A Look at the Three NL East Contenders

By Bill Baer
Posted Monday, August 11, 2008

In a discussion about the playoffs, it's safe to exclude the Atlanta Braves even though they're still mathematically alive. The Washington Nationals, however, were dead a long time ago. It's a three-horse race in the NL East and pretty tight at that. The Philadelphia Phillies are on top, but only by a game over the New York Mets and two and a half games over the Florida Marlins. Who's the best bet to win the division?

Before getting into statistics, let's take a look at the Playoff Odds Reports, found at Baseball Prospectus. All numbers are prior to Thursday's games. There are three versions: the Playoff Odds Report, the POR (ELO Adjusted), and POR (PECOTA Adjusted).

As we can see (click here), the POR has the Phillies as about 3:2 favorites, the Mets at about 2:3, and the Marlins at just over 1:9. ELO likes the Phillies even more and it really dislikes the Mets. PECOTA likes the Phillies about as much as the regular POR but slightly disfavors the Marlins and favors the Mets. In all three, the Phillies are favorites by a decent margin. Should that be the case? Let's have a look.

There are many ways to go about comparing and analyzing teams and players. For the sake of convenience and tidy organization, I'm going to look at general areas (offense, starting pitching, bullpen, defense, bench).

*All statistics are prior to Friday night's games.

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OFFENSE

The Phillies have a slight edge on the Mets with an average 4.98 runs scored per game. The Mets average 4.84, and the two teams are second and third in the National League in this area behind the Chicago Cubs (5.35). The Marlins aren't far behind even though they're sixth with 4.76 RPG.

Since they're all so close, let's have a deeper look into what makes and breaks the offenses.

Team: BABIP/xBABIP
Phillies: .282/.310
Mets: .298/.330
Marlins .297/.320

All three teams are slightly under-performing their xBABIP: the Phillies by .028, the Mets by .032, and the Marlins by .023. None of this is that statistically significant -- for the Phillies, it's four less hits in 1,000 at-bats than the Mets; for the Marlins, it's nine less. What is interesting to note is that the Mets, by far (5%), hit the most ground balls (47%) and subsequently the least fly balls (32%), so their xBABIP should be a little higher even.

Even so, Marcel's projections for the rest of the year aren't too nice to the Mets. The only Met believed to OPS over .850 the rest of the way is David Wright (.924). Meanwhile, Ryan Howard, Chase Utley, and Pat Burrell will OPS .929, .909, and .888 respectively. For the Marlins, only Hanley Ramirez is believed to be really productive down the stretch.

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STARTING PITCHING

The Mets have the edge so far, as their starting rotation has a 4.02 ERA. The Phillies have a 4.38 ERA and the Marlins have a 5.02 ERA.

Johan Santana has been great (144 ERA+) and very unlucky thanks to a shaky bullpen and, at times, a lack of run support. Mike Pelfrey has been better than expected (107), Oliver Perez and John Maine have been the definition of average (100), and Pedro Martinez has simply not been productive at all (71).

Cole Hamels (132 ERA+) has been great despite some recent struggles and, like Santana, has been unlucky with run support. Jamie Moyer (118) shouldn't be this productive at the age of 45 but he's been incredible. Kyle Kendrick has an uncanny ability to help his team win games: despite a 102 ERA+, his team is 16-7 when he starts. We all know about the woes of Brett Myers (84) and Adam Eaton (77), and we can expect about average pitching from Joe Blanton (93).

The Marlins have a lot of options with their starting rotation, but not one of them stands out. Scott Olsen (108 ERA+) and Ricky Nolasco (106) have been decent. Aside from that, it's a whole lot of nothing. Andrew Miller (74) lacks control and Mark Hendrickson (72) is Mark Hendrickson. Chris Volstad (128) has been a gem in his five starts.

There isn't a whole lot of difference between the three pitching staffs in terms of BABIP and xBABIP.

Team: BABIP/xBABIP
Phillies: .291/.326
Mets: .288/.318
Marlins: .294/.324

The Phillies allow the most ground balls (45%) and the Marlins allow the most fly balls (39%). All three are within 1% in line drives allowed.

For the remaining two months, we can expect the Mets' rotation to be slightly better but given Martinez's struggles and propensity to injury, Perez and Maine's inability to throw strikes, and Maine's injury (right rotator cuff), things can fall apart quickly.

The Phillies' rotation is a bit more reliable. Moyer, despite his age, hasn't missed a scheduled start while with the Phillies. Hamels is always an injury concern but has been healthy thus far despite rumors of a small elbow fracture. You know what you're getting from Kendrick and Blanton, and Myers has shown some good signs in his last two starts (13 IP, 1 BB, 2 ER).

As mentioned, the Marlins are running the gauntlet with their starting rotation.

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BULLPEN

The Phillies have the overwhelming advantage here. End of story. What? You mean I have to explain it?

The Phillies' bullpen, collectively, sports a 3.18 ERA, good for second-best in the NL behind the Los Angeles Dodgers (3.04). The Marlins' pen is in the horizon at 3.72 and the Mets are way out at 4.23.

Brad Lidge is the best closer in the National League and arguably all of baseball. He's a perfect 28-for-28 in saves and leads all relief pitchers in Win Probability Added (WPA). As I mentioned in my article for The Hardball Times (updated for relevance):

Aside from Tom Gordon, who is now injured, everyone in the Phillies' bullpen has a great ERA+. Brad Lidge, Chad Durbin, J.C. Romero, Ryan Madson, Clay Condrey, and Rudy Seanez (now also injured) have posted an ERA+ of 198, 260, 198, 131, 121, and 125 respectively.

Meanwhile, Mets closer Billy Wagner was put on the disabled list and most of the rest of the bullpen has shown amazing incompetence. Overall, the Mets have only converted 60% of their saves (28-for-47). Wagner himself is responsible for seven of those blown saves.

Despite the decent bullpen ERA, the Marlins actually have a worse SV% than the Mets: 58% (25-for-43). Closer Kevin Gregg is responsible for six blown saves. Like the Phillies, though, the Marlins' relievers have good ERA+ numbers. Gregg (172), Joe Nelson (239), Renyel Pinto (126), Matt Lindstrom (124), Doug Waechter (118), and Justin Miller (103) have backed up a bad starting rotation.

While it's not really close, the Marlins' bullpen does hold its own. With the Phillies' recent acquisition of left-handed reliever Scott Eyre, however, their bullpen is even better.

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DEFENSE

Judging a player or team's defensive contributions is tricky and everyone has their favorite metric. Since it was recently updated, I'll use Chris Dial's DRS.

Catcher

Carlos Ruiz, PHI: 0.7
Matt Treanor, FLA: 0.3
Mike Rabelo, FLA: 0.2
Chris Coste, PHI: 0.2
Ramon Castro, NYM: 0.1
John Baker, FLA: 0.1
Brian Schneider: -0.4

First Base

Ryan Howard, PHI: 3.9
Jorge Cantu, FLA: 0
Wes Helms, FLA: -2.7
Carlos Delgado, NYM: -6.7
Mike Jacobs, FLA: -9.3

Second Base

Chase Utley, PHI: 9.8
Dan Uggla, FLA: 0.5
Luis Castillo, NYM: -6.2
Damion Easley, NYM: -7.8

Third Base

Pedro Feliz, PHI: 9.2
Wes Helms, FLA: 1.0
David Wright, NYM: -1.4
Greg Dobbs, PHI: -4.4
Jorge Cantu, FLA: -10.9

Shortstop

Jimmy Rollins, PHI: 5.6
Eric Bruntlett, PHI: -1.0
Hanley Ramirez, FLA: -2.7
Jose Reyes, NYM: -7.9

Left Field

Pat Burrell, PHI: 5.5
Endy Chavez, NYM: 4.0
Marlon Anderson, NYM: 2.3
So Taguchi, PHI: -0.9
Fernando Tatis, NYM: -2.0
Josh Willingham, FLA: -4.1

Center Field

Carlos Beltran, NYM: 6.4
Cody Ross, FLA: 5.2
Shane Victorino, PHI: 5.0
Jayson Werth, PHI: 1.0
Alfredo Amezaga, FLA: -0.1

Right Field

Jeremy Hermida, FLA: 9.4
Endy Chavez, NYM: 6.8
Jayson Werth, PHI: 1.8
Ryan Church, NYM: 0.7
Geoff Jenkins, PHI: 0.2
Fernando Tatis, NYM: -1.8

Pitchers

Mets (Santana, Maine, Perez, Pelfrey, Martinez): 1.6
Phillies (Hamels, Moyer, Kendrick, Blanton, Myers): 0.9
Marlins (Olsen, Nolasco, Miller, Hendrickson, Volstad): -0.5

Overall

To quote Chris Dial:

The best defensive team thus far has been the Phillies (+34), and they are above average at every position, which is impressive. The Phils division lead can be summed up in this, as the Mets (-12) and the Marlins (-20) are well behind them.

For the skeptics, I'll quickly list the teams' infield and outfield RZR and plus/minus, all of which can be found here.

Infield RZR
Phillies: .785
Marlins: .767
Mets: .764

Outfield RZR
Mets: .914
Marlins: .909
Phillies: .875

Plus/Minus
Phillies: 27
Mets: 16
Marlins: -11

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BENCH

Again, the Phillies are by far the best here, but I'll go in-depth. To quote my article for THT again (updated for relevancy):

Overall, Phillies pinch-hitters have [an OPS of .768], which is second-best in the National League. The bulk of that is coming from Greg Dobbs, whose pinch-hitting slash line looks like .408/.434/.612. He leads in RBIs (14) and hits (20), and is in a four-way tie for the lead in home runs (2).

Mets and Marlins pinch-hitters, meanwhile, both have a .649 OPS. Not even close.

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RECAP (a.k.a. TL;DR version)

Phillies strengths: Offense, Bullpen, Defense, Bench
Mets strengths: Offense, Starting Pitching
Marlins strengths: Offense, Bullpen

The projections all favor the Phillies and so does an in-depth look at each facet of the game.