They've been hovering around .500 practically all season up until 12 days ago. And they were a .500 team last yr. Basically they've been a .500 team for the last 1.5 yrs up until about 12 days when they had 8 game losing streak. But i guess you're right, they are nowhere close to .500 team......
Halladay is gone at the end of the yr. They may resign him to an incentive laden deal. They may not. But they will definitely use his money on finding a replacement. Josh Johnson, Matt Garza, Kuroda, Santana, Lots of good of options for them to improve their club. Hell they have the money to sign two out of those pitchers if they wanted.
Every argument you're in, you make stuff up that people never said.
I didn't say "no where near .500," but they're 7 under right now and will finish more than that. Their run differential is 2nd worst in the entire NL. They should not have been hovering around .500 like they were, and it's starting to show.
Howard and Utley will always be injured. They won't sign two of those pitchers, especially since they just signed MAG. And all those guys come with question marks, anyway. And again, Amaro is a terrible GM and I have no faith he will make smart moves.
I was saying that sarcastically to make a point. And as I said, they've been hovering around .500 all season and were a .500 team last yr. They are a .500 team in every sense on the word.
You are still missing the point that they have plenty of money to spend to upgrade their team, which isn't all that in the first place.
Last edited by Carp; 08-01-2013 at 09:16 PM.
What does last year have to do with this year?
They were below .500 for most of last year, anyway. And now they're 8 down. They don't have a deep rotation. They play horrid defense. Not a particularly good offensive team. Bad bullpen. They don't do ANYTHING well. To me, that is a below .500 team to a T.
thethe (08-01-2013)
Actually, their starting pitching has, in fact, performed very well this yr and have the 4th most quality starts in the league. Their BP is not good, but BP's tend to vary from yr to yr. Their hitting has been league average. Pretty much everything about them screams average.
And if you'd rather put more weight into the last 10 games than the first 95 games of the season. That's fine. But they've been hovering right around the .500 mark all season. And usual with your arguments, you are missing the point entirely.
Over the whole season they're 8 games below .500. That's not a 10 game sample. That's the whole season, these games count like all the others. I get they were around .500 for a little bit (they've been a roller coaster all season, so it depnds on what you consider "hover"). They've played terrible baseball since the break. Bad defense, Bad pitching, lack of offense. I watch them nightly. They are not a .500 team and won't finish there.
Pettibone isn't good, Kendrick has come back down to earth. John Lannan?
Their bullpen has lacked arms for a few seasons now. The guys they brought up from the minors the last few years have had limited success.
Their starting pitching is bottom 3rd in xFIP, bottom half FIP, bottom 3rd in ERA, bottom 3rd in k/9. And that's with guys like Lee and Hamels skewing the numbers. The rest of the guys in that rotation are not very good.
Offense:
14th in BB%, bottom 3rd in OBP, 10th in wOBA, 9th in wRC. 11th in offensive WAR, they are a negative base running team, and the worst defensive team in the league.
Nice cherry picking
FIP is a terrible stat, as is it only useful as a predictor. When talking about the actual performance (like we are), results are all that matters. Kendrick, Pettibone, and Lannan have combine for 300 innings with an ERA just over 4.00 in a hitters park. These 3 guys honestly are not that talented, but despite that they have performed at a level of league average or better.
And Hamels isn't skewing any stats other than FIP and K's.
Last edited by Carp; 08-01-2013 at 11:44 PM.
xFIP and FIP can be used to display that while the back end of their guys have numbers that don't look terrible, they've been pretty lucky and should have worse numbers.
Regardless, Hamels and Lee are still skewing numbers. Lee is skewing them all, Hamels some. The rest of their pitching is not good.