How Many Wins Would a Team With the 2009 Phillies Lineup/2011 Pitching win?

The 2009 Phillies didn’t win the World Series, but they were the best offensive team of the Phillies run of National League dominance. Unfortunately, they were one front-line starting pitcher away from winning the World Series in 2009. The 2011 Phillies had the best staff in franchise history, won 102 games and appeared destined to win the World Series before a lack of offensive output doomed them in the playoffs. What would happen if the 2009 Phillies lineup was paired with the 2011 rotation and bullpen? Section 215’s Jason Ferrie examines. 

Building the 2000’s Best Phillies Team

Recently, I have wondered what it would be like to build the ultimate team. Then, it struck me that the word dynasty was thrown around quite a bit during the Phillies National League dominance between 2008-2011.

Even during their 2008 World Series season, the Phillies rotation was never elite. The 2008 offense was classified as elite because they powered the Phillies past the Rays en route to the club’s first World Series Championship since 1980. While the 2008 offense was very good, the 2009 Phillies offense was in fact better. The 2009 Phillies scored 820 runs, powered by home runs. In fact, the 2009 Phillies had five players (Jayson Werth, Raul Ibanez, Jimmy Rollins, Ryan Howard, Chase Utley) with 20 or more home runs—four of which hit over 30 home runs (Werth, Ibanez, Howard, Utley).

The Phillies finished putting together an elite pitching rotation in 2011 when they brought back Cliff Lee, adding onto an already stacked rotation that featured Roy Halladay, Roy Oswalt and Cole Hamels.. They were expected by some in the city to be one of the greatest rotations of all-time, and they didn’t disappoint. Not only did the aforementioned quartet impress, but the Phillies also got a surprising breakout season from Vance Worley. Including Worley, none of the starters had an ERA higher than 3.70. While that is impressive, no starter had an FIP over 3.45, which is remarkable.

Not only was the 2011 rotation outstanding, but the bullpen was very good. The bullpen featured Michael Stutes, Antonio Bastardo, David Herndon and Ryan Madson. None of those were household names, but they performed like it. While FIP would suggest they all were luckier than they should have been, they all finished with a 3.65 ERA or lower. On top of that, they all had an ERA+ over 100, which provides the insight that they were a plus-value pitcher during that season.

Re-visiting the Seasons

If you were to ask somebody which Phillies offense was the best during their run of five-straight National League East Titles, I bet the most common answer would be 2008. In fact, the 2009 Phillies offense scored more runs and they did it with power. The nine Phillies who played the most games had 492 extra-base hits. Not only did they hit for power, but six of the nine finished with an On-Base Percentage over .345. The 2009 Phillies had five players that were at least 3-oWAR.

Here is what the lineup looked like.

• C- Carlos Ruiz                   .355/.425/.780                  1.6 oWAR

• 1B- Ryan Howard            .360/.571/.931                  4.1 oWAR

• 2B- Chase Utley               .397/.508/.905                  6.9 oWAR

• 3B- Pedro Feliz                 .308/.386/.694                  0.2 oWAR

• SS- Jimmy Rollins           .296/.423/.719                  1.9 oWAR

• LF- Raul Ibanez                .347/.552/.899                  3.0 oWAR

• CF- Shane Victorino        .358/.445/.803                 3.8 oWAR

• RF- Jayson Werth           .373/.506/.879                  4.2 oWAR

The Phillies 2011 pitching staff was one of better in MLB history. The team featured four pitchers who could have been a front-line starter on the majority of major-league teams. The starters were elite, with three of the five starters who started over 20-games finishing with an ERA below 3.00. Halladay, Lee and Hamels all finished with a sub 3.00 ERA and in the top-five in Cy Young Voting. Each of the five starters finished their 2011 campaign at least 2-WAR. While they all finished at least 2-WAR, Halladay, Lee and Hamels all finished at least 6-WAR. Covering just those numbers, the staff sounds elite. While a great rotation should yield fewer runs, a bad bullpen can counteract the effectiveness of the rotation.

The 2011 Phillies bullpen was effective despite the peripherals saying they were lucky. The Phillies had four bullpen arms finish with at least 55 innings pitched. Of those four arms, two finished with an FIP over 4 and an ERA below 3.65. Those two were Michael Stutes and David Herndon. While Stutes and Herndon should have fared a little worse, they didn’t.

Roy Halladay, Cole Hamels and Roy Halladay were all All-Stars in 2011. Roy Oswalt, one of the best pitchers of his era, still had a very productive 2011. Credit: USA Today

All-in-all, the 2011 Phillies pitching staff finished with the lowest ERA along with the most complete games among National League teams.

Starting Rotation

• Roy Halladay    2.35 ERA, 233.2 IP, 2.20 FIP, 8.9-WAR

• Cliff Lee                2.40 ERA, 232.2 IP, 2.60 FIP, 8.6-WAR

• Cole Hamels      2.79 ERA, 216 IP, 3.05 FIP, 6.6-WAR

• Roy Oswalt         3.69 ERA, 139 IP, 3.44 FIP, 2.2-WAR

• Vance Worley   3.01 ERA, 131.2 IP, 3.32 FIP, 3.4-WAR

Bullpen

• Ryan Madson                    2.37 ERA, 60.2 IP, 2.25 FIP, 32 Saves

• Antonio Bastardo            2.64 ERA, 58 IP, 3.30 FIP, 10.9 K per 9      

• Michael Stutes                  3.63 ERA, 62 IP, 4.07 FIP

• David Herndon                 3.32 ERA, 57 IP, 5.08 FIP

Breaking Down the Numbers

For the sake of putting together the ultimate Phillies team, I used their 2009 offense along with the 2011 pitching staff. As I stated above, the 2009 Phillies offense scored 820 runs, which was the highest during their 2008-2011 run. To go along with the 820 offensive runs, the pitching staff allowed just 529 runs, helping guide the 2011 Phillies to a 102-win season.

The fun begins with the use of Pythagorean Winning Percentage which will allow us to estimate the Phillies winning percentage had the 2009 offense and 2011 pitching staff had their best years during the same season. To figure out what the winning percentage would have been, we will use the following formula: (Runs Scored)^1.83/ (Runs Scored)^1.83/(Runs Allowed)^1.83 

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So, if we plug in the Phillies numbers, we come out with: (820)^1.83/(820)^1.83+(529)^1.83. Using this formula, we can see that if the Phillies 2009 offense and 2011 pitching staff had their best years in the same season, the Phillies would have won 69.04% of their games. Over the course of a 162 game season, the Phillies would have won 111.82 games. Obviously, a team cannot win .82 of a game, so we will round up to 112-wins. This means the Phillies 2009 offense along with their 2011 pitching staff would have finished with a 112-50 record. That record would be the best in franchise history, but falls short of the best record in MLB history—which is 116-wins by the 2001 Seattle Mariners. In the lineup and rotation above, the talent jumps off the page. Could you imagine if all of those guys played together during their prime? Crazy. Since they didn’t, we will never know how good or bad they would have been, but to speculate that they would be a 112-win team is exciting.

Conclusion

Obviously, the 2009 and 2011 Phillies had different personnel, so each and every scenario would be different. The offensive and defensive scenarios for each team would be different, but I am just speculating win totals using the offensive and run prevention totals from previous years.

Would this team have won the World Series? No one really knows, but I think it is safe to say they would be the favorites. The other aspect of this is the fact that we are using two separate seasons to get our one year win total. Teams often play above or below their Pythagorean win rate so we will never know how good or bad this team would have been. I’d speculate to say they would have been the best in the National League, but then again, we are just having fun with numbers.

The experiment puts in perspective that had things fallen the right way, the Phillies could have won more than the one World title that they did in their five-year stretch of National League East titles. Then again, that could be said for the 1990’s Atlanta Braves and many other teams over the course of baseball history. Perhaps if the Phillies didn’t go into a downward spiral at the conclusion of their run, we wouldn’t be left wondering things like this in the first place.