Math…on a sports blog? Terrifying I know; hell, I even had the privilege last year of taking yet another statistics class in my junior year of college, and it’s safe to say that I have retained close to none of the information. But while watching the Phillies offense EXPLODE tonight in a much needed win, a thought came to me that justifies my entire college tuition for the semester I took statistics last year: that thought gave me a good starting point to break down the Phillies offense, or lack thereof - the bell curve.

A quick recap on the bell curve: based on an ABCDF grading scale, there should be fewer F’s and D’s, lots of C’s, and then fewer B’s and A’s, completing the curve. A picture of the curve, is here. As you can see, mediocrity rules which isn’t entirely bad because the amount of failures is slim.

Any professional baseball team’s offense should operate pretty close to a bell curve. Off the top of my head, when you look at the Mets this year, Wright…Reyes…Tatis (really?) are all the slim piece of excellent, Beltran…Easley…Delgado are doing alright, and Castro…Schneider…and Chavez aren’t doing so hot. Even with the Braves, Francoeur is having an awful year, Escobar is handling himself ok, and McCann is having another great season. So naturally the Phillies should fall in line like just about any other team with this law of averages, right? Let’s take a look:

Strange Team Notes: The Phillies offensive is 4th in the NL in runs (589), 1st in the NL in home runs (164), 2nd in the NL in RBIs (565), and 3rd in the NL in slugging (.437).

But at the very same time, the same team is 11th in the NL in hits (1,051), 10th in the NL in doubles (217), and 10th in the NL in batting average (.254).

So, the team as a whole strikes for power and not average. But that’s already become common knowledge, this team has loads of trouble manufacturing runs. In a season when the pitching was the question mark, it’s been this offense that has been the inconsistent problem. Starting pitching has held up better than expected, the bullpen has been for the most part outstanding, yet the “potent” offense has come up dry quite often in 2008. And it hasn’t just been one player disappointing, it’s been plenty.

Individual Grades: the grading system here doesn’t factor in defense, this is solely based on offense (sorry Jimmy, your boo’ing is well deserved).

A+

nobody

A

Greg Dobbs: : The pinch-hitting 3rd baseman is currently batting at a clip of .310, which leads the team. He has 49 hits and has broken the Phillies single season pinch-hit record. Dobbs also has 5 homers and 26 RBI and has a special quality for getting timely hits. He’s slugging .468.

A-

nobody

B+

Shane Victorino: The loss of Aaron Rowand meant Shane was stationed in center as the starter. While his power numbers aren’t Earth-shattering, 11 homers and 45 RBI, he is getting it done in a very consistent way. Second on the team in runs (76), 2nd in hits (118), and has 27 stolen bases which is good for 2nd as well. He’s batting a pretty decent clip of .283.

B

Chase Utley: Unlike some All-Star’s who are voted in the simply based on popularity, Utley is well deserving because of his good bat. He started the season with a scorching month of April and early May, and while he has steadily declined since then, his numbers are still very respectable. He’s batting .285 which is good, but not standard Utley, however he finds ways to get on base. His OBP is 2nd on the team at .368, 1st on the team in slugging at .564, and has a remarkable number of homers (30) and a nice RBI count too (83). He’s drawn 46 walks and is 2nd in baseball (Carlos Quentin) in being hit by pitches.

B-

Pat Burrell: He’s in a mini-slump now, but Burrell is having another season which should pan out to somewhere around 35 homers and 90 RBI. Besides his power (28 homers), he’s second in doubles (28), 3rd in total bases (222), and leads the team with 84 walks. Pat is also slugging .554, and all these numbers are remarkably similar to the past number of years for him. This is shaping up to be yet another solid year.

C+

Ryan Howard: The big man struck out 199 times last year and will shatter his own record this year as he’s already whiffed 157 times. His average is also a paltry, Adam-Dunn like, .235 and is behind Carlos Ruiz and 9 other Phillies in OBP. But it’s impossible to argue with a third consecutive year of 100+ RBI (103), leading the league in homers (33), and leading the team in total bases (227). He is third on the team with 71 runs.

C

Jayson Werth: The platoon in right field of Werth and Jenkins hasn’t been anything to brag about at all, but Werth has certainly been the better of the two. His extremely clutch hitting of last year hasn’t shown up and his average is just .263. But when he gets on, he still creates havoc on the bases and scores a lot of the time. If he was a full time starter his power numbers, 16 homers and 43 RBI, would pan out to a nice season of about 20 and 75.

C-

Chris Coste: The old rookie behind the plate has been pretty sound defensively but just OK at the plate, he’s basically a great backup catcher. His average (.270) and OBP (.323) are alright, and 15 of his 57 hits have been doubles. Last year he came up with timely hitting, which seems to be a lacking stat throughout the team this year, which unfortunately hasn’t carried over to 2008.

D+

Pedro Feliz: The Phillies have not been blessed with offense of any kind at the hot corner in recent years, and Feliz is no exception. The former Giant is great with the glove, but that doesn’t matter in these grades. He’s hitting just .256 and ranks near the bottom of everyday players in a lot of categories (even factoring in his DL time): 36  runs (7th), 46 RBI (4th, which is sad to put it nicely, the drop off between 3rd and 4th is almost 25 RBI), and just an awful OBP of .304.

D

Jimmy Rollins: Oh, what a fall from grace. Forget “dissing Philly fans”, showing up an hour before a game, or not hustling, the reigning NL MVP has been downright horrifying at the dish. Granted he was on the DL for some time this season, but even if you project his numbers this year, most of them will be far, far down from last year. He’s batting .269 in the leadoff role, just an awful way to set the tone in a game. He has shown no ability to hit when it matters, and can’t get in a groove. The only thing keeping him from an F is his team leading 30 stolen bases.

D-

nobody

F

Eric Bruntlett: This utility player is most often used at third but can play, and fail to produce, at any position. He’s batting .216, with an OBP of .300, and has a slugging percentage 22 points lower than Cole Hamels. He has no real power (2 HR, 13 RBI) and really doesn’t specialize in pulling the ball or hitting just about anywhere. He’s also managed to strike out 31 times.

Geoff Jenkins: Broadcasters often note his facial similarities to Brett Favre, and it’s a nice coincidence that I hate them both. Jenkins is no doubt the worst off-season aquisition this past year as he was projected to help platoon right field with his usual season of around 20 homers and 75-80 RBI. He currently has 9 homers, 28 RBI, and has struck out 64 times - good for 5th on the team.

Carlos Ruiz: When the Phillies send 7-8-9 up in any given game, it’s almost certain to be a 1-2-3 inning for the opposition and much of the blame goes to Carlos Ruiz. Whether it’s a pop out, fly out, strike out or his fantastic double play groundout, he’s determined to end the inning as fast as he can. What’s painful is that he hit .259 last year: I would kill for him to hit anywhere near there, as he is at .219 this year. He’s slugging .281 with 2 homers and 21 RBI in almost 100 games.

So Taguchi: The leading pinch-hitter for average last season is batting a whopping .215 with no homers and  6 RBI. He is almost a lock for any sort of out when he’s at the dish, as he has shown zero ability to create any resemblance to last year’s success. The best PH has quickly become one of the worst; Taguchi has ended far more innings than one’s he’s extended.

In the team notes you could already see that this team offensively is good and bat, and altogether very strange and inconsistent. The bell curve doesn’t really apply to the Fightins, with 6 D/F’s, just 3 C’s, and 4 A/B’s. The best hitter has been Greg Dobbs: never a good sign when a pinch-hitter gets your only A grade. But he’s the only guy that puts together consistent AB’s and makes it a darn good season thus far, with timely hitting too. The reigning MVP is awful, receiving a D.

Overall, in a surprise…there really isn’t a lot of positive things to say about this team when they hit. They put up some good numbers, but it seems to be mostly power. Utley started hot and has started down. The leadoff position is an automatic out most of the time. Your 4 and 5 hitters, Howard and Burrell, are doing fine with power, but struggle with the smaller, sometimes more important things at the plate. This is a depressing sort of bell curve.