Casey Blake Might Be a Little Biased

February 20, 2010 at 2:37 pm | Posted in Casey Blake, Cliff Lee, Roy Halladay | 12 Comments

Via TrueBlueLA, Casey Blake starts off the spring with his real feelings about the pitching moves of our constant tormentors, the Phillies:

#Dodgers Casey Blake, on #phillies: “I have a lot of respect for Halladay, but I don’t feel they got a ton better because they lost Cliff.”

I think we all agree that the Phillies probably made a mistake by shipping Lee off to Seattle for some questionable prospects rather than having a monstrous top three of Halladay/Lee/Cole Hamels, but Blake’s statement is still probably a little off the mark.

Yes, Cliff Lee is awesome. Let’s just not forget that while he’s only two full seasons off of being dumped to the minors with a 6.29 ERA, Halladay has been nearly unhittable for a decade and might end up in the Hall of Fame – despite constantly playing for mediocre Toronto teams in the brutal AL East.

Much of Lee’s legend comes from the last two seasons – his ridiculous 22-3 record for Cleveland in 2008, and his 4 wins for the Phillies in the playoffs in 2009. Yet Halladay’s last two seasons tops Lee’s by almost any measure.

Halladay, 2008-09
37 wins, 485 IP, 2.78 ERA, 154 ERA+, 1.089 WHIP

Lee, 2008-09
36 wins, 455 IP, 2.89 ERA, 147 ERA+, 1.178 WHIP

Both are outstanding pitchers, to be sure. But head-to-head, Halladay’s numbers are slightly better, even though he was facing the Yankees, Rays, and Red Sox, while Lee was mostly facing the Royals, Twins, and White Sox. Imagine what Halladay’s going to do this year facing the Nationals, Mets, and Marlins instead? There’s no question here – Halladay’s superior.

So how could Blake possibly feel that way? I’m sure there’s a little bit of spring training bravado there, a need to make it sound like the Phillies haven’t improved even further after knocking the Dodgers out twice in a row.

More than that, though, I think it’s because of Blake’s personal history. He’s never faced Lee in the regular season, though he did go 0-3 with a strikeout in the 11-0 disaster of NLCS Game 3. Yet against Halladay, Blake has oddly had decent success, putting up a line of .357/.471/.643 with a homer in 14 at-bats. So while it’s hard to say that the Phillies haven’t gotten at least a little better by swapping out Lee for Halladay (and Halladay’s extremely team-friendly extension), you can at least see why Blake might be a little happy about it. He’d better be, because if the Dodgers are finally going to get over the hump, they’re going to need Blake to show a little more than last year’s total October disappearance.

By the way, did you know that Halladay’s full name is “Harry Leroy Halladay”? “Roy Halladay” sounds like someone who’s kind of a bad-ass. But how would you feel facing “Harry Halliday” or “Leroy Halliday”?

12 Comments »

RSS feed for comments on this post. TrackBack URI

Sounds like a simple case of Blake backing his former teammate.

Comment by KempKershaw— February 20, 2010 #

Reply
While Roy may be better and since he will be with them the whole season he will make a bigger difference, the trade is a wash, in my opinion, because he can’t do much better than lee did in the post season. The Phillies are about as close to a lock to win the east again with either. Therefore, the value is how Roy helps them in the post season more than Lee, and that I don’t think will happen (since Lee was about as good as you can get in the post season).

Comment by gillbert— February 21, 2010 #

Reply
It’s not a ton better, Blake is right on the money. You yourself point out that Halladay is just slightly better in the stats of the article…Better, yes, but not by much..

Comment by bluetrain— February 21, 2010 #

Reply
you mast have never heard of “Bad, Bad Leroy Brown”

Comment by bluetrain— February 21, 2010 #

Reply
Halladay’s track record has to come into play, as he’s much more likely to continue his success than Lee going forward.

Comment by KempKershaw— February 21, 2010 #

Reply
And age may come into play! Halladay 4 yrs older than Lee

Comment by bluetrain— February 21, 2010 #

Reply
In this economy there was no way they keep both. Yes Leroy is 4 years older but pitchers be old. In the NLeast I’m sure he’ll be able to win some games without putting the extra cheese on his fastball.

Comment by The Ringer— February 21, 2010 #

Reply
- “In this economy there was no way they keep both.”
  
  I think you’re making the mistake of thinking that major league baseball teams are like you and me in terms of income hahaha. With the extremely team-friendly extension that Halladay signed and the fact that Lee was not going to be a free agent until after the 2010 season, they could have kept both and made a serious run at the World Series, which is the M.O. of the Phillies right now while they still have their core intact. Besides, Cliff Lee complained that he loved Philadelphia and didn’t understand why he was traded, so he most likely would have signed for a discount to be a part of that team, so it might have worked out had he not been traded.
  
  Comment by Trevor— February 21, 2010 #
  
  Reply
  - I can’t seem to place where I read it, but Lee said at one point this off-season he’s looking to sign for about $23 mil per year and with whomever offers it.
    
    Comment by dingers— February 22, 2010 #
    
    Reply
I don’t know, I think “Harry Halliday” is kind of a cool, 19th-century throwback name.

Comment by shmolnick— February 22, 2010 #

Reply
Just a little further on the differences between Halladay and Lee, Halladay has two fantastic pitches and one above-average one and Lee has one fantastic pitch and a few OK ones.

http://www.fangraphs.com/statss.aspx?playerid=1303&position=P#pitchvalues
http://www.fangraphs.com/statss.aspx?playerid=1636&position=P#pitchvalues

(Amazing that Halladay went from an amazing fastball/curve combo to an amazing cutter/curve combo and was still dominant.)

Although Blake and the MSTI article are kinda hinting at diminishing returns–that replacing one elite starter with a slightly better one doesn’t provide the same impact as replacing a below-average starter with an average one–and yeah, I agree with that.

Comment by dingers— February 22, 2010 #

Reply
- I didn’t know about Lee wanting to sign for $23 mil/year, but thanks for the tip. I was just going off of what I heard on Power Alley on the satellite radio that said that Lee was a little confused about the trade and upset that he couldn’t stay in Philadelphia. But you’re right though, for a 30 going on 31 year old aging “ace”, it would make more sense for him to chase the money while the money is good.
  
  Comment by Trevor— February 22, 2010 #
  
  Reply

Mike Scioscia's tragic illness