The Rotation (41 page)

“Jim sent me to Japan,” he said, mimicking Manuel's thick Virginian drawl.

Both men laughed. For years, every time Manuel saw Palmer he joked that Palmer's dominance over him forced him to finish his career in Japan, conveniently ignoring his career .198 average in 394 at-bats over parts of six seasons with the Los Angeles Dodgers and Minnesota Twins, and the fact he faced Palmer just four times (he went 0 for 4 with two strikeouts).

“I used to pinch-hit off him and know what he was going to do,” Manuel said. “I would say I wasn't going to swing at it. Harmon [Killebrew] used to talk to me, ‘Don't swing at the high fastball.' I might take one or two, but I'd always swing.”

They laughed again.

The conversation eventually turned to pitching. Palmer pitched for the 1971 Baltimore Orioles, the second of only two teams in baseball history to have a foursome of 20-game winners (the 1920 Chicago White Sox were the other). The 2011 Phillies starting pitchers had hoped to enjoy the same level of success as Palmer (20-9, 2.68 ERA), Mike Cueller (20-9, 3.08 ERA), Pat Dobson (20-8, 2.90 ERA), and Dave McNally (21-5, 2.89 ERA). But while it was fun to imagine Roy Halladay, Cliff Lee, Cole Hamels, and Roy Oswalt each winning 20 games, it would be extremely difficult to accomplish.

“It doesn't matter,” Palmer said. “They're both great.”

“Both are great, but we've got to prove ours,” Manuel replied. “They proved it. We've got to prove it. That's how they earned the right to say who they are.”

In the end, the Phillies had no 20-game winners. Halladay (19-6, 2.35 ERA) and Lee (17-8, 2.40 ERA) came the closest. Hamels (14-9, 2.79 ERA)
missed time because of shoulder stiffness and suffered due to poor run support, which has been a theme in his career. Oswalt (9-10, 3.69 ERA) never had a shot because of back problems.

But that doesn't mean the 2011 Phillies rotation couldn't compete with the 1971 Orioles rotation.

“They might be better,” said Washington Nationals manager Davey Johnson, who played second base for the 1971 Orioles, and spent parts of two seasons with the Phillies later in the decade. “We had Cuellar and McNally and they were very good, but I don't know that they were better than Hamels and Lee. And Halladay is as dominant a pitcher as Palmer, if not more. Oswalt and Dobson? It was more of a special year for Dobson, where Oswalt's been special for a long time. The Phillies staff is awful good.”

The 2011 Phillies rotation (including starts from Vance Worley, Joe Blanton, and Kyle Kendrick) had a better ERA, WHIP and strikeout-to-walk ratio; averaged more strikeouts per nine innings; averaged fewer walks per nine innings; and struck out 299 more batters despite throwing 107 fewer innings than the 1971 Orioles rotation did.

Of course, the Orioles had a quartet of 20-game winners.

“It's harder to get twenty wins when you take twenty percent of your starts away,” Johnson pointed out.

Five-man rotations make sure of that. In theory, each of the four healthy starters in a four-man rotation averages 40.5 starts over a 162-game schedule, while each of the five healthy starters in a five-man rotation averages just 32.4. Cueller made 38 starts in 1971, while Palmer and Dobson each made 37, and McNally made 30.

No pitcher has made at least 37 starts in a single big-league season since Greg Maddux in 1991.

Halladay and Lee led the Phillies with 32 starts. Hamels had 31, and Oswalt had 23.

Despite fewer starts for their aces, the 2011 Phillies rotation thrust themselves into the conversation on what were the best rotations in baseball history by putting up, according to Elias Sports Bureau, some historic numbers:

The Phillies also became the eighth team in baseball history to have three top-five finishers in their league's Cy Young voting, with Halladay finishing second behind the Dodgers' Clayton Kershaw, Lee taking third, and Hamels placing fifth.

“No question this year's rotation is historical,” Hall of Fame third baseman Mike Schmidt said. “Unfortunately, Blanton and Oswalt were injured, but the Big Three held up their end.”

ERA+ is a statistic that measures a pitcher's ERA against the league average and adjusts it for ballpark factors, accounting for a pitcher throwing in pitcher-friendly PETCO Park in the National League vs. hitter-friendly Fenway Park in the American League. A 100 ERA+ is the league average, whether it's 1966, when pitchers owned baseball's landscape, or 1998, when juiced-up hitters ruled the day. A 130 ERA+ means the league's ERA that season was 30 percent higher than the individual pitcher's.

According to
Baseball-Reference.com
, before the 2011 season there had been just five teams since 1901 with two starters with an ERA+ of at least 130 who also had 200 or more innings pitched and averaged at least eight strikeouts per nine innings:

The 2011 Phillies became the first team ever with three starters (Halladay, Lee, and Hamels) that hit those marks.

“Clearly, you had two guys in Halladay and Lee who weren't just staff Number Ones,” said Bob Costas, who has chronicled baseball as a broadcaster for NBC, HBO, and MLB Network. “They each were a potential Cy Young Award winner—each guy with a certain sort of throwback toughness, where they weren't looking to just give you six good innings and get out of there.

“They're there not just to keep you in the game. They're there to win the game. The kind of guy that you throw the modern book away, where Charlie would let Halladay go into the ninth with a one-run lead, and even stick with him if the first guy got on base, thinking correctly, ‘He might be in a little bit of trouble, but even after one hundred and ten pitches, this guy is still better than whoever I bring out of the bullpen.”

Of course, it is tricky to compare rotations across eras because baseball has changed so much. Old Hoss Radbourn won 59 games for the 1884 Providence Grays, while making 64 percent (73 of 114) of his team's starts. But just because he won 59 games in one season doesn't mean he's a better pitcher than Halladay, who won a career-high 22 games in 2003.

“You're looking at differences in the way the games were pitched,” said Freddy Berowski, a librarian at the National Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, New York. “You're looking at differences from underhand to overhand.You're looking at differences in the distance between the mound and home plate.You're looking at how pitchers were allowed to move around the box and maybe in some years get running starts.

“There were so many different variables. It wasn't just a pitcher like you see today, where they stand on the rubber, take their windups, and throw.”

The distance from the mound to home plate changed in the 1800s. It was 45 feet in the 1870s before moving to 50 feet in 1881. In 1893, it moved to 60 feet, 6 inches, where it remains today. Baseball had a rule as late as 1878 that pitchers had to release the ball below their waists, meaning they delivered the ball underhand. In 1884, the rules changed to allow pitchers to throw however they wanted to, allowing them to legally throw overhand for the first time.

In essence, from 1884 to 1892, pitchers were allowed to throw overhand from 50 feet.

Pitching continued to evolve over the years, often with transformations that benefited hitters.

Frank Selee, who managed the Boston Beaneaters in the late 1800s, is known as one of the first managers to employ a four-man rotation, using Kid Nichols, Ted Lewis,Vic Willis, and Fred Klobedanz in 1898. Baseball outlawed the spitball in 1920. In 1969, the pitcher's mound was lowered from 15 inches to 10 inches and the strike zone changed, moving from the top of the shoulder to the bottom of the kneecap, to the armpit to the top of the kneecap. In reality, today the strike zone is smaller than that.

Rotations started to shift from four-man rotations to five-man rotations in the 1970s, when teams began to become more protective of their pitchers' arms. Increased use of the bullpen also meant fewer decisions for starters, and
the use of one-inning closers in the 1980s meant fewer complete-game opportunities for pitchers. Ballparks also got smaller and bats and balls got harder, making life even more favorable for hitters.

“It's much harder to win twenty games than it was forty years ago, no doubt about that,” Berowski said. “If you look at the peripheral numbers—the ERA, WHIP, strikeouts—the numbers are there for the Phillies. Even complete games for Halladay and Lee in an era when pitchers don't throw that many complete games.”

There were 173 complete games in the majors in 2011. Halladay and Lee threw 14 (8.1 percent) of them. The San Diego Padres, Milwaukee Brewers, Kansas City Royals, Houston Astros, Cleveland Indians, Boston Red Sox, and Washington Nationals combined for just 12.

There is no arguing the Phillies rank alongside the great Atlanta Braves rotations of the 1990s and other great rotations like the 1971 Orioles, 1966 Los Angeles Dodgers, and 1954 Indians.

Modern metrics like WAR, ERA+ and FIP- show as much.

WAR (Wins Above Replacement) judges how valuable a player is to his team. For example, Halladay had an 8.2 WAR in 2011, according to FanGraphs, meaning he gives the Phillies an additional 8.2 wins compared to a replacement player.

FIP (Fielding Independent Pitching) research takes into account how pitchers have little control over balls put in play. Take two nearly identical pitchers. One pitches for the best defensive team in baseball, while the other pitches for the worst. The pitcher with the best defense should have a better ERA than the one with the worst defense, even though they have the same skills. FIP removes the randomness of balls in play and looks at things pitchers can control: strikeouts, walks, hit by pitches, and home runs. FIP accounts for the differences in value of home runs, walks, and strikeouts, and comes up with a number that is better at predicting a pitcher's future success than ERA.

In 2011, Halladay had a 2.20 FIP, the best in baseball.

FIP- simply takes a pitcher's FIP and shows how that pitcher compared to the league average. Halladay had a 56 FIP- in 2011, meaning he performed 44 percent better than the league average.

The 2011 Phillies rotation had a combined 25.8 WAR, which is the second best in baseball since 1974, according to FanGraphs. Only the 1997 Braves (26.4) were better.

The Phillies had a 77 FIP-, which is the best in baseball in the World Series era (1903–present). They also had a 126 ERA+, which tied for ninth
in that span. Since 1939, they ranked tied for third with the 1944 Cardinals, behind only the 1997 Braves (127) and 1998 Braves (127).

“It would seem obvious this was probably the best rotation since the Braves of the mid-1990s,” said Bill James, baseball historian and godfather of sabermetrics. “There are comparisons with Greg Maddux, John Smoltz, and Tom Glavine. And that fourth starter with the Braves was pretty good, too. That Braves rotation is the greatest starting rotation of all time. But I don't have any doubt the Phillies are an all-time great rotation. I don't have any doubt about that.”