Marcus Hayes describes how sloppy play by the Phillies is getting to Charlie Manuel:
He held a hat-waving, gesticulating meeting before yesterday’s pregame practice, which preceded an 8-3 loss to the Yankees.
“I usually don’t have meetings unless I get kind of upset,” Manuel said. “I want us to play better.”
His team was 5-2 in the Grapefruit League, but it was a messy 5-2; as messy as the team’s drills have been.
“We were having trouble running the bases. We were having trouble throwing the ball. We were having trouble executing in general,” Manuel said.
He stressed sharp play in his team meeting that opened spring training 2 ? weeks ago. His words were not heeded, though he continued to harp on that theme with his players and in the press.
There’s no criticism of Manuel in the article, but it’s certainly doesn’t make Manuel appear to be much of a leader. Two and a half weeks into camp and your team is still not executing basic plays correctly? It seems they’re not responding to coaching. Charlie Manuel should be very worried about his job right now. If this team gets off to a slow start, stories like this put the blame at the feet of the manager.
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re: the phillies phielding woes
well, they may not be fielding in spring training, but based on your fielding analyses, they’ve actually got a tight fielding team;
Rollins SS, Utley, 2B, Bell 3B are all above average; as are Rowand, CF & Abreu RF.
Burrell LF has below average range but hits the ball a ton, and Ryan Howard at 1b, who is LEADING THE GRAPEFUIT LEAGUE IN HOME RUNS WITH 8 IN 13 GAMES (1.110 slugging average) is an above-average first baseman. Burrell is slugging above .500 in spring training and looks like he’s going to repeat last year’s sucess. With Utley, Abreu and Rowand in the lineup, they will hit lots of home runs.
Lieberthal and Fasano are not great at catcher, but again, catchers are tough to find in both leagues.
They’ve upgraded the bench with Alex Gonzalez and Abraham Nunez, and Peter Bergeron in the outfield, all of whom are adequate defenders. Gonzalez can hit a home run as a pinch hitter and Bergeron can get on base as a pinch hitter.
The team is winning in spring training. I think they’ll do better this year. They’ve won 86 and 87 games the last two years.
Chances are they’re going to bump up a little bit and get into the playoffs, or return to the pack and win 75. I’m betting Ryan Howard has a very big year, the rest of the team is ok and they win 93 games this year and make the playoffs.
Houston ain’t making it withough the Rocket.
–Arthur John Kyriazis
–Philly