Placido Polanco became just the 30th player in the history of Major League Baseball to hit a grand slam on opening day. While playing for the Phillies for two and a half seasons between 2003 and 2005, he quickly became a fan favorite because of solid defense and his ability to put the ball into play, not because of his power numbers.
Placido Polanco has a career batting average that is 49 points higher and an on base percentage that is 55 points higher than Pedro Feliz. But what does this exactly mean for the Phillies? For this we turn to Project VORP, or Value Over Replacement Player.
Barring an injury or two, Andy Tracy will remain a career minor league player. This past week he was one of seven players invited to the Phillies Spring Training camp for the upcoming season.
Nobody has ever doubted the ability of Jimmy Rollins to play major league baseball. Despite the occasional slump, his yearly average of 39 doubles, 10 triples, 16 home runs, 36 stolen bases, and 104 runs along with a career .274 batting average speak for themselves.
While the Phillies have made two World Series appearances in as many years, it is not difficult to point out one spot on the roster that has room for improvement for the upcoming season. For the first time in as long as I can remember it is not our starting pitching, nor is it our [...]
Life was going well for Jayson Werth in 1997. As an 18 year old high school graduate, he would be drafted in the 1st round, 22nd overall, by the Baltimore Orioles, who finished with an American League best 98 wins. After working his way up through the Orioles and Dodgers minor league systems, he would [...]
That’s right. If you have waited this long to jump on the Phillies bandwagon you may want to think differently. You may want to jump on the train, the Chooch Train. While Ruiz is often referred to as the prototypical defensive major league catcher, it is not his career .246 batting average that makes him [...]
After listening to Howard Eskine argue with Ike Reese quite adamantly during today’s broadcast that Ryan Howard could improve his offensive numbers if he were to “choke up” with two strikes, I decided to research the issue. How could someone that has averaged 100+ runs, 25+ doubles, 51 home runs 144 rbi’s, and 100 walks over [...]
