Loading ...An email from David in Milwaukee (no, not Adam in Milwaukee):
Look, I understand that you’re not into the BP hype machine and that’s fine. The content is at your discretion, obviously, but there’s something seemingly wrong when there is not one mention of Phillips’ third 20-20-20 season. Per Sheldon, Phillips is the only Reds player to ever do 20 doubles, 20 homers and 20 steals in three consecutive seasons. Only four players in team history have done it over any three seasons — Vada Pinson, Joe Morgan, Eric Davis and Phillips. No matter what you think of the guy, he deserves the credit for this accomplishment. The fact that nobody even sniffed at this story during the past 48 hours is unfortunate.
Okay, okay…back off!
Just Curious what you guys think of this
My idea of 2010 Reds Starting Lineup
1. Stubbs CF (could steal 30 bases and is showing off some power)
2. Rolen 3B (.280 would be good enough)
3. Votto 1B (.300 and 30 bombs)
4. Phillips 2B (.270,100 RBI,25 HR,25 SB is highly possible and hes a gold glove winner)
5. Bruce RF (.250 and 40 HR possible)
6. Gomes LF (.275 and 30 HR)
7. Janish SS (Hes hitting better and .250 is not out of his reach.)
8. Hanigan C (.275 and 10 HR would be nice)
9. Pitcher
Let Go: Nix, Taveras, Balentin, Hernandez
Bench: Dorn, Heisey, Barker, Dickerson, Tatum
Trade: Harang(Get him out of here), Cordero(get rid of as much of his contract as you can)
Starting Pitching:
1. E. Volquez (if healthy)
2. B. Arroyo (if good all year)
3. J. Cueto ( Healthy)
4. H. Bailey (needs to be consistent)
5. J. Lehr or whoever we might get for Harang or Cordero (Has average stuff that no one can figure out)
Relief Pitching:(Best bullpen in baseball 2009)
D. Herrera
N. Massett
A. Rhodes
J. Burton
R. Ramirez
CL: M. Owings(He has the stuff to be a top notch closer)
At first glance, I like that lineup, with a couple exceptions. I was saying about a month before the all-star break that using Owings as a long-relief/pinch hitter would be the best course of action for him, and I’ll stick with that. I think that Herrera or Massett would be better choices in the closer spot.
I’d swap Gomes and Phillips in that line up
@th4433: Two things th4433, I think Massett would be closing games before Owings would Owigs stuff isn’t really all that great. He is a decent #5 or long reliever and that is it.
Volquez is basically out for the year next year, so hope he is 100% for 2011.
Good point on BP. And, for this year, he’s been good value on his contract.
Yet, he’s OBP is so lousy he’s still not all that great an offensive player. In fact, BP is a great case study of why OBP is so important. He does everything well except get on base, and because of that, he’s just an average player or maybe slightly above average.
Here is my exhibit A:
http://espn.go.com/mlb/stats/batting/_/position/2b/sort/runsCreatedPer27Outs/type/sabermetric
That all said, his OBP this year is .333 and I could live with that if he can keep it there for the next few years. That’s a lot better than his career mark of .313.
Brandon does deserve accolades for his accomplishments. It is a rare feat. It shows that you can consistently count on Phillips to produce numbers at that scale. The low OBP and the high DP does bother me, but all the rest of his numbers speak for themselves. We are better with him than without him.
Phillips’s OBP and DP’s do drop his offensive value a fair bit, but I gotta give the guy credit. He’s good at just about everything else.
He’s been excellent value on his contract this year, and chances are he’ll be good value next year too. That looming $11 million he’s owed in 2011 makes me very nervous though. It’s tough to be a .325 or .330 OBP guy and earn that kind of money.
Still, all in all, great great year for Brandon. (And, I have to say, a fair point by David in Milwaukee. We – and I’m including myself in this – do seem to dwell mostly on Brandon’s negatives.)
dont forget he was only 3 HR shy of making it 4 years in a row of being 20/20, as he had 17 in 2006.
Kudos to BP. I think part of the issue is that, while it’s impressive that so few have put up 20/20/20 seasons… well, taken seperately, none of those numbers seem all that impressive. 20 homers? Eh. 20 steals? OK. 20 doubles? Uh, I don’t know…
Put ‘em all together, and you get… kudos from me. Don’t spend it all in one place, Brandon.
Speaking of whom, I’m inherently against any lineup that has BP hitting 4th. Given the players listed above, I’d hit him 2nd, and hope he cuts down on the HR swing and ups the OBP a bit. Bruce hits 4, with Rolen and Gomes behind him (in whatever order). Everything else is negotiable.
Phillips is best suited to hit somewhere in the 5-7 range in a lineup, I think (on a good team, that is).
Actually, let me amend that… He does have a huge platoon split…
vs. LHP’s, Brandon could actually hit anywhere in the heart of the order for me. He’s a stud vs. lefties — .318/.362/.581 this year, .298/.346/.515 for his career.
vs. RHP’s, he’s probably best used as a 6 or 7 hitter (.267/.324/.415 this year ,.253/.300/.399 career)
Can anyone else remember seeing a righty with this large a platoon split? I don’t. Seems like the kind of thing that comes up more for lefty hitters.
Brandon Phillips is a special player. He’s a keeper and if the Reds ever trade him or losse him as a free agent, it will probably end up being a big mistake.
That all being said, its an undeniable truth. Brandon does not hustle all of the time. There were two times last night that he lolly gagged. There were also two times when his hustle paid off with an extra base.
Our pointing those things out when they happen does not mean that we don’t appreciate Phillips. It means we’re Reds fans and we’re paying attention.
You lolligag to the field, you lolligag to the dugout, you lolligag to 1st base. Do you know what that makes you?
lolligaggers?
LOLLIGAGGERS!
I like the guy. I’d like him a lot more at shortstop. Janish.will.never.hit!
That was my take when I heard about this on the radio. Sounds like another “so what” round-number accomplishment that some stat guy found on a Tuesday afternoon. It’s 20/20, plus something that anyone who plays a full season out to have. And 20/20 does nothing for me, frankly.
That said, BP is having a nice season.
A thought on the Phillips to SS move. Is the fact that he’s the defending GG 2B in the NL and all the Reds have left to play for is bubblegum card accolades the reason they are not embracing the ideal of moving him to SS where we obviously need him? Are they just looking for something to market to sell tickets for next season by leaving him at 2B and letting him go after his 2nd consecutive GG there? Just a random thought, what do you think?
Oh, I didn’t notice that he’s done it 3 seasons in a row. Still doesn’t do anything for me, though.
It’s like winning Miss Congenality in three straight beauty contests.
Except that Miss Congeniality probably gets a little plaque or statuette or something each time.
Anyway, I’ll be in my bunk.
That makes me laugh. Good one.
@Glenn: You do sometimes have to be willing to “sell high” though, Glenn. I’m not sure if they’d get good value back, but I want them to explore it.
If you take your line of thinking too far, then you don’t even consider trading anyone until they stink or are way overpaid, at which point you can’t get anything for them anyway!
You have to consider selling high… and not just on Brandon, on anyone.
I find it hard to agree with that statement without knowing who the Reds would get in return. Would you trade him for this guy.
I know I made my points in an earlier thread but this is the perfect example of sell high. BP’s value will never be higher this off-season. While I appreciate what he brings to the Reds as far as versatility with the bat and gold glove defense at second, he also brings a lack of hustle at times and a very strong inclination towards self promotion. Next year his contract is extremely affordable to any team but the year afterward he belongs to big market clubs salary wise. The Reds minor league pipeline is filled with players who are being projected as second basemen and BP in a trade this off season could be a valuable cog to next years team. Saying all that congrats on a 20/20/20 three years in a row and here’s hoping to 25/25/25 in three random stat categories next year.
He’s a 2nd baseman. What do you expect the guy to hit? 20/20/20 isn’t impressive for a 2nd baseman? Compared to WHO?
There aren’t guys in the Reds minors being projected as 2nd basemen. Quite frankly, there is a lack of talent there, so much that they are TRYING Todd Frazier to play there. Frazier is projected to be a corner outfielder at best.
Cody Puckett ended the season at A+ and was a HR shy (35 2B, 19 HR, 20 SB) of 20-20-20 in only 130 G. It took Phillips 135 games to achieve the feat. Puckett’s line for the season was .256 .318 .444 .762. Not very impressive for being so close to 20-20-20. Frazier will end up at either 2B or 3B and he will be good.
Cody Pucket did it at Single-A…big difference between there and the MLB.
Like I am with Drew Stubbs, I am saving breath on Todd Frazier until they can both prove throughout a whole season they can do what everyone says they will do. Same goes with Juan Francisco. I’ve seen them all play from Low-A Dayton to now in the MLB and Triple-A…they are impressive in the minors, but yet to prove much in the majors. It seems Stubbs can only hit homers at GABP, not to mention his K/BB ratio is horrendous.
Don’t let the minor-league positioning fool you, Valaika is a second-baseman. Second-basemen are a dime-a-dozen, IMO. It is a much easier position to fill than SS, or even 3B for that matter.
Thanks, I guess, Chad…. So for those of you who think “it’s just a number” I say to you this: how many players in all of MLB have done 20-20-20 in each of the last three seasons. The answer is two, HanRam and BP. So bring on the low OBP and the rarely taken play off, that’s the only argument against BP and the “flaws” in his game.
Rob,
There are actually quite a lot of good second basemen in baseball right now. You could look it up. His numbers really aren’t *that* good compared to all the second basemen in baseball. As I said earlier in the thread, he’s about average offensively as a 2B.
Which means, if I were him or his agent, I’d be LOVING the idea to move to SS. As a SS, he’s a lot more valuable assuming he can field the position, and I bet he can.
We should recognize BP for his 3rd consecutive 20-20-20. And of course one of those was 30-30 for HRs/SBs, only the 2nd 2nd baseman to do it.
The simple reason we should is that noone else will.
He could have another 30-30 season and it would barely get a mention. Now if Derek Jeter did it, there’d be a media frenzy.
I like BP but wish he would just get over himself a bit. As soon as I saw that his goal is 100 RBIs, I thought uh-oh. Sure enough, tonite, with runners on first and second in the 7th, and of course Rolen hitting behind him in the order, he’s swings at a neck high fastball and grounds out to the left side on a pitch on the outside corner.
He says he’s learned a lot from Scott Rolen. How about learning this – don’t put your personal goals above the team.
per14,
From an OBP standpoint, he’s average at best. But the rest of his numbers are NOT in the middle of the pack. There are few that come near to him in RBIs and homeruns, as well as stolen bases.
I honestly think BP needs to be moved to 5th or 6th in the lineup. He needs some protection. I think if he wasn’t batting 4th, he would likely have 30 homers per year. He has Joey Votto batting before him, but who else does he have from an RBI standpoint? No one is getting on base above Votto, so by the time Phillips is up, he’s either leading off an inning or hitting with just Votto on-base.
I would preferably like this sort of lineup next year:
Stubbs – CF
Rolen – 3B
Votto – 1B
Gomes – LF
Phillips – SS
Bruce – RF
Frazier – 2B
Hanigan – C
Pitcher
Depending on how Phillips does from the 5th spot, you could switch him and Rolen. For the way Phillips puts the bat on the ball, especially this year, I think he would be a threat batting 2nd. But, I think he would be equally good batting 5th as well.
The Reds are playing BP at 2nd all season so he’ll win another gold glove there ? That wouldn’t enter into their thinking, not that there’s been any thinking.
BTW I don’t think he’ll win the gold glove this year.
A recent poll I read of NL players and coaches had Hudson and Utley ahead of him for best defensive 2nd baseman.
Oh man, I’ve been hoping to hear that Adam Dunn footage for so long, thank you so much for posting that. Everywhere that I could find a place where it was posted after it happened I couldnt get to work. I thought I might go my whole life without hearing that, knock that off my bucket list.
@erik: I’ve listened to it three times in the last two days. It cracks me up every single time.
I’d heard about the Adam Dunn call to Marty, but never actually heard it. Great stuff.