Sunday, April 15, 2007

In Zack Segovia's Defense...

It’s a tired old cliché, and I’m certainly not a fan of it, but let’s take some time to discuss it. I’m personally sick of hearing it. I don’t think it’s true, and people need to stop using it as the end-all definition of a championship team. You can cite the Ravens from a while ago all you want. Their offense was still in the top half of the league in scoring, including several good playoff performances, in addition to their great special teams play. The Pistons still had three good scorers and a pretty deep bench. The Spurs have a legitimate superstar, as well as two viable scoring options.

This rings true even less in baseball. Talk to anyone from Prospectus or BaseballCube and they’ll tell you that bad defense will at most, cost a team a few runs per year. That’s not a significant difference to actually cost anyone some games. Good pitching and good hitting are needed more than defense for a team to win a championship. That sounds stupid, but it’s true. Defense is not equal to the other two. However, despite the evidence, I’m beginning to wonder if defense will hurt the Phillies this year.

In Zack Segovia’s first major league start on Sunday, he gave up 5 “earned” runs in 5 innings pitched. To someone reading the box score, this looks like a bad day. To someone who watched the game, it becomes clear that those runs shouldn’t have been earned.

In a four run 2nd inning for Florida, two misplays in right field by Jayson Werth led to three of the four runs. After a home run by Mike Jacobs, instead of picking up the young pitcher and making the plays in the field, Werth gets a bad jump and doesn’t have the range to field a line drive by Cody Ross, resulting in a double. Joe Borchard hits a single advancing Ross to third. Alejandro De Aza hits a sac fly, allowing Ross to score. Because Ross’ line drive should’ve been the first out, this means at this point, instead of two runs across and only one out with a runner at first, there should only be one run with runners on first and third and two outs. The next play, Werth does more damage by diving after a ball instead of letting it drop and holding Matt Treanor to a single. The ball rolls all the way to the wall, scoring another run and resulting in a triple for Treanor. Scott Olsen comes up and executes a squeeze play, scoring another run. Had Werth played better defense, the Marlins would not have been able to do that play.

The Marlins hitters were the beneficiaries of a hometown official scorer, so no errors were charged. All runs go down as earned, even though Segovia was making his pitches. The defense, specifically Jayson Werth, didn’t take care of business.

Fast forward to the 5th inning: different player, same story. With two outs, Dan Uggla chops a ball down the third base line that Helms can’t field cleanly. Miguel Cabrera then doubles, scoring Uggla from first base. Again, no error is charged and Segovia’s day looks a little worse. That run makes five on the day for Segovia, and he’ll be taken out of the game. The bullpen did not allow anything else, so assuming Werth and Helms take care of business, the damage is minimized and the Phillies have a chance to win the game.

Remember that one year where the Mets went out and got Robbie Alomar and Mo Vaughn? They had awful defense. It was so bad, one could watch the game, and expect them to drop a pop up or make a bad throw. If I weren’t a Phillies fan, it would’ve been painful to watch. That was detrimental defense. Their fielding cost them countless outs and runs. That was a bad team.

The Phillies won’t be quite that bad, but I wonder if defense could hurt them. In terms of range and actually making plays, I think Jimmy Rollins, Aaron Rowand and Shane Victorino do a good job. They’re athletic players that can get to a lot of balls and cover a lot of ground. Pat Burrell has lost most mobility in the field due to injuries. Utley’s very inconsistent. Howard actually does a decent job playing first base, but he has a difficult time making throws. Wes Helms needs a substitution late in every game. Even Jon Lieber can’t field his position.

In terms of making throws, Pat Burrell, Jimmy Rollins, Chase Utley and our catcher duo can make the plays. Victorino’s arm just isn’t that strong, and Rowand has trouble making accurate throws. In the infield, Helms can’t do anything and Howard’s arm has been the subject of much criticism. As a whole, this is just a below average defensive group. I’m convinced that after the Rolen trade, we’re never going to have another good third baseman.

Since it’s a whole week after I intended to post this, here are some thoughts from this week’s games.

This team needs to get a killer instinct. They need to be able to deliver a crushing blow and put up some insurance runs. The Phillies lead the league in walks by far, and without actually looking at any numbers, I’d say at the pace they’re walking at now, they’re going to set the ML record. Five runs is nice and should be good enough to win a ballgame on most nights, but when pitchers have been offering free passes like they have been so far, the Phillies need to get more runs across. If guys like Scott Olsen and Oliver Perez are going to be giving us 10, 11 or however many freebies, there’s no reason at least 7 of them should score.

In general, hitting has to be improved with runners in scoring position. It’s absolutely ridiculous that this team is leaving double digits on base every game. It’s inexcusable. It’s not like this team has to rely on the home run to score, because there are guys that can make good contact. They just have to actually do it.

Not even the most pessimistic fan could’ve predicted the bullpen would be this bad. They’ve already blown three games and have given up runs in just about every game. Something different has to be done. I don’t know how Charlie Manuel can keep running Ryan Madson out there. He has good stuff, but for whatever reason, he just can’t make his pitches. I always liked him, but his time in Philadelphia should be done. A change of scenery would be best for both parties.

Tomorrow and later in the week, look for an “investigative” look into Opening Day rosters, and a Flyers and maybe even Sixers wrap-up.

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