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Has the Phillies Offense Turned Things Around?

The Philadelphia Phillies offense is leading the league in many categories, so why aren't they winning ballgames?

Author:
Ben Silver
May 13, 2022 7:30 PM EDT

The answer: Yes.

The Philadelphia Phillies currently sport the National League's highest OPS (.736), SLG (.422), hard hit-rate (43.7%), average exit velocity (90.0mph), xBA (.270) and xwOBACON (.395).

If it feels like the Phillies should be an offensive juggernaut, it's because they are... compared to the rest of the league. In any other season those stats would be somewhat pedestrian, but given 2022's deadened balls, what would be league average statistics any other year, are elite.

The Phillies are doing almost everything better than every other team, so why aren't they not also leading the NL in runs—they are currently fourth in the league with 148, or 4.63 runs per game.

The answer is shockingly simple: they're not hitting in high-leverage situations.

It's a tale as old as time for many Phillies fans. With runners in scoring position, the Phillies are slashing .270/.316/.391. With two outs and runners in scoring position, they're slashing .233/.303/.367. And in high-leverage situations, that slash bottoms out at .216/.265/.329.

Whether you think it's a repeatable skill or not, one thing is for certain, the 2022 Phillies aren't clutch. In one-run games the Phillies are 2-6. In games decided by more than six runs, the Phillies are 5-2.

The Phillies are blowing out opponents, but their runs are coming in bunches.

The Pythagorean Theorem of Baseball is a formula created by Bill James which attempts to relate the number of runs a team has scored and allowed to its actual winning percentage. Most teams in baseball end up unbelievably close to their run differential total.

The Phillies Pythagorean win total has their record at 17-15, they should be winning games, but have fallen to inferior opponents due to luck. One way to interpret a team underperforming their expected win total is poor management, which is a curse that undoubtedly plagues the club.

Managers in baseball do not affect their teams the way managers do in almost any other sport, but the best managers and the worst managers certainly have an impact, and Girardi does not fall into the "best" category.

The team is playing the way they're built to play. A 9-7 win at Dodger Stadium on Thursday night is indicative of that.

The Phillies have 130 ahead of them to close out the season. There's plenty of time to right the ship and for the luck to even out. It's about time something went the Phillies way.