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A review of the 2007 Phillies & a preview of the 2008 season

By Peter Schiller

The strength of the 2007 Philadelphia Phillies was their offense, but now let’s look at the pitching staff! Then we’ll wrap things up by addressing Philadelphia’s biggest needs going into 2008.

The rating system that I used as the metric for these rankings are based on a Fantasy Baseball 5X5 Rotisserie rating system (the sum of BA, Runs, HRs, RBIs, & SBs).

The Starting Rotation:

The Ace of their staff was second year, left handed pitcher: Cole Hamels. Hamels ranked 2^nd among NL pitchers as he went 15-5 with a 3.39 ERA, 177 K’s, a 1.12 WHIP & a VORP of 48.8 (which was 8^th in the NL among pitchers).

Their 2^nd best starter was 44-year-old left handed pitcher Jamie Moyer who ranked 26^th overall among NL pitchers with a 14-12 record in 199.3 innings (most on the team) with 133 K’s, but had an ERA of 5.01.

Their 3^rd best starter, according to this ranking (which I disagree with here), was right handed pitcher Adam Eaton who was ranked 53^rd overall among NL pitchers, but was disappointing at best with a record of 10-10 and an ERA above 6 with a VORP of 9.7. How he gets ranked at 53 is beyond me!

Next was rookie right-handed pitcher Kyle Kendrick, their 4^th best starter who ranked 124 overall among NL pitchers with a 10-4 record over 121 innings with a 3.87 ERA a WHIP of 1.27 & the second best percentage of double plays pitched into with 22.2%. Look for good things to come in his second year with the Phillies.

Their 5^th ranked starter, ranked 132nd overall among NL pitchers, was the injured right-handed pitcher Freddy Garcia who went1-5 with a 5.90 ERA in 11 starts before a season-ending injury. Garcia is now a free agent & probably won’t return to Philly in 2008.

Garcia was replaced in the rotation by right-hander J.D. Durbin who went 6-5 with a 5.15 ERA in 10 starts. Durbin filled that role until the Phillies traded for Kyle Lohse at the deadline.

Lohse went 3-0 with the Phillies in 61 innings with a 4.72 ERA and is now a free agent.

Jon Lieber who filled in as a starter for 12 games went 3-6 overall with a 4.73 ERA.

After being the opening day starter, Brett Myers moved into the closer’s role & stayed there when healthy except for a brief time upon his return from injury until Manuel deemed him fit to close once again. Myers started only a few games before moving to the bullpen. His ERA and batting average against improved with the move.

With the exception of Moyer & Hamels, the starters were average at best until the stretch run in late September.

The Bullpen:

The Philadelphia closer experiment started with the aging & recently injury prone Tom “Flash” Gordon. Gordon compiled 6 saves & 14 Holds with an ERA of 4.73 and a stint on the DL.

Enter Myers, who racked up 21 saves & 3 Holds with an ERA of 4.33 (again, lower than this as a closer), but impressively had a strikeout per 9 innings ratio (SO9) of 10.88; he also landed on the DL, overlapping time spent on the DL with Gordon (bad timing Brett!).

Next, in their time of need, came Antonio Alfonseca who put together 8 saves with 15 Holds with an ERA of 5.44 (not good for a closer!).

Others who helped pitch in were Durbin with 1 save & 1 Hold, Clay Condrey with 2 saves & 3 Holds, Ryan Madson with 1 save, 7 Holds, rookie Francisco Rosario & Jose Mesa both with 1 save each. Rosario also gained 1 Hold, while Mesa compiled 4.

Other honorable mentions in the Phillies’ bullpen include mid-year acquisition J.C. Romero. A big Philly thank you to the Red Sox might be in order here, as they picked up Romero after the Red Sox waived the lefty.

Romero went 1-2 with a whopping 22 Holds and an impressive 1.24 ERA. Romero is a free agent, but the Phillies are hoping to re-sign him to a contract for 2008.

Geoff Geary was serviceable with 11 Holds and an ERA of 4.41, but the biggest reason to be hopeful for the 2008 season was the effort of Ryan Madson up until he got an injury that ended his season. Madson is one of the young arms on the Phillies staff and has the potention to be an important cog in the bullpen next year. At the time Madson got hurt he was 2-2 with a 3.05 ERA in 56 innings (all in relief) with 1 save, 7 Holds & a 1.27 WHIP.

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*Denotes that the player was a rookie in 2007

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