Why these Phillies will be predictably productive | Marcus Hayes

Baseball players thrive on familiarity. Predictability. Known expectations.

If the Phillies’ 4-0 start turns into something magical, then it likely will be because, for a change, uncertainty does not reign.

There are no X-factors in 2021. No players with little past are now expected to produce in the present. No unit whose success depends on crossed fingers. No Maikel Franco. No Odúbel Herrera. No Scott Kingery. No seat-of-the-pants bullpen.

Instead, Hector Neris is the closer. He has a pair of setup men, and the rest of bullpen is stocked with actual major-league pitchers. Rhys Hoskins, J.T. Realmuto, Andrew McCutchen, and Byrce Harper fuel a complementary offense. It scored five runs in the eighth inning Monday night on three singles, an error, a sacrifice fly, and a hit batsman.

Brilliant.

“We’re not selfish,” said Harper, the hit batsman. “We’re gonna go up there and we’re gonna trust the guy behind us to get the job done. We’re gonna get the guy over. We’re gonna play the game the right way.”

What a concept. What a change. This year, there is no panic. Nobody is trying to hit five-run homers; in fact, the Phillies have one homer, from backup catcher Andrew Knapp, who has 12 in his career. There is no despair — no sense that all leads are vulnerable, as they were in 2020, with the team’s historically bad bullpen.

» READ MORE: The Phillies’ bullpen numbers last year were as bad as they looked

There is a quiet confidence that, with this group of men, almost every game will be winnable. The Phillies scored five runs in the eighth inning and beat the Mets, 5-3. The Mets started Jacob deGrom, who is the best pitcher alive, and who had shut them out through six innings.

They weren’t worried about the first six innings when the eighth came around. They weren’t worried about Hoskins foolishly getting thrown out at third base with one out in the first inning. They weren’t worried about center fielder Adam Haseley botching a fly ball in the Mets’ two-run fourth. Their heads were clear, and so they scored five runs.

“You said it perfect: Not letting things get into our heads, no matter what,” said Harper, splaying his hands for effect. When he got hit, he forced in the Phillies’ first run. “We’re going to be a team that comes in and plays our game. We’ve got a deep lineup.“

This is the timbre of a team that wears steel-toed boots.

Every person on the Phillies’ 26-man roster has a defined role. In a sport of glacial pace, measured adjustments, and daily drudgery, this matters. It is the only sport that comes close to mirroring a real job like, say, on a worksite or in a factory. Brick masons and foundry workers don’t punch in, then wonder who’ll be next to them on the line.

The analytics folks won’t like this ditty from Phillies manager Joe Girardi:

“I’ve always felt hitters work in groups, in a sense. They feed off each other. That’s why I try to keep it as consistent as possible.”

Analy-ticians tend to separate humanity from the game. Hitters should be assets whose production should not fluctuate, regardless of environment.

We differ.

When Charlie Manuel won five straight division titles, from 2007-11, he averaged just 86.2 different batting orders. He used only 77 different orders in 2008, when the Phillies won the World Series, and 68 in 2009, when they won a second straight NL pennant. He never used more than 105. In 2012, his last full season as manager, he used 131 different lineups.

When Girardi took the Yankees to the playoffs from 2009-12, he averaged 105.6 different batting orders. In his next five seasons he averaged 138.4, the Yankees missed the playoffs three times, and they won just one postseason series.

“We are creatures of habit,” Girardi said before Tuesday’s game against the Mets. “Players like to know where they’re going to be at and what’s expected of them each day. It helps them prepare.”

Those sorts of batting-order numbers might never be seen again. Thanks to the disease of analytics, managers jiggle their lineups based on platooning, ballparks, and matchups (along with, it seems, the barometric pressure, horoscope predictions, and theological bent).

For instance, the Boston Red Sox used 134 different lineups in the regular season en route to the 2018 title.

“Some organizations move guys around a little bit more. I’ve never been one to do that,” Girardi said.

He’s not alone. The Washington Nationals used just 106 on their way to the World Series win in 2019.

Injuries, rebuilds, and desperation all factor into lineup inconsistency. The Phillies averaged 139 different batting orders from 2016-18. They also averaged 72 wins.

Consistency is a luxury. That was not afforded when Franco flashed and fizzled from 2016-19; or when Herrera’s on-field inconsistencies and off-field transgressions placed him in purgatory; or when Kingery’s promise left him overpaid, overtaxed, and, ultimately, overwhelmed; or when the 2020 bullpen imploded almost nightly.

» READ MORE: ‘This kid doesn’t have a chance’: How the Phillies inevitably ruined Scott Kingery | Marcus Hayes

These players and that bullpen were not the sole reasons for past failures, but they are emblematic of instability and unpredictability, which, in baseball, are toxic. There are no Kingerys or Herreras or Francos on the 2021 roster, and the bullpen is rebuilt. Unknowns exist, but on the fringes.

Third baseman Alec Bohm is young but mature, and, unlike Kingery, he is anchored at one position. Haseley and Roman Quinn can share the center-field spot and make it defensively sound. Shortstop Didi Gregorius and second baseman Jean Segura are 31-year-old professional infielders, properly deployed.

This team is sound enough to compete, even in the deep NL East.

“We know our bullpen’s going to hold up. We know our starting pitching’s going to hold up,” Harper said. “If we stay healthy and stay within ourselves as a team, we’re going to do it.’