With the off-season moves made by the Mets and the Braves, popular opinion has the Phillies stuck in third place in the division unless the majority of their players experience career years. Yesterday, I was as certain of that placement as everyone else. Then I started examining Jimmy Rollins in order to comment on his new contract.

The Phillies agreed to a new one-year contract with Jimmy Rollins on Saturday. Rollins will have a base salary of $365K and could earn another $10K as a bonus if he is an All-Star. Considering that he won't be arbitration eligible until after 2003, this is a solid salary for him. Once he reaches arbitration, his salary will likely escalate quickly, so Philadelphia should probably try to sign him to a multi-year contract after this season. By waiting another season before locking him up, they will have another year to evaluate his talents, and if he does suffer a sophomore slump they will be able to take financial advantage of that.

Many analysts have projected a decline in Rollins' numbers this season, because he displayed abysmal plate discipline last season with a 48:108 BB:K ratio in 656 AB. However he had fairly good plate discipline at every level of the minors. In 1999 he had a 51:47 BB:K ratio 532 AB at AA Reading, and those minor league numbers fell only slightly in 2000 to a 49:55 BB:K ratio at AAA Scranton/Wilkes-Barre.

Last season the Phillies employed Richie Hebner, who may be the worst hitting coach in all of baseball, as their major league hitting coach. We've been aware of Hebner's inadequacies for a while, beginning with the troubles he caused for years for Pittsburgh's AAA team, crippling top prospects like Chad Hermansen through his "see the ball, hit the ball" batting philosophy. We were also aware that some of the Phillies such as Bobby Abreu had very uncharacteristic seasons in 2001, but after looking at Rollins, I decided to examine the rest of the roster.

I looked at the last two years of BB:K, K/AB, and BB/AB for each player on the Phillies who was both with the team the entire year and had more than 150 AB. This set included eight players: Bobby Abreu, Marlon Anderson, Pat Burrell, Johnny Estrada, Doug Glanville, Travis Lee, Scott Rolen, and Jimmy Rollins.

                              2000                        2001 
#     Player        AB  BB   K  BB% KK% K:BB   AB  BB   K  BB% KK% K:BB
1. Doug Glanville  637  31  76   5  12   .41  634  19  91   3  14   .21
2. Jimmy Rollins   523* 48  52   9  10   .92  656  48 108   7  16   .44
3. Bobby Abreu     576 100 116  17  20   .86  588 106 137  18  23   .77
4. Scott Rolen     483  51  99  11  20   .52  554  74 127  13  23   .58
5. Travis Lee      404  65  79  16  20   .82  555  71 109  13  20   .65
6. Pat Burrell     551* 90 171  16  31   .53  539  70 162  13  30   .43
7. Marlon Anderson 559* 45  61   8  11   .74  522  35  74   7  14   .47
8. Johnny Estrada  356*  9  19   3   5   .47  298  16  32   5  11   .50
 
2001 PHI Starters 3946 412 614  10  16   .67 4346 439 840  10  19   .52
National League                 11  20   .56               10  20   .48

Every one of these eight players experienced a noteworthy decline in plate discipline, either through an increased strikeout rate or decline in K:BB. Only Rolen and Estrada improved their walk rates, and Rolen missed over a month of action in 2000 due to a variety of ankle, wrist, and back injuries, explaining the small 2001 improvement when healthy. Estrada only saw about half the playing time of anyone else in the data set, so his increase is also less statistically significant.

In comparing the 2000-2001 Phillies to the entire National League, you can see that instead of continuing their above-average plate discipline, they regressed nearly to the league mean in both strikeout rate and BB:K.

The good news for Phillies fans is that Hebner was fired after the season and hired by Tampa Bay as their AAA hitting instructor. He was replaced with Greg Gross, who was Philadelphia's bench coach last year. Now while almost anyone would be an improvement over Hebner, Gross has the potential to be exactly what the Phillies need. He should be well aware of the subtleties of the strike zone. In his 17-year major league career, Gross posted a .372 OBP, accompanied by a fantastic 523:250 BB:K ratio in 3745 AB. If he can impart just some of his OBP knowledge to the team, every starter could easily see improvement. His power numbers are far from impressive, but that could be as much a commentary on his build as his abilities.

In addition to Gross, Hall-of-Fame Third Baseman Mike Schmidt will also be instructing the Phillies hitters during Spring Training. Schmidt should be able to fill in any information Gross might lack in terms of power, and while his plate discipline wasn't perfect, he did maintain very good levels throughout his career.

I'm not saying we're going to see full rebounds from all the batters whose numbers fell off last season. Breaking something is normally a lot easier than fixing it, and in some cases there are probably other factors outside the coaching involved. However, I do think you will see at least a return to their 2000 form from the vast majority of these guys, so Rollins may not suffer that projected sophomore slump.

With all of this in mind, I now feel that Philadelphia still has a very good chance of making the playoffs. The Mets and Braves have made improvements, but both still have holes.

Atlanta's rotation is still solid but has age and injury questions. They are extremely weak at first base. Chipper Jones is switching positions, which can cause trouble at the plate. Furcal missed all of last season and though he should bounce back eventually, could have a slow start.

New York has fairly good depth in their pitching staff, but several of the pitchers do have injury questions. Despite the changes, their outfield could be well below average. Rey Ordonez appears to be their starting shortstop.

I could probably list several other concerns for each club and then there are always the unpredictable injuries that can cost a team a few games. Obviously Philly isn't without some troubles of their own, but they do have a good team, and with rebounds and/or career years from several players as the youngsters reach their primes, they certainly should not be counted out of the race.