Pitching Preview: The Phillies

Brett Myers




I've decided to start a new feature. I'm going to preview the starting rotations of all the teams in the National League. Starting in the East, I will hopefully have a good idea of what I'm doing by the time I get to my favorite division, the NL West.

I'm starting with Philadelphia, which is kind of a cheap trick because I've already previewed one of their pitchers (Cole Hamels) in a previous blog post. However, why not encourage you to read my other post? Here is my Phillies Pitching Preview.

Brett Myers
At 26 years old, Mr. Myers is about to enter the prime years of his pitching career. In the two magazines I now have (CBS Sportsline.com Fantasy Baseball, Fantasy Baseball Index), one ranks him as the 13th best starting pitcher in the major leagues, while the other ranks Myers 56th. Of course, I will resort to the stats to draw my own conclusion.
Brett Myers has never been a master of plate control. What he has gotten a lot better at is striking hitters out. In the last two years, Myers has struck out 397 batters in 413 innings, a rate of about 8.65/9 IP. He also allowed only 18% last years balls put-in-play to be line drives, the lowest such rate of his four-year career. His ERA has been below 4.00 the last two years. Personally, I think Myers is primed for a big year.

Cole Hamels
23 year-old Cole Hamels is a big deal. I learned recently from Ron Shandler that left handers have a longer life expectancy than left brainers in pitching years, and that only says more about Hamels' potential. Hamels struck out 145 batters in 132 innings at the big league level last year, for a command ratio of 9.89 K/9. Something of note...Hamels faced a bases loaded situation in six games last year for a total of three innings pitched. He didn't allow a hit, but he did allow three earned runs. How did this happen? Well, there was one walk, but I suspect the other runs game from either a ground out or a sacrifice fly. Just something of note. Anyway, Hamels is going to put up some major strikeout numbers this year. If you are playing, you want to pick this guy up. That simple.

Freddy Garcia
By a lot of accounts, you could say that the 30 year-old Garcia is the true ace of this ballclub. He is new to the team, but he has 72 wins over his last five seasons. That's an average of nearly 15 wins a season! That's really good, especially when you consider that he has been that good for that long. He also has pitched over 200 innings every single one of those years! Admittedly, I don't know a lot about Mr. Garcia or his fitness regimen, but he must be doing something right if he hasn't seriously injured himself yet. Will this be the year that breaks him? It's hard to say. Garcia also is in a contract year and has declared that he won't talk about his contract once the season starts. Will the Phillies give him a major extension before the regular season begins? Again, it is hard to say, but I am leaning towards no. This is because they are going to have to devote a lot of money to a lot of players sooner or later and Garcia may have already had his best seasons. Unlike Myers and Hamels, Garcia does not strike out a very high number of batters. On a grander level than Myers and Hamels, he has consistently shown an ability to allow a very low percentage of line drives. Many pitchers show improvement when switching from the AL to the NL, and I think this will be the case for Freddy as well. It's hard to expect improvement, but if he stays healthy, I would have to say Garcia wins 15 games again this year.

The Other Three: Adam Eaton, Jamie Moyer, Jon Lieber
As you know, big league clubs never hold six starting pitchers. So one of these three will get cut from the rotation, either before the season or shortly thereafter. I think Eaton will make the rotation, because he is only 29 years old and the Phillies showed they are committed to him by signing him to a three-year contract this past offseason. Why they did that, I don't know. Eaton is an okay pitcher at best, and missed most of last year suffering from a finger injury. He does have an 18-9 record in the last two years combined, and it's hard to argue against that.
The other two could be mistaken for men who are too old to be playing professional baseball. Lieber is 37, and Jamie Moyer is 44 years old. Heck, I heard the Giants need a fifth starter, and Moyer might be old enough to crack the lineup. Grimaces aside, Moyer probably will not make the cut because he had a bad second half last season that was partially due to a rise in home run rate, and the Phillies play in a park where balls are known to leave the yard. Plus Moyer is older than rotten vegetables. That, and he could be mistaken for a pretty female character that used to date J.D. on Scrubs, who was also named Jamie Moyer. She would probably be a lot more valuable than he in a trade offer.
Lieber is very good precision pitcher, but he will leave Phillies fans biting their nails every fifth day because of his high home run rate, which has been 1.4 each of the last two years. He did somehow manage to win 17 games in 2005 with that ratio, but the likelihood of a repeat is low.

Of note: I think the Phillies will score a LOT of runs this year, which should result in high win totals for their big three of Myers, Hamels, and Garcia. Should the Phillies make the playoffs, they could be a very scary opponent for ANY team, Yankees included.