One of my favorite books is Jonah Keri’s The Extra 2%, about how Wall Street strategies took the Tampa Bay Rays from worst to first (and to World Series losers ?). It describes how Rays execs, knowing they were up against monsters in the Yankees and Red Sox, had to find an extra edge anywhere they could. The extra 2%. They couldn’t compete on talent and revenue, or revenue and talent, so they had to invest heavily in Sabermetrics and other, more intangible areas to find success. Which they did.

The Phillies, up until they hired Andy MacPhail late last season, have basically been the complete opposite. Under Ruben Amaro, they spent big, relied on stars and an aw-shucks manager who waited for “hittin’ season,” and went about their business with a general arrogance that was destined to do them in with one of the greatest karma backwashes the sport has ever seen. But had they bought into just some of these extra 2% philosophies, they most likely wouldn’t be facing the massive rebuild Matt Klentak has been tasked with overseeing.

Here’s one thing they’re doing now.

Late last year we told you that the Phillies would be going back to Kentucky Bluegrass for the infield at CBP. They had used it since the ballpark opened in 2004, but it was replaced by Riviera Bermudagrass after the Winter Classic, since RBG performs better in the heat and is more durable for concerts and such. Problem: It has to be kept at a shorter length than KBG, which meant faster ground balls, something Phillies players and coaches began to complain about last season. So MacPhail has given the go-ahead on the idea first presented to Red Sox first base coach Ruben Amaro: go back to the old stuff… at least in the infield.

Why? Phillies pitchers were among the worst in the majors in ground ball percentage – anywhere from 41%-44%, depending on which source and computation you use – which is a problem in a relative hitters’ park like CBP (the best teams are close to or at 50%). As such, the Phillies’ ground out-to-fly out ratio was fifth worst in the league, according to Baseball Reference, with only 51.5% of their outs coming on ground balls (the better staffs are somewhere around 60%). MacPhail, Klentak and Pete Mackanin want to improve this area.

Jim Salisbury has more on the switch to KBG:

First-year general manager Matt Klentak added several pitchers this winter. Veteran Charlie Morton, who will be in the starting rotation, had the fifth-best groundball percentage (59.5) in the majors last season. The major-league average for starters was 45.2 percent. Cole Hamels (48.5) and Aaron Nola (49) were both above average, but as a team, Phillies starters had the worst groundball percentage (42.8) in the National League last year. Much of last year’s staff has moved on, but the Phils still need improvement in this area and it will be stressed as a new staff evolves.

“In the big picture, as we build pitching staffs, we’d like to have pitchers that miss bats, throw strikes and keep the ball on the ground,” Klentak said. “That’s not exactly rocket science but that’s the type of pitching staff we’d like to grow. And having an infield that plays a little bit slower and helps the pitching staff and helps the run prevention — though it helps the run prevention for both teams — that’s something that as we move forward we’ll be focused on.”

The combination of focusing on acquiring ground ball pitchers and improving fielders’ chances, however slightly, is one of those extra 2%, Sabermetric-y ways the Phillies see out of their current hole.

Some math: By my calculations, using Baseball Reference’s numbers, Phillies pitchers threw 1,436.1 innings last year and therefore recorded 4,309 outs. Their ground out percentage of 51.5% (which includes double play balls) gives us 2,219 outs on the ground and 2,089 in the air. If they can, through some combination of better ground ball pitchers – a ground ball rate of 46%-47% (the Astros) is a good goal – and better fielding improve that ground out rate to 60%, good enough for top 10 or so in the league, then they’d record around 2,585 ground outs per year, compared to 1,723 fly outs. That’s an increase in ground outs of around 350 (I’m rounding here) over last season– more than two per game.

Now, you can take this down the rabbit hole to places my math skills don’t go to discover what more ground balls and two additional ground outs per game mean in terms of runs given up and what that means in terms of wins… but the gist is that the somewhat obscure focus on slowing down ground balls, combined with better ground ball pitchers, creates one lane on the road to success.