Archive for Joe Blanton

First off, given some of the howling on twitter, it’s time for the obligatory strike zone plot. Let’s get it out of the way, thanks to Brooks Baseball.

It’s pretty ugly, but consistent enough. It was four or five inches too wide, or a half a foot if you count both sides. But there are plenty of triangles and squares out there beyond the box, so let’s not blame it all on umpire Wally Bell.

For all the talk of how similar Madison Bumgarner and Joe Blanton were going into the game, it’s somewhat prescient that they both failed to get out of the fifth inning and that they both left having given up three earned runs. On the other hand, the journey was not necessarily so similar. Bumgarner does use his left hand, and he did strike out six and allow only one run to score while he was on the bump, while Blanton struck out three and was directly responsible for all of his runs. It wasn’t all bad for Blanton – all of his balls in play were counted as groundballs – but it since the starters played to a standstill on the scoreboard, the advantage goes to the hometown pitcher.

Phillies fans can’t even blame the randomness of coming through in high leverage moments in this one – there were eight moments with a leverage index over one last night. The Phillies batters came through in two of them, and the Giants batters came through in two of them. It may seem that the Giants were more ‘clutch,’ but that would probably just be because they came up last. To the home-fielders went the spoils.

At this point, some of the blame must rest squarely on the Phillies’ stars. In this game, Chase Utley put up a -10.8% in win probability by going one for five and not coming through in some key moments. That comes on the heels of a -12% in game three (0-for-4), +3.8% in game two (0-for-3 with two walks), and a -1.8% in game one (1-for-3 with a walk). It’s obviously just a poor four-game stretch for a great secondbaseman, but it’s also bad timing for that stretch. The same could be said for Jimmy Rollins (.267, 1 extra base hit) and Jayson Werth (.250, 1 extra base hit).

The larger pattern is one of struggles for all of the left-handers on the team. Chase Utley, Ryan Howard, the recently benched Raul Ibanez, and young Domonic Brown are a combined 7-for-39 with 7 walks and 3 extra-base hits, and most of that is Howard’s production. Maybe it’s not a surprise given the left arms of Jonathan Sanchez and Madison Bumgarner, but Javier Lopez looms as a large acquisition for the Giants in this series. He has three big holds and gave up his first run Wednesday night. His lefty sidearm release has been hard on the lefty batters, and that makes sense given the difference in release points vis-a-vis a regular right-hander.

All this said, it was a great game. The WPA graph does a good job showing the rollercoaster that was Wednesday night. Fans of baseball were satisfied, if not fans of Phillie baseball.

During the playoffs last season I penned a brief post here with a title similar to this, focusing on Ryan Madson, who had suddenly discovered how to throw 97 miles per hour. Well, teammate Joe Blanton hasn’t exactly increased his velocity this season, or implemented a new pitch, but he is currently hurling like we have never before seen. His overall numbers are not much to look at, but his early season struggles have seemingly subsided over the last month.

Through May 21, Blanton had the following numbers: 8 GS, 44.1 IP, 17 BB, 37 K, 7.11 ERA. Since then: 6 GS, 39.1 IP, 9 BB, 40 K, 2.75 ERA.

Even when he struggled mightily with home runs and stranding baserunners, Blanton’s strikeouts and walk rates bested those of years past. Suffice to say, his rates over the last month have looked even better. For the season, his 8.3 K/9 and 2.7 UBB/9 are tremendously un-Blantonesque.

The “innings eater” has never before exceeded 5.5 in the K/9 department yet has added approximately three more strikeouts per nine innings this year. With a respectable unintentional walk rate, if Blanton could just stop giving up dingers at a Brett Myers-like pace, he might be considered a legit #2 right now.

His plate discipline metrics reveal an interesting tell: virtually nothing has changed from the last few seasons except contact on pitches out of the zone. Hitters have not reduced their rates of swings on these outside pitches but they are simply swinging and missing much more often. Blanton has opted for some more sliders at the expense of his curve, but could that really be the root cause of his new-found success?

A 5.06 ERA and 4.82 FIP is nothing to write home about, but if Blanton can continue to twirl gems similar to his last several starts, then Kentucky Joe may be able to fill the void left by Myers, meaning someone like Jason Marquis could potentially fill Blanton’s role. Many are quick to suggest the Phillies need to acquire an ace, but if Blanton has legitimately improved into an under the radar, #2 pitcher, they might not need to mortgage the farm for someone like Roy Oswalt.

ZiPS sees Blanton’s K/9 regressing to the 7.4-7.5 area with the UBB/9 coming down to 2.5-2.6. The strikeout rate would remain, by far, the best of his career, while the walk rate would be in line with his career mark, one that is quite solid. Home runs remain an issue, but if he can continue to limit the number of runners that reach base, the inevitable regression in this area might mean more than meets the eye.

The Phillies rotation, as a whole, has substantially improved this month, and the primary reason is Joe Blanton.

Teams either in a pennant race or that believe they are in a pennant race tend to make moves to bolster some area of their roster in which a perceived weakness exists. The Brewers landed CC Sabathia. The Cubs traded for Rich Harden. The Mets went for smaller upgrades like Luis Ayala and Fernando Tatis, believing that those underachieving would eventually regress. The Astros turned to the likes of Randy Wolf and Latroy Hawkins. While the Cardinals, as Matthew noted last week, stood pat, the Phillies attempted to fix a problem in their starting rotation by bringing in Joe Blanton.

Now, on paper, Blanton is nowhere near as impressive as Sabathia or Harden, but Phillies fans and the local media justified the trade based on the idea that Blanton is an “innings eater.” He apparently would pitch well enough to keep the team in the game, and long enough to avoid having to overuse a bullpen that the team has been reliant upon. I’m not sure exactly what eating innings means, though. If it means that Blanton would get the definition of a quality start, IE, 6 IP and 3 ER, or that he would go for 7 IP and give up 3-4 ER, that at least sounds plausible and could very well be positive for a team with an offense like the Phillies.

He has been giving up the 3-4 runs consistently, except they aren’t coming in 6-7 innings. Rather, Blanton has not exactly been eating innings in red pinstripes, as he has gone for 59.2 total innings in 11 starts, an average of just over 5 IP/GS. Entering yesterday’s action against the Brewers, just 4 of his 10 starts with the Phillies involved pitching 6 or 7 innings. Interspersed throughout were appearances of 2 IP, 5 IP, 5 IP, 5.2 IP, 4 IP, and 5 IP. When someone advertised with only one real positive trait suddenly fails to exhibit that trait, well, you can imagine what that person looks like to fans.

Most of Blanton’s issues have been chalked up as control problems, as he throws plenty of pitches, is walking more hitters, and is running deeper counts. His BB/9 in Oakland earlier on was 2.48, but it has been 4.39 while on the Phillies. His K/9 has risen to over one more batter per, as well, but not enough to counteract the increase in free passes. All told, his 4.53 ERA/5.36 FIP for the Phillies have not exactly killed them in the standings or severely hindered their playoff chances, but they have not done much to help. Yesterday, Blanton made arguably his most important start of the season, going 7 IP and giving up 3 ER to the Brewers in the first game of a doubleheader that eventually put the Phillies and Brewers into a wild card tie.

He has been just about the definition of average with the Phillies, as his partial season sports a 0.05 WPA/LI, but the fact that he was brought in to “fix” a situation makes his numbers and performance seem much worse. He has not lived up to expectations as an “innings eater” consistently and is nothing more than a fourth starter, but he has kept Adam Eaton out of the rotation, so at least he has that. With several Phillies starters making appearances on short-rest recently, they are going to need Blanton to build upon his performance yesterday or else this will end up being a carbon copy of the 2001-2006 seasons, where the Phillies have great personnel, and plenty of talent, but end up a few games short of the promised land.

The Phillies and Cubs are set to square off tonight at Wrigley Field with quite the interesting pitching matchup: Joe Blanton vs. Rich Harden. For those who recently came into contact with that memory-zap gizmo from Men In Black, both pitchers were members of the Oakland Athletics for the last few years. Both were also sold to the highest bidder, so to speak, back in July.

Harden, acquired to combat the CC Sabathia acquisition (no matter what bologna the Cubs front office may feed us) found himself as the #1 or #1A on the Cubs. Blanton, on the other hand, was never expected to turn the Phillies season around, but rather provide a somewhat decent alternative to Adam Eaton. Eaton, for those interested, has stunk it up in the minor leagues.

While Harden has exceeded expectations in Chicago, Blanton has essentially met those pointed towards him in Philadelphia. Here is a breakdown of their performances in Oakland and in their new uniforms:

Rich Harden, Oak: 13 GS, 0.58 HR/9, 2.97 K/BB, 1.14 WHIP, 2.78 FIP
Rich Harden, CHC:  8 GS, 1.10 HR/9, 5.00 K/BB, 0.86 WHIP, 2.74 FIP

Joe Blanton, Oak: 20 GS, 0.85 HR/9, 1.77 K/BB, 1.42 WHIP, 4.18 FIP
Joe Blanton, Phi:  7 GS, 1.42 HR/9, 1.80 K/BB, 1.42 WHIP, 5.06 FIP

Harden has been even better in cubbie blue, really limiting his baserunners and vastly improving his strikeout to walk ratio. He is striking out batters at a tremendous rate and preventing free passes more often than not. The only reason his FIP hasn’t shot down is due to the almost doubled home runs per nine innings number, which was likely to be expected in moving from Oakland to Wrigley.

Keeping with the theme of limiting baserunners, what has happened so far when Rich does allow someone to reach base? Well, glad you asked… the answer is pretty much nothing. See, Harden has a 98.3% strand rate in his time with the Cubs, which, when coupled with a 0.86 WHIP, is downright startling. Next to nobody is getting on base and those that do have had to wait for a teammate to “pick them up” with their glove for the next inning in the field.

Blanton’s FIP has been almost a full point worse on the Phillies, thanks in large part to a HR/9 increase from 0.85 to 1.42. Again, this should have been expected or at least surmised given that he was going from Oakland to a bandbox in Philly. His K/BB has remained virtually identical, however he is striking out almost two more batters per nine innings, which in turn means his walks have also risen. He has been much better at stranding baserunners as well, jumping from 65.2% in Oakland to 81.9% in Philadelphia. Because of this, his ERA is much lower in red pinstripes.

As a member of the Athletics, Harden produced a 1.93 WPA/LI in 13 starts, or around 0.15 wins per start. As a Cub, he has a 1.43 WPA/LI in 8 starts, or around 0.18 wins per start. Blanton has also seen improvement here. As an Athletic, he had a 0.23 WPA/LI in 20 starts, for an average of .011 per start. With the Phillies, it is 0.10 in 7 starts, good for a .014. There is no doubt that Rich Harden was clearly the better acquisition, but Blanton hasn’t been terrible, and that’s really all the Phillies are asking of him.

As Dave noted early yesterday morning, the Joe Blanton-to-the-Phillies trade is one that fans of the Phightins—like me—are not going to be in favor of for years to come. It’s not that Blanton is a bad pitcher, or that a guy like Adrian Cardenas is a lock to become a superstar middle-infielder, but rather that the Phillies gave up two of their top prospects for a back-end of the rotation pitcher. From living in Philadelphia and watching the local broadcasts and such it seems to me that those in favor of this trade feel the way they do because Blanton is “new.” If these same fans watched Blanton intently over the last year and a half or so I have a funny feeling their dispositions would not be as sunny.

Add in the facts that Kentucky Joe dominated the Phillies lineup a couple of weeks ago, that he “won” 30 games in 2006-07, and that Adam Eaton stinks and it becomes very easy to see how fans could be manipulated into thinking this was the right trade to make.

One form of this manipulation really irked my family yesterday, however, in that some writers and reporters tried to justify the trade with the clause “if you remove Blanton’s X worst starts, his ERA is …” I’ve seen differing quotes, involving Blanton’s 3.87 ERA sans-three bad starts, or even his 3.58 ERA sans-four bad starts. Well, you just cannot do that. My brother, who covers the Phillies at MVN.com, offered this take, which is essentially the entire point of this post:

“Todd Zolecki wrote on Philly.com that Blanton actually has a 3.58 ERA if you take away his worst four starts. That’s great, but you don’t merely take away four starts to try to justify a trade. Heck, if you take away Adam Eaton’s worst four starts, his ERA would be 4.06! Has Eaton been a pitcher who deserves an ERA nearly in the 3’s this season? No. Has he been effective at all? No. So let’s not cherry-pick stats.”

You can’t simply remove numbers to justify anything. As has been discussed at length this season, the last three years or so should be quoted when discussing a player’s true talent level. If these same writers wish to justify the trade, perhaps it would serve them wise to note that Blanton’s current ERA is worse than his pre-season projection, and that he is expected to be in the 3.77 range over the remainder of the season… not that his numbers would be better if we take away the worst starts, or that he has performed well against NL East teams in a total of four or five starts in his career.

Overall, we don’t know if the Phillies are done dealing. Maybe they turn around and send the perhaps-overrated Carlos Carrasco and fellow top-tier prospect Antonio Bastardo for Erik Bedard, which would give them a rotation of: Cole Hamels, Erik Bedard, Jamie Moyer, Joe Blanton, and Kyle Kendrick, with Brett Myers also in the fold. From what I’ve come to learn, however, regarding Pat Gillick and his “approach” on his way out the door, it really does seem Blanton is supposed to be the prized acquisition to keep the Mets at bay.

But then again, maybe he IS what the Phillies need to keep the Mets at bay, because as many other Philadelphia columnists have noted, Blanton has pitched 15 scoreless innings against the Mets in his career… (sighs and hopes readers pick up on the sarcasm of small sample sizes and cherry-picked stats).