Blangraphs

Woe be Joe,
Today Blanton was traded to the Dodgers.
We here at Blangraphs are stunned and heartbroken.
We'll miss you Joe.

Today, 7/31/2012, is the trade deadline.
During the spring there was much talk about Joe being shipped out because he was deemed superfluous to the rotation and because he made "too much money".

Today, that threat is even more real. The Phillies are in danger of losing Blanton, their ace. The star of the 2008 world series, one of just 7 remaining players from that team and all for nothing (salary relief, whatever that means).

This is a protest against the trading of  Joe Blanton to anyone, and a plea to offer him an extension. He is our most consistent and well beloved players and without him Blangraphs would not exist.

And up, sheath the for's'l as before,
For your country will be proud once again
Of the ship and the men
Who sail her smartly into victory.
Blow, winds, blow,
For the Joe Boat is sailing once again!
For the Joe Boat is sailing once again!

With nothing else going on during the all-star break- I thought we'd post a video of all-star snub Joe Blanton's greatest game. Enjoy!

It has become extremely difficult to watch the Phillies lately. The pitching stinks, the hitting stinks, the fielding stinks, the broadcasters remind me of Amorphophallus titanum. Even Joe has be susceptible to the season, dropping below .500 last night with and ERA creeping up to 5.00. 

Thus I present the mid-season JoeBoat.

Did you know that Joe Blanton has the fewest walks per nine of any pitcher in the NL? Second in baseball? He does! #1!

Also, more interesting news, Blanton has a lower xFIP than Matt Cain, ergo, Blanton basically threw a perfect game this year.

Joe Blanton, perfect.

Joe Blanton 2011: 1 win, 2 losses. 1.476 WHIP.

Joe Blanton 2012: 7 wins, 6 losses. 1.245 WHIP.

Philadelphia Phillies 2011: 102-60, 1st NL East.

Philadelphia Phillies 2012*: 104-58, 1st NL East


Bank on it.




*extrapolated from the new Joejection system, based on Blantagorean W-L and comparison of past Blanton performance to this season so far.

Joe the winner-
Last night JoeyB tossed 7 scoreless and dominated the Professional Pirates with 8 K's. Rollins smashed a ball deep to right to which I'm positive "that ball is gone" accompanied. Utley is supposedly coming back Wednesday if everything goes well tonight in AAA. Vance the Lance gets the start tonight, things are looking up for the fightins!

(I would write more about the game but I was watching the thriller in Denver- Jeff Francis vs. Strasburg. It sounds hilarious but actually Francis did well on the new 75 pitch limit and the Rockies got just enough of Strasburg, who was also pretty dominant. Gorgonzola pitched a couple for the Nats and sorta sucked- but the highlight of the night was watching the mother duck and her two ducklings eating the players sunflower seeds in the visitors bullpen.)

Only 8 GB!

So things look bleak.

We've lost like a hundred our of 101 and are 8.5 games out of first. Not great.
But there is still hope!

To me this season feels weird, every time I sit down and watch the team they really don't seem too bad to me. The pitching seems like they don't walk many, (except the hoard of rookie relievers) and they seem to be racking up the K's as usual- but for whatever reason the results just aren't there. Call it what you will, clutch, guts, or otherwise but I think that the players themselves are too good to let it effect them for the rest of the season and that things will begin to level out. It is impossible that Lee doesn't have a win yet, but he sure has pitched well enough for several of them, it's a good microcosm of the pitching staff as a whole. They just have to get the results sooner or later!

The hitting has been complained about for quite awhile, but when you look at who they are fielding every day it really isn't much of a surprise. Pierre, The Whig party, Fontenot, Martinez, Orr, Luna. These are not all-stars by any stretch, but they have as a whole done a surprisingly good job. They are 9th in the league (right in the middle) in OPS (on base + slugging) and are scoring 4.21 runs per game which is 18th in the majors (middle of the pack again).

The fielding aside from the now stretcher-bound Galvis and the always amazing Rollins has been lacking. I don't know a good way to quantify the fielding other than observation and I think all Phillies fans would say that by observation, they stink.

The baserunning has been at the very least, decent. If nothing else you can say that they lead the league in stolen base percentage at 84% (43-8). So they're not giving away outs on the base paths either.

The only explanation is some sort of horrible voodoo shaman has been kicked out of the Geno's line because he doesn't speak English and has curse the Phillies to a season of bad luck. As fans we now must face the wrath of curse of the voodoo shaman and watch the Phearless Nine stumble about and lose all the time. If only there was someone on the Phillies who was an accomplished curse breaker...


Slumping Chase Utley Resorts to the Power of Voodoo

Oh yeah! Chase! Where is that guy anyway...

Chase Utley to begin Class A rehab stint Tuesday

Wooooooooooooooooooooooooo!!!!!!!

Edit: I think we all were wondering what a Joe Boat was...

In his first major league at bat with the Phils Hector Luna came in and pinch hit in the 9th inning with the bases loaded. He proceeded to crush a grand slam over Alfonso "Raphael" Soriano's head. Cementing the Phillies victory over the Cubs- This is the first thing I'm sure that popped into most Phillies fans heads.

This picture works best if you play the music in your head while you look at it, go Luna!

May 3, 2012. Joe Blanton squinted in the Atlanta sun and walked onto the field with a slight spring in his step. In the home dugout, Chipper Jones shook his wizened head and thoughtfully chewed a massive lump of tobacco. He was sure that his team would make quick work of the Phillies. After all, only fifteen hours had passed since Jones had slammed an 11th inning home run to walk off with a victory. Turning to outfielder Jason Heyward, at 22 years old a kid one-third his age, Jones grunted "What's Blanton so happy about?" Heyward shrugged and began taking cuts with an imaginary bat, putting together a highlight reel of speculative glory. They would get their answer soon enough.

Stepping onto the mound, Blanton wiped his brow and cleared the dust from the pitching rubber with a languid kick. It was the bottom of the first inning at Turner Field, and the Phillies already had the lead. What he seemed to know, what seemed impossible at the time, was that the one run that Hunter Pence had knocked in would be plenty for Joe.

The home half of the first would be the most difficult for Blanton. He gave up a single, faced four batters, and had to throw 17 pitches. After that, batters were soon swinging awkwardly or late, and many Braves hitters walked back to the dugout with disgusted looks on their faces. One of the three hits Blanton gave up was an infield single by David Ross, who got a head start to first base because he almost fell towards first base during his swing.

One by one, the Braves lineup fell in line. Many fearsome hitters, including Freddie Freeman, Dan Uggla, and Heyward, came up with 0-fers. Chipper Jones had the day off, and could only watch with awe from the bench. The Braves pitchers did a competent job, with eight strong innings from Randall Delgado and an appearance by the legendary Livan Hernandez. "Ted Williams and Willie Mays couldn't have hit Blanton today" said Heyward after the game. He shook his head and looked out at the empty field for a while, then slowly made his way towards the dugout.

In California, Jered Weaver was just waking up as Blanton was entering the eighth inning. At that point, the Braves had only managed two singles, no walks, and no runs. "I checked my phone and I had hundreds of texts" said Weaver, who had thrown a 121-pitch no-hitter the previous night against the Twins. "The first ones I checked were from my brother Jeff. One was like 'hey, great job dude!' and then the next was 'but whoa check out Blanton, it's not a no-no but I'm just sayin'." Blanton's amazing outing took only 88 pitches and there were no walks or errors. He faced the same number of batters that Weaver had the previous night, 29. "Jeff told me that a no-hitter was something special, in another league" Jered Weaver said, "but he was like 'Joe did all that AND got a hit.' Mad props to 56."


Disclaimer: All quotes and sentiments attributed to real-life people are fabricated. All images are lifted from other sources for humorous purposes.

Cliff Lee is on the 15 disabled list wish a strained oblique. They say he will hopefully miss only a couple starts- but who knows. As a reference point, our hero Joe Blanton suffered an oblique strain two years ago and missed the first month of the season. Cliff is being replaced by BG tolerable Kyle Kendrick. We could spend hours explaining why Kendrick sucks compared to Lee but needless to say he walks twice as many batters as Lee and he strikes out half as many.

Well this sucks.

Let's look on the bright side! Another Joe gets a shot.
To replace Lee, BG favorite Joe Savery gets the call to go the pen.
Savery was drafted out of Rice to much fanfare awhile ago, he was a starting pitcher/first baseman in college but was told to just focus on pitching when he became a part of the Phils organization. Skipping over his minor league career we'll just say he pretty much sucked most of the time, so much so that he was told to try being a first baseman again. He crushed. But as an "old", only "good" first baseman he appeared to have no future in the organization. Then he went LOOGY. That is to say he went to the bullpen and now pitches exclusively to left handed batters, quite effectively.

My problem with LOOGY's is that you basically eat up  a roster spot just so that you can retire one or two batters a game. Savery, however, can still hit. He is what we were hoping the Dtrain could be for us at the beginning of spring training. Someone you can bring in to pitch (or hit!) and still stay in for at least part of the next half inning. Ever since Joltin' Joe DaBlantio's World Series blast in 2008 we've had a sweet spot for pitchers knocking the cover off the ball, so hopefully we can see Charlie utilize Savery's bat on his already lefty heavy bench.

Good luck Joe(s)!!!

Hamels is taking the hill this afternoon to look to shut down the Mets and avoid the sweep. That's not to say that Lee and Worley didn't do a good job in keeping the Mets off the bases but with the offense performing the way they have in the past week you have to be Halladay (or Blanton!) in order to win.

Manuel is sending out Juan Pierre (LF), Laynce Nix (1B), Ty Wigginton (3B), and Pete Orr (2B). This looks like the most replacements that the Phils have fielded this season- they are neither strong defensively nor offensively.

Good luck guys!

Update: Ike Davis takes Hamels deep on a low and inside fastball- this followed Hamels completely dominating the first two batters and then a looper that fell in by David Wright. 2-0 Mets end top 1.

Dickey's SAC is successful!

 But wait! The secret go back to first play is on! 

Next time Thole, next time.

Here at Blangraphs, we're all about bringing you news you can't find anywhere else. In advance of Joe's Thursday start (!!!!) against the Miami Marlins, we couldn't have been happier when a world exclusive fell into our grasp: please enjoy Ozzie Guillen's rejected design for the Marlins' new home run sculpture!

Just thought I'd dig out a few classic Phillies memories before the season starts:
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Yesterday afternoon Blanton heaved 2 innings against the Yankees in his much anticipated season debut. He smashed the Bronx Bombers with a 5-0 ground out to fly ball ratio and struck out the mighty RAULLLLLLLLLLLL to end the first. All indications lead to a mighty season of Blandomination with Joe once again heavily featuring the dreaded A.B.P. (Amazing Blanton Pitch).

GO JOE

Big Joe's Cy Young/MVP/World Series Hero/Ultimate Champion/Blangraph's Player of the Year campaign begins tomorrow afternoon against the Yankees. The 1:05 EST will be televised on MLB.tv- game starters aside from Joe have yet to be announced.

For a preview Blangraphs looks to give a prediction of Joe's numbers this year.

IP       K/9    BB/9      HR/9       BABIP     LOB%     GB%      HR/FB      ERA      FIP      XFIP    WAR
257.66 8.5    1.2       .3         .300        60%      64%       10%        1.01      1.02     1.00      8.6

This was a prediction run with a Blantonian correlation coefficient of 1.0, run ten bajillion times in my head. The % error for a prediction run this way is .001%. The image rendered with this prediction is as follows.

GO JOE!

There has been some discussion about doing the unthinkable, trading JoeyB. As pointed out by David Murphy (link) there are some problems with this financially speaking for both the Phillies and the team who would be acquiring him. But who cares about all that, let's talk Blanton.
 IP       K/9    BB/9      HR/9       BABIP     LOB%     GB%      HR/FB      ERA      FIP      XFIP    WAR

41.1

7.62

1.96

1.09

.362

70.9 %

55.0 %

13.9 %

5.01

3.63

3.15

0.6

That is Joey's line from 2011, not bad for 40 innings?
But the Phillies have just signed a durable pitcher who wins ballgames in Kyle Kendrick you say? Well then why bother with Joe! He is clearly inferior! Bring on Kendricks line!!

 IP        K/9    BB/9    HR/9     BABIP        LOB%       GB%        HR/FB      ERA     FIP    XFIP   WAR

114.2

4.63

2.35

1.10

.261

76.1 %

45.3 %

10.5 %

3.22

4.55

4.42

0.2

Wait a minute! According to last years data Kendrick wasn't so great... In fact it looks like he got a little lucky maybe... Well we have two years to find out! I'd also like to point out Joe's higher K/9 and lower BB/9 and higher GB% (betcha didn't see that coming!).

You are have undoubtedly been  screaming since you started reading this, 40 IP???!??!?! YOU MONSTER THAT'S TOO SMALL A SAMPLE SIZE, JOE SUCKS. Well phooey.

Why (besides a small sample size) might Joe be better last year than he was previously? Did he become more ferocious and intimidating. Probably. But might there be another reason? Maybe a new pitch selection?
                              Fastball        Slider        Cutter            Curveball         Changeup              

2010 Phillies      54.6% (89.4) 13.1% (82.9)   6.5% (87.8)    9.3% (77.1)      16.5% (82.0) 2011 Phillies 46.8% (89.0) 16.2% (82.8) 10.7% (86.0)  10.2% (76.2)           16.0% (81.9)

Yes! He is throwing his fastball 10% less! the real gains are in his slider and cutter. According to Pitch/fx his cutter is moving horizontally almost double what it was moving in 2010 and his sinker which I believe has been lumped into the fastball category has increased by almost 10% has gained some horizontal movement, although it has lost vertical movement.

What is most encouraging about Blanton is that his fastball velocity has stayed almost exactly the same from the beginning of his career to the end of last season, which would otherwise raise concern.

Durability has  been the main concern with Blanton going into this spring but I have something that will put us all at ease and calm any clamor for the trading of our superstar ace in the hole.

"I feel really good so far,"..."I didn't really stop throwing through the winter. I've had no problems." -Joe Blanton

VERY GOOD PITCHER, you got that right Dubee! Good luck Joe!

I went to one game at CBP last season, the Valdez epic.
I remember that Halladay was starting and he didn't have his best stuff that day, although he still pitched 7 innings and gave up 3 runs. He gave up a ton of hits probably struck out a bunch of batters probably didn't walk many.
I remember next to nothing about the offensive- I know Ibanez ended it with a sac fly in the 19th to Stubbs, I was sitting right next to Stubbs when he caught the ball and slowly jogged in to the dugout with it not even feinting a throw.
But I do remember Bastardo coming in and I thought it was over, but Bruce who was on a tear lately hit a blast and tied it. The next couple innings were a blur until Baez entered.
Baez was in my opinion the least effective pitcher the Phils have fielded since Jose Mesa trotted out there to try to close games. Baez miraculously got through one inning and I turned to my Mom and said "Now they must win."
They didn't.
Baez blew through 4 more innings! He gave up just 2 baserunners the whole time.
The offensive like I said was not memorable.
(I know they brought in Utley to pinch hit and he was intentionally walked, much to everybodies chagrin.)
Then the amazing 19th inning-
Valdez moved from 2nd to pitcher, Polanco moved from 3rd to 2nd, Ruiz moved from catcher to 3rd and Sardinha came in to catch.
The first hitter was Votto- MVP.
He smashed a ball to dead center which I knew was gone but Martinez awkwardly hustled over and caught it near the track.
Rolen stood in and was immediately hit by a slider (yay!).
Bruce popped one up to the third base side- Ruiz gave chase and dove over the tarp in an attempt to catch the ball but was unable to reach it. Amazing
Then the opposing pitcher who had thrown something like 90 pitches (Fisher?) came up to bat and popped one up to Polanco. 3 outs.
The 5,000 people left went wild and they won it in the bottom.
This was the only time I felt love for Wilson Valdez, I always viewed him as a mediocre fielder who hit into a ton of double plays. But at this moment Valdez was the hero of the season. I'll always remember this game and it will certainly be Philadelphia's fondest memory of Valdez.
Valdez was recently traded to the Reds for a LHP- I guess they didn't want to be beat again.
In any case, farewell sweet prince.