High Hopes: A Phillies Podcast - 20 Mind-Blowing Stats From The Phillies Historic Start | WIP Daily

Episode Date: May 20, 2024

Joe Giglio lists 20 incredible stats from the Phillies 34-14 start to the season. To learn more about listener data and our privacy practices visit: https://www.audacyinc.com/privacy-policy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit https://podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Make your nights unforgettable with American Express. Unmissable show coming up? Good news. We've got access to pre-sale tickets so you don't miss it. Meeting with friends before the show? We can book your reservation. And when you get to the main event, skip to the good bit using the card member entrance. Let's go seize the night.

That's the powerful backing of American Express. Visit amex.ca slash yamex. Benefits vary by card. Other conditions apply. Whether the action is at the link or the bank, there's never an off day on Broad Street. It's the biggest news of the day every day with takes from someone who's never short on them.

It's WIP Daily with Joe Giglio. Welcome on in. WIP Daily. Joe Giglio with you. Appreciate it. Listen, subscribe and follow the podcast. Personal YouTube feed. 94 WIP. Check it out there.

The Philadelphia Phillies are a wagon. This team is unbelievable. 34-14 after a sweep of the Washington Nationals. The wins just continue to pile up. We're talking about historic stuff here now for the Phillies as they enter an off day before the world champion Texas Rangers come to town tomorrow night. The Phillies are the best show in town. They're the best show in baseball right now.

They're the best team in baseball. And it is getting to a point now where it feels historic what we are seeing. So I thought today, instead of just reacting to the weekend, what a great day. Yesterday they poured it on. Saturday night with the Cody Clements home run to tie the game. And then, of course, Bryce Harper wins the game late with the sacrifice. So much to talk about. I thought, you know, instead of just takeaways, I'm going to throw at you, as the Phillies enter play today, 20 games over 500.

I'm going to give you the 20 most mind-blowing Phillies stats that I saw. 20 most mind-blowing Phillies stats that I saw or dug up or just kind of like it hit me as I really combed through what they have accomplished, where they are, and what this team is doing in conjunction with the rest of the league and in conjunction maybe some past Philly teams. Let's get into it. The 20 most mind-blowing stats of a Philly's team, 20 games over 500 on May 20th. All right, so number one, the Braves came into Philadelphia to start the season. I was there opening day, Wheeler and Strider before Strider got hurt. And it was a pitcher's duel for the first six innings or so. And the Phillies took Wheeler out and the bullpen

totally and completely imploded. And the Phillies lost. Next day, Nola got hit and they lost again. Braves 2-0, Phillies 0-2. Phillies outscored by 14 runs over the first two games of the season. Since that day, since that Sunday, the third game of the season, the Phillies are 34-12 with a plus 94 run differential. The Atlanta Braves, after a big loss last night in Atlanta against the Padres, are 24-16 with a plus 24 run differential. This hasn't been close. It hasn't been close for a while.

The Phillies have been the best team in the National League East for a while. Number two, on this date last year, the Braves were five and a half games up on the Phillies. Today, we enter play. The Phillies are five games up on the Atlanta Braves. Number three, this little piece of advice for you. You missed the best of the number. It's still pretty juicy. You can currently get the Phillies to win the National League East.

Still at plus money on FanDuel. Plus 145 this morning. The Phillies, the second team in the NL East in terms of the odds. The Braves are still the favorite. Now that number's moving. It's moved a lot the last couple of weeks. It's probably early, you know, it's preseason, it's spring training, it's off-season money on the Braves so much

that they're not going to flip this thing around to the Phillies yet. But I do wonder what point the Phillies become the favorites. This reminds me of this race. If the Braves hold up their end of the bargain, the Phillies are certainly holding up theirs. The race itself is starting to remind me a little bit of Dodgers-Giants a couple years ago. 2021, Dodgers-Giants. It was a tremendous race for the National League West.

That was right before the second wild card. It was last year of the one. Or it was right before the wild card series, excuse me. So it was to where it was just a one game wildcard playoff. So the loser of the, of the race had to play a wildcard game. Now the Dodgers end up winning that game. Giants won the division 107 wins. Uh, Dodgers get in at 106 with the wildcard. They end up playing a game and beat the Cardinals and then face off against the Giants and beat them in the NLDS. But the point is 107-106 was that year.

We could be looking at something like that right now. And it reminds me of that from a couple of perspectives. One, I was doing a Beck QL show then, and I couldn't believe throughout that season that the Giants very, it took forever for them to become the favorite. I think it was like September until they were the favorite to win the division.

I mean, and the gap between those teams on paper was bigger than this. And we have the post-season resume the last couple years too. But, like, I remember it was like June or July, and the Giants were up in the division. They were still like 5-1, 6-1. I'm like, wait a second. They're playing phenomenal baseball.

And the Phillies at plus 145 are playing phenomenal baseball. Our number four, only 16 National League teams since 1954 have won 33 times through their first 47 games. That's the Phillies. That was the Phillies before yesterday, 33 and 14. Now they're 34 and 14. Every single one of those teams went on to win the division title while 10 won the National League pennant. So 10 out of 16 won the penn title, while 10 won the National League pennant. So it's 10 out of 16 won the pennant. And every single one of the 16 won the division. Take that as you may. The Phillies are in rare company. Number five, I just want to put this number out there because it's just like, man, the Phillies are on pace for 115 wins this season. 115 wins.

Number six, the Phillies are just the fifth National League team over the last 38 years to start 34-14 or better. You got to go back to 1986, the 86 Mets. The last team to do it, the World Series champion Chicago Cubs in 2016 went off the jump of the season. You realize they were special. And there's something about this Phillies team that off the jump, they're special. This is a special baseball team.

Now piling on some special moments like the Cody Clemens moment a couple nights ago. This is a special team. Number seven. Over their last 23 games, the Phillies have won 19 times. That in itself is a cool stat, right? 19-4 over 23, regardless of when, is great baseball. But this part blew me away. I believe I saw this over at, I think this was Crossing Broad.

Bob Winkle had this one, okay? In the other four games, they have had the potential tying run at the plate in the ninth inning or later. So just from a fan perspective, 19 to the last 23, you walk away with a victory. You're thrilled. The Phillies won the game. They won. We're happy.

The other four, the four they lost, they had the potential tying run at the plate in the ninth inning or later. They were this close to winning. They were this close to winning. They were this close to winning. Like they're not losing by six. That was by five, not getting blown out every, you know, once or twice a week, or even losing by three or four or five runs where it's like, ah, just a bad night. They stuck. No, even the bad nights, they stink. They're right there. They can win those games too. That, that, that just hammers home how remarkable this has been.

I mean, a couple of breaks, this team has won 23 straight baseball games. That doesn't happen. All right, number eight. Alec Boehm after yesterday is now on pace for 142 runs batted. And I got to tell you, I'm kicking myself. So I was – I think we did the – it's on the feed, you know, back on the WIP Daily feed. I did the Phillies betting preview. like what I would bet, right? The old runners on home runs for Harper and Schwerber

and Turner, all that kind of stuff. And look for some long shots in there. And I said in that podcast that I thought a really good long shot was to take whoever's hitting cleanup for the Phillies to lead major league baseball in runs batted in. Now, I idiotically chose Castellanos because I thought he probably had the best patating cleanup. They got off to a bad start, Boehm got hot, and Boehm took it over. But the theory or the overarching idea on the bat was sound. You can clean up in this lineup as runners on base all the time. Bryce Harper, Schwarber, Turner when he's healthy. I just took the wrong guy. I should have taken an Alec Boehm. The Boehm never tried like 200 to one. And right now he's on pace for 142 runs batted in. What a

great start for Alec Boehm. Number nine, Bryce's start has more walks, 25, and runs scored, 30, than he does strikeouts this season, 23. All right, now let's do a little perspective historically on the team and where they are compared to some other great Phillies teams that we know and we reference, okay? The 2008 Phillies got a 105 OPS plus from non-pitchers. So non-pitchers, take the pitchers out because you go to the old National League and you look at their offensive numbers, you got to like the pitchers kind of weigh it down. So you could take the pitchers out and just look, what did the offensive players do? They had a 105 adjusted OPS.

They were 5% as a group above average, above league average. Okay. This team has a 115 adjusted OPS. So they've been 15% above average. So far this season, this Phillies offense, which I don't even think is great. I said that a month and a half ago. I think they need another bat to go win the World Series and beat the Dodgers to get there. But the bottom line is they have been better than the 08 offense. Now, how about this? The Phillies 2011 pitching staff heralded as the best Phillies pitching staff most of us have ever seen. Led them to 102 wins.

That was a pitching dependent team. That team had a 127 adjusted ERA, 27% above league average. This team has a 128 ERA plus. Number 12, and it's a guy that's under the radar. He shouldn't be, he can't be for long with the way he's pitching. Really a dynamic signing by Dave Dabrowski and then a smart extension on top of it. Matt Strom gave up runs on opening day. He was part of the Phillies blowing that opening day game to Atlanta and Atlanta took the game, beat the Phillies both of them. Okay. Matt Strom, since opening day, right?

You take opening day, he struggled since then. He has gone 18 and two thirds consecutive scoreless innings. And in that timeframe, it's even, it's even more wild than just the timeframe of, you know, scoreless innings. Cause you know, I'm working on a nice streak here and there. It's the dominance he is with, he's shown within, in that realm. Okay. Strom in the, since then, since the second day of the season has a 29 to 1 strikeout to walk ratio. A 29 to 1 strikeout to walk ratio. Number 13, the Phillies could play 500 ball the rest of the way and win 91 baseball games.

That is more than they did all of last year. So they could play 500 from May 20th, the end of the season, and they're still better than they were last year. And this one hit me when I was looking at the standings. I mentioned earlier, they're five up on the Braves, which is wonderful. But even more important, the Phillies are 11 games up now on the team. It's right outside the wildcard race, the seventh team of the six. Six will make it out of the National League. The team that's in seven, the San Francisco Giants, the Phillies are 11 games up on them. That's the cushion for the post season. 11 games, they've opened up the lead. The Phillies could, when this is all said and done, you know, be 30 clear by the end of the season. They could,

they could, if they continue this kind of season, they could be 30 clear of the final wildcard spot. They could basically take... They could clinch a playoffs, I'm not kidding, on Labor Day or on September 1st. That is all possible. With the way they're playing, with the way the National League is going, it's all

a real possibility. Number 15 in our 20 mind-blowing stats about the Phillies team, 20 games over 500, seven active pitchers have ERAs under 3.00 on this team. Okay. Ranger Suarez, Spencer Turnbull, Matt Strom, Jeff Hoffman, Jose Ruiz, Zach Wheeler, Ryan Kirkring. Seven, seven guys in this pitching staff. And there's a few in the threes. Sanchez's a little bit over three. Nola. If we lower that bar to three or three-four, it's nine at least. Here's one to keep in mind. A couple things to keep in mind just in terms of like a wow factor, okay,

and kind of looking forward factor. Number 16. The Phillies are doing all of this with an 81 run created plus number from their outfield. They have the fifth worst outfield offense in baseball. When you add up all the at-bats from outfields this year, from the times Maricota's played the outfield, to Marsh, who's been their best one, to Pache, to Rojas, to Castellanos, who plays every day. When you add all the outfield at-bats up, the Phillies have the fifth worst outfield offensive baseball. It's something I believe is going to need to change.

They're going to need an outfielder. If they're going to be able to beat the Dodgers and go win the World Series, they're going to need another bat in the outfit. I saw Jesse Winker this weekend for the Nats. He makes a lot of sense to me if they want to go smaller rather than bigger and kind of add him to the fray, gives them a hedge on Castellanos, a hedge on Marsh, you know, all these kind of things, a hedge on Rojas, and you could put Marsh back to center. So I think they need another one. So they're doing a lot despite a very poor offensive outfield to start this season.

Number 17, Ranger Suarez is 8-0 with a 1.37 ERA in his first nine starts, holding batters to a 171 batting average. He's just one of 10 pitchers to start a year like this since 1920. 10 since 1920. I mean, he's in rarefied air right now. Okay, number 18. And this is not to throw cold water on them. It's just to add context and to look forward a little bit. The last time the Phillies played a team that is currently over 500 was March 31st. They've had a very advantageous start to the schedule.

We all knew this was the reality. We saw it coming before the season. Now it's probably even been stronger than that. And then we'll leave it out. We saw it coming before the season. Now it's probably been stronger than that. And then we'll leave it out. You go and look at that schedule, July, August, there's Cleveland, there's Baltimore, there's the Yankees, there's the Mariners, there's the Braves, there's the Royals who have been better than people thought they'd be. So it's a very challenging late July, early August. I can't wait to see how they do against it. All right. Number 19.

Are we going to start looking back at the trade the Phillies made with the Detroit Tigers a couple off seasons ago when they get Matt Bierling and Nick Maton and call it the Cody Clemens trade, not the Gregory Soto trade? What a run for Cody Clemens, who probably should have made the team at a spring trade instead of a spot for him. Right now, he's made the case he needs to stay when Turner is ready. And I don't know if that means they dump 8 million and say goodbye to Whit Merrifield. I doubt they do. Do they stop the redundancy of Pache and Rojas? Probably. But they got to figure something out

because Clements belongs to the big leagues. He has a 1,116 OPS, 1,116 OPS right now. And the final, mind-blowing Philly stat. As this team sits 20 games over 500. The last year's team didn't win its 34th game until June 14th. What a team, what a season. Cannot wait to watch them. I'll be in the building tomorrow watching the game live, Phillies and Rangers. You guys have a great day.

We'll talk soon on WIP Daily.