Howard Smith-US PRESSWIRE

At this time last season, Vance Worley was pitching in AAA, and it wouldn’t be until mid-June that his major league rotation spot was solidified. From there on out, Worley far exceeded initial expectations, putting together a rookie campaign that would have been award-worthy had it not been for the two studs at the back of the Braves’ bullpen. His shiny 3.01 ERA sat nicely with a 3.32 FIP in 25 outings.

In his injury-shortened 2012 season, Worley has seen ups and downs. But in terms of both approach and results, not much has drastically changed: his strikeout rate, walk rate, ERA, and pitch selection mimic his 2011 figures. One thing that doesn’t match as neatly, however, is home runs.

Preventing the long ball was a significant part of Worley’s success in 2011. His 0.66 HR/9 significantly outpaced the league average of 0.94, and his HR/FB rate—a metric that often varies randomly—wasn’t absurdly low enough to suggest inevitable regression. But come 2012, Worley has struggled mightily in this area. An ugly 1.31 HR/9 ranks the bottom 20% of all major league starters, and only one other starting pitcher has a worse HR to flyball ratio (21.2%!). Is there an identifiable cause to this issue?

Right off the bat, it should be made clear that plain old luck has certainly played a considerable role. Not even the most home run-sucespitible pitchers come close to touching a 21% HR/FB rate over the course of a full year. Beyond that, there are still some other potential factors that are worth looking into.

In terms of pitch selection, Worley is the same man that he was last year, throwing a healthy diet of four-seam fastballs, sinkers, and sliders among a few curves and changeups:

Whereas pitch selection has remained relatively constant, pitch outcomes have not. Home runs per flyball/line drive have surged from 2.9% all the way to 12.5% on Worley’s four-seam fastball. While not as extreme, that figure has increased for his other pitches as well. It’s important to note that his flyball rate has dropped from last season’s 37% to 26%, and this is head-scratchingly paired with an increase in home run rate. All of this seems to suggest Worley has induced less weak, lazy flyballs and more hard-hit ones.

Ignoring splits in this situation would be heedless, but unfortunately it appears that they seem to provide little insight. Worley has been particularly worse against RHB in terms of home runs this year, and this is no different than what we’ve seen from him in the past.

While most avenues of explanation have been exhausted, pitch location remains. It is likely that his ballooned home run rate is due to some poor pitches left over the plate. Whether or not it’s the occasional mistake that’s hurt him or a systematic location problem, we can’t really know in just 8 starts. Looking at heat maps, I did see marginal differences in overall pitch locations between this year and 2011, but none were really worth mentioning.

With only 48 innings of work to draw conclusions from, it’s hard to make any sort of diagnosis for Worley. At this point in the season, it is nearly impossible for him to match the aggregate home run-preventing numbers he posted last year, but it’s not too late for him to improve. Whether that improvement could come from weaker flyballs, hitting his spots, luck, or consistent health, it won’t really matter. Worley has shown he can be a key cog in the rotation and his 2011 level of production would be more than welcomed on the last place Philadelphia Phillies.

Howard Smith-US PRESSWIRE

That the Phillies are struggling offensively is no secret. Much electronic ink has been spilled regarding this topic over the last week or so, and many of us fans are in the beginning stages of full-out panic mode. We’re watching a number of our greatest fears become realized, one of which is a complete lack of competent plate discipline. While the Phillies weren’t exactly expected to take pitches, draw walks, and stay away from junk outside of the zone, they’ve done an absolutely poor job with these things so far, and it’s certainly one of the reasons why the team finds itself ranking near the bottom in all offensive categories. Let’s take a look at where they currently stand in terms of plate discipline (all numbers as of 4/24).

Walks

Having only drawn 36 walks in 623 plate appearances, the Phillies sport a 5.5% walk rate (league average currently stands at 8.4%). That ranks second to last in the entire MLB, just edging out the Pirates. Their on-base percentage (.286) has mighty suffered because of this, despite putting up a not-entirely-abominable .243 batting average.  This problem is to be expected however, with both Utley and Howard out of the lineup. Both have shown a propensity take ball four over the years, and their OBP skills would be warmly welcomed in this struggling lineup.

While most of the regulars’ walk rates are in line with their career figures, both Ruiz and Rollins have underperformed so far. Chooch, who has walked at a rate of 11% over his career, stands at just 5.7% through 53 plate appearances. To a lesser extent, Rollins has been underwhelming as well, with his 5.6% BB% dropping off from 9.2% last season. While it’s admittedly too soon to draw conclusions from individual rate stats at this point, these are trends worth monitoring as the season progresses.

Strikeouts

It’s worth noting that the Phillies aren’t performing particularly poorly when it comes to strikeouts. Their mark of 18.5% is 10th lowest in the MLB, indicating that the club is at least putting the ball in play (albeit these balls in play are mostly weak grounders). Yet when we look at BB/K ratio, the Phillies rank 28th in majors with a 0.30 figure, whereas current league average is 0.44.

Pitches Seen

One of the most commonly voiced complaints this offseason was that the Phillies needed to do a better job of working the count and seeing more pitches. It appears the Phillies have failed to address this. With an average of 3.68 pitches seen per plate appearance, they narrowly miss being last in the majors by 2 hundredths of a pitch. Among qualified hitters, a surprising trio of Polanco (4.02), Mayberry (3.93), and Pierre (3.90) lead the team.

Zone Control

Per Fangraphs.com, it appears that the Phillies have been swinging at some bad pitches. O-swing%, a metric that tells us how often a player/team swings at pitches outside of the strike zone, claims that the Phillies have been particularly bad—their figure of 34.1% is highest in the majors. Swinging at stuff outside of the zone isn’t exactly conducive to making good contact. Those who have been particularly guilty in this area are Mayberry (44%), Pierre (39.3%), Galvis (38.5%), and Pence (37.8%).

But interestingly enough, the Phils have been excellent at simply making contact when they choose to swing, ranking first overall with a rate of 83.3%. But of course, making contact alone isn’t enough. Any fan that’s watched the Phillies this year has seen their fair share of weak groundballs dribble to an infielder.

***

If the Phillies do end up being successful, it will be on the backs of their pitching, not their batting. If they want to stand a chance at contending, they’re going to need to improve upon some of the most basic aspects of hitting—taking pitches, drawing walks, and being more careful with selecting pitches to swing at. According to wRC+, the Phillies’ offense is 13th in the NL, and a little improvement in plate discipline could potentially go a long way.

But I really, really hate bunting.

There’s something inherently frustrating about voluntarily giving away outs. After all, assuming a 9-inning game, a team only has 27 outs to go around, and willingly discarding them is usually a senseless maneuver. Basic statistical analysis tells us that, on average, bunting will result in a loss of expected runs. That is, if used less than optimally, the bunt will almost always hurt a team in the long run.

Dear Shane, please don't do that. (Credit: Steve Mitchell-US PRESSWIRE)

In the first three games of this season, the Phils have shown that they’re going to carry out their “small ball” plan of attack that was described by Charlie Manuel in spring training. Pressured by the fact that much of the lineup has been devastated by injuries, Manuel went on record saying that the team would be working on things like stealing bases and bunting—the kind of asinine strategy that you’ll often hear TV announcers like to call “manufacturing runs”. This type of approach is why you saw Juan Pierre, the man who OBP’d .329 last season, lead off for the Phillies today.

What I’d like to do is break down each of Charlie’s decisions to bunt thus far. Is my frustration justified, or have these bunts had no real effect on the outcome of this first series? Let’s take a closer look at each individual situation. Keep in mind that run expectancy is not perfect; it fails to properly take context  into account. Yet we can do our best to subjectively gauge that effect as we go along—bunting Victorino is much worse than, say, sending Brian Schneider out to sacrifice.

Saturday:

1) Top of the 1st, no outs, men on 1st and 2nd. Rollins up to bat, Karstens on the mound.

It’s not everyday in baseball that you find your 3-hole hitter laying down a bunt, yet that’s exactly what occurred. Instead of letting Jimmy hack away, Manuel made the decision to move the baserunners over at the expense of an out. Run expectancy tells us this:

Expected runs to end of inning, prior to bunt: 1.43
Expected runs to end of innings, after bunt: 1.29
Actual runs scored in inning: 1

Whereas there is a clear loss in expected runs, the difference here is admittedly marginal. Pence ended up singling to center, and while we can’t know what Rollins would have done if he hadn’t bunted, I don’t find that bunting Rollins with no outs in the top of the first is a defensible move.

2) Top of the 9th, no outs, man on 1st. Nix up to bat, Hanrahan on the mound.

Prior to this attempt, Laynce Nix had only laid down sac bunts four other times in his 9-year career, the last of which occurred in 2010. Given that information, one would be inclined to think that it wouldn’t go so well, and it didn’t. After fouling off the first attempted bunt, Nix popped up the second behind home plate, briskly making that first out. By the numbers:

Expected runs to end of inning, prior to bunt: 0.85
Expected runs to end of innings, after bunt: 0.65 (given that the bunt would have actually worked)
Actual runs scored in inning: 0

One caveat: expected runs isn’t exactly a perfect metric in this scenario. In a tie ballgame in the later innings, the focus shifts from scoring as many runs as possible to simply scoring a run. With that in mind, this move theoretically becomes less frustrating. Yet the fact of the matter remains that Laynce Nix is probably not very good at laying down bunts, and he managed to mess it up.

Sunday: 

1) Top of the 6th, no outs, man on 2nd. Victorino up to bat, McDonald on the mound.

Over the past few years, we’ve seen that Manuel has a tendency to bunt Victorino for no discernible reason. Doing so makes even less sense these days considering that Victorino has become the team’s most productive hitter, Hunter Pence aside. Regardless, Victorino opted to sacrifice an out in order to give Rollins a shot to knock Pierre in from third base.

Expected runs to end of inning, prior to bunt: 1.06
Expected runs to end of innings, after bunt: 0.9
Actual runs scored in inning: 0

Well, Rollins ended up striking out, and the inning ultimately came to an end with a 0 on the board. Again, we can’t possibly know what would have happened had Victorino decided not to bunt, and it’s entirely possible (and even likely) that he would have made an out anyway. But failing to let a great hitter swing way in a crucial spot is simply an inexcusable mistake.

2) Top of the 7th, no outs, man on first. Galvis up to bat, Hughes on the mound. 

Even though the numbers would tell you differently, I believe this is a largely defensible move. Galvis has still failed to record his first major league hit and he has looked terribly uncomfortable at the plate. This is one of those situation where context truly trumps the overly-theoretical nature of run expectancy, and it’s our responsibility to make a subjective adjustment. Regardless, let’s have a look.

Expected runs to end of inning, prior to bunt: 0.85
Expected runs to end of innings, after bunt: 0.65
Actual runs scored in inning: 2

It’s important to note that the 2 runs were the result of an error—Galvis ended up reaching base due to a bad throw. Indirectly, bunting Galvis turned out to be a pretty lucrative choice. Errors and misplays aside, this is one of those times when a sacrifice bunt isn’t such a bad thing.

Though I find myself in stark disagreement with three of the four decisions to sacrifice bunt thus far, these are admittedly minor moves. Had the Phillies won today, I probably wouldn’t be writing this, and subsequently I wouldn’t be upset over a game or two that won’t make a glaring difference in the long run. However, the long run should absolutely be a concern. These seemingly inconsequential managerial moves can add up over time, and if the Phillies continue to waste outs at this rate, this sort of stuff will actually start to matter. Lost runs here or there pile up into lost wins. Come September, the Phils will probably see themselves in a position where lost wins become the difference between October baseball or going home. Here’s to hoping that Manuel lets the runs manufacture themselves.