Our good friend JE over at philliesdraft.com has started to do his homework on the upcoming 2007 draft, and he’s prepared his first rough mock draft, looking at who might be available for the Phillies in the first few rounds, as well as taking a look at the organization’s drafting philosophy in past drafts and how we can use that info to predict what will happen this June. This is the first in what I hope will be a number of contributions from Jeff, and next time, I’ll try and get him to write up the report here with his own unique login. For now, check out what he’s got, it’s a great read. I’ll catalog this posting in the “2007 Draft” tag group to the left, and all subsequent posts dealing with the draft will go there as well.
Monthly Archives: May 2007
Ottawa Lynx Report Week Four
Lynx Week Four
Week four was the start of an eight game home stand . The Lynx schedule brought the Indianapolis Indians in for four games followed by the Louisville Bats, the first and second place teams in the Western Division. The Indians starting pitching would feature three of the stars of the Pittsburgh Pirates system, each of whom, because of various arm and shoulder problems, found themselves in the minor leagues. This matchup together with the to this date weak Lynx offense did not have the promise of an easy series for Ottawa who had been enjoying a successful home stand after a difficult opening season road trip. Indianapolis starters performed as advertised but the Lynx pitchers with the exception of game two of the series, were equal to the task, continuing their solid season. Three of the four games featured great pitching duals from both teams starters.
Ottawa Lynx April Wrapup Part Three
The Ottawa Lynx In April (Part Three-Fielding)
It has seemed obvious from the last two segments of the Lynx in April that the Lynx defence has been the most consistent and important part of their game in April. We looked at the pitching breakdowns yesterday and with the large amount of base runners allowed coupled with a fairly decent team ERA, and with not much offense to speak of, a simple process of elimination should lead us to the above conclusion. But traditional fielding stats really don’t tell us very much and the evolving modernization of those stats can make for more complicated reading than the various time travel theories presented by the world’s leading physicists. Therefore, I am not going to delve into such calculations because, after all, baseball is supposed to be fun isn’t it? Instead, although I will quota a few general statistics. My summation of the Lynx defence in the month of April will be much more subjective than my discussion of hitting and pitching.
The box score says it all…
A few weeks ago, after a particularly strong outing for Pat Overholt, I noted that his success is basically tied to being able to get groundouts, as he has been home run prone in the past, and as a starter, he’d have to really focus on pitching at the bottom of the strike zone to be effective. Last night, Pat got a lesson about not keeping the ball on the ground, to the tune of 7 ER. Here is the only stat you need to know
2 groundball outs, 8 fly ball outs.
He gave up 3 home runs in the game, 2 of them to top prospect Jay Bruce. In a 4 start stretch from April 5th through April 21st, Overholt had gotten 37 ground balls to only 13 fly ball outs, and he was largely successful in those starts. In the start prior to last night’s, he got 9 ground balls to 7 fly balls, struggled with his command (5 walks), but managed to avoid major damage, allowing only 1 ER in 6.2 IP. Last night, however, he wasn’t so lucky.
Reading Report—Week Four
After the first four weeks of the season Reading, although inconsistent remains tied for the top of the Southern division (with Akron), with a 12-10 record. Looking at how individual Phillies rank in the league SS Jesus Merchan is hitting .373 and is 2nd in the league in batting average. OF Javon Moran leads the league with 21 runs scored and is 4th in stolen bases with 9. 3B Mike Costanzo is third in the Eastern League with 5 homeruns, and 6th in the league with 15 RBI’s, however his 31 strikeouts (2nd in the league) and 11 errors, remain of great concern. Looking at the pitching, Anderson Garcia still leads the way with 6 saves , and Kyle Kendrick is leading the league with 32.0 innings pitched.
Ottawa Lynx April Wrapup Part Two
The Lynx In April 2007 (Part Two)
Hitting and even pitching can be streaky but if you have solid and consistent defence you’ll always have a chance to win. The 2007 version of the Ottawa Lynx appear to be proving what baseball people have been saying for many years, solid defence can rescue many an ugly pitching stat. Let’s examine the pitching for the Ottawa Lynx in the month of April.
Ottawa Lynx April Wrapup Part One
The Lynx April 2007 (Part One-Won-Lost and the Lynx Offence)
The Ottawa Lynx completed the first month of the 2007 season with a 10-9 won lost record, not great, not terrible, but on the good side of .500 with an 8-4 record after a 2-5 start on the road. Getting off to a good start and perhaps leading the division or at minimum staying close to the division lead is of prime importance in the early going. If a team falls significantly behind due to a poor record in the month of April, any hot streak which they enjoy later will have been wasted just getting back to or near the .500 level. In most seasons, except those in which a team finishes close to .600, a team will have one or two cold streaks and one or two hot streaks. The key is limiting the length of the cold streaks and having them more towards the middle of the season. It is also preferable to have a cold streak against teams in another division and hot streaks against your own. But that is a matter of the luck of the schedule and I suppose, luck of the draw. There are statistical categories and analysis ad nasuem to explain everything from the effect of the moon to which movie todays starting pitcher watched three days ago. Stats are useful in their own right but I’m not a slave to them and more often than not prefer to analyse what I’ve seen and not what I’ve read. As we discuss April 2007 and the Ottawa Lynx, it should be interesting to try and determine what these stats might be telling us.
Park factors, sample size, and more..
This is another area I wanted to touch on, sort of as a follow up to my “Prospect v Non-Prospect” post a few days back. As I mentioned in that discussion, when looking at a minor league player’s stats, you have to really look at things through a number of different lenses. A .260 batting average tells you relatively nothing if you don’t know how old the player is, what league he plays in, what position he plays, and what his home park is like. Not all .260 averages are made equal, not all 15 HR seasons are equal, and not all 3.00 ERA’s are equal. Understanding what goes into figuring this out will tell you a lot about the minor leagues in general.
Phuture Phillies 