General Discussion – Week of 4-29-2013 – “April Was the Cruellest Month” Edition

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Most of the Phillies’ April was a Waste Land, don’t you agree? Hopefully summer will surprise us. With wins.

109 thoughts on “General Discussion – Week of 4-29-2013 – “April Was the Cruellest Month” Edition”

  1. Taking a break from the Minors for a second I actually think the major league team isn’t terrible (it is great either). They are definitely in contention for a wild card spot and here is why we should be optimistic.

    – Starting Rotation: Lee is on pace for a 6+ win season, Hamels is surviving without the cutter, Halladay isn’t the old version but the new version isn’t terrible, Kendrick looks like a legitimate mid-rotation starter, and Pettibone is giving a solid 5 IP out of the #5 slot
    – Chase Utley – cooled off some and has had some boneheaded plays, but he looks like his old self, I expect the walk rate to go up and the power down, but he can carry a team
    – Michael Young – He is going to regress hard with the lack of power but he is a plus not a negative right now, defense still is bad, but this move has worked so far
    – Ruiz is back – even if he isn’t 2012 Ruiz the post 2008 versions should be good, huge defensive upgrade
    – Brown – BABIP is regressing to where the numbers say it should be, the walk rate should increase too now that the lineup is deeper

    – There is help in the need areas – There is not a star on the way for this year, but the farm has guys to fill some problems, Asche is regression insurance on Young, Ruf can give a big bat (albeit mostly positionless) if there is an 1B/OF injury, Galvis has been hitting with power and can play anywhere, there are enough arms in the minors that they can mess around with the bullpen to find effective arms.

    Hopefully they don’t make any dumb trades with this, but despite still being under .500 there is hope that this is a team that can stick around on the edges of contention to get a lucky bounce.

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    1. Having watched the team without Ruiz and have peered down and seen Joseph struggling on the farm, it’s a virtual lock that the Phils will re-sign Ruiz if he’s healthy. Probably a 3 year deal at around $24-27 million or so or two years at $20 million with a third option year at $6-9 million. If he were younger, he would command more, but he’s not younger and he won’t play a season this year. At the above price (projected based on expected market value), he will almost certainly produce more value than his salary and he will have value in a trade if Joseph develops faster than expected.

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      1. Agree Catch – still high on Joseph but he needs a few years yet. Ruiz is making 5mm this year and I suspect his suspension will deflate his price tag a bit. Would like to see him on the low-end of your guesstimation – say 6-7 mm AAS. I don’t see him nearly doubling his salary coming off a year where he was suspended, and I also don’t see him playing in another uniform. But of course, much will be predicated on how he performs this season

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        1. You may be right on the salary. The timing is perfect for the Phillies to pick up a good deal with a 2-3 year contract with Ruiz and you know that each side probably wants to get a deal done.

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      2. I love Chooch, but I would stay away from anything more than a one year deal. There’s a good chance his production falls off a cliff either this year or next and almost a 100% chance he’s a liability by his age 36-37 seasons. Carlton Fisk was really the only guy who was productive while catching full time after age 35.

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        1. Thats fine though. If he does drop off A) you would hope Joseph is ready to take over full time catching duties by then thus relegating Chooch to backup status or B) Some contender would be willing to take him on for his well regarded pitch calling ability, veteran presence and post season experience.

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          1. Yeah, these are good points. Normally I’d tend to agree with this, but nothing about Choochie’s career has gone by the book – he came up VERY late and has done nothing but get better ever since. We’ll need to see how this year plays out, but if he finishes strong, he’s a guy I’d take a chance on, especially at the type of reasonable salary he’ll likely command. And even if his offensive production is borderline (which I doubt, at least for the first year or two), he’ll still be worth it. He’s the exception to almost every rule – unless he gets injured, which is certainly possible.

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            1. And, really, who else would you rather have as the guy training Tommy Joseph than Carlos Ruiz? As you think about it, him and all he has to offer, even if the guy we get over the next 2-3 years is 80-90 percent of what he has been, it more than justifies the decision to keep him around. The Phillies have some big problems, but Carlos Ruiz isn’t one of them. He is, and for the short and medium term can be expected to remain, an asset for the team.

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            2. Another thought on Ruiz. When I think of Carlos and his importance to the team it brings to mind Yogi Berra. Once, Casey Stengel was asked about the secret to his success as the Yankees’ manager. Stengel, in true Stengelese, said he never played an important game without “his man.” It took people a little while to figure out that the man he was talking about was Berra. And it was true – while those Yankees teams had tons of great players, in the 17 full seasons Berra played for the Yankees, the team finished 1st 14 times and Berra was the glue to that success.

              Ruiz has a similar effect on the Phillies. His performance is excellent and understated. He is a big reason why they win and his effectiveness is captured in large part by modern offensive and defensive statistics. Still, I think even these statistics don’t fully identify his importance to this team on many levels (some of which – such as game calling statistics – will almost certainly be better quantified in the future and which, I am sure, would do nothing but further highlight his value to the franchise).

              Welcome back Choochie.

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            5. . . . and I bet Halladay if not all the starters are ecstatic with Chooch’s return. More than one starter has recently been less than pleased with Kratz as a signal caller.

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        2. IMO. if it is a one-year offer, then it is a qualifying offer of $13.3M so the Phillies get compensation if he decides to teat the open market.

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          1. Halladay and Utley, if not otherwise extended, will likely get qualifying offers. Not so sure about Ruiz only because the qualifying offer would be an amount that Ruiz could expect over two years – $14mm for one year is probably too rich in my opinion

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  2. It was bad, but it could have been worse. Only 4 games behind the braves so they didn’t play themselves totally out of anything. The problem is they look really bad against good pitching, or even mediocre left handers.

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  3. Agree that this team can contend for a WC but the margin for error is quite small. Ruiz will be a big improvement offensively not to mention his handling of pitchers or his clubhouse leadership. Still, with an offense unable to play small ball and with power hitters who don’t hit home runs, a lot will need to go right for them to make it in. But if they do, Hamels and Lee would give us as good a shot of getting to another WS as any other team.

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  4. So I’d like to talk a little bit about the conventional wisdom that the team’s lack of success this year and last is all or mostly about “aging veterans.” Now, I’ve bought into that frame myself, and of course there’s SOME truth to it (the team does need to get younger, and I’m against trading prospects for veterans to try to secure another playoff appearance), but I’m increasingly convinced that – so far, anyway – it’s mainly nonsense in 2013.

    First, let’s look at the older veterans on the team. Set the relievers aside for a moment. Rollins, Utley and M. Young are the team’s top three position players (by far) and are all playing quite well. Lee is playing well. Ruiz was suspended. Howard and Halladay both have been problematic, but each of them also has turned things around lately.

    The team’s problems, aside from Howard and Halladay, are: the outfield (all under 30), the Ruiz suspension, Hamels’ slow start, and the relievers.

    Compare the team with 2011. What’s different? The team is, though 26 games, 4.2 wins worse than the 2011 club (obviously comparing with the year-end winning percentage). The offense is .63 runs per game worse; the pitching/defense is .89 runs per game worse. Let’s further break down where the team is worse:

    Hitting: 2013 OF: . 223/.290/.350; 2011 OF: .264/.333/.452. Through 26 games, the outfield – hitting and base running – is about 1.5 wins worse than 2011. 2013 C: . 207/.237/.326; 2011 C: .257/.348/.349. Catching is about ½ a win worse. And that’s essentially it … oh yeah, Howard is a bit worse also (about 1/2 of a win or even a little less), but that’s outweighed by somewhat more offense from 2B/SS/3B (all older guys).

    Fielding: Hasn’t been particularly good, but nor was it (somewhat surprisingly) in 2011.

    Starting pitching: It’s been about two wins worse, 1 win from Halladay, .5 win from Hamels and .5 win from the rest of the staff (remember we had Oswalt, and while he battled injury problems he was solid when healthy).

    Relievers: Surprisingly, as bad as it’s been at times, this probably accounts for only about .2 of a win. Of course, the problems have been not just with older relievers, but a couple of the younger guys as well.

    So add it up – there’s a couple of different ways to do the accounting, but on balance the “old guys” by my reckoning, are a little over one win worse – most of that two horrendous starts by Halladay – and the rest of the team, about 3 wins worse.

    Obviously the above is a rough estimate, but I think it’s probably a fair summary. Maybe, given the distributions of runs allowed, you could argue that the relievers deserve a little more of the blame that I’ve given them. But, if true, that just strengthens the basic argument.

    None of this suggests that the team doesn’t need to get younger. But the facile argument that the old guys are the problem, and getting rid of them the solution, is dead wrong.

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    1. The problem is that collectively you’re paying the old guys to carry the team and they’re probably not capable of that anymore. Halladay, Hamels, Lee, Howard, Utley, Rollins, and Papelbon make a combined $125MM this year and they’re probably not worth it. That becomes the narrative whether it jives or not. I do agree though the problem lies in the talent surrounding that core.

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      1. I say the following not as disagreement (I think you are saying essentially the same thing), but just to expand upon the topic: this certainly explains some of the “tear the team down” opinions, but it just as certainly doesn’t justify them. Even to the extent that some of these guys are overpaid (and at this point only Howard and maybe Halladay are), it doesn’t matter in terms of competitiveness (it can, but IMO doesn’t now given the team’s current resources/salary structure and coming FA markets), and it doesn’t matter in terms of attendance (as a rule, more people will come to see a team of overpaid veterans win 80 to 90 games than will come to see a bunch of underpaid rookies lose 110 games).

        It’s a moot point since the team isn’t going to adopt the tear it down strategy.

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        1. Folks clamoring for a total rebuild must be too young to remember the Philly teams of earlier years. There is no quick fix here and it’s much too early in the season to think about dismantling a team anyway.

          Just to amuse myself, if we’re thinking going to think about a move that would help in the short-term, eat enough salary to find a AL-taker for Howard without consideration for what you can get in return. It’s not easy to say about a guy who carried the offense for a few years here but he really needs to be moved to the AL at this stage in his career. Problem is the Phils are going to need to eat $40mm to get it done – if not more

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          1. Nolan Ryan may eat most of Howard’s contract. Just depends on how much dough he wants to eat to win a WS this time around. Howard would look good in the middle of their line-up surrounded by Beltre and Cruz. Josh Hamilton may prove to be a big loss come August/September, and that is when Howard normally starts to heats up.

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          2. I think people often mistake getting younger with getting better. We will certainly get younger when Asche is the starting third basemen but will the team be better for it based on what MYoung is doing now? Would the 2014 rotation be better with Morgan over Halladay? Is the team currently better in CF with Revere instead of Victorino?

            Obviously, you are paying younger players less which allows you to spend elsewhere. But you’d better choose wisely in a dwindling, ever more exepnsive, FA market.

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            1. Younger brings growing pains, similar to what we experienced in 2003 through 2006. And, more importantly, no guarantees that a ring will ever be obtained. So it comes down to risk. Ruben does not take risks, he likes to hedge his bets…patch-work a team and sitting on the fence guy.

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          3. Problem is the Phils are going to need to eat $40mm to get it done – if not more
            ———————–
            And that is what makes it unrealistic. You only make a move like that if Howards replacement is a) better than Howard, and b) makes 10M a year or so (making the money a wash). Pretty much the only way a trade of Howard while eating 40M of his salary would work is if you had a young internal player to take over at a low salary. Ruf is the only such option I can think of.

            About the best you can hope for with Howard is that he reverts to 2011 form and can maintan that for the next two or three years. He’d still be a significant overpay but less of one than we intially thought

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  5. Really well thought out and reasonable, yet “common sense” seems to tell us that the older players may run into age related injury issues, still a good argument.

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    1. Yeah, obviously that’s a factor going forward (and last year for that matter), and one of the reasons why some changes should be made going forward. For me, I guess the biggest relevance for this is in responding to the calls for a “fire sale,” as opposed to a judicious, gradual transition. IMO the only older player who definitely should be gone is M. Young. Halladay maybe as well. Those guys aside, other older players (I’m excluding bench guys and non-closer relievers) should be traded only if we can get a top 50 prospect in return (and, Lee possibly aside, we can’t). Howard of course is in his own category, essentially untradeable.

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  6. I don’t know if anybody saw the Darin Ruf breakout game the other night, but Ruf’s at bats in that game were very impressive. What Ruf has said – or suggested – is that he’s adjusting to the pitching at this level and it has taken a little time. As I think about it, that makes sense. It’s easy to forget that Ruf simply skipped AAA last year. It doesn’t sound like a big deal, but it is. Hitters see much better and more frequently thrown breaking balls in AAA and, after about a decade where AAA was little more than a taxi squad and finishing school for most prospects, it seems as if, in the past 3-4 years, real prospects are again spending more time in AAA.

    In any event, Ruf’s insanely good game the other day was impressive because, when you watch the at bats, he crushed the ball every time (really crushed it); he was awfully close to having 3 homers in that game. More importantly, he hit different pitches. At least one homer was off a curve and I believe he hit another curve for a double. He crushed fast balls as well. When Ruf hits, his swing is compact, he generates great power, he has good plate coverage and plate discipline and his balance his excellent. Ruf can just flat out hit and it would surprise me if he doesn’t at least have a solid major league career as a hitter. Hopefully, his time in AAA is being spent productively while he learns to play left and further adjusts to more advanced pitching. By the way, has anyone seen him play left recently? I haven’t been focusing on that in my game tape reviews, although I suppose I could.

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    1. “By the way, has anyone seen him (Ruf) play left recently?”

      Hoping no reports is a good thing

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    2. My skepticism about Ruf has always been more about not really believing that he can learn to play left field at an adequate level to be a regular. Learning to play the outfield at his age, especially given his limited physical tools for the position, is simply asking too much.

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      1. Transition is one of my favorite baseball topics. I mostly believe GM’s battle the emotions of a move more so than the logic of a move. After all they are only human. Things more often than not look good on paper but do not materialize between the lines.

        It’s still too early to tell but you can point to the Blue Jays. “Better to be lucky than good” right?

        Showalter and Kinney had a good debate a few weeks ago and the main take away he wanted Kinney to walk away with is not to get caught up in the analytics.

        My hope is that if we are in the hunt come July we don’t buy at the expense of prospects. If we need to buy I hope its in the form of taking on salary for virtually nothing. And conversely I’m not so sure I want to sell guys like Lee, Ruiz, or Utley.

        At the least you can tender Ruiz and Utley and ultimately work out 3 Year club friendly deals with both.

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        1. I don’t see them tendering Ruiz because I don’t see them wanting to pay him $13.5 million on a one year deal. They will try to reach an extension with Utley before the tendering occurs – otherwise, they will probably tender him. But if they decide they want to keep Utley (likely) I expect the entire process to be friendly and cooperative. And I expect the same of Chooch’s negoatiations.

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    3. It seems that whenever Ruf is able to adjust to a new level, his bat simply explodes. We may be seeing signs of that now. That is also why I still think he has a future, and perhaps a good one, in the majors

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  7. I believe Delmon Young will be on a relatively short leash and will be replaced by Ruf around all star break. Brown will be moved to right and Mayberry will get some starts at all three outfield positions with Ruf getting some starts at first.

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    1. I find it interesting that RAJ has on a number of occasions, even recently, referred to Young’s activation as an ‘if’, not a ‘when’.

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    2. That’s a very interesting theory. I’ve thought about the outfield shuffle and what you mention could happen, but Ruf would have to explode (very possible) and Young will have to look bad. As time goes on, Mayberry’s versatility ends up making him a pretty valuable asset. Not because he is so good, but because he can be plugged into so many spots and because, depending on what is needed, he can be much better than the alternative.

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  8. A whole day goes by and no one comments on my poetry reference? COME ON PEOPLE! I took the time to look up “April is the Cruellest Month” on Wikipedia after I remembered something about it from The Simpsons.

    That’s like knowing about poetry, right?

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    1. If this was The Good Phight somebody would’ve gotten it. I don’t know much about poetry and I’m all out of haikus but I applaud the effort, Brad.

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      1. It’s from TS Eliot’s The Waste Land, which is way longer than a poem should be.

        On the Simpsons, Lisa goes to a poetry reading by Robert Pinsky, (who I only recall now because he gets mentioned in Slate’s Twitter feed for picking a “poem of the week”, which I have never looked at), and the sound man goes up on stage and says “Testing, one, two, April is the Cruellest Month”, and then they introduce Robert Pinsky.

        So yesterday, that popped into my head and I Googled “April is the cruelest month” and found out that Eliot spelled it “cruellest”, which seems wrong. And he says something about “summer will surprise you” or something like that so I made that line work for baseball.

        Boom, poetry lesson, y’all. EAT IT, PINSKY!!!!!!!!

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  9. Last night it looked like Washington’s Stephen Strasburg hurt his arm as he was shaking it and the announcers pointed that out. Just bringing this up to show the Nationals could be vunerable this year.

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    1. Yes, my gut tells me that the Phils could beat both the Braves and the Nationals. If I had to pick the players that would come through in big, late-season situations, I would take the Phillies over any of the players on the Nats or the Braves. Obviously, the Braves are very strikeout-prone and the Nats lack experience (as do the Braves, for that matter). The Phillies also have a better rotation than the Braves, and at this point, I would choose Hamels over Strausburg because of the experience factor. The Nationals were not challenged last year for the division and the Phillies disappeared early because of injuries. This gave them confidence. Now, the Phils are hanging around, and I believe the Phils are quite capable of sneaking up on them and beating them in a head-to-head matchup because of their talent and winning mentality.

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      1. Here is one person who see its differently … or does he?

        Tom Verducci today on the Phillies:
        What you’re looking at is a proud but flawed team, trying desperately to squeeze one more October out of the Howard-Utley-Three Aces investment. At this point the Phillies have no choice but to ride out this roster. The offense, despite the weekend in New York, is likely to continue to be sporadic; the Phillies rank 13th in walks and 12th in on-base percentage. Delmon Young, a notorious hacker, isn’t likely to help much — and that’s assuming he can play a new position, rightfield, decently enough to stay in the lineup.
        The best the Phillies can hope for is that Brown is the next Josh Roddick or Chris Davis — a power guy with a minor league pedigree who breaks out in the bigs in his mid-20s — that the offense climbs at least to a middle-of-the-pack run-scoring level, and that Hamels, Lee and Halladay come close to the 50 wins and 682 1/3 innings they gave Philadelphia in 2011, when the Phillies won a franchise-record 102 games.
        The truth is, this is a team on the brink of recovery or regression, and it’s too soon to know which direction it is headed. It will take three months, not three days, to know which path they follow. Meanwhile, keep this in mind: The Phillies haven’t been the Phillies of annual excellence for an extended stretch. Since Sept. 10, 2011, and including a bad first-round playoff loss that year to a St. Louis team that won a dozen fewer games than Philadelphia, the Phillies are 103-110 (.484). That’s a worse record in that time than that of the Pirates (100-105, .488). Philadelphia, despite all that money invested in pitching, is no longer a sure thing.

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        2. Didn’t that “bad” “St. Louis team that won a dozen fewer games than Philadelphia” win the f*%king world series?

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        3. Great statement; so true

          “The truth is, this is a team on the brink of recovery or regression, and it’s too soon to know which direction it is headed. It will take three months, not three days, to know which path they follow.”

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          1. Agreed. I actually though it was a fairly astute article for someone that doesn’t cover the team on a daily basis.

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  10. So rocom, in another thread, identifies two supposed problems with the team: relief pitching and lack of clutch performance. The former is a real problem so far (even if (a) it ranks behind the problems of two of the starting pitchers and the overall hitting, and (b) there are SSS issues).

    But the latter is not true at all. In fact, the team’s performance with RISP is BETTER than their performance overall. The reasons that the team isn’t scoring runs is that (a) they aren’t getting on base (OBP ranked 25th), and they aren’t hitting with power (ISO ranked 20th).

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    1. The difficult thing to swallow about this is that OBP is to a certain degree, controllable. It’s an approach. It’s a culture. A culture this team has lacked for at least 2 years now. Then again, OBP isn’t all that important

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        1. LOL. Of course – didn’t you just post the other day how other’s often fail to detect tongue-in-cheek comments?

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            2. 🙂 Right

              I like the one-line inquiry as opposed to a three paragraph examination into my psyche

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  11. Speaking of OBP, I note that the top 8 runs scoring teams in MLB are all in the top 10 in OBP. Conversely, 8 of the 10 lowest scoring teams in MLB are in the bottom half of the league in OBP.

    Not that these numbers would surprise anyone on this site, but it does further explain our consternation when a GM says that he values “production” but not OBP/BB.

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    1. I’m sure most here have had some form of on-the-field baseball experience, high school, little league, whatever. What shocks me is that RAJ is a ballplayer. I defended him for a few years or at least offered that he wasn’t as bad as many were asserting, and while I still won’t lobby for him to be fired, I can no longer defend him after that comment.

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      2. My OBP my last year in “midget” league, as it was then called, (non-travelling 11-14 yr old league with an offensive name, basically), was probably like .550. I walked all the time and scored a mess of runs. I was smart enough then to know that even the better pitchers in any league throw stuff that isn’t worth hitting all the time, (in my case because they weren’t skilled enough, but in MLB, it’s on purpose often to deceive the batter). And so I would always wait on a strike – I swung at one first pitch the entire year, down by about 14 runs in a game against a guy I knew to be a throw-it-down-the-middle kind of pitcher with pretty good control and a weak arm. I was a really bad hitter, but I knew that getting on base by walk, with all the things that happen after that, was a good way to score runs and that runs win games.

        All of this, I say today, to prove a point. Not that I was some great ballplayer who could have made it if I weren’t slow and lacked any kind of throwing arm or defensive range, but to prove the point that Ruben Amaro is dumber than a 14 year old.

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  12. I don’t believe for a minute he doesn’t value walks and OBP. I think he absolutely would prefer RH walk more instead of swing at balls in the dirt. I think you guys take this I value production statement way to far…

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    1. I am not sure how else to take his statement.

      “I don’t care about walks,” Amaro said in January. “I care about production. To be frank with you, I’ve said this all along. All of the sabermatricians and all of the people who think they know exactly what makes a good club . . . to me, it’s more about run production and being able to score runs and drive in runs.”

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        1. That was not the entire conversation and you are not taking the full conversation into account.

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          2. Better go back to January and look at it again. Oh yes…he also talked about the pitching staff and Ruiz’s suspension hurting the club….is that what you are referring to?.

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    2. I agree with MDS. If Rube really valued walks more, he would have put together a different team. Going out and getting the Youngs when we already had a team that didn’t walk enough says to me that he he’s looking at BA and, I guess, power potential.

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    3. Agree that too many people are taking part of a conversation and running with their own views.

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  13. I can’t pretend to know what he truly believes. I can make a few assumptions. Run Production has many different faces I think we can all agree on that and very recently he cited how ridiculous it was that we didn’t have a walk in the Reds series. So to say he doesn’t seeing the value in a BB is probably nonsense.

    And don’t look now but M Young who he did go out and get leads the team in BB’s OBP Avg and low and behold in his first game I think D Young saw more pitches than the rest of the team combined (exaggeration of course but not far from it)

    just trying to keep things real around here. He definitely deserves some critique but it my opinion not nearly as much as he gets.

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    1. Well DMARS…they miss the playoffs this year…apparently him and/or Charlie are gone before the 2014 season.

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      1. Possibly and I wouldn’t be upset with that. At some point the players need to be accountable for playing the game the right way.

        Again you make your moves on paper they don’t always translate between the lines after the fact. You’ll always find players above and below their career averages.

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    2. M Young’s BB rate is a pleasant surprise, but it’s also a big enough surprise that it probably won’t continue. If he keeps it up it would be easily the highest BB rate of his career. I think everyone is pretty happy with Young so far, but let’s not pretend like we aren’t about 25 games into the season. There are a few signs that point to regression for him.

      As for D. Young, good start but it’s one game. Big whoop.

      Rube said it was ridiculous that we hadn’t walked in 4 games or whatever, but I don’t see that as evidence that he thinks walks are an important component in scoring runs. The lack of walks over that stretch was so extreme that it couldn’t be called anything but ridiculous. The proof is in the pudding- the lineup has his fingerprints all over it and is 12th in the league in OBP.

      I’m not saying he hasn’t done anything right, but I think we can see from his acquisitions what he believes when it comes to offense.

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    3. It has been a nice change of approach by Young, but that actually reinforces the value of the walk, Young has value this year because he is walking more and swinging less, it is offsetting the fact that he is hitting for no power.

      As for Delmon, over his career he has seen ~3.4 Pitches/PA and he saw 3.5 last night, over his career he has swung at 59% of pitches (both numbers were right at career average last year), Domonic Brown on the other hand has seen 4.02 Pitches/PA over his career. Consequently their career BB% are 4.1% and 10.2% which is why Brown even though he is struggling so far has an OBP higher than Youngs in 2011 and 2012 (slightly lower OPS than Young’s 2012). In general the more pitches you see the better the pitches you will see.

      The problem is that if he does believe in the walk he hasn’t shown it. He has repeatedly traded for/signed guys who don’t walk, which is a serious problem as plate discipline (not just walks but ability to recognize pitches and having a plan) is a skill that can prolong a career and it as the team ages it is needed more. I guess the point is, if believes in walks being a necessary part of run production he needs to connect that with the players he puts on the team, because at this point it is more likely that Anthony Hewitt has figured out how to walk then Delmon Young has.

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      1. Really we are going to compare what M Young has done is this league to what Brown has done? We are down 14-2 last night with 2 men on did you see Brown come up and swing at the first pitch?

        That’s not to pick on Brown I think he will be fine. That’s to say he has a lot to learn about playing the game the right way.

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    4. Even if he doesn’t value walks in terms of run production (which of course is what he said himself), he is still capable of pointing out the absurdity (perhaps historic absurdity) of going 4+ games without a BB.

      I’m not sure Michael Young is a great example considering he signed him coming off a year where he walked 33 times in 650PAs and posted a .312 OBP. (He does have pretty good career nummbers in that regard though).

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  14. WIP, Philadelphia did a caller poll this morning on the blame for the Phillies demise. Pick one Ruben Amaro or Charlie Manuel. So far, 60% blame Amaro.
    If PhuturePhillies did a poll, my guess it would be close to 80% blaming Amaro.

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    1. Its because we look at team construction more than the average fan. Personally I think a manager’s impact on the game as a whole is comparitively minimal (having a really smart manager like Showalter or Madden can be a huge bonus), for the most part their job is about the clubhouse and player management.

      The tie breaker has to be, if it is Charlie’s fault then it is Amaro’s fault because he should have fired him. Managers are fall guys, except in cases of lost clubhouses (Bobby V in Boston) and complete incompetence (Jim Tracy).

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      1. Are you certain that Amaro has the authority to fire Manuel? I don’t think he does.

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    2. Of course, these are the same morons who clamored for the team to trade every prospect in sight to gain incremental advantages over the last several years. If the casual fan were asked whether he or she would prefer to sacrifice the future and win now or not captialize on the opportunity and plan for later, their answer would be “yes, both.”

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      1. To be more accurate, they would demand the trades be made and would later blame the GM for making the trades even if, as was the case here, the players the team traded for actually panned out pretty well. Welcome to Philly.

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    3. They should have included the owners as an option. I think the demise of the team is largely on the owners. Since it’s gone on through multiple GMs and managers, I think we can safely conclude that the severe spending caps on draft and international bonuses and the decision to never sign one of the major-league-ready Japanese or Cuban players is on the owners. I think the GMs also frequently get a big nudge to give a foolishly early/lavish contract with FNTC just to show that ownership isn’t cheap. I think that’s what happened with both Burrell and HOward. Then we have the spectacle this winter of Monty prancing about and declaring that the team could spend over the luxury cap this winter and future years to produce a winner. It was quite clear than RAJ was on a strict budget with no chance of being allowed to bust the luxutry cap, so this was just a lie from Monty.

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  16. I just ran across this post on MLB Trade Rumors, about the early returns on the Blue Jays’ offseason trades. Long story story: it’s ugly. Just something to keep in mind when we bemoan the cupboard-clearing trades of 2009-2011. At least we got a couple playoff appearances out of them. And none of the prospects involved have really come back to haunt us too badly yet.

    http://www.mlbtraderumors.com/2013/05/prospect-rumour-roundup.html

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    1. On one hand, I’m very excited that we haven’t had any real painful examples of traded prospects coming back to haunt us, at least not yet. On the flip side, what does it say about our drafting and development of players in the last 5 years or so. Marson, Knapp, Donald, Carrasco, Drabek, Taylor, Cardenas, and others have all not delivered at all, and guys like Happ and Worley haven’t been overly impressive outside of one rookie season each. RAJ must go. I agree with LarryM that a full rehaul and rebuild is not appropriate or realistic, and there are other ways to go from point a to point b, but RAJ is not the one to take the Phils on that journey.

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  17. Amazing how RAJ has turned Pat Burrell/Raul Ibanez, Shane Victorino, and Jayson Werth into Domonic Brown, Ben Revere, and Delmon Young. What a mess. If you go position by position of the 2008 roster to the 2013 roster, and compare it is mind blowing how you could do this with so much more money.

    Ruiz c2008 vs Ruiz c2013 – I’ll take Ruiz 2013
    Howard c2008 vs Howard c2013 – Howard 2008
    Utley c2008 vs Utley c2013 – Utley c2008
    Rollins c2008 vs Rollins c2013 – Rollins c2008
    Feliz vs M Young – draw
    Burrell vs D Brown – Burrell
    Victorino vs Revere – Victorino
    Werth vs D Young – Werth
    Coste vs Kratz – Coste
    Bruntlett vs Galvis – Galvis
    Dobbs vs Frandsen – Dobbs
    Stairs vs Nix – draw
    Jenkins vs Mayberry – Mayberry
    Hamels c2008 vs Hamels c2013 – draw
    Myers vs Halladay – Myers
    Moyer vs Lee – Lee
    Blanton vs Lannan – Blanton
    Kendrick c2008 vs Kendrick c2013 – KK13
    Lidge vs Papelbon – Lidge
    Madson vs Adams – Madson
    Romero vs Bastardo – draw
    Durbin 2008 vs Durbin 2013 – Durbin 2008
    Eyre vs Horst – Eyre

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    1. The team has aged. The players are both in the more expensive years of their contracts, and except for Ruiz, not playing as well and of course being more subject to physical breakdown. I’ll say it’s a little worse than you suggest and Hamels 2013 is not as good as Hamels 2008. HIs walk rate for the first month of 2013 is about double his major league prior average. Possible arm issue? In any event he’s been mostly not on his game through 6 starts. THat’s SSS but not super small sample size.

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    2. Agree with all except I’d take:

      Frandsen over Dobbs
      Hamels 2013 over 2008
      Halladay over Myers (Myers got in a groove the 2nd half but he was so bad in the first half that he was sent to the minors. I still think Halladay will get more consistent)

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      1. Dobbs was really good in 2008. Having said that, I have no problem with Frandsen, he’s a solid reserve.

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        1. I know he hasn’t been himself, but he hasn’t been THAT bad. And I know he had control issues against the Mets his last time out, but he’s only given up 7 earned runs in his last 4 starts. And two of those were because Mayberry fell in the outfield and then an umpire blew a call on a foul ball. I think Hamels is going to be just fine.

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  18. How dumb are some baseball professionals .After the very good year Pierre had batting second ,he of course is leading off again..

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  19. As down on Amaro as I am, I can’t see him being completely responsible for the train wreck of the outfield. Obviously no one could have anticipated Revere being this bad, and he’s (finally) doing the right thing by giving Brown a real shot (and, while not wanting to get too excited about a week and half of solid hitting, maybe he is starting to justify it).

    But there’s no doubt that the other corner OF spot is a train wreck. Yet if you look at recent FA options, it’s not as if there were a ton of good ones out there. I think he missed some chances, but the irony is that the best FA options in hindsight were guys with real question marks at the time that no one around here, myself included, was super thrilled about. Then there are trades. He DID trade for Pence, and was (rightly) criticized for the move, around here most prominently by myself. But who else was out there? At least, who else whom the Phillies could have acquired.

    And yes, regarding both trades and FA signings, there are in retrospect players that could have helped. But hindsight is 20-20. None of this absolves Amaro – he IMO made a bad situation worse, and made some bad moves at other positions (Howard contract, e.g.). But Let’s not pretend that the transition from the Vic/Werth OF would have been an easy one for even the best GM.

    One final thought, though. Maybe this is hindsight, but, taking the acquisition of Pence as a given, maybe trading him last year was the mistake. He would look awfully good in the Phillies OF at the moment, and they are far enough under the luxury tax threshold that they could have afforded him. Joseph may still justify the deal (and I am not as concerned about his slow start as some people around here), but if the trade had not happened, not only would they have had Pence through the end of this year, but they could tender him & get a sandwich round pick back, or a decent one year deal if he accepted the tender.

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    1. I was fine with trading Pence last year but that was on the assumption that they were actually going to replace him (and not with DYoung). In retropect, I would certainly prefer Pence in RF, but I am not sure I would undo the trade if I could. I don’t think Pence makes this team a contender and I’d obviously rather have Joseph than a compensatory pick. But it is a very interesting thought to consider.

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      1. Pence really wasn’t good enough last season to earn a comp pick. THe Phillies were not about to make him a qualifying offer and if they had, nobody would part with a draft pick to give him a big contract. If his contract had expired the prior season and the Phillies had wanted to part company, they almost certainly could have gotten comp for him, but not after 2012.

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    2. Excellent points Larry. I’m always interested not just in the Phillies but what are other clubs experiencing as they try to transition from the window opening to the window closing and what moves did they make given their situation.

      Would you trade places with the Yankee’s or the Angels I wonder. I don’t know the answer probably not with the Yankees, the Angels could be interesting but that Pujols deal looms large with the Hamilton deal. Trout makes it interesting I guess.

      Then you have the Rays a window closing team IMO and they trade Shields for Myers???

      Finally you have Cherington who was brilliant last year. Who would of thought you could unload the deals he was able to unload. So what is my point? It’s that teams who believe they are in the WS window (not just the Phillies) get caught up in pushing their chips all in. Cherington capitalized on the Dodgers willingness to do so. A unique situation for sure and one that probably won’t come along for one Mr. Amaro this year on that scale.

      But I say stay tuned. I’m a card player and I kind of like this hand he’s got.

      And hind sight evaluation is very fair provided it’s applied to everything and then weighted with context for the situation as it was when a move was made.

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    3. Revere has been beyond awful, not even having more SB than CS, but Pence is not the answer. Pence’s numbers this year are just about the same, arguably a little worse, than the ones that drove us crazy during the first half of last season. There is little to choose among the stats put up by Brown, Mayberry, Nix, and Pence so far this season.

      The big problem with the Phillies going forward is all of the cheap years of amateur bonuses, both draft and foreign leaving us short of talent. Losing top draft picks to sign FA and trading talent for vets can be convincingly argued as the natural price for continuing the post-season streak, but then you have to be willing to spend the peanuts needed to restock the farm. Phillies mangement, I think at the order of ownership, failed to do this for many years. THis is the Giles influence. When his group bought the Phillies, he made a conscious decision that the major league team was good enough and that they could save a few $ by essentially scrapping the farm system. I think once again, Giles convinced his fellow owners that the major league team was good enough and they could save a piddling number of $ while supporting Selig. Most of the Phillies owners are rich, but Giles needs his Phillies profits to live on. I think the other owners feel they owe him for greasing their way into the greatest of old boys clubs.

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      1. This is my opinion but you haven’t a clue what, how or why any of the owners do what they do, or what they think. You do continue to ignore the fact they have had one of the highest payrolls in baseball going back 5 years now.

        The Phillies are not the only team that sacrifices prospects to try and stay in the championship window. And at the end of the day they don’t give a sh!t what you or I think they own the flippin Phillies and business is good.

        You also fail to acknowledge situations where owner intervention to spend on a player against the GM’s advice winds up screwing the club.

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        1. While not a mind reader, I judge ownership by the consistent acitons of team management. I never denied that major league salary budget has been among the highest for the past 5 or so years. That is beside the point of my argument. They have spent to keep the big league team good enough. I acknowledged the validity of losing draft picks and trading prospects to acquire the players they feel they needed to continue the string. I fail to see why you can’t concede the equally obvious paltry spending to replenish the farm. That reflects management decisions and they are very poor decisions that have landed us in the hole we are in. And no, I do not ignore cases where ownership pressures GMs to foolishly spend on a player. I have menioned in the past (can’t restate everything in every post, this one was about spending on the amateur talent) that ownership’s PR quest not to be seen as cheap led to the premature Burrell contract with the unnecessary FNTC and to the Howard premature contract.

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          1. I don’t equate spending with being good whether it be in the amateur draft, International draft or the MLB club.

            If I were to concede anything it is that they missed on a number of guys that turned out to be a whole lot better than some international signs that were quadruple in cost. Maybe you could balance some of your rhetoric by pointing out the international busts that some other clubs got themselves into?

            Your quick to point out the few that worked out but then you don’t take down all the other clubs that passed and you don’t give a pass to clubs that did make a play but in the end the player decided he wanted to be on another club.

            maybe balance some of your rhetoric by telling us the records of the clubs that led the league in international draft spending say from 07-10 top 5. What are those clubs doing record wise today.

            I don’t know the answer but that might go a long way into swaying my opinion.

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            1. DMAR, I’m not nearly as rough on the organization for draft/international spending as some people are. What I WOULD say is that, in the past 2 years, when there was/is an obviously corner outfield hole not easily filled by free agents/trades/internal prospects, and with a few good gets available in the international market, it would have been the perfect time to swing for the fences. And yet, unless there were behind the scenes negotiations that we don’t know about, the team stayed conservative.

              Cespedes especially would look very good in the Phillies outfield at the moment.

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            2. I think that’s fair but some how Oakland had the inside track on him and all things being equal I do think they would have been happy to pay what the A’s paid and then some.

              I mean if you look at the contract and the team something seems a little fishy doesn’t it?

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            3. Spending more allows you to take more shots on major amateur talents. There is no evidence at all that spending less is helpful. The question about the major league performance of the top-spending teams is irrelevant. A lot of that is governed by their major league budget and there is a big delay in amateur spending impacting the big league team dramatically. That said, Pittsburgh, Washington, Boston, KC are all moving up.

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    1. I don’t even want him if it means giving up like the 5-7 prospects in our system that are worth anything. We’re farther away from winning in the future than a Stanton like player can provide to close the gap.

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  22. Chris I WOULD tell Miami take any 7 players for Stanton, we don’t have one legit player with his upside. who in our system would you think is better than Stanton, do you think joseph will have better career, asche, or ruff, comeon, Miami would laugh at us if we tried to make a trade,The only way I SEE Stanton is if we trade lee to texas for profar, which texas wouldn’t do, and then put profar and brown, joseph, biddle, morgan and Quinn for Stanton. maybe they do that deal.

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    1. So are you of the opinion that the team, devoid of premier talent as it is in the system right now, will be able to compete in the future if you wipe out the top 7 prospects in the system? Stanton will not put us over the edge in the short term and won’t carry the Phillies of the future to any championships either. The only way I could see the move working is if you acquired Stanton and peddled off all the other major league players on the team with value to get other prospects. Even then I don’t think that strategy would be successful.

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  23. Further reason to not trade the farm for Stanton today as Halladay gets lit up again, this time by arguably the worst hitting team in the league. The Phils are gonna need to hold onto their young pitching prospects. Hopefully one of Biddle, Morgan and Martin turns into a top of the rotation starter.

    At the beginning of the season I was worried about the aging hitters on the Phillies and if they would be able to play at a high level any longer. However, I thought that the Phillies would be able to stay in contention because of the strength in the top of their rotation.

    It seems like this season has been playing out oppositely for the Phillies. Howard, Utley and Young have played very well so far, whereas the top of the rotation guys who the Phillies have needed to rely on have played badly with the exception of Lee who has played better than last year but has still played mediocre to his standards.

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    1. surprise! halladay has a shoulder injury. wonder who’ll get the call from lehigh valley. morgan hasn’t been pitching well lately.

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      1. Halladay says shoulder soreness dates only from 24 April of this year. Anybody believe that?

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