A Phightin' Chance?

Stat geeks weigh in on the Phillies' 2008 prospects.

by E. James Beale

Screw William Penn

Michael T. Regan REMEMBER THE PHIGHTINS: Stat Geeks differ on whether The Mets '07 collapse will affect them. (CLICK IMAGE FOR LARGER VERSION)

Sept. 30, 2007, was the last and best day of the National League East champion Philadelphia Phillies' regular season. Their 6-1 win over the Washington Nationals capped an epic comeback: The Phillies made up seven games in 17 days to snatch a playoff spot from the hated New York Mets. It gave the Phils their first postseason taste in 14 years, made a soothsayer out of Jimmy Rollins and his pre-season pronouncement that the Phils were the "team to beat" and bestowed upon the Phightins the label of "champion."

Then we got swept out of the playoffs. Our center fielder was signed away. We moved our closer into the rotation and replaced him with a guy who waffles between crazy-good and just crazy. And the Mets landed Johan Santana, the consensus best pitcher on the planet.

In response, the Mets have been anointed the new favorites. ESPN told us the Mets "have to be the pick" in the National League East, and Carlos Beltran, the Mets center fielder, announced he had "no doubt" his team would win the division.

But we don't trust this conventional wisdom. So we decided to pose our questions about the key changes in the NL East to today's new class of baseball experts: The Number Crunchers.

We asked some of the leading minds behind "SABRmetrics" (a derivative of the Society for American Baseball Research, lovingly known as "stat geeks") whether Mets + Santana = pennant. We asked the Wharton statisticians who took to the pages of The New York Times to refute Roger Clemens' steroid denials whether it makes sense to turn a closer into a starter. We asked a baseball historian and SABR member whether the Phillies would gain some advantage from the '07 Mets collapse.

Here are their answers, in all their geeky glory:

Burning Question 1: Does adding Johan Santana makes the Mets clear front runners in the NL East?

Stat Geek Response:

Abraham Wyner, Wharton associate professor: Santana is not just a frontline starter. He is the best pitcher in MLB. That's team-changing. If he stays healthy, the move places the Mets as the clear favorite.

Steve Moyer, president of Baseball Info Solutions, the group behind the Bill James Handbook: I don't understand the conventional wisdom with this situation — why now the Mets are suddenly head-and-shoulders better than they were last year and going to run away with the division. The addition of Santana is not worth more than five games.

Steve Goldman, one of the authors of the Baseball Prospectus: The potential impact is huge. At the end of last season, the Mets were throwing away important starts on guys like Brian Lawrence, who is just not a major league pitcher. When you have a pitcher who can keep you in games, it has a ripple effect because fewer innings are thrown back onto the bullpen.

Burning Question 2: Is Brett Myers, starter, more valuable than Brett Myers, closer?

Stat Geek Response:

Goldman: Absolutely, and I don't even think that it's close. When you asked Myers to go to the bullpen, you asked another pitcher to step up and pitch those innings.

Wyner: I am a firm believer that closers are actually an undervalued commodity. After Moneyball came out, there was a movement within SABRmetrics against closers. The current research of myself and my team at Wharton suggest that having a closer who can really shut down the opposition relates dramatically to the amount of wins a team accumulates. For this to be a good move, both [Brad] Lidge and Myers have to pitch very well.

Burning Question 3: Can All-Star center fielder Aaron Rowand be replaced by former right fielder Shane Victorino?

Stat Geek Response:

Shane Jensen, Wharton assistant professor: In terms of fielding, I don't think there will be much difference. In terms of hitting, you're really talking about the difference between Rowand and [Geoff] Jenkins/[Jayson]Werth [the new right-field platoon] ... you are definitely giving up some offense.

Wyner: Rowand is a phenomenal defensive center fielder and that has a significant bit of value. That being said, playing center field over the course of a career takes a pretty big toll on you as a hitter. When CFs get to be about 32 they get awful pretty quickly.

Goldman: Victorino in center field is accentuated in good ways — his bat will play better there than in right. Rowand is also headed to an age where that drop-off happens. I think we've seen his best.

Burning Question 4: Will there be a lasting emotional effect from the '07 Mets collapse?

Stat Geek Response:

Moyer: I tend to think it's more bunk than anything else.

Goldman: The thing about SABRmetrics is that emotions are not caught in the stats. That said, systematically, emotion does not seem to play out. We did a study of every brawl — looking at the 10 games before a brawl and the 10 games after — with the hypothesis that an emotional event like that could be the type of situation that could either energize or demoralize a team. The fact was, in the aftermath, the good teams did good, the bad teams did bad. In a short series it might matter; over 162 games, talent is going to win out.

John Rossi, La Salle University professor, SABR member and author of The 1964 Phillies: The Story of Baseball's Most Memorable Collapse (McFarland & Company): Teams who suffered through a late-season collapse have historically not done well the following season, i.e. the '64 Phillies, the '86 Red Sox, '86 Angels. Collapses are difficult to put behind you. Teams seem to be playing to overcome the past that haunts them. Playing in New York with their media can't be pleasant for the Mets. They will be reminded of the September collapse anytime things go poorly.

(e.james.beale@citypaper.net)