The 2017 MLB season will be a long one for the Philadelphia
Phillies and their fans. With
one-hundred games left in the season, the Phillies are already 20 games below .500
and 16.5 games back of the Washington Nationals.
“Wait until next year” came early this year.
Not all is dour for the Philly faithful. They defeated the Cincinnati Reds on Opening
Day. Meaning for twenty-four hours they had
a winning record.
They’ve spent four days atop the NL East, enjoyed five
walkoff wins, and most impressively, especially for a team on pace to lose 100 games,
they’ve posted a six-game winning streak.
That’s something the Minnesota Twins, Milwaukee Brewers,
Cleveland Indians, and Arizona Diamondbacks—all teams with winning records, the
Twins and Brewers are leading their respective divisions—have not done.
Other positives include Odúbel Herrera leading the National
League in doubles and Maikel Franco leading the National League in grounding
into double plays. Okay, that last stat
isn’t positive, but he’s the only other Philly leading the NL in an offensive
category.
On the pitching side, Jerad Eickhoff and Jeremy Hellickson
are tied for the league lead in games started… along with 31 other pitchers.
If you look at the batting and pitching leaderboards for the
National League, you’ll find very few Phillies.
In fact, Philadelphia has the fewest entries of any team in the NL.
I looked at the top ten leaders in 68 positive and neutral statistical
categories—40 for hitting and 28 for pitching.
Examples of positive categories are home runs and ERA. Examples of neutral categories are at bats
and batters faced.
Within those 68 statistical categories, Phillies appeared
just ten times. That was by far the
fewest entries of any team in the Senior Circuit. The Phillies had eight among batting leaders
and two among pitching leaders.
The team with the second fewest entries was the San Diego
Padres. They had 20. Your world champion Chicago Cubs were next
with 28.
The Nationals were the only team with more than 100 entries—113
to be exact. The Arizona Diamondbacks
were second with 97.
Washington’s hurlers accounted for 50 entries. The most for a National League staff.
For batters, the Reds had the most entries. Thanks to Joey Votto and Zack Cozart, Cincinnati
sluggers were listed 65 times among the league’s batting leaders.
This look at how frequently players from National League
teams appeared on the batting and pitching leaderboards is a tenuous measuring
stick. With so much of the season left
to play, these numbers may increase or decrease dramatically.
Yet, the survey is revealing. There seems to be a relationship between
players putting up numbers and winning.
Nationals and Diamondbacks are found all over the leaderboards. Therefore, we shouldn’t be surprised that
both teams have winning percentages of .600 or above.
Meanwhile, the two teams with winning percentages below
.400, the Phillies and Padres, are barely represented among batting and
pitching leaders.
The Brewers are the anomaly. They have the fewest entries of any of the
five National League teams with a winning record.
For Philly fans, what this means is in 2017 they’ll be
avoiding both the standings and the leaderboards.
Number of Entries Among
Hitting Leaders
Cincinnati Reds
|
65
|
|
Washington Nationals
|
63
|
|
Arizona Diamondbacks
|
50
|
|
Colorado Rockies
|
49
|
|
Atlanta Braves
|
36
|
|
Miami Marlins
|
31
|
|
New York Mets
|
23
|
|
San Francisco Giants
|
20
|
|
Milwaukee Brewers
|
20
|
|
Chicago Cubs
|
18
|
|
Los Angeles Dodgers
|
15
|
|
San Diego Padres
|
11
|
|
St. Louis Cardinals
|
9
|
|
Pittsburgh Pirates
|
9
|
|
Philadelphia
Phillies
|
8
|
|
Number of Entries
Among Pitching Leaders
Washington Nationals
|
50
|
Arizona Diamondbacks
|
47
|
St. Louis Cardinals
|
43
|
Pittsburgh Pirates
|
32
|
Los Angeles Dodgers
|
31
|
San Francisco Giants
|
23
|
Milwaukee Brewers
|
22
|
Colorado Rockies
|
16
|
New York Mets
|
11
|
Chicago Cubs
|
10
|
Cincinnati Reds
|
9
|
San Diego Padres
|
9
|
Miami Marlins
|
8
|
Atlanta Braves
|
4
|
Philadelphia
Phillies
|
2
|
Total Number of Combined Entries
Washington Nationals
|
133
|
Arizona Diamondbacks
|
97
|
Cincinnati Reds
|
74
|
Colorado Rockies
|
65
|
St. Louis Cardinals
|
52
|
Los Angeles Dodgers
|
46
|
San Francisco Giants
|
43
|
Milwaukee Brewers
|
42
|
Pittsburgh Pirates
|
41
|
Atlanta Braves
|
40
|
Miami Marlins
|
39
|
New York Mets
|
34
|
Chicago Cubs
|
28
|
San Diego Padres
|
20
|
Philadelphia
Phillies
|
10
|
Stats current as of 6-13-2017.
Stats provided by Baseball Reference.
No comments:
Post a Comment