Kuzul

Baseball has taken many hits in recent years; Steroids,  HGH, and the strike of 94′ that, no doubt is in the back of everyone’s mind.

It is rare when the good in sports get the front page.

More often than not, it is a suspension, or a press conference, for a reason other than a former All-Star retiring after the end of a brilliant career.

Chase Utley, the four-time All-Star second baseman for the Philadelphia Phillies, has teamed with Citizens Bank, once again launching the Helping Hands glove donation program. The program is meant to assist children who play in the Philadelphia Phillies Jr. RBI League.

According to “The Mercury” , new or used gloves will be collected throughout the 2010 season at Citizens Bank kiosk in “Ashburn Alley” (Citizens Bank Park) to benefit participants in the RBI League that are 12 and under.

“Citizens Bank has been supporting the Phillies Jr. RBI League since 2002 and we believe the partnership plays a vital role in helping inner-city children who want to play baseball,” said Daniel K. Fitzpatrick, Citizens Bank president and CEO for Pennsylvania, New Jersey and Delaware.

This is not the only “extracurricular” activity that Utley has taken part in.

If you visit the official Chase Utley website , you can catch a glimpse of Chase Utley, the person, in action.

Utley is not only a part of the RBI Program but is supporter of Pennsylvania Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals.  Couple that with his involvement in the Philadelphia Futures, a mentoring program for inner city high school students, that has raised nearly $300,000 in the past couple of seasons, proves that Utley can use his celebrity for the greater good so to speak.

Being a lifelong Atlanta Braves fans, the Phillies are on my list of teams I dislike. This time I will give you a pass!

Kudos to you Mr. Utley for being one of the good guys.

This article can also be found on The GM’s Perspective

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There is a scene in Back to the Future II when Marty McFly is staring down the barrel of a shotgun being held by what had been his high school’s disciplinarian Mr. Strickland.  Marty is in the Alternate 1985, the 1985 in which Biff Tannen has become rich and powerful, and has turned Hill Valley upside down.

As Strickland threatens to Marty that he has “three seconds to get off this porch with your nuts in tact,” a confused, overwhelmed, and scared Marty screams “Please, Mr. Strickland, I just wanna know what the hell’s going on here!”

As of right now, the 2010 baseball season has become the Alternate 1985, the Philadelphia Phillies are Mr. Strickland, and Philadelphia Phillies fans are Marty McFly.

We just wanna know what the hell is going on here.

With their 9-3 loss to the Atlanta Braves on Monday afternoon, the Philadelphia Phillies have now lost nine out of their last 13 games; what’s worse, they have officially fallen out of first place.

The problem with this 13 game skid, of course, is that the Phillies have been lucky to have won the four games they’ve won.  Remember, one of those wins was a 1-0 victory in which Roy Halladay had to pitch a perfect game to ensure the Phillies’ win when the Phils managed only one unearned run.

Suddenly, the Phillies are in an alternate universe in which they have to rely on pitching and defense to win games because their offense is too anemic to consistently score runs. The problem, of course, is that this team is not built around pitching, and defense.  

Admittedly, Jamie Moyer is losing hard-luck games—he has three losses in his last three starts despite giving up only seven earned runs in 18 innings—for the first time in his career.  Nevertheless, this is not a staff that is going to hold teams to four or fewer earned runs very often.

Where this all gets scary is when you look at the offensive numbers for the Phils during the last 13 games.  

In eight of the last 13 games, the Phillies have scored either one run or no runs. During that stretch the Phillies have gone from one of the top offenses in the National League to seventh in the NL. The Phillies haven’t finished a season that low in offense since 2002.

The Phillies went an entire week without a homerun from Sunday May 23rd to Monday May 31st.  The Phillies haven’t gone that long without a homerun since 1999. Plus, the last homerun they hit was by Ross Gload; no offense to Ross, but he’s not the guy we need homeruns from.

And then there are the individual stats: Jayson Werth, who had the day off on Monday, is currently on an 0-for-17 slump, and has watched his batting average drop 40 points in 13 games.

Chase Utley has also watched his average drop almost forty points, and is now hitting .277, which would be a full season career worst.

With an 0-for-4 outting on Monday, Ryan Howard’s OPS dropped below .800; his career OPS is .950.

The first two months of the Phillies season are now over, and it would be difficult to say that this has been a “bad start” to the season.  The Phillies are still six games over .500, and they are still only half a game out of first place in the NL East.

However, what has been a near-historically lethargic month for one of the best offenses in baseball is troubling nonetheless, and the Phillies need to prove to themselves and their fans that they can still snap out of this funk.

At the end of Back to the Future II, Doc and Marty catch up to Biff back in 1955 and save the day, returning the Alternate 1985 to the real 1985, and returning all life to normal.  Will the Phillies be so lucky?

Mr. Strickland’s got his gun pointed at the Phillies’ fans nuts, and we’ve got three seconds to get off his porch.

If the Phillies can’t get this offense turned around soon, we may all find ourselves stuck in the Alternate 1985 forever.

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Has anyone seen that panic button anywhere?

After Thursday night’s shutout, the Philadelphia Phillies leave New York having not scored a single run in their three-game set there, and having been shut out four times in the last five games.

Charlie, we have a major problem: there is no good precedent for the Phillies being shut out for an entire series.

The last time the Phllies were shutout for an entire three game set was—strangely enough—also during the last week of May, back in 1979.  There, the Phillies were shutout by the Chicago Cubs on May 25, followed by a scoreless three game set against the Montreal Expos from May 29 to May 30.

It gets crazier: the Phillies record going into that game against the Cubs was 26-14, and once the Expos were done with them their record had fallen to 27-20.  Meanwhile, the current Phillies squad went into last Saturday’s shutout loss against the Boston Red Sox with a 26-15 record, and they are now 26-20.

The bad news, Phillies fans, is this: that was just the beginning of a bad run that eventually got manager Danny Ozark fired, and the 1979 Phillies team was the only squad out of five straight teams from 1976 to 1981 to not go to the playoffs.

Yikes.

There is good news, though: Cole Hamels pitched effectively against the Mets on Thursday.  Hamels pitching well at this point in the season is far more important to the Phillies ultimate goals than the Phillies offense scoring runs at this point in the season, so this is good news.

Still, it would also be nice to score some runs.

Meanwhile, the Phillies head to Florida for a three-game set starting tonight, and for the first time in a while the Phillies enter a series in a position to lose first place by the end of the series.

Worse yet, with all five teams in the NL East within three games of each other, the Phillies could, quite literally, be in last place by the end of this Marlins series.

Better keep that panic button at the ready.

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Moving into interleague play, the Philadelphia Phillies are off to a hot start toward a third consecutive World Series appearance. Is it too soon to start rating the Phillies’ players’ performance? Perhaps, but I’d like to try anyway.

Ladies and Gentlemen, your early-season 2010 Philadalphia Phillies MVPs.

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Is Mariano Rivera a future Hall of Famer?  How about Albert Pujols?  What about Joe Mauer?

Playing the Hall of Fame prediction game is always fun.  Bill James likes to analyze future Hall of Famers from a percentage standpoint.  I have never stuck around long enough to figure out how he says things like “Todd Helton has a 67 percent chance of making the Hall of Fame,” but he does it, and so there it is.

Back in the 1980s, I forget when it was, but I believe it was in the spring of 1987 that James issued the following one-sentence analysis of Dale Murphy’s chances of being elected into the Hall of Fame:

“Dale Murphy will be in the Hall of Fame.”

Obviously, as we all now know, Dale Murphy is not, in fact, in the Hall of Fame, and never will be. 

Obviously, in the spring of 1987, Murphy looked like one of the great talents in the game—a speedy center-fielder with power who, at the age of 30, already had over 250 home runs (a big deal back then), 800 RBI, two MVPs, and five Gold Gloves. 

It would have been crazy to think Murphy would NOT be in the Hall of Fame.

Two years later, Murphy hit .226 with 24 home runs in a full season.  Two years after that, he hit .245 with 24 home runs.  Two years after that, he was all but done with baseball, at the age of 35, never having passed 400 home runs, and having watched his overall career stats tumble.

Thus, it occurs to me: When we ask whether a current player will one day be in the Hall of Fame, we are really asking one of three questions.

First, we are asking the Dale Murphy 1987 question: If this player continues on his expected career trajectory, will he one day be in the Hall of Fame?  Obviously, if Murphy could have remained productive into his mid-30s, he was Hall of Fame material.  He just unexpectedly stopped producing.

But the second, more exciting question, is what we’ll call the Sandy Koufax 1966 question.  Koufax, of course, retired at the age of 30 completely out of the blue after the 1966 season, on the heels of simply dominating baseball for five straight seasons.

Koufax was a no-doubter for the Hall six years later. 

So, the Sandy Koufax question is: If this player were to suddenly and without warning retire from baseball today, would he be a Hall of Famer?

At any given time, the Dale Murphy 1987 Hall of Famers far out-number the Sandy Koufax 1966 Hall of Famers, and this makes sense: The difference between a very good player and a Hall of Fame player is often the ability to be great for a long time.

The third question is the one we’ll call the Phil Niekro Question. 

Niekro, of course, is the only player ever to have fewer than 200 wins on his 40th birthday and then go on to win 300 games.  Thus, as one might imagine, when Phil Niekro turned 40 in 1979 (a season in which, by the way, he led the NL in wins AND losses, plus starts, complete games, innings, hits, home runs, walks, wild pitches, and batters faced), no one on earth thought he was destined for the Hall of Fame. 

But sure enough, by the time he retired nearly a decade later, he had 5,400 innings pitched and 318 wins, and he was eventually elected to the Hall of Fame.

So, the Phil Niekro 1979 question is: Can this player, who is not currently a Hall of Fame-caliber player, continue playing long enough to reach certain career milestones that will put him over the top?

The problem with Phil Niekro 1979 Hall of Famers is that you never know who these guys are until you get there.  Who knew 10 years ago that Jamie Moyer would still be pitching in 2010?

But I digress.

So, now that we have a framework for analyzing potential Hall of Famers, we don’t have to argue endlessly about whether a guy like Lance Berkman is a future Hall of Famer.  We know Berkman is a Murphy ’87 Hall of Famer, but not yet a Koufax ’66 Hall of Famer.

Here, then, is a list of 30 current major league players: the Top 10 Koufax ’66 Hall of Famers, the Top 10 Murphy ’87 Hall of Famers, and the Top 10 Nieko ’79 Hall of Famers.

Top 10 Sandy Koufax 1966 Hall of Famers

The guys who would be in right now if they retired tomorrow.

10. Albert Pujols

He became eligible when he began his 10th season this year.  He would be in if he was killed tomorrow by the mother of his six handicapped illegitimate children that he refused to acknowledge.

9. Ken Griffey, Jr.

“The Kid” has probably spent the most time on this list.  He’s been a Koufax ’66 gut since 1999, and despite all efforts to ruin his career, he still is. 

Actually, if someone would let him know this, maybe we could get him to retire.

8. Ivan Rodriguez

One of the greatest catchers ever.

7. Jim Thome

The only thing that could stop him now is steroid allegations.  He is this era’s Harmon Killebrew.

6. Chipper Jones

See Thome comment.  Substitute “Eddie Matthews” for “Harmon Killebrew.”

5. Derek Jeter

Love him or hate him, but they may rename the Hall of Fame after him.

4. Trevor Hoffman

Dude, you’re in; you won’t need 600 saves.  Hang it up.

3. Mariano Rivera

Certainly the greatest modern closer, and perhaps the greatest relief pitcher of all time.

2. Manny Ramirez

His personality is going to cost him some votes, but he may be one of the five greatest right-handed hitters of all time.

1. Alex Rodriguez

People hate him.  He makes too much money.  He used PEDs.  And he’s one of the four greatest non-first base infielders (Hornsby, Wagner, A-Rod) of all time.

Top 10 Dale Murphy 1987 Hall of Famers

Keep this up much longer, and you’re going straight to the Hall.

10. Andy Pettitte/Jorge Posada

Let’s face it: the “Big Four”—Jeter, Rivera, Pettitte, Posada—are probably already in, but neither Pettitte nor Posada have, strictly speaking, Hall of Fame-caliber numbers. 

If Pettitte has 500 more innings, a couple more playoff appearances, and gets to 250 wins, he’s there for sure.  If Posada gets to 1,000 runs, 250 home runs, and 1,000 RBI, he’s a lock.

9. Roy Halladay

Halladay is so “cusp.”  He probably already has the numbers to eventually be elected, but his numbers should be no doubt by the end of his current contract, the way he’s pitching.

8. Johan Santana

Three ERA titles, three strikeout titles, and two Cy Youngs essentially lands Santana in the David Cone/Bret Saberhagen range of pitchers.  Santana has all the skills, but needs more years.

7. Joe Mauer

Is he young?  Yes.  But if he stays healthy and continues to develop, he could be the greatest catcher of all time.  Seriously.

6. Chase Utley

Utley is only in his sixth full year, and needs two more seasons to even qualify, but his combination of hitting and defense at the second base position put him well ahead of the pace of Hall of Famer Ryne Sandberg and future Hall of Famers Craig Biggio and Roberto Alomar.

5. Lance Berkman

His numbers are not exactly headed in a “I’m gonna be playing for five more years” direction, but if he does, he’s in.

4. Todd Helton

Had Helton put up the numbers he’s put up while playing in a ball park other than Coors’ Field, he’d be in the Koufax ’66 group.  As it is, he seems to be within range of some impressive career milestones to go with his amazing rate stats.

3. Vladimir Guerrero

A year ago, Vlad looked done, but he wisely left the Los Angeles Angels and signed on with baseball’s version of the fountain of youth, the Texas Rangers.  If he has a few more years in him, he’ll be a lock.

2. David Wright

Is this guy Howard Johnson, Scott Rolen, or Mike Schmidt?  I have no idea.  If he can just play the way he has so far for 10 more years, he’s a Hall of Famer.

1. Tim Lincecum

A really good debut year, followed by two dominant Cy Young seasons, followed by a so-far terrific fourth season, Lincecum is to this era, what Dwight Gooden was to the 1980s. 

Let’s hope no one introduces him to Darryl Strawberry.

Top 10 Phil Niekro 1979 Hall of Famers

Yeah, you could be in the Hall of Fame, if you’ve got 1,000 more hits in your 40-year-old bat, or 100 more wins in your 40-year-old arm.

10. David Ortiz

There is no way the 34-year-old Ortiz makes the Hall of Fame as a late-blooming designated hitter, unless he can hit 175 home runs to get to 500.

9. Johnny Damon  

No one has ever gotten to 3,000 hits and been left out of the Hall of Fame.  If the 36-year-old Damon can collect 550 more hits at the end of his career, neither will he.

8. Bobby Abreu  

Abreu will be in the sabermetrics Hall of Fame, but unless he has about 100 more doubles, 40 more home runs, 300 more RBI, and 50 more stolen bases, I suspect he will be this generation’s Bobby Bonds.

7. Jason Giambi

Currently a pinch-hitting specialist with the Rockies, Giambi would need to hit 90 more home runs and get to 500 to even sniff the Hall, what with his PEDs admission and his meager career totals.

6. Jim Edmonds

A surprisingly compelling Hall of Fame candidate at this point. His total resume does not leap out at you, but now that he has come back after missing all of 1999 and looks refreshed, what if he plays five more seasons, gets to 420-430 home runs, scores 1,400 runs, and drives in 1,300 RBI?

5. Paul Konerko

An inconsistent, overrated, oafish, sometimes power hitter, Konerko nevertheless has 340 home runs at the age of 34 and currently leads the NL.  What if he plays until he’s 45 and hits 600 dongs?

4. Andruw Jones

Jones has probably spent time in all three of these categories.  Had he retired after the 2005 season—when he hit his 300th home run, led the NL in home runs and RBI, hit 51 home runs, and won his seventh Gold Glove at the age of 28—he would have been a Koufax ’67 guy. 

Had he continued his career trajectory of 2007, when at the age of 30 he appeared to be locked in for 500 home runs, he would have been a Murphy guy. 

Now, he has spent three seasons playing like he is already 40 years old.  He needs a Ruben Sierra-style comeback, and it needs to last long enough to get him to some big numbers.

3. Tim Hudson

Kind of the Bert Blyleven of his own era.  Hudson has not been on the map as a great pitcher since 2003, and probably needs to pitch a nice long time to get into Hall contention.

2. Edgar Renteria

If Renteria plays 10 more years and gets to 3,000 hits and 2,000 runs scored, people won’t even mention what a mediocre player he is as they vote him in on the first ballot.

1. Jamie Moyer

Clearly a lackluster pitcher, he has given us no indication that he can’t keep limiting opponents to five runs per game and picking up wins for 10 more years.  He is 47 years old and needs 37 wins to get to 300. 

Start the clock.

Asher B. Chancey lives in Philadelphia and is a co-founder of BaseballEvolution.com. 

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The Philadelphia Phillies have a long and storied, although not always impressive, history.

Throughout the years they have had their fair share of characters, and Philadelphia fans have a soft spot in their hearts for the quirky, the loud-mouthed, the eccentric, and the bold.

Although they did not always lead the team in numerical categories, these players have won the affection of the populace as the most beloved Phillies of all time.

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It’s easy to root for a winning team, but what makes it even easier is when that winning team is made up of a bunch of likable guys.

The Phillies have a roster full of character players who truly enjoy the game. They play hard and they like each other. And as proven by their appearance in the previous two World Series, this team is good.

Here’s a look at my 10 favorite Phillies on a squad with a lot of guys to like.

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Whitaker and Trammell. Morgan and Concepcion. Tinker and Evers. Maz and Groat.

So often, the 2B and SS are linked together on great teams. Why should they not be? What part of baseball more encompasses teamwork than the ability to turn a double play?

While top defensive pairings are not exactly a dime a dozen, the majors definitely have their fair share of talent at the pivot. Let’s take a closer look at the best.

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Am I the only one who watched the New York Mets drop two out of three games to the Philadelphia Phillies this weekend?  I thought most people did, but apparently Jon Miller, Joe Morgan, and Orel Hershiser did not.

Normally, I would not care if three people did not watch the weekend series between National League East rivals, but when you are broadcasting a game Sunday night in the series you should pay attention to the previous games.

At the end of the game Sunday, the Phillies were about to wrap up an 11-5 victory which would give them the first series of the season against the Mets.  Yet, the ESPN crew in the booth (the three above) said the Mets have a lot of positives to take from the series.

What I do not understand is what positives do the Mets have to take?

They took the first game on Friday night facing Kyle Kendrick and his over-seven ERA.  The Mets were red hot and David Niese made sure it stayed that way, but positives and negatives of a whole series can not be taken into consideration on the first game against a pitcher with an ERA over seven.

The wind came out of the sails of the Mets on Saturday though, when the 2010 NL Cy Young Award winner, Roy Halladay, took the hill and had an easy day playing against the Mets for all nine, while only giving up three hits.  Meanwhile, Mike Pelfrey woke up and came back down to earth giving up six runs over four innings, while the Phils cruised to a 10-0 victory.

After getting blown-out on Saturday, the rubber game on Sunday became the biggest game of the early season, not just for the Mets, but in all of baseball.  You have the hottest team in baseball trying to prove they are going to challenge the big boys all season with their ace on the hill, if the Metropolitans wanted to prove something, they win Sunday night.

The game started out as planned for the team from Queens. They hit around 47-year-old Jamie Moyer for three runs in the first and then two more in the fourth, to have a 5-2 lead going into the bottom of the fourth. 

The game should have been considered over with the remaining innings played out just to say they did.  However, Santana and the Phillies had other ideas.  The only problem: Santana is on the Mets.

That brings us to the bottom of the fourth inning.  With two outs and Chase Utley standing on second base, Raul Ibanez drives him in with a base hit, Juan Castro single’s, Carlos Ruiz walks to load the bases for the never-dangerous pitcher Moyer, with a lifetime average of .133 and 13 career RBI (or just about one for every two years he has played).

Then the unthinkable happened, Moyer worked a seven-pitch walk forcing in a run, and bringing Shane Victorino to the plate.  The Flyin’ Hawaiian then sent a 0-1 fastball to the seats in right field for a grand slam giving the Phillies the lead.

The defending NL champions then showed the Mets who was boss in the NL East, extending the lead to six runs, and not looking back from there as the Mets did after the fourth inning.

So, can someone please tell me what positives the Mets can take away from this series? 

They beat up on the sixth-starter Kendrick for their lone win of the series. Then they only helped secure Roy Halladay’s NL Cy Young on Saturday.  Finally, their ace could not make it out of the fourth inning and got out-pitched by a 47-year-old on national television.

Gee, I know if I were the Phillies I would be shaking scared of the Mets. 

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