Phillies General Manager Ruben Amaro made a mistake releasing Brett Myers after the 2009 post-season.
Amaro declined to negotiate with Phillies long-time pitcher Brett Myers, severed all ties and decided to let Myers be a free agent.
There are several reasons why this move is wrong.
1) Myers is the longest tenured Phillie on the roster.
2) Myers has three seasons of effective post-season experience.
3) Myers has been an integral part of three NL East Division
winners, and an integral part of three contending teams before that.
4) Myers is still young, not yet 30.
5) Myers has great strikeout to walk ratios and a great career WHIP (walks and hits to innings pitched ratio).
6) Myers is an innings eater whose stats are better than league average.
7) The Phillies have no one better to replace Myers as a starter or reliever, and plenty who may be much worse.
Myers would have been cheap to re-sign to a one year deal.
9) Myers wanted to stay a Phillie, and loves being a Phillie, and the Phillies fan love Myers.
10) Myers should have been re-signed because he had the courage to call Cole Hamels out for “quitting” after Game Three of the 2009 World Series. Demonstrating guts, will to win, and willingness to demand the same of his superstar teammates.
Let’s detail those reasons.
First, Myers was the longest tenured Phillie on the roster. He loves the Phillies, loves the Phillies fans, and he knows how to pitch in Citizens Bank Park.
Second, Myers has three seasons of post-season experience. He pitched as a closer/relief pitcher in the 2007 NLDS against the Rockies, started in the NLDS/NLCS/World Series, and served as a relief pitcher in the 2009 World Series. In 2009 he was available either as a starter, long relief or as backup closer in the event Ryan Madsen or Brad Lidge were unavailable to do the job. He’s been there and has handled the pressure before in the post-season, in Philly and other big towns and can be handed the ball in big game postseason situations.
Third, Myers has been an integral part of each of the three NL East Division Title Winning teams, as well as being a key starter on teams in 2003-2006 that each won 85 or more games and were always in the hunt. In 2007, after four seasons in which he racked up 193, 176, 215 and 198 innings pitched, going 14-9, 11-11, 13-8 and 12-7 in those seasons (50 total win against 35 total losses), he was asked in 2007 to go to the bullpen and become a closer.
In 2007, Myers converted 21 saves in 24 save opportunities with an ERA of 4.33 (park adjusted ERA of 3.63), striking out 83 batters in just 68 and two thirds innings, while walking only 27, with just 6 hit batsmen and 2 wild pitches. He gave up nine homers in those innings, which projects out to around 27 over 200 innings, but that’s a) normal for Myers and b) normal for pitching in Citizens Bank Park, which allows more than 130% more home runs than the average home park.
In 2008, asked to be a starter again, Myers logged 190 innings again and faced 817 batters, striking out 163 while walking only 65, with 6 hit batsmen and 29 homers allowed. His ERA was slightly higher, 4.55, with a park-adjusted ERA of 4.47, and his won lost record 10-13, but his record in 2008 was not dissimilar from his starting stats of 2003 or 2004, in which he had very similar numbers and results. In 2004 he gave up more home runs and more hits per innings and had an ERA of 5.52 and an adjusted ERA of 5.17.
In 2009 Myers had injury problems and was limited in his ability to start and relieve, but still was willing to come back, hurt, and throw, time and time again, for the Phillies.
Other pitchers would have stayed on the disabled list.
Myers is a competitor who always wants the ball. He came back to the Phillies hurt in September, helped out the bullpen as well as the starting staff, and was there to back up the bullpen in the playoffs and the World Series.
His 2009 stats are also off his career norms, but Myers was injured. There is no reason why he can’t be 100% again next year and shoulder a starters’ role.
Fourth, Myers is young. Myers was born on August 17, 1980. He turned 29 this year. That means he will turn 30 next year. He is still good for another five years at least. He’s six foot four and weights 238 pounds. The one thing to recommend is that Myers go on a conditioning program to lose some weight—losing about twenty pound off his frame would help his mechanics and endurance tremendously. Also, alcohol rehabilitation—he needs to stop drinking entirely. That would help with his weight. With those two taken care of, Myers can be a terrific pitcher for the next five-ten years.
Fifth, Myers has great strikeout to walk ratios and an outstanding career WHIP. Career, Myers has through 2008, 936 strikeouts logged in 1113 innings pitched, which is around 7 and one half strikeouts per nine innings. Through the same period Myers has just 390 walks, which is just three walks a game, which gives him a more than 2-1 strikeout to walk ratio. He gives up about one hit per inning pitched, exactly, so his career WHIP is 1.36. Combined with 7.5 strikeouts a game, those are outstanding career strikeout, hits allowed and walks allowed ratios.
Sixth, Myers has shown, over and over, that he is an innings eater whose career era, career WHIP and career strikeout to walk ratio are all under league average in a league where teams score five or more runs a game and in a home park where home runs fly out all the time. The Phillies had another pitcher once who was a lot like Brett Myers, who they also brought up in their farm system, a guy named Kevin Gross. Gross was basically a .500 pitcher, but Gross was a big guy, a strikeout pitcher, who would always eat up 200 innings a year, give you five to eight innings a start, and always keep you in the ballgame most of the time. The Phillies made the mistake of letting Gross get away to the Dodgers, and Gross had a long and productive career after leaving the Phillies. Not a Hall of Famer, but as a #3, 4, or 5 starter that ate up innings and helped keep the Dodgers in ballgames and gave them a chance to win.
Nor did the Phillies ever find another starter who was as good as Gross. As Bill James and other statheads are fond of saying, there is nothing as valuable in baseball as an average player, a replacement level player, a guy who gives you the league average ERA and pitches 200 innings a year. Those guys are hard to find.
Seventh, who will replace Myers? Let’s look as some of the back end starters the Phillies have used in recent years who have been much worse than Myers, and a lot more expensive.
Adam Eaton. Once a high Phillies draft pick, let go to other teams, the Phils resigned him to an expensive deal. Not known for “eaton” innings, Eaton went 10-10 in 2007 with a 6.29 ERA (park-adjusted 6.33) while allowing a staggering 192 hits and 30 homers in just 161 and two thirds innings pitched. Also 11 hit batters and 6 wild pitches. He was worse the next year, only logging 107 innings pitched, going 4-8 with a 5.80 ERA (6.07 park adjusted), allowing 131 hits and 15 homers in those 107 innings, while striking out only 57 and walking 44, with 6 hit batsmen and 2 wild pitches. Awful, terrible, horrible don’t begin to describe how bad Adam Eaton was as a starter.
Jamie Moyer has been a wonderful surprise for the Phillies, but he will turn 47 years old in just five days on November 18, 1962. In fact, Moyer will will in fact be attending his 30th reunion at Penn Charter either this fall of 2009 or this coming spring of 2010. Tempus fugit.
Moyer was terrific for the Phillies in 2007 and 2008, but his ERA ballooned in 2009 as did a number of other stats, and he was actually removed from the rotation in favor of Pedro Martinez. Moyer was doing well in relief, but then suffered a serious injury in September, which was unfortunate, because Moyer was very, very effective in the postseason in both 2007 and 2008, and the Phils could have used Moyer’s junkballing stuff against the lefthanded leaning, fastball-hitting Yankees.
Right now, the Phillies Starting Staff for 2010 looks like this:
1) Cliff Lee 2) Cole Hamels 3) Joe Blanton 4) JA Happ 5) ?
There was every reason to insert Brett Myers in there at Number 5. Atlanta has six starters under contract, and guys get hurt during a season.
The Phillies needed to sign Pedro Martinez and trade for Cliff Lee during the season because starting pitchers get hurt and got hurt, or don’t perform as expected. Brett Myers represented insuranced & depth, and was a known commodity.
Pedro Martinez could start for the Phillies, but it’s not really clear that he can go an entire season and log 200 innings like a Brett Myers. It really would have been a lot safer to use Brett Myers to log 200 innings and use Pedro in relief, and then flip them around come playoff time. That way the Phillies could save Pedro’s arm for the post-season, since Myers can do anything you want him to do. Pedro has broken down physically each of the seasons he was with the Mets, and cold weather doesn’t agree with him at age 38.
Kyle Kendrick is a potential #4 or #5 starter for the Phillies, but a careful analysis of his pitching stats show that his successful 2007 season is an illusion. This is because Kyle Kendrick is not a strikeout pitcher and only succeeds when he doesn’t give up hits and doesn’t give up walks. He was successful in 2007 because a large number of the balls put into play against him happened to be caught—what we call the Voros McCracken effect or factor. This in 2007 he allowed 129 hits in 121 innings pitched, and had an ERA of 2.87 (park adjusted 4.23), but struck out only 49 batters, less than 3.5 per 9 innings, a very very low total for a young pitcher, especially one who’s 6 foot three, 190 and was age 23 at the time—he’s turning 26 in 2010—while walking 25—about 1.75 per nine innings. Now that was a 2-1 strikeout to walk ratio, but notice how many balls are being put into play when you don’t strike out very many people. Kendrick allowed 16 homers in those 121 innings.
In 2008, it was a completely different story for Kendrick. He allowed 194 hits in just 155 and two thirds innings, struck out just 68 batters while walking 57—almost a one to one strikeout to walk ratio—LED the national league in hit batsmen with 14—which would have been around 25 hit batters if he’d gone to 200 plus innings—and also added in 4 wild pitches. Kendrick logged a 5.49 ERA (6.05 adjusted) and allowed 23 homers in those 155.2 innings. This works out to a WHIP of over 1.60—and a WHIP over 1.50 is very very high. Kendrick in 2008 walked nearly 3 and a half batters a game, while striking out just about the same number as he had in 2007, 3 and a half batters a game. So his walks doubled while his strikeouts stayed the same. And his wild pitches, homers and hit batsmen went nuts. Add in the poor strikeout to walk ratio, the high walk ratio, the hit batsmen, the homers and the wild pitches, and you can see why Kendrick was sent down to the minors in 2008 and stayed there in 2009.
Kendrick is simply never going to be an effective major league starting pitcher. If he learns a sinker or change, he might eventually become a good one or two inning or long relief pitcher, but never a closer, starter or 7th inning setup guy. Kendrick doesn’t know how to strikeout batters, and unless he can control the location of his pitches to get ground balls and induce double plays, and not allow homers or hits, he’s not going to be able to hold leads either. He’ll just be a guy you throw in there when you’re losing and you need to eat up innings, but since the Phillies are never out of a ballgame, they just don’t need anyone like him.
It could be the Phils expect Pedro to hold down the fort until Kyle Drabek or someone like him is ready off the farm.
Eighth, the Phillies should have resigned Myers because he would have been cheap to resign.
Coming off an injury plagued year, the Phils could have had him for a one year deal, and probably nowhere close to the money they signed him for a while back when they gave him a long term guaranteed deal. Then the Phils could have sat back and seen how he would have done.
Ninth, Myers wanted to stay with the Phils, because he’s a career Phillie and he loves playing in Philly. He loves the fans, and the fans love him. He’s a gutbucket, blue collar, lunchpail, play hurt kind of player who leaves everything on the field, and that’s exactly what Philly fans love about him. He’s nothing like Pat Burrell or Bobby Abreu or Scott Rolen, all of whom had issues at one time or another about playing in Philly for one reason or another, and each of whom loved to take those long paid DL vacations. Myers has always loved Philly, and always played hurt, and always came back as soon as he could.
Myers was like the aaron rowand of the phillies pitching staff.
Tenth, the Phillies should have signed Myers because he called Cole Hamels out for “quitting” during the World Series this past October/November.
Although it’s controversial, Myers should be given credit for saying to the superstar, hey, you’re the superstar, you can’t go around saying stuff like “I wish the season was over, I quit, I’m mentally drained,” because that shows poor leadership to the rest of the team, especially when you’re playing a go for the jugular team like the Yankees, who essentially play a world series every week since they’re in the cut-throat AL East Division.
Myers showed Billy Martin-Phil Rizzuto-Yogi Berra-Derek Jeter in your face kind of leadership and style by getting in Cole Hamels’ face during the World Series.
The Phillies need that kind of locker room intensity.
The Phillies need guys who want to win so badly, they’re not afraid to fight with each other over who’s trying harder to win the World Series.
Hamels is a very, very gifted pitcher, but how good , how great, how invincible would he be if he had Brett Myers intensity, toughness and desire to win?
Brett Myers must say to himself every day, if I had the talent that Cole Hamels had, I’d never lose. I’d go out and beat those other guys. Because I hate to lose. I’m Brett Myers. Give me the ball.
For that reason, and for all the others enumerated herein, it’s probably a mistake to let a fellow like Brett Myers leave the Phillies.
Facing Myers for the Dodgers or Yankees is a lot different than facing nice Randy Wolf, sloppy Vincente Padilla or CC Sabathia, who has developed a psychological issue with the phils. Myers just wants to beat you any way he can.
It might be a mistake to let him go to an enemy team.
–art kyriazis, philly
home of the 2008 world champion phillies
Jimmy Rollins, three straight gold gloves, 2007-2009
Shane Victorino, two straight gold gloves, 2008-2009
Chase Utley, four straight Silver Slugger Awards, 2b, 2006-2009
JA Happ NL Rookie of the Year 2009
2007, 2008, 2009 NL East Division Champions
2008, 2009 NL Pennant Winners
1976-1978, 1980, 1983, 1993 NL East Division Champions
1981 NL East Divisional Playoffs.
1915, 1950, 1980, 1983, 1993 NL Pennant Champions
1980 World Champions
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