Cliff Floyd vs. The Philadelphia Phillies

• Cliff Floyd was a pretty good player. He was an above average slugger who played seventeen years in the league, made an all star game, and won a World Series in 1997 with the Marlins. That is a solid career for any player, but it is not his true legacy. Floyd played fifteen of his seventeen seasons in the National League East, for the Marlins, Mets, and Expos, and he seemingly lived for one purpose: to destroy the Philadelphia Phillies. 
   
  Cliff Floyd seemed to hate the Phillies as much as Tommy Lasorda hated the Phanatic
  
  
• Floyd's best season came with the Marlins in 2001, where he hit .317/.390/.578 with 31 homers, 44 doubles, and 18 steals and made the all star team. This was also the year when he began his reign of terror against Philadelphia. It's true that he played the Phillies a lot and was familiar with them, but he also played the Mets, Braves, and Expos at least 15 times each that year, and here is how he fared versus all of those teams combined against how he hit against the Phillies:
  • NL East: 51 games,.316/.396/.470, 4 home runs, 13 doubles, 20 RBI
  • Phillies: 18 games, .300/.417/.700, 6 home runs, 6 doubles, 19 RBI
• If Floyd hit against everyone at the same rate he hit against the Phillies he would have finished 2001 with 54 home runs, 54 doubles, and 171 RBI, and may have competed with Barry Bonds for the MVP (not really; Bonds hit 73 homers that year. But if anyone else had been his competition that would have been more than MVP-level). 
  
  
  
• The next year he only played the Phillies 13 times due to being traded to Boston mid-season (he played for both the Marlins and the Expos during the first part of the year). In those 13 games he hit .282/.491/.615 with 4 homers, 9 RBI, and 11 runs scored. Not quite the numbers he put up in '01, but he still got on base almost 50% of the time and hit four home runs in 13 games, which is amazing.

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  Sadly, Floyd never left the NL East for very long

  After his trade to the Red Sox, the Phillies had to hope Floyd wasn't coming back. Maybe he would catch on in the American League and go bother someone else. They would have no such luck. The Mets signed him in 2003, and he went back to his Philly-smashing ways. Due to injuries that year, Floyd was not able to play the Phillies as often as he had in previous seasons. However, he made the most of that time; he hit .385/.515/.962 with 4 homers, 3 doubles, and 10 RBI in eight games. Floyd hit eighteen home runs total in his 108 games in '03; somehow he managed to get more than twenty percent of that total in his eight games in Philly.

  

  Floyd hit 4 of his 18 total home runs in '04 in eight games against the Phillies

  
  
• During the three years from 2001-2003 Floyd hit 14 home runs and 38 RBI in 39 games against Philadelphia. He mercifully slowed down a bit in '04, only hitting 239/.316/.380 with 2 homers, 4 doubles, and 11 RBI in 19 games against Philly. At 31 years old it seemed that maybe Floyd's rage had subsided, and he might be willing to treat the Phillies like everyone else. However, Floyd had other plans. 

  

  Floyd took a break from demolishing the Phillies in 2004

  
  
• In 2005, a 32 year old Floyd had his best season against the Phillies. His dominance against them was so ingrained at that point that he would hit home runs by accident. From a New York Times article after a Mets-Phillies game on 4/19/05:
  • “The Mets seemed to discover their power stroke late Monday night, when Cliff Floyd missed a take sign on a 3-0 pitch in the top of the ninth, and instead hit a home run to right field that tumbled into the second deck. Floyd tried to avoid Manager Willie Randolph, who did not seem all that disturbed. "Never mind," Randolph said.”
• The next night, the Mets seemed to gain all of Floyd's Philly-killing powers as they hit seven homers in a 16-4 rout. That day Floyd let his teammates do the heavy lifting as he had a mediocre game by his standards against the Phils; he hit only two singles and an RBI in four at bats. In total, Floyd played the Phillies 17 times in '05. In those 17 games, he got on base 31 times (22 hits, 7 walks, 2 hit by pitches). He also hit 6 home runs and a double. Here is his slash line against the Phillies in '05:
  • .373/.456/.695
• And here is how he hit against every other team (not including the Phillies)
  • .260/.346/.483
• With the boost from playing the Phillies 17 times, he ended up hitting:
  • .273/.358/.505

    

    Floyd's performance against the Phillies in '05 raised his average, OBP, and slugging percentage by more than ten points each

    
    
• Floyd didn't play the Phillies much after '05, which I believe was what allowed the Phillies to start dominating the NL East for the next several years. By 2008, Floyd was almost completely washed up, only playing 80 games and hitting 11 home runs as a DH for the Rays. He didn't face the Phils during the regular season, but he did take them on in the World Series. The Rays only played Floyd in one game during the six game series; in that game he went one for three with a single and a run scored. The end result of that game was a 4-2 victory for the Rays. This makes me wonder: if Joe Maddon is as good a manager as his reputation suggests, why didn't he play Floyd every game of that series? If he had unleashed Floyd is there any chance the Phillies would have won? The Phillies were a great team in '08, but they might never have won it all if their old nemesis hadn't been stuck on the bench. 

  

  Although the Phillies won the series, Floyd managed to beat them one last time