Phillies Seek to Fill Hole at Third Base with Free Agent Pedro Feliz

The Phillies signed free agent third baseman Pedro Feliz to a two-year contract. A native of the Dominican Republic, Feliz played his entire eight-year Major League career with the Giants. However, the Giants showed no urgency to retain his services and will likely go with second baseman Kevin Fransen as his replacement.

Philadelphia needed an upgrade at the hot corner. Last season, Abraham Nunez, Wes Helms and Greg Dobbs split time at the position. Dobbs was bad, Nunez was worse and Helms was atrocious. Offensively, Feliz was somewhere between Dobbs and Nunez last year.

Feliz batted .253 with 20 home runs and 72 RBIs last season. On the surface, those numbers don't seem quite so bad. But you get a sense of how poor he actually was once you look at his on-base percentage and slugging. Feliz posted just a .290 on-base mark, the seventh time in his career that he failed to crack the .300 plateau in the category. The National League average for on-base percentage is .342, leaving Feliz well short of being productive in the sport's most important offensive category.

Well, Feliz had 20 homers, maybe his forte is slugging percentage. Feliz posted a .418 slugging mark, which was also shy of the league average of .436 in the NL last season.

He doesn't hit for a high average, he does not walk, he does not steal many bases, he can occasionally hit the ball out of the park but overall has limited power numbers. And he will be 33 in April, an age when many ballplayers start to deteriorate offensively.

The one area where Feliz is an asset is defensively. He probably should have won the Gold Glove Award last season. He led NL third baseman in both fielding percentage and zone rating and finished fifth in range factor. Last year's three-headed monster at third base for the Phillies combined for 25 errors. Feliz had only 11. The Philadelphia pitchers will feel good seeing Feliz out in the field behind them.

The Phillies have a productive offense and perhaps they believed they could afford a defensive player at third base. But it is never a good idea to put a below-average offensive player at a primary offensive position. The Phillies have a huge edge over most teams with the offensive contributions of middle infielders Chase Utley and Jimmy Rollins. Unfortunately, they are going to give that away by playing Feliz at third base.

The Phillies should fight the Mets and Braves for the NL East division. The Mets have David Wright and the Braves have Chipper Jones at third base. Here's a comparison of what each player produced last season

Feliz .253-20-72 .290/.418
Wright .325-30-107 .416/.546
Jones ..337-29-102 ..425/.604

The Mets and Braves will have an MVP candidate at third base. The Phillies, well let's just say they don't.

Meanwhile, the Giants are in full rebuilding mode after cutting ties to Barry Bonds, so it makes no sense to keep Feliz. Frandsen has not showed much in parts of two seasons in the Majors, but he has a .327 batting average in his four-year Minor League career. The Giants cut payroll by letting Feliz leave and get to find out if Frandsen can play in the Majors.

More information:

http://mlb.mlb.com/team/player.jsp?player_id=150268