The Two Worlds of Chase Utley

To say that Chase Utley prefers the home whites is like saying Barry Bonds has hit a couple of home runs in his career. Utley, the Philadelphia Phillies all-star second basemen, was truly having a season for the ages this year before breaking his hand on July 26. I'll get to his overall numbers a bit later. What I discovered apon looking into Utley's stats for this season is that there are actually two Chase Utley's. One who plays at Citizens Bank Park and the other one who plays everywhere else.

Utley's home stats are simply Ruthian. His away stats although good for a second basemen are no where near his home stats. You don't believe me? Try this: this season Utley's OPS at home is 1.152, this season on the road Utley's OPS is .856! That's almost three hundred points lower! Three hundred! That's insane. And it's not just his OPS. His entire batting line at home .394/.471/.681 with 11 of his 17 home runs. Lets contrast that with his away batting line .284/.363/.493. Those are quite the spilts. Consider this when looking Utley's home OPS of 1.152. Babe Ruth's career OPS, the highest of all time, is 1.164. Ted Williams is second all-time with an OPS of 1.115. Consider this when looking at Utley's away OPS of .856. Josh Willingham's OPS this season is .856. Nothing againest Willingham. So Ruth at home and Willingham on the road that a big difference.

I checked Utley's 2006 statistics to see if this was a fluque. Nope. More of the same, but not as extreme. That season Utley hit .329/.397/.571 for an OPS of .968. His away stats for 2006 .289/.361/.485 for an OPS of .846. A .122 difference. In contrast Utley showed little difference in home and away stats in 2005 having a .917 at home and .914 OPS on the road in 2005. Its a small sample size just looking at three seasons but this could be a developing trend as continues to mature and play. If Utley stays in Philadelphia for the majority of his career he's going to put up some serious numbers and break some records. I'd just advise the Phillies to make sure that over the next few years that all of Utley's days off come on the road.

Many players throughout history have had their performance effected by their home ballpark. Would Todd Helton be Todd Helton if he played anywhere else but Coors Field. Would we even know who Jim Rice was if he hadn't played in Fenway Park. When Jimmie Foxx hit 50 home runs in 1938 he hit 35 at Fenway and only 15 on the road. That's a difference of 20 homers, that's huge. Players traditionally and even for a while these days don't always control where they play their home games so its unfair to knock them for benefitting from their home ballpark. But back to Utley.......

I first came accross Utley's stats when I checked the League Leaders for doubles. To my surprise Utley was still leading the majors with 41 despite being on the disabled list since the end of July. I was amazed by that total. I did some quick calculations based on Utley's stats and saw that if he maintained that pace over 162 games he would have finished the season with 66 doubles. Just one behind the all time mark of 67 by Earl Webb set in 1931.

Utley isn't only the best second basemen in majors he's also one of the best hitters overall. He currently sports baseball's seventh best OPS with .996 and there aren't any other second basemen within one hundred points of him. Just how valueable is Utley? There's a stat out there called RC27. That translates to runs created per 27 outs. Basically it's saying how many runs that a team made up entirely of Chase Utley's would score over the course of a game. The answer is 9.24. No other second basemen is higher then 7.4. If thats not enough he ranks second among all players with only Barry Bonds ahead of him. Bonds RC27 of 10.54 is amazing but such things are to be expected from Bonds. The next highest is Maggilo Ordonez at 9.05. Among the top 20 in RC27 the only other middle infielder is Marlins shortstop Hanley Ramirez. Utley, already the games best middle infielder, may take the mantle of best player with Bonds retirement.