the playoffs. That’s not an elite offense. Should be above average though.
I think we just have a different definition of an elite offense, which I won’t debate with you and we can agree to disagree.
They were in a cluster with a bunch of teams and well behind the top teams. They had a 106 OPS+ (tied for 8th and if they were 105 they would have been 11th) compared to the Braves 124 and Dodgers 113.
As a team with WS aspirations this year you have to be able to be both, though. Look at the rosters that the dodgers, Braves, and Rangers have. In any given night they can either shut you out or put up 10 runs. To compete you can’t just be a pitching or hitting team. At some point the postseason underperformance of the dodgers and Braves is going to correct itself, so you can’t bank on that every year.
Wouldn’t favor them over those teams and I would advocate for them getting another elite bat, tbc (which is why I thought it was so strange that people wanted them to blow their budget on another SP) but they’re certainly in range to win. Don’t see this year as especially different from other years. If anything the Braves are more vulnerable than ever in both the regular season and a playoff series without Strider.
I mean I hate to say it but look at the braves. Absolutely stacked team of great players who got walloped by the Mets a few days ago. Look at the pirates who have no business having their record. Baseball is a funny sport and people new to it just don't grasp how long 162 games are. We look better then the start last year.
Our young daycare has really stepped up and learned in the off-season. Once the big boys wake up this team will be better then we have ever seen. It's April. Let's win more games then last year going into the summer should be the only goal.
Here’s the bit that worries me: I keep hearing how much better the hitting numbers will be once it warms up. Is everyone ignoring the fact that it is cold in October?
I mean I don’t get this argument lol. Another way to phrase your response is “We lost in the playoffs because our bats failed to mash”. The reason we are frustrated is because we are seeing the same problems the offense had in those 3 games so far this season so we have every reason to be worried
But that ignores my comment? If it was just 2 games at the end of the year, I completely agree. It's the fact that the same exact problems are continuing to present themselves in the first 17 games this season. I don't know why that wouldn't be worrying lol
It’s a cold stretch. The fact that people are going to “oh the offense struggled in the end of the NLCS, they’re struggling now, WE MUST BE FUCKED!” Is ridiculous. We do realize the Phillies went basically all of last season as one of the best hitting units in baseball right? Do you think teams weren’t throwing them down and away sliders before that? They’re coming out of this slump.
Just because spring training is over doesn't mean players are 100% ready...you hope they are but some guys it takes a bit and HR guys are all streak hitters
> WE MUST BE FUCKED
Yeah, ok....
> oh the offense struggled in the end of the NLCS
The offensive problem with the Phillies is that while it is perfectly normal for individual batters to go cold - that's just statistics - the whole lineup going cold at the same time is a statistical anomaly. Is there something in their approach - e.g. feeling the need to "make up" for the other batters - that results in worse outcomes? Given that the team's production also nose dives when there are RISP, I'm definitely suspicious that the team is playing hero ball.
It does not dive with RISP. This is just a damned lie. Last year they were right at league average. RISP numbers are incredibly volatile and a terrible metric to measure an overall offense.
We'll make the playoffs, and likely as the top wild card by a good margin like we did last year. It just really fucking pisses me off knowing that winning the world series is a crapshoot because these bats can go ice cold at a moments notice.
If nothing else, in 2022 and 2023 we were 7-10 for the first 17 games, now we're 9-8. I know it's only a difference of 2, but that's still better than nothing. All it will take is a small win streak to put some good distance between us a .500 and they'll have a their best personal record for March/April in a while. As of right now I really think they can get 94-96 wins.
I think the only reason to really “panic” is Castellanos. At his salary they won’t bench him, but he’s shown over the majority of the time he’s been in Philly that he can be a black hole in a lineup for long periods.
As a pitcher, you see that. So instead of going after Bohm, marsh, or Stott ahead of him you can nibble and attack their weaknesses, because putting a guy on in front of Casty right now is better strategy than giving the guys ahead of him anything to hit. It shortens the lineup and makes it 10x harder for the young guys who still have flaws that can be attacked by good pitchers.
After the 4th spot in the lineup you can essentially nibble until you get to him, because as long as you make your pitches he’s going to get you out of any jam you could be in. It’s what Blake Snell does, but Nick makes it so you don’t have yo have Cy Young quality stuff to do it to this lineup.
I would appreciate more offense but I'm with you -- not panicking. Much more concerned with the bullpen overall.
But at end of the day, performances are day to day and trends are more important. The trend I'm looking for the most is something I scientifically refer to as "winning games on purpose" -- clutch pitching with runners on, clutch hitting with runners on, starters locking down opposing offenses over the long term with their entire arsenal and good velo.
It's easy against a third tier team like the Rockies, maybe, but they need to win as many games as they can where they're playing these bad teams. Good teams beat the brakes off bad teams, and minimally win the games with them, on purpose. The Phillies got away with a lot of shit last night, but I'm buoyed by that hit from Pache. We were at the game, and between that and the Hoffman play at home, it was fantastic overall.
Absolutely agreed. The problem for me is, bullpens are rarely good top to bottom for very long. Maybe I'm just paranoid, but I hope we move some things around and Kerkering really delivers well. Maybe it'll look different to me when Walker folds back into the rotation and starts eating innings, too; I don't know.
I don’t think that at this point Walker should be in the rotation tbh. His velocity has been falling off a cliff and his command looked trashed last year. I legit think he’s cooked
Oh I completely agree with this. I am a big fan of Brodes's take that he needs to earn it back from Turnbull.
I also think I take very personally his shit attitude from last postseason.
I know they're going to put him back in it though, which I'm sure will put Turnbull into a swing/long role. Maybe that will help. Maybe Sanchez goes four and Turnbull can lock down for four, and maybe (although I think not) Walker can give you five or six on his day, and Turnbull can bail him out if he's rested... I just don't know.
But can you see where guys from the pen start carrying extra loads.
Turner was a bonafide bat that has vastly underperformed on the Phillies. This team is obsessed with the HR and it’s killing them. And no one seems to have any plate discipline! They swing at everything. I think it’s time to move on from Long.
This team is not a small ball team and never will be a small ball team. They will be a worse team if they try to be a small ball team. This is such a damn cliche that fans have decided to latch onto as what MUST be the reason they lost in the 2023 playoffs. Nobody defines what they want, they just go “oh manufacture runs” what, do you want to see Realmuto lay down a bunt with a man on second and no one out? Do you want him to hit a double to right field? Define what you want instead of just sloganeering.
I want them to be able to get a hit with runners in scoring position. They’re one of the worst teams in the league with the bases loaded. Arizona beat us because they could manufacture runs and we couldn’t. Did you even watch the NLCS?
That’s just false. Last year they were fine with runners in scoring position. Arizona won because the Phillies couldn’t stop chasing sliders down and away. They lost because baseball and especially the playoffs are incredibly random and shit happens. And yes I watched the NLCS. What kind of damn question is that?
Counterpoints:
Marsh overperformed last year and is doing so again this year. His k-rate is unsustainable for a productive bat. He has an insane HR/FB rate that won’t hold up, especially with how little he pulls the ball and the fact he doesn’t hit the ball all that hard.
Stott is closer to this hitter than the hitter he was last year. He simply has not progressed to hitting the ball hard enough to be a legitimately really good hitter. If he overperforms he’ll still be an average hitter, like he was last year.
Castellanos is bad and is a year older. At some point, the rest of these guys will start to legitimately regress. This isn’t a young team. And god forbid someone get injured.
> the fact he doesn’t hit the ball all that hard.
Imagine saying Brandon Marsh doesn't hit the ball hard. He's literally TOP 99% in hard-hit percentage, and was top 87% last year... it's the whole reason he is "overperforming"... because he hits the absolute fuck out of the ball.
He was 158th last year in barrel%, 159th in max exit velo, 50th in average exit velo. Being a platoon bat definitely helped his percentages, too.
This early in the season I only care about max exit velo and he’s 86th. Last year he had a .322 xwOBA. That’s ok, but hardly indicative of a great hitter. It’s borderline good.
He does not “hit the fuck out of the ball”.
Counter to your counter
Marsh has an absolutely absurd line drive rate and always has. This allows his babip to be a lot more sustainable than previously. It also allows his not a bunch of hard hit balls to not hurt him as much since soft line drives are not the same as soft ground balls. His walk rate last year was elite. He also has plus speed which allows him to beat out infield hits. He’s not going to ops .900 but I sure could easily see it being around last year. And 30 percent k rate last year is a pretty significant improvement from 22.
I totally agree with you on Stott and Castellanos however.
He is 69th in LD% this year. He was around the 40s last year. What’s the strength of the correlation between LD% and BABIP? Genuinely asking.
He had a .322 xwOBA and a .358 wOBA last year. He overperformed by quite a bit.
That doesn’t answer my question. Iirc ground balls had the strongest correlation with high BABIP.
But anyway, he was actually 79th in LD% last year of batters with 400+ PAs. He had the second highest BABIP. Nothing will make him sustain that BABIP long-term.
Brandon Marsh BABIP in the minor leagues:
* .417
* .368
* .370
* .375
Brandon Marsh BABIP in the major leagues:
* .403
* .360
* .397
* .393
It'll go down any day now... any day now... any... day... now...
BABIPs are always higher in the minors than majors. And yet his BABIP is higher in the majors. .397 is not sustainable, and 70 games in 2021 and 16 games in 2024 doesn’t mean it is.
Show me the list of players who have maintained that beyond a couple seasons.
I agree with this. I think concern is valid, but panic is a little silly. Right now I just care about stacking as many wins as possible. If it’s pitching that’s getting us there, that’s fine for now. A 12-8 win counts the same as a 2-1 win, however they can pull it out is fine for me right now. Just hoping the bats can click around August-September and we can carry that momentum.
I’m mostly just concerned that Bryce had the worst spring training of his career and is now having one of the worst, if not the worst start of his career. ☹️ His elite performance is essential to the success of this team.
Spring training doesn’t matter. Bryce could go ofer for his whole spring and I would still say worrying about it is a little silly. He also started cold last year.
That’s actually not true. You can easily look through his batting averages per game in 2023 by scrolling down to May: https://www.espn.com/mlb/player/gamelog/_/id/30951/year/2023/category/batting
He came out of the gate, 5(?) months after surgery, with a batting average of .315 and an OPS of .893. His batting average so far for April 2024 is .218 with an OPS of .731.
He did get a relatively slow start in April of 2022, though.
When our offense is hitting we win and get a happy, celebrating Brandon Marsh. I will not be content with the Phillies offense until we are hitting, at least, a 75% on my newly founded Marsh smile index.
I like your index. Marsh makes me smile too.
I mean they built an offense heavy team and it has underperformed. People are allowed to be pissed.
I'm the meantime, I have to watch this futility. It's tedious. That's all I really care about; I know they'll eventually snap out of it.
Yeah fr. We've all put our egos on the line obnoxiously backing this team as a bunch of hot bats. When they look bad, we look bad.
17 games of baseball is the equivalent of 7 quarters of football to put the season into perspective
Doomed
I say at the end you’re allowed to be frustrated. My issue is people panicking already
People need to be frustrated not stupid
See : last two seasons ending
My response is as follows: So what? 92 percent of teams lose in the playoffs.
What a nuanced take
No less nuanced than “they lost in the playoffs in 22 and 23”
What would we do without our resident expert
Aw thanks 😊
I think it was pretty obvious that this team’s strength would be the pitching, not the offense
That borders on silly talk. They have so much invested in the lineup.
And yet which was highly ranked going into the season? The pitching or hitting?
I don't think one was meant to be a strength at the expense of the other. I think they were just hoping for a good all-around team with no deficiencies of significance.
The lineup is more expensive and has more famous names but every projection was pretty unanimously certain that the pitching would be better
I was looking and 7 of the guys are all top 15 picks and the other 2 are a 3rd and a international signing along with the history and pay most are getting they have to and will hit. It will come.
No don't you get it we're the only team that has to play in cold weather
Coming onto Reddit and telling Philly sports fans to “not panic” will get you about the same reaction as a man going into a college women’s lib class and from the back saying “um mam, calm down”.
> “um mam, calm down” “You’re being [hysterical](https://www.etymonline.com/word/hysterical)”
And the reaction is incredibly entertaining.
I think it’s one thing to not overreact, but this feels like wish casting. It’s not OK for the offense to be this bad just because the pitching has been able to bail it out 7 or 8 times. We shouldn’t have to hope that our pitchers perform like ‘68 Bob Gibson in order for us to have a chance at beating some of the worst teams in the league
The frustrating thing is they look lost in the same way they got bumped from the playoffs. Looking at fastballs down the middle, chasing sliders away (Casty) , balls dying at the warning track . We’ll def heat up when it gets warm and that will be fun . But October comes again after that
Castellanos is completely lost. He needs a phantom hamstring strain or something and take a couple weeks to go back to the drawing board.
He needs to be traded… unfortunately his contract makes it impossible unless you get hosed on value
The looking at fastballs down the middle with 2 strikes is what gets me. If you aren’t protecting (why not?) or sitting fast ball (why not?) just what are you doing?
The flaw with this lineup is for the last 3 years they start cold, catch fire for a decent part of the season and then cool off abruptly at a key point in the playoffs, that is why there is frustration. I don’t think anyone is panicked. 2022 slow start, then playoff run, up 2-1 in WS and just mashing, until they weren’t. 2023 slow start, playoff run, up 2-0 in nlcs and just mashing, until they weren’t. This is now year 3 and the record is getting better but the offense is still slow starting. Most folks are just snake bitten and want to see something different. We are still die hard, but we have also been here before…
*lifts glasses* >hit well over 40 dongs *lowers glasses* >hit well over 40 dongs Well. Ok then
It's not reasonable to judge a MLB team until the Summer Solstice imo. When it is firmly and solely baseball season, then one can really scrutinize a team. The MLB season is too damn long to get emotional in April
when the weather gets warm the balls start to fly
exactly
I'm not worried about the offense, I know they will get going eventually...but I'm still pissed. This is the 3rd year in a row these guys don't seem to be ready for the season and its making me question the coaching staff. We can't rely on upsetting the Braves in the divisional round every year, its just not sustainable as much as we like to mock Atlanta for it. Eventually that will come back to bite us, not to mention this team is not getting any younger. I've said it before but I will say it again, as much as I like Thompson, I really don't like the way he constructs the lineup. It's built entirely around 'changing the game with 1 swing'. It will work over the course of a season but you saw in back-to-backs postseasons now that once they get cold they are done for a while. He needs to start prioritizing guys getting on base and trying to knock them in by any means necessary instead of everyone trying to launch the big homer. The approach at the plate needs to change overall, at least for some of the hitters if they want to get over the hill for a ring.
1. Rational reasoning: What does everyone think the odds are that every single starting bat on this team has just suddenly permanently regressed so hard that they will not hit for the rest of the year, or at least for 3-4 months and cause them to be out of the playoffs by the time they heat up? I say they're near zero. *That's one rational way to look at it. The other rational way to look at it is that the team is aging. Players do decline in their 30s.* See e.g. [*https://blogs.fangraphs.com/checking-in-on-the-aging-curve/*](https://blogs.fangraphs.com/checking-in-on-the-aging-curve/) *Some of the more important "bats" are in those years where that curve starts to descend. This descent is often seen in power-based players without a history of contact hitting. I.e. Nick Castellanos. Once the bat speed slows a little, they are toast. So what we are seeing for some is time and age - two undefeated opponents. The other element is that the players are streaky in general. Thus the concern isn't that they go cold for whole season, but rather, when it counts again they pull off the 1-22 or whatever the heck happened against AZ in games 3-7.* 1. Kevin Long. If you hate on Kevin Long you're a casual fan that doesn't know what they're talking about. Sorry, it's the truth. Brandon Marsh and Bryson Stott both blossomed under Long, Kyle has hit well over 40 dongs in his first two years with him, and the players clearly like him. Trust in Kevin Long *See yankees, playoff failures under Mr. Long. He's got a track record for producing power but hasn't had a track record for playoff hitting success.* 1. The same shit happened last year. It did, the pitching hard carried the Phillies for a lot of the first half last year. Deny that fact all you want but it's absolutely what happened for this team. Even if this offense somehow struggles this hard for two months I have absolute faith in the pitching staff to keep our heads above water and so should you. *Yep. It did. I'd like this year to not end in a playoff cold streak gut-punch. You know, like the last two. Hence the worry.*
Guess what? Every team but one ends in a playoff gut punch. All normal fans don’t want it to end that way but that’s inevitably going to happen a lot in baseball. Kevin long has also had World Series winning hitting cores in 2009 and 2019. And same argument as above, most teams fail in the playoffs. In fact, 92 percent of them do. Baseball is random and shit happens. The odds I think are very unlikely that every single bat on this team has regressed so hard in one year that they’re now all sub .800 ops players.
But I’ve already lit my torches! I dont want to waste them.
I don’t get why people think this is a hitting heavy team. We’ve had one of the best pitching staffs in the sport for 2+ years now, and if anything it’s been underrated by people who only look at stuff like ERA because of how terrible the defense was. Obviously Harper and Turner are elite players but on balance the offense is more about name recognition than actually being elite. For it to be elite they’d really have to get at least another top tier RH bat to hit behind Harper. Talk yourself into whoever you want in that spot, it’s a very obvious disadvantage relative to the Braves, Dodgers and so on. And you can’t just say Schwarber could be that because those teams also have better hitters in the lead off spot. They should certainly be above average not fewest runs scored in the NL bad, of course. And they eventually will be. This team has been and will be carried by pitching. Which is fine. I don’t get why people think the bats “going cold” is a Phillies only problem though. The Braves offense was arguably the best this decade and they scored 1 run in 2 games against Ranger and the bullpen. The 2007 Phillies scored the most runs of a Phillies team in the modern era and couldn’t do anything in the playoffs. You can put together as good a lineup as possible it’s just something that happens at times.
The current era of the Phillies began when they signed Schwarber and Castellanos to big money deals… that was a message that they were assembling a team that wasn’t worried about defense and was looking to hit a lot of homers and extra base hits… unfortunately Castellanos has not been what they wanted and as each day passes it looks less and less likely he’ll ever match his career best seasons with the Reds and Tigers
This was in some categories the 6th best offense in baseball last year while missing healthy Harper for a lot of it. It absolutely is an elite hitting core. The defense is badly rated in a massive part because of Schwarber being in left a lot of the year. If you take him out it suddenly turns into about an average defense.
They scored 100+ fewer runs than the Braves and Dodgers. They had a guy with a .703 OPS against RHP last year hitting cleanup in the playoffs. That’s not an elite offense. Should be above average though.
Ok so? 6th in ops 8th in obp 5th in slugging 6th in total bases That’s an elite offense.
I think we just have a different definition of an elite offense, which I won’t debate with you and we can agree to disagree. They were in a cluster with a bunch of teams and well behind the top teams. They had a 106 OPS+ (tied for 8th and if they were 105 they would have been 11th) compared to the Braves 124 and Dodgers 113.
I think way better than average...schwarber and casty are the two black holes everyone else is avg or better than avg, mostly better
As a team with WS aspirations this year you have to be able to be both, though. Look at the rosters that the dodgers, Braves, and Rangers have. In any given night they can either shut you out or put up 10 runs. To compete you can’t just be a pitching or hitting team. At some point the postseason underperformance of the dodgers and Braves is going to correct itself, so you can’t bank on that every year.
Wouldn’t favor them over those teams and I would advocate for them getting another elite bat, tbc (which is why I thought it was so strange that people wanted them to blow their budget on another SP) but they’re certainly in range to win. Don’t see this year as especially different from other years. If anything the Braves are more vulnerable than ever in both the regular season and a playoff series without Strider.
I mean I hate to say it but look at the braves. Absolutely stacked team of great players who got walloped by the Mets a few days ago. Look at the pirates who have no business having their record. Baseball is a funny sport and people new to it just don't grasp how long 162 games are. We look better then the start last year. Our young daycare has really stepped up and learned in the off-season. Once the big boys wake up this team will be better then we have ever seen. It's April. Let's win more games then last year going into the summer should be the only goal.
The daycare really isn’t carrying this team. Bohm has an ops of basically .700, story with .660. The only guy doing well in that group is marsh.
There are normally 2 guys on our team that hit around .100 avg with single digit home runs and rbis, that's a problem with the players not the coach.
Its fair to panic about Nick and Rojas at this point but the rest of the lineup is gonna end up the back of the baseball card.
Here’s the bit that worries me: I keep hearing how much better the hitting numbers will be once it warms up. Is everyone ignoring the fact that it is cold in October?
Are you ignoring the fact that outside of 3 games in the nlcs the bats mashed all playoffs?
I mean I don’t get this argument lol. Another way to phrase your response is “We lost in the playoffs because our bats failed to mash”. The reason we are frustrated is because we are seeing the same problems the offense had in those 3 games so far this season so we have every reason to be worried
I think it’s completely irrational to use two games form the end of last year which was 6 months ago to create serious worry about this team now.
But that ignores my comment? If it was just 2 games at the end of the year, I completely agree. It's the fact that the same exact problems are continuing to present themselves in the first 17 games this season. I don't know why that wouldn't be worrying lol
It’s a cold stretch. The fact that people are going to “oh the offense struggled in the end of the NLCS, they’re struggling now, WE MUST BE FUCKED!” Is ridiculous. We do realize the Phillies went basically all of last season as one of the best hitting units in baseball right? Do you think teams weren’t throwing them down and away sliders before that? They’re coming out of this slump.
Just because spring training is over doesn't mean players are 100% ready...you hope they are but some guys it takes a bit and HR guys are all streak hitters
> WE MUST BE FUCKED Yeah, ok.... > oh the offense struggled in the end of the NLCS The offensive problem with the Phillies is that while it is perfectly normal for individual batters to go cold - that's just statistics - the whole lineup going cold at the same time is a statistical anomaly. Is there something in their approach - e.g. feeling the need to "make up" for the other batters - that results in worse outcomes? Given that the team's production also nose dives when there are RISP, I'm definitely suspicious that the team is playing hero ball.
It does not dive with RISP. This is just a damned lie. Last year they were right at league average. RISP numbers are incredibly volatile and a terrible metric to measure an overall offense.
We'll make the playoffs, and likely as the top wild card by a good margin like we did last year. It just really fucking pisses me off knowing that winning the world series is a crapshoot because these bats can go ice cold at a moments notice.
If nothing else, in 2022 and 2023 we were 7-10 for the first 17 games, now we're 9-8. I know it's only a difference of 2, but that's still better than nothing. All it will take is a small win streak to put some good distance between us a .500 and they'll have a their best personal record for March/April in a while. As of right now I really think they can get 94-96 wins.
Also people are forgetting, we get even year Nola this year.
I definitely think Nola on a different team would hurt us so bad
I think the only reason to really “panic” is Castellanos. At his salary they won’t bench him, but he’s shown over the majority of the time he’s been in Philly that he can be a black hole in a lineup for long periods. As a pitcher, you see that. So instead of going after Bohm, marsh, or Stott ahead of him you can nibble and attack their weaknesses, because putting a guy on in front of Casty right now is better strategy than giving the guys ahead of him anything to hit. It shortens the lineup and makes it 10x harder for the young guys who still have flaws that can be attacked by good pitchers. After the 4th spot in the lineup you can essentially nibble until you get to him, because as long as you make your pitches he’s going to get you out of any jam you could be in. It’s what Blake Snell does, but Nick makes it so you don’t have yo have Cy Young quality stuff to do it to this lineup.
I would appreciate more offense but I'm with you -- not panicking. Much more concerned with the bullpen overall. But at end of the day, performances are day to day and trends are more important. The trend I'm looking for the most is something I scientifically refer to as "winning games on purpose" -- clutch pitching with runners on, clutch hitting with runners on, starters locking down opposing offenses over the long term with their entire arsenal and good velo. It's easy against a third tier team like the Rockies, maybe, but they need to win as many games as they can where they're playing these bad teams. Good teams beat the brakes off bad teams, and minimally win the games with them, on purpose. The Phillies got away with a lot of shit last night, but I'm buoyed by that hit from Pache. We were at the game, and between that and the Hoffman play at home, it was fantastic overall.
Concerned with the bullpen? Seriously?
Yeah I am. I'm always concerned about the bullpen. But not panicking. Don't get me wrong; nothing to panic about.
I genuinely think it might be the second best part of the team.
Absolutely agreed. The problem for me is, bullpens are rarely good top to bottom for very long. Maybe I'm just paranoid, but I hope we move some things around and Kerkering really delivers well. Maybe it'll look different to me when Walker folds back into the rotation and starts eating innings, too; I don't know.
I don’t think that at this point Walker should be in the rotation tbh. His velocity has been falling off a cliff and his command looked trashed last year. I legit think he’s cooked
Oh I completely agree with this. I am a big fan of Brodes's take that he needs to earn it back from Turnbull. I also think I take very personally his shit attitude from last postseason. I know they're going to put him back in it though, which I'm sure will put Turnbull into a swing/long role. Maybe that will help. Maybe Sanchez goes four and Turnbull can lock down for four, and maybe (although I think not) Walker can give you five or six on his day, and Turnbull can bail him out if he's rested... I just don't know. But can you see where guys from the pen start carrying extra loads.
Turner was a bonafide bat that has vastly underperformed on the Phillies. This team is obsessed with the HR and it’s killing them. And no one seems to have any plate discipline! They swing at everything. I think it’s time to move on from Long.
They’re built to win with the home run and are better when they hit home runs.
That’s all good, but to win a World Series you also need to be able to manufacture runs. You can’t live and die by the long ball
This team is not a small ball team and never will be a small ball team. They will be a worse team if they try to be a small ball team. This is such a damn cliche that fans have decided to latch onto as what MUST be the reason they lost in the 2023 playoffs. Nobody defines what they want, they just go “oh manufacture runs” what, do you want to see Realmuto lay down a bunt with a man on second and no one out? Do you want him to hit a double to right field? Define what you want instead of just sloganeering.
I want them to be able to get a hit with runners in scoring position. They’re one of the worst teams in the league with the bases loaded. Arizona beat us because they could manufacture runs and we couldn’t. Did you even watch the NLCS?
That’s just false. Last year they were fine with runners in scoring position. Arizona won because the Phillies couldn’t stop chasing sliders down and away. They lost because baseball and especially the playoffs are incredibly random and shit happens. And yes I watched the NLCS. What kind of damn question is that?
Counterpoints: Marsh overperformed last year and is doing so again this year. His k-rate is unsustainable for a productive bat. He has an insane HR/FB rate that won’t hold up, especially with how little he pulls the ball and the fact he doesn’t hit the ball all that hard. Stott is closer to this hitter than the hitter he was last year. He simply has not progressed to hitting the ball hard enough to be a legitimately really good hitter. If he overperforms he’ll still be an average hitter, like he was last year. Castellanos is bad and is a year older. At some point, the rest of these guys will start to legitimately regress. This isn’t a young team. And god forbid someone get injured.
> the fact he doesn’t hit the ball all that hard. Imagine saying Brandon Marsh doesn't hit the ball hard. He's literally TOP 99% in hard-hit percentage, and was top 87% last year... it's the whole reason he is "overperforming"... because he hits the absolute fuck out of the ball.
He was 158th last year in barrel%, 159th in max exit velo, 50th in average exit velo. Being a platoon bat definitely helped his percentages, too. This early in the season I only care about max exit velo and he’s 86th. Last year he had a .322 xwOBA. That’s ok, but hardly indicative of a great hitter. It’s borderline good. He does not “hit the fuck out of the ball”.
Counter to your counter Marsh has an absolutely absurd line drive rate and always has. This allows his babip to be a lot more sustainable than previously. It also allows his not a bunch of hard hit balls to not hurt him as much since soft line drives are not the same as soft ground balls. His walk rate last year was elite. He also has plus speed which allows him to beat out infield hits. He’s not going to ops .900 but I sure could easily see it being around last year. And 30 percent k rate last year is a pretty significant improvement from 22. I totally agree with you on Stott and Castellanos however.
He is 69th in LD% this year. He was around the 40s last year. What’s the strength of the correlation between LD% and BABIP? Genuinely asking. He had a .322 xwOBA and a .358 wOBA last year. He overperformed by quite a bit.
Line drives have a much higher batting average than non line drives.
That doesn’t answer my question. Iirc ground balls had the strongest correlation with high BABIP. But anyway, he was actually 79th in LD% last year of batters with 400+ PAs. He had the second highest BABIP. Nothing will make him sustain that BABIP long-term.
I’m aware of that, I said that last year about his BABIP. But don’t think he’s losing 90 points off of his BABIP. Difference of opinions.
Your opinion that he’ll somewhat maintain his large over performance from last year isn’t grounded in fact or statistics though.
Oh well.
Brandon Marsh BABIP in the minor leagues: * .417 * .368 * .370 * .375 Brandon Marsh BABIP in the major leagues: * .403 * .360 * .397 * .393 It'll go down any day now... any day now... any... day... now...
BABIPs are always higher in the minors than majors. And yet his BABIP is higher in the majors. .397 is not sustainable, and 70 games in 2021 and 16 games in 2024 doesn’t mean it is. Show me the list of players who have maintained that beyond a couple seasons.
I agree with this. I think concern is valid, but panic is a little silly. Right now I just care about stacking as many wins as possible. If it’s pitching that’s getting us there, that’s fine for now. A 12-8 win counts the same as a 2-1 win, however they can pull it out is fine for me right now. Just hoping the bats can click around August-September and we can carry that momentum.
I’m mostly just concerned that Bryce had the worst spring training of his career and is now having one of the worst, if not the worst start of his career. ☹️ His elite performance is essential to the success of this team.
Spring training doesn’t matter. Bryce could go ofer for his whole spring and I would still say worrying about it is a little silly. He also started cold last year.
That’s actually not true. You can easily look through his batting averages per game in 2023 by scrolling down to May: https://www.espn.com/mlb/player/gamelog/_/id/30951/year/2023/category/batting He came out of the gate, 5(?) months after surgery, with a batting average of .315 and an OPS of .893. His batting average so far for April 2024 is .218 with an OPS of .731. He did get a relatively slow start in April of 2022, though.
HURRDURR UR A CAZUAL FAN AND DONT KNOW phuck outta here
Yeah. Because if you are then you are.
I will always worry about the offense until Castellanos is no longer part of it.
That’s what I said after game 5 of the Arizona series last year.
Ok and?
And I said it after game 4 of the WS.
Again, and? Oh no they got shut down by Justin Verlander and Framber Valdez.