NL West Sending Steve Phillips Totally Insane

I feel bad for John Hollinger and Keith Law. They are both really good at analysing sport, do so from a fundamentally statistical standpoint, but are more than willing to override the numbers if there is enough first hand evidence to do so. They seem to really apprieciate statistics, not as the be all and end all, but as the bottom line, and as something worthy of respect, but not to be worshipped for their own sake.

Unfortunately the pair of them have the charisma of a car battery. John Hollinger and his hobbit-like appearance will never see a television camera, and I think I once saw Keith Law on a streaming interview, isolated on the corner of ESPN Insider once, but I couldn't tell. I think he was quickly ushered away and replaced with Mark Grace or Fernando Vina or someone awful but well known.

So when people like Steve Phillips come on TV, you can see exactly why. He's good looking, personable, non threatening, you could totally see him as a news anchor. The problem is, his thoughts on baseball fall into three, and only three, categories.

a) totally, unashamedly wrong
b) unbelievably obvious
c) random, disjointed, abstract and confused

This is an example of both b and c.

West Ain't Best

must have been up all night thinking of that one Stevie boy.

Many people thought the National League West was the best division in baseball early this season, but it has relapsed and become the worst division in baseball. So many major things have gone wrong with these teams, and the result has been some disappointing performances. The parity at the top of the division is due to a lot of bad baseball.

this is going to be a theme in this article - padding, lots of it. It reminds me of when I had to write a paper and was like 400 words short, and would say things in more complicated ways, or explicitly state things that were implicitly obvious. Saying "worst division in baseball" after "best division in baseball" is incredibly clumsly, amatuer writing. Most fourth graders would cringe at this.

Many things have gone wrong and the result is dissapointing performances. You don't say? Things going wrong lead to dissapointment? And things going wrong in baseball has led to bad baseball? Ladies and gentleman, we are about to become very familiar with insultingly obvious statements.

The Diamondbacks got off to such a great start because their young hitters were hitting. But the league made adjustments to their young position players, and those players have not been able to make the adjustment back. So they have really struggled, especially on the road. Arizona is really struggling to score runs. It's one thing to have a deep starting rotation and good arms in the bullpen, but you have to score enough runs to support the good pitching so you can win games. That is where the D-backs have had the most difficulty.

where the hell are the editors at ESPN? OK, dot point version of this paragraph.

• Arizona's team played well because hitters hit
• Those hitters then stopped hitting
• That lack of hitting led to a lack of runs
• Scoring runs is important to winning baseball games
• Therefore; Arizona is having difficulty

I'm amazed he didn't add "winning games" to the end of that last statement, it would at least have been consistant with the rest of the piece. I'll give him this, it's logically infallible. I can't believe someone could say so little in so many words, it's a talent really.

It's interesting to me that Arizona acquired reliever Jon Rauch in a trade with the Nationals. I'm all for adding to the bullpen, but offense is the D-backs' biggest problem.

wait, wait, wait Steve, slow down! Don't give me any of this baseball mumbo-jumbo. What is the problem? I know you've told me four times it's the offense, but I need at least five instances of you saying exactly the same thing before it sinks in.

To me, Mark Teixeira sure seems like a good fit for them. They could put Conor Jackson in left. Teixeira would give them that one consistent bat in the lineup.

Teixeira does seem like a good fit. Teixera for nothing, that's your advice? Get on it D'Backs!

The Dodgers, well, they've had so many injuries. Their expectations for Andruw Jones have gone unfulfilled. Jeff Kent hasn't been as productive as I think they would have liked, although he is an older guy and I think on the back end of his career. The injuries have gotten to Nomar Garciaparra. Also, I think they were looking for Matt Kemp to take a big step forward this season. It looks like he's starting to heat up a little bit now, but he hasn't really carried the load offensively. Rafael Furcal going down really wiped them out; Furcal is the glue to that team.

things are about to get rough for Steve. You can just tell he knew his stuff on the Diamondbacks was embarrassing and he's trying his little heart out to say something, anything, that resembles actual analysis. I bet he just slumped on his keyboard, exhausted, after he typed this. But again, isn't the style a long, long way short of what you expect from arguably the biggest sports website in the world? It just devolves into Steve just rambling to himself like Rain Man, going through each player;

"So we're talking about the Dodgers being bad, injuries I guess. What about Andruw Jones, no, he wasn't injured but...not good. Kent, yeah, not great either. What was I talking about? Oh yeah injuries. Nomar, injuries. But then theres Kemp, he wasn't injured at all. I guess he was supposed to be good, I mean, I think they thought that he was. I dunno if he was or not. But he is now right? Sort of. Hasn't "carried the load". Oh right! Injuries! Furcal, he was injured...glue...Phillips sleepy...zzz"

Brad Penny has been hurt, Hiroki Kuroda was hurt for a while and Takashi Saito is hurt now.

something about being hurt?

I had concerns about the Colorado Rockies going into the year, just because you can't count on winning 21 of 22 ever happening again.

true. The Rockies were fools to adopt this strategy.

I had questions about their starting pitching, and whether it was mature enough to be consistent over 162 games, which is what you need to be a playoff team.

but before you told me hitting was important! Now you've flip-flopped and claimed it's pitching! Surely you aren't suggesting you need to be good at hitting and pitching to win baseball games! Your crazy, renegade style of baseball analysis won't fly here Phillips, you're a dangerous maverick.

Then, Manuel Corpas blew up as the closer, and they had to move Brian Fuentes back into that role. Troy Tulowitzki got off to a tough start, and then got hurt.

this column is like a six year old's story. Then I went to school and then we had lunch and then Timmy fell down and cried and then teacher came over and took him to the nurse and then we learnt to add....

I think that the team that's going to win the division is the one that dramatically improves at the trade deadline, gets healthy or turns their young players into more consistent players overnight. Otherwise, it's just going to be the team that just gets hot at the end of the season.

to recap, the team that wins the NL West will either;

a) get better players

b) doesn't lose its current players

c) has its current players play better

or failing that, d) just wins games. Or some combination of any of the above. Your work here is done Steve Phillips.

The Dodgers dabbled in the bidding for CC Sabathia. They've talked like they might make some deals, but pulled back. But there is something there -- if Furcal comes back, if Garciaparra can keep doing what he's doing and play third with Furcal back, if James Loney and Andre Ethier and Kemp can keep going. I know there's a lot of "ifs" there … and they just lost their closer. I thought coming out of the break that the Dodgers would be the ones to take the division, but that was before I knew Saito was down. It seemed like they were just starting to get healthy, and they were starting to hit a little bit.

I give up. This is an absolute mess.

"They might have made some deals, but didn't...so yeah. But they can be good, like, all this stuff can happen and stuff. Like if players play well. But they probably won't. And they lost their closer. Yeah no. I mean I thought yeah, but now that closer thing. They were looking good, I don't...I just do- *head explodes*

It is such a tough division to predict.

this really is killing him, he's going mad writing this column, he is just incapable of being even a bad sports analyst. I think he's crying now, he just can't do it the poor bastard. He does the same, rambling, confused, walking into walls, circular logic, indecisive, self contradicting thing for the Rockies.

I think a lot of people feel Colorado will be sellers at the trade deadline. Fuentes could be dealt. Matt Holliday could be dealt. But somewhere in the back of the Rockies' minds, they have to be thinking, "Well, we did get really hot last year, maybe we should kind of hold on to things." From what I understand, they've pulled back a little bit on trading Holliday, but might still entertain some thoughts on trading Fuentes because he's on baseball's "Most Wanted" list right now. The Rockies, who are playing a little bit better now, have to believe they have a run left in them. Jeff Francis is due back. They got Tulowitzki back. After the trade deadline -- if they don't trade Holliday and Fuentes -- it may slingshot them a bit. Because when the team starts asking "Are we a contender, or not?" the manager and coaches keep saying "We're going for it! We're going for it!" and then you hear rumors that some guys may be traded, you start getting conflicting messages. It's a big hill to climb, but they could make a run.

WHAT IS YOUR POINT?

The Giants and Padres, in my mind, are not players in this division at all.

what tipped you off? The fact they are 8 and 13 games back? Even now, Steve has to qualify this as just "in his mind". I picture him spending an agonising twenty minues deciding between waffles and pancakes every morning.

Ultimately, with Saito going down, I'd have to give the edge in the division to the D-backs right now, because they fortified the end of their game and there are now questions in the Dodgers bullpen. Is Jonathan Broxton the closer? How will the other guys handle their roles in a bullpen that's already protecting a rotation that has been impacted by injury?

and that's how it ends, with Phillips shuffling off, in robe and slippers, muttering to himself, asking questions to no one in particular.