The following is a guest post from James Beale of Philadelphia's City Paper. He wrote the CP's
Phillies Preview which you can check out here. This post summarizes his preview while providing some additional outtakes for us.
We decided to put
together a non-traditional preview – instead of basic
sportswriter analysis, we went to the writers of Baseball
Prospectus and The Bill James Handbook, the Wharton
Professors who refuted Clemens’ steroid denial, and the author
who literally wrote the book on late-season collapses. Believe it or
not, the guys who published “BioOptimizer: Improving Models for
Discovery of Transcription Factor Binding Motifs” are the new
authority on baseball.
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What we found was that
Johan Santana makes the Mets clear favorites - unless he doesn’t.
Moving Myers to the rotation is both common sense and a daring move,
Rowand won’t be missed – except for the significant
offensive and defensive decline, and the Mets will not be
affected at all by last season – until it ruins this one.
Basically we have an upcoming season so close that even the numbers
do not fully agree.
For what they have to
say about the impact of the Santana trade, the Myers move, the Rowand
loss, and the effects of the collapse hit the link above, for their
thoughts on everything from the importance of clubhouse leadership to
one reserve who could be a diamond in the rough (hint: your guess is
wrong), hit the jump:
Quick note: for an
explanation of who the SABR guys are check the preview, no need to
re-hash here.
On Johan Santana:
Professor Rossi from La Salle: Historically adding a
number one-- a Schilling or a Clemens or a Randy Johnson really
upgrades the entire staff.
Steve Goldman of BP: When you have a pitcher
who can keep you in games it has a ripple effect because fewer
innings are thrown back onto the bullpen. If you were to chart the
innings that the starters throw they would be trending down, and the
innings that relief pitchers throw would be trending up. What this
means that more often more teams are giving innings to the cheesiest
pitchers in your organization – usually because they are left
handed.
Still, you need more
than an elite starter to win. And does this make the Mets
frontrunners? Heck no. The Mets don’t have the depth to deal
with an injury. The guys they gave up in the Santana trade –
who are at best going to be decent players – were the first
line of replacement in case this team got hit with an injury. They
don’t have major leaguers to replace them anymore. I see this
NL east race as a race to see who stays out of the hospital the most.
Steve Moyer, president of Baseball Info Solutions (the group behind the Bill James Handbook): The thing that’s
off about baseball is how much more important frontline starters are
in the playoffs when you go to 3 pitchers. Baseball has become an
odd game in that, for an entire season you need five starters, than
once the playoffs start it becomes an entirely different game.
Santana’s real value is during the playoffs, not in getting
there.
On playoff
experience:
Professor Jenson, a Wharton assistant professor: I think the run to the
playoffs gave the team a lot of confidence that may carry forward
into the current season. I personally think the playoffs
themselves are essentially just a coin flip, so if the team makes the
playoffs again, I doubt there will be much value to their previous
experience there.
Professor Rossi: A lot of doubts are
erased once you make it over the hump.
On clubhouse
leadership:
Steve Moyer: I’m not really
sure that this matters. Take, for example, the swinging A's of the
early 70s who hated each other, and had no playoff experience at all.
They are always stories, when a new guy comes to a team, where is
says “the clubhouse here is so great.” I always want to
hear about the teams where the chemistry really stinks before I make
a judgment. What are the clubhouses that are really lousy to be in?
On everything else:
Steve Goldman: While Pedro Feliz
playing at Citizens Bank may superficially look better, he’s a
guy who has trouble reaching base 30 percent of the time. The basis
of offense is getting on base, and he’s worse at that than
almost anyone in baseball. You have got to get on base more often
than he does. The thing about this that drives me nuts is that the
Phillies have been killed at 3B recently. It has been a glaring,
bleeding need that they have, the fact is that they can’t quite
seem to address this issue – Feliz doesn’t qualify.
Steve Moyer: Is Utley’s power
going to come back after that wrist injury? Is Carrasco going to
come up and be helpful? One guy I find really intriguing is Chris
Snelling – if he puts it together he could be a real gem for
this team.