This home and home with Boston is kind of a neat idea. I guess. Also neat ideas: Scoring runs; not allowing so many runs; DFAing Chad Durbin.
270 thoughts on “General Discussion – Week of 5-27-2013 – Boston Week”
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Phuture Phillies 
I’m all for DFAing Durbin, but who do you replace him with? With Stutes and JDF up, all that’s left on the farm are works in progress (Aumont, Diekman) or guys who aren’t much better than what we have now (Rosenberg, Savery). Almost makes you wish the org hadn’t shipped off Schwimer for junk because he stepped on their toes.
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I would replace him with BJ Rosenberg. Getting that guy big league experience in low leverage situations is worth more than the money you’re going to pay Durbin to not be on the team any longer.
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I vote for “anyone”. Anyone could replace Durbin. Valdes or Aumont for starters. Or Savery. Or Wilson Valdez.,
On another note, I saw an Iron Pigs game on TV a weeks or two ago and saw Zach Miner pitch. I didn’t realize he threw 95. What’s his issue (besides control)? Straight fastball? No secondary pitch?
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Chad Qualls can throw 96. I never could figure out what was his problem, but in these cases, as in the case of Rosenberg, it must be location.
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talk about depressing: there’s a story in the most recent sports illustrated about the cardinals and how they have the best farm system in baseball. this is a team that doesn’t draft much in the top 10 (like the phillies) yet continues to prodiuce a plethora of major league ready talent. while the phillies draft high schools guys like larry greene, the cards draft college pitchers like shelby miller, michael wacha, etc.
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1. Oscar Taveras, of- International
2. Shelby Miller, rhp- High School
3. Carlos Martinez, rhp- International
4. Trevor Rosenthal, rhp – JuCo
5. Kolten Wong, 2b – College
6. Michael Wacha, rhp – College
7. Matt Adams, 1b – College
8. Tyrell Jenkins, rhp – High School
9. Carson Kelly, 3b – High School
10. Stephen Piscotty, of/3b – College
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Shelby Miller was a HS pick. And who the hell is Wacha, dude is striking out 5.8 per 9 this year. The rest: Taveras and Carlos Martinez were international signs. Trevor Rosenthal was drafted in the 21st round. And Kolten Wong was drafted 20 spots higher than LGj.
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wacha is making his debut this week. btw, was lance lynn a college guy?
btw, when i said they had the best farm system in baseball, that’s according to baseball america. it wasn’t my opinion. 🙂
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The Phillies problem isn’t so much drafting in the lower half of the first round or the type of players they select. Frankly it’s the fact that they’ve have few first round picks recently due to FA signings. Biddle was the last true first rounder they had (not counting supplemental picks) and before that Hewitt, then Savery, then Drabek. Not to rehash but trades have taken their toll as well, although the Pence one is the hardest pill to swallow.
You can’t fault the Phillies for the Cardinals excellent scouting and player developmental system either. They just simply hit on most of their picks.
I’d point to a lack of spending on the international market for consecutive years as a major factor. While you can’t look at Taveras and say he’s the product of investing in it, he only signed for $145,000, teams like the Yankees, Rangers, and Red Sox have managed to keep theirs systems stocked through extensive spending while finishing with late round picks.
And you know what, I’m quiet fine with the Phillies going after high school players with loud tools. When your first picks occur on average between 30-50 you have to take a chance on the player with the most upside. We crucify our own team for things like this but laud a team like the Rangers who do exactly the same thing.
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you make some ve very good points. and the phillies farm system was good enough to trade for lee, halladay, oswalt and pence from 2009-2011. if those deals had produced even one WS title, i’d say they were cumulatively worth it.
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that should say the cards never draft in the top 10.
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I’m not even sure where to start with the big club… How about this… the Phillies stumbled (via luck in minor league talent acquisition, not skill) into their 2008 world series, and only through spending copious amounts of money over the following years driven by attendance were they able to stay competitive. I think at this point unless there is a dramatic change in front office attitude, they’ll be mediocre until such time as they get “lucky” again… twice every hundred years? Hopefully I’ll see it before my death in 2073 at the ripe old age of 91.
Meanwhile, the Sixers have just hired GM Excel Spreadsheetzzzzz (thank god) and have an owner in Josh Harris who is both committed to both winning (can’t remember how many times i doubted Phillies ownership on this subject prior to 2007) and advanced statistics.
So here’s my bet, I say the Sixers win a championship before the Phillies, any takers? I’ll take you to a Phillies game, lower level, first 5 rows 1B side the following regular season on me if you win, you take me to a sixers game court side (first 5 rows) if I win during the following regular season. First person to reply only…
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Talking about luck? NBA is all luck. If you luck into a lottery pick when a guy like Duncan or Lebron are out there, there are your championships. You can’t win in the NBA purely working the numbers. If your team is attractive for a superstar FA or you get lucky enough to draft one, its the only shot you got.
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So if they win, they’ll win 2 or 3… dig it! Though in all seriousness, I think I’m just an irritable fan right now… This weekend was especially brutal.
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Agree that the NBA is a star league, but disagree that it’s all about luck. The smart teams know how to get the stars (Miami, Los Angeles, Boston) or when to tank a season or seasons (San Antonio). If it were all about luck and being bad, the Clippers and the Magic would have won a couple of titles by now, but they haven’t. But, yeah, it’s a lot of luck. He’s to hoping that the Sixers suck at the right time in the future.
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But, sure, if the Sixers had gotten draft lucky in a different year, they’d be sitting on Kevin Durant now and not Evan Turner.
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sorry for the digression – I realize this could not be less relevant to the subject matter of this site. I will stop.
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I don’t think Miami really “knew” how to get stars, they just had a winning combination of a great location and having tanked their way into an initial star (or a “start-up” star as I like to call them).
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‘Start-up star’….kind of like my first marriage…a start-up marriage.
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I think it’s easier to win in baseball than in the NBA- unless you already have a superstar on your NBA roster. I’d take GM Excel Spreadsheets over GM Walks Don’t Matter anyday though.
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I highly doubt most of us will still be alive when the Sixers next win a championship.
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And for the Phillies?
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There is actually a formula for when the Phillies will next win. If they fire RAJ before this season is complete, they will likely win a title in the next 8 years. For every additional year they keep RAJ, add 3 years to the 8 years. So if he gets fired next year, it would be 11 years, the following year 14 years, etc.
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Love it
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the phillies won in 2008 to a large extent because of homegrown talent, and they’ve gotten away from that. they deserve credit for drafting rollins, utley, howard and hamels. none of those guys was a no-brainer no. 1 pick like bryce harper, so that took good scouting.
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I also believe they won because the GM at the time supplemented that talent with good role players – Stairs, Coste, Eyre, Romero, Blanton, and Durbin to name a few, all worked out very well for them that year. Dobbs and Feliz as well now that I think more about it. RAJ has not been successful adding small pieces at all minus maybe 1 or 2.
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Tell me about it – I’m so pissed off at RAJ right now that I can barely watch the games. For him to put a largely unwatchable team on the field for that amount of money is SHAMEFUL. He doesn’t believe in advanced metrics – hell, he doesn’t believe in BASIC metrics – and you can tell by the product on the field. The Yankees, on the other hand, were incredibly short-handed and over budget and, through their insight and statistical wizardry, managed to piece together a first place team – and they have amazing financial resources. The Cardinals stay the course and are superb at player acquistion, development and salary management. The Red Sox know how to retool on the go and have a ton of financial resources. The Nationals got lucky, but did a lot of things right as well. The Braves are a well spring of young talent – the number of good young players they have promoted in the last few years is truly staggering.
The Phillies are slightly above average in drafting, but have surrendered that advantage by trading away too many players. Aside from that, the Phillies have a great fan base and generate a ton of revenue through the box office and an okay amount through tv. The organization is also very well liked in baseball, which helps with player retention. The incremental advantages end there. The team is bad at salary management. The team is mediocre to below average at player acquisition. The team is not particularly good at player development – I’d say they are okay at best. The team is a running joke in terms of using statistical measures and other technology.
Now, there are some flickering lights of hope and there is a way for the team to compete in the short to medium range future. But you need the right person/people to lead them there. Whoever things Ruben and Charlie are the guys to do it, raise your hand.
This year has been maddening.
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Now, at the risk of sounding like a member of the FreeAEC chorus, to me, the real problem in the long run will be management. Not because they are cheap (thanks Free) or have wrongful intentions, but because I think they are so antiquated in their thinking that, if they replace Ruben, they are most likely to replace him with an equally outmatched old school guy or a yes man, or someone who has a combination of these two traits; in short, someone we will hate as the GM. That is what’s depressing – that we could have another 10-15 years of Giles/Montgomery/Gillick picked management. And, yes, I liked Gillick, but my impression is that the modern analytical game has passed him by to a substantial degree – like the others, he is the face of the past, not the present, and certainly not the future.
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I think Gillick could adapt to the modern era of General Managers, but for all the success he had as Phillies GM, he had a lot of failures too. (Freddy Garcia, Adam Eaton, etc).
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Holy crap. I can’t even IMAGINE the FURY of this board had RAJ signed:
1. Lyle Overbay
2. Jason Nix
3. Reid Brignac
4. Vernon Wells
5. Eduardo Nunez(!)
6. Chris Stewart
You guys would have went BERSERK!
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Okay, but keep going – and Travis Hafner (that’s worked out), and Kuroda (I can’t figure out why the Dodgers ever let him go – every time I’ve ever seen him pitch he’s been almost unittable) and there are others. But, sure, even I admit I had no idea that Vernon Wells could still hit like this. It makes you wonder if part of the Yankees’ magic is good coaching/instruction.
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Remember the Yankees are also paying $14 million per year for him and we could not afford that with the salary cap.
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My fault. 8 guys. 8 signings. Oh which 6 would have been blasted. And honestly, who would have thought we NEEDED Hiroki Kuroda? And what exactly would we have done with Hafner? Platooned him at first with Howard? To my knowledge the guy has no other position. The only person on the Yankees that they signed who we could have used was POSSIBLY Youkilis and Michael Young has been totally fine.
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I don’t think anybody on this board was overly excited by John Lannan, Delmon Young, Michael Young, or Yuniesky Betancourt. Mixed reviews on Revere and Durbin I would say.
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The worst part about RAJ is he will probably look at what Boston did last year and what they are doing this year, and he will probably try to replicate that by trading away half the team and then assuming the 2014 Phils will have a start like the 2013 Sox, with the difference being that RAJ will sign every available player with a low OBP and plays terrible defense.
The strategy the Phils need to employ this trade deadline, IMO, is to trade away players and be willing to pay their full salary and in return get much better prospects than they otherwise would. On top of doing that, they should consider trading multiple players in a single deal if that’s what it will take to land 1-2 impact prospects. The accumulation of Lino’s and Rosin’s and Martin’s and Schierholtz’s and LIndblom’s is nice, but it would be better if they could get higher quality and less quantity if at all possible.
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exactly. and werth was coming off a wrist injury, so he wasn’t exactly in demand by other clubs.
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Gotta agree with PYW regarding the core 2008 draftees. Woul include Burrell and Madson also. However, other than D. Brown, Pettibone, Kendrick not much since. Certainly no allstars.
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I think I’d add Galvis to that list. Obviously he won’t be a star, but I think he can be a 2/3 WAR SS if he played everyday. All glove no bat SS’s are still valuable.
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Galvis is an international signee, not a draftee.
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Oh, right, didn’t read the original comment close enough.
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Yeah I think he skipped Burrell because he fits more into the no-brainer top 5 pick type, then someone who was discovered through good scouting.
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Few things. Phillies were right on Dom Brown. I am starting to see him as 30+ HR guy going forward. I would double jump Asche now. Young is obviously in his last year and tailing off badly. Franco won’t stay in Clearwater long and I expect him to go straight from Reading to Phillies..so we are looking at less than 2 years. I would find out now if Asche can hit at ML level as Franco looks to be on his heels.
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sorry meant move asche up now…not a double jump as he is in Lehigh.
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i love how brown’s improved. and i think he’d been even better on a good team, where there’d be more guys on base for him to knock in.
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Its really time to blow this team up. Everything had to break EXACTLY right for them to make the playoffs. We’re 50 games into the season and we’ve already had 4 key guys on the DL, and that’s not even including Howard’s gimpy knee.
The window’s closed, let the yard sale begin.
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Okay, as pissed off as I am, I don’t buy this approach. Not even a little.
First of all, ask yourself, what gives this team the ability to improve and get in contention. Yes, the farm system of course and that’s critical. But the biggest thing for the Phillies is to keep you and me going to ball games and to continue to stoke the economic juggernaut. If you trade Cliff Lee and the team loses 88 games, what happens to revenues? They go in the Cliff Lee crapper, that’s what happens. And, if this happens, how can the team take on larger salaries? Really, they can’t. The team needs to select players that are valuable and cannot be or should not be replaced (Cliff Lee, Cole Hamels, Domonic Brown, probably Chase Utley, and maybe Chooch) and those that can bring trade talent but can be replaced (Jimmy Rollins).
For the 100th time, stop thinking like loser Philadelphia fans think. Teams like the Yankees, Red Sox, Cardinals, Patriots, Lakers, and Steelers never, ever, ever think about blowing up the team. They think about getting rid of guys who are two expensive or are not good and replacing them with better and less expensive players. They may take a half step back but their organizational philosphy and their fans don’t allow them to go into the toilet for several years. If this team decides to do that, I’m not renewing my season tickets and I think many others will feel the same way. Why would the Phillies want that? We’re their most valuable asset – unlike Braves or Nationals fans, we actually go to the games and spend money.
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the only problem with that theory is that those teams you mentioned have talent coming up. The Phillies don’t really. They can do this two ways (one forced or naturally). They can start to trade away some valuable players (forced) and replenish their minor league system. The team will stink for few years. Or they can let it happy naturally and stink for few years and slot higher in drafts. Either way…this is going to be difficult and its a matter of philosophically how they want this rebuilding to occur. Either way they will come under fire.
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It would be interesting if one of the “blow the team up” people would try to engage those of us who list the many reasons why a “blow the team up” strategy is unwise, or at least actually advance positive reasons why the team should do so.
Even apart from the particular circumstances of the Phillies which make “blowing the team up” a particularly bad “strategy,” there is NEVER a legitimate competitive reason for “blowing a team up.” The only reason to “blow a team up” is to save money (and even there, not in a competitive way – in a “line the owner’s pockets” way). Thus there is NEVER a reason for a fan to favor such a strategy.
Teams transition, some faster than others. The combination of the state of the minor league system, the lack of trade value of most of the veteran pieces, and an upcoming weak FA market, together make the Phillies a team which probably is going to transition a little more slowly than even many of the more reasonable fans would like.
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I don’t believe in the “blow-it-up” strategy, but for arguments sake i’ll give it a go…
Reasons to blow it up (all reasons are mutually exclusive!!!):
1. By trading away cliff lee, cole hamels, jimmy rollins, and chase ultey, they will be able to pull in a significant enough set of near major ready prospects that will be this teams future.
2. By dumping over-paid under-performing veterans, they open up cap space to spend more effectively during free agency. (this clearly doesn’t apply to the free agent class coming up with the exception of Cano).
3. By tanking for 2 years, they will have a chance at landing the next Bryce Harper. Who can then begin improving the major league team within 2 years of high school.
4. If we suck bad enough, someone in ownership will fire Amaro.
Now… we all know why the above reasons wouldn’t work. So here they go:
1. The prospect haul is unlikely to be able to replicate the WAR total of the aforementioned group of players even in their primes, let alone in the next year or two.
2. This is great, but the only player they really need to dump, is undumpable without including one or more player from group 1, at which point, the prospects received from trading said player are reduced dramatically.
3. It’s just as likely the prospect we draft will be a replacement level player or worse, at which point we’ll still suck.
4. This is the only logical reason to suck… f*ck Amaro and the horse he road in on, he obviously learned nothing at Stanford. 🙂
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I’m not an advocate of “blow it up,” but I definitely believe it’s time for a youth movement. Asche and Galvis should be the left side of the Phils infield next year, and if they could get anything decent for Young or Rollins, I say do it. I’d love to see Utley resigned for a reasonable deal, with Hernandez ready for the inevitable injury, but if someone goes beyond two years, I say let him go. Such moves would not turn the offense into a juggernaut, but they also wouldn’t be much worse off than they are now (and they’d have younger players starting to get experience).
The mistake IMO would be to get rid of pitching. This is what will keep the team competitive while the offense retools (and is the only reason they are anywhere close to sniffing distance of .500 right now).
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You make a good point here. I’d rather see Cesar Hernandez “plan” to spend another year in AAA since he remains fairly young, and ready to play if and when Utley would miss time. I’d hate to see this team pencil him in as “the plan” for 2B.
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you can’t have it both ways. Your pitching is only thing that will bring in core rebuilding players. Phillies don’t have positional players who will bring back much. The Hunter pence trade will haunt this team for while.
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The reasons for blowing up a team is simple.. Championship or bust. Now granted, I’m making this decision in a complete vacuum, not taking into consideration fan support considerations on supporting a losing team. This is a big factor – one would think the Philadelphia fan base knows what it takes to build a winner, and could support a youth movement type event, but who knows.
1. Trading veterans on a team with no world series potential in return for in some cases, star prospects, is sound logic.
2. Even trading some of your veteran players for “B” type prospects makes sense – even if you don’t get the same type of player in return, who cares (in so many words). You’re not going anywhere – is there a big difference between 82-80 and 75-85?
3. Free up cash for future decisions, always a good business strategy.
Unrelated (somewhat), but can someone please do a historical study of how many big time contracts actually worked out? I’m becoming more and more convinced that the “fat” contracts never (or rarely) work in baseball. Let’s get a core of guys, who can peak together when they turn 27-29 and let’s win that way. If that requires us to have a few 72-75 win seasons before that happens, so be it.
Of course, nobody will agree with this, but that’s my vote.
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I agree on the championship or bust mentality whats is the point of wining 75 games with a 70 million payroll when you could either go all out and add 40 million in additional payroll(BLue Jays) to win the series or cut costs and have a 30 million payroll(Astros) and lose 90 games
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I will say this though to my theory – you’ve absolutely got to nail the trades for the top flight guys. For example, if you trade Lee and get back prospects that end up being “C” pro’s, you’re going to have trouble getting out from under that.
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Matt RAJ did not even get “C” pro’s the first time he traded Lee……..What makes you think he will do better the next time.
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Here’s the deal. RAJ got absolutely hosed in many of his deals, simply because he needed to make the budget work. The Halladay/Lee exchange — he took back $6 mill of Halladay’s salary, while dumping all of Lee’s salary. If you have a lot of budget space, you can keep both Lee and Halladay. If you have some budget space, you can eat part of Lee’s salary and get better prospects or not ask for $6 mill back with Halladay and trade lesser prospects. Pence trade: Houston paid enough of Pence’s salary that we took on no extra salary in first year of deal. Naturally that cost more prospects. When we traded Pence, we did not send the money to cover his salary. You get less talent back that way, but RAJ wasn’t trading vets to bring back young talent, he was dumping salary to get under budget. If we give ourselves budget cap maneuvering room, we will make better trades coming and going. We’ll get a lot better talent back in this year’s trading of vets for youngsters if we cover the rest of the year’s salary for the vets we trade. That’s just how baseball works these days. It’s hard to do future talent acquisition and salary dumping at the same time.
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“if we cover the rest of the year’s salary for the vets we trade.”
Ding ding ding
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Appreciate the response, but IMO it is pretty weak tea. Briefly, as I don’t have much time:
(1) Not many veterans on the team, maybe none, can get star prospects in return. Hamels most likely, but he still has (we hope) many productive years left, and in any event they would be selling low, almost always a mistake. Lee, maybe. Doubtful. If you could get a star prospect for him, maybe you do it. Nobody else is getting you a star prospect.
(2) The team has plenty of B level prospects; where they are short are the potential stars. And yes, there is a difference between 82 wins and 75 wins, in terms of attendance (and resultant payroll), and in terms of building a winning atmosphere for younger players (more the former than the later). But that’s a false choice anyway. Blowing the team up is going to result in far closer to 60 wins than 75. Heck, if you REALLY blow the team up, which would include trading Lee and Hamels, you would have a team almost certain to lose 100 games. In fact, I’d go further: let’s assume you trade Utley, Rollins, Ruiz, Papelbon, Hamels and Lee. You could throw Howard in there also, but he’s untradeable. The resulting mess would lose at least 110 games.
(3) Looking forward to the next couple of years, given current salary obligations, likely future salary for the team’s few good young players, and the likely FA market, reducing payroll only serves to line the owner’s pockets. There simply is going to be no good way to spend the excess money. In this regard, your “unrelated” point, which has some truth to it and which I may address later, actually UNDERCUTS your main point.
So really, “blowing up the team” would mean a few 55 to 65 win seasons, with a DECREASED chance of a return to contention after those seasons.
Final question: are there ANY examples, in major league history, ever, even one, where truly blowing up a team has benefited the team competitively? Please name even one. I don’t think there are any.
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Good points – I’ll have to give it some thought and add to this post later. Generally speaking though –
1) I don’t care how much money is in the owners pockets – $1 a year, or $50M a year. It really is irrelevant to me on making decisions. I don’t want to “spend money just to spend money”. I don’t have some hatred towards the owners for their profits, like some do on here. What I do care about is signing reasonable contracts for players that can make a difference. Again, the more I think about it, the less I think having a team of $160M bloated contracts is any better off than having smart, hungry, TEAM first players with a payroll of $110M.
2) To me, part of the plan is keeping Hamels. He’s still young enough that he’s an important part of the team. The “blowing it up” part was more in reference to Lee, Pap, Howard (I know – impossible), Utley, and Ruiz. I’m fine with everyone else.
3) I do agree that Lee borderline gets you a major prospect. I guess I’m holding onto hope that someone is desperate enough to win to do this. I do think that Lee can be a difference maker on a club. Agreed on Utley and Ruiz, they get you B type guys.
So in summary, I don’t think I truly want to blow it up, and quite frankly, how much more is Utley, Ruiz, and some other guys going to give you by the time they are relevant again.
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“What I do care about is signing reasonable contracts for players that can make a difference. “
You either do not understand what this means or you are actually in a delusional psychotic state of mind and need emergency mental health care.
Even the Cardinals have contracts that are not “reasonable”.
The Phillies have no other path to take except to go forward and win. They can’t hit. Robinson Cano and the Choo-Choo Train are free agents and play up the middle. Whatever it costs to sign them is “reasonable” for the Phillies. Not signing either one of them is unreasonable.
This is due to one fact and one fact only: The Phillies have Dodgers dollars. When a team has Dodgers dollars the only consideration is getting what they need to win.
When a team has Dodgers dollars eating a contract like Howard’s does not mean playing a guy from the farm who makes the minimum because he makes the minimum. He has to solve the problem or he is not a replacement. Eating the contract can mean taking on another contract of very significant size to solve the problem.
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Umm, no. The Phillies do not have Dodger $, or Yankee $, or probably even Red Sox $. Btw, if you check the standings you’ll see that one of the teams doing worse than the Phillies is the Dodgers. So much for the absolute value of the megabuck spent stupidly.
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The 97 Marlins?
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I can’t think of one off the top of my head, but the Astros look promising right now, but that will be a 5-6 year burn it all to the ground effort. The Padres did a min-blow up so keep an eye on that as well (Latos and A-Gon being the big pieces).
It is a difficult and long process to accomplish. With no guarantee of success (see Pirates and Royals)
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Interesting article about the 1997 Marlins http://marlinmaniac.com/2010/02/26/what-did-the-marlins-get-out-of-the-1997-fire-sale/
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That was me.
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Matt (not Winks): Let’s talk about bloated contracts for a sec.
Howard: no argument but we agree untradeable.
Ruiz – huge bargain over the course of his current contract. No idea about the next one, but with an off year this year, he might be a bargain next year. This is a tough call, though – no obvious replacements, but maybe he’s done. Depends upon the rest of the season.
Utley – huge bargain over the course of his current contract – one of the 5 best contracts in modern baseball history from the team prospective. No idea about the next contract. Injury concerns and age make it likely that the next contract will be reasonable. But we’ve been over this before … given likely return and options for replacement, there isn’t a case for trading Utley (and I know on this point many people disagree with me, but I’m right). If his salary demands are unreasonable, take the sandwich pick, likely far more valuable that the “B” prospect that we agree he will bring in return.
Papelbon – it was an overpay, but has worked out pretty darn well. Given the team’s resources, trading Papelbon now likely means either (a) paying a lesser FA almost as much on an AAV basis, or (b) a dirt cheap internal option – but no one seems ready to take over, and nowhere to spend the additional payroll. IF you could get a top 100 prospect in return, do it. I don’t think you can.
Lee – Not a bad contract at all so far, but the best case for a trade IMO (apart from dumping the Youngs for whatever you can get). IF you can get a top 50 prospect. I don’t think you can, but if one were offered, the team would have to think seriously about it, despite the short term damage to the team.
You don’t mention Rollins. A week ago I was starting to entertain the option of trading him & slotting in Galvis. Still possible, I guess, but a week of a slumping Galvis and hot hitting Rollins makes my comment from a weak ago that Rollins was still ahead of Galvis as a hitter prescient.
I don’t think that denying your team food is a strategy for winning. Okay, a lame crack directed at the “hungry” comment, but I don’t buy the “hungry” factor at all, and especially regarding this team and the players mentioned. The only guy on the team that that comment might apply to is D. Young, certainly not a guy who has been hungry (literally and figuratively) a day in his life.
Finally, the fact that players like Utley will be gone by the time the team is ready to contend again is not a reason to trade them. Utley is at this point the team’s only good hitter, possibly excepting Brown. There is a real difference between 80 wins and 65 wins.
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“There is a real difference between 80 wins and 65 wins.”
I guess this is the crux of the disagreement. Obviously there is SOME $ difference, I just don’t think its extreme enough to cover the opportunity cost of the prospects you could be getting back in trades.
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You can possibly get a future star for Papelbon, Utley, Rollins, Ruiz IF you pay their salary for the remainder of 2013.
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Paps gets you a prospect from the Tigers. So just the one stick of dynamite for me to the team vs complete annihilation..
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My pet theory is a trade with the framework of Paps for Porcello. They could easily replace Porcello with Smyly, who’s wallowing away in the bullpen.
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The other day a couple posters think the Tigers could give up A. Garcia or maybe even Castellanos.
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The only other point i’d make on your championship or bust philosophy is that the best team rarely wins the WS and further, blowing it up has inherent risks, like making poor choices in the 1 – 2 years you’re really at the bottom of the heap. As we all know, drafting in major league baseball is a long term way of building a team, it takes years (we’ll say 4, which is aggressive) for a high school player to advance through the minors, and another two or three (ala cole hamels) on top of that before he hits his “prime”. That’s 7 years, who’s going to wait that long to contend again? There has to be a better option here. We have to hope two of the players signed either in the coming draft, or the in the last two becomes a legitimate star. Baring that, it may be a long wait indeed.
I know you said “in a vaccum” but could you imagine what next year would do to the TV contract? — Phillies, 104 losses, struggle to sell out opening day and don’t do it again for the remainder of the year. TV ratings plummet… not good.
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You are right about the playoffs being almost random. I’d say the standard should be good shot at making the playoffs or bust. I don’t see a ton of advantage to winning 82 games instead of 72 games. It’s not enough to keep the fans happy and provides no path to the future. RAJ has to ask himself when he thinks the Phillies will next have a legit shot at reaching the playoffs. I think the answer is not 2013 or 2014, but could easily be 2015 or 2016 if he plays his card right. Look at Boston. Trading the vets was a good thing. They’re back on top. They did have a better farm, but traded or allowed a whole ton of their talent to walk.
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And get the 7th pick next week…..oh boy…the rich get richer!
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I’m pretty much in agreement with all your points in this debate.
The end goal is a championship, but realistically, the goal at the start of any season should simply be get to the playoffs. Since I don’t believe the Phillies are capable of getting there anymore, I think a full scale tare down is in their best interest.
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I advocate something in between blowing it up and the status quo – I would make several moves such as: (Please keep in mind I understand our intelectually challenged GM is unlikely to understand or do any of this)
1. Trade Papelbon – his value will never be higher, he is unlikely to perform at this level on the back end of this contract, there are multiple teams that could use a back end reliever, and he is making way more than what you need to pay a closer for what they contribute in reality.
2. I would attempt to sign Utley to a 2-3 year contract at a reasonable price ($10-12M per year) before the deadline, much like they did with Hamels last year. If he agrees, I would sign him and work to move Rollins to open up a spot for Galvis to play. If Utley doesn’t want to sign, I would trade him or Rollins, whichever was the better option to open up a place for Galvis to play next year.
3. I would not trade Hamels, Lee, or Kendrick. I’d keep those three as the backbone of a strong rotation. I would listen on Lee if a team was willing to offer up a top 50 and a top 100 prospect as part of the deal, but short of that I don’t believe he is replaceable. At this point, he isn’t showing signs of wear and tear although it could come at any point I suppose, as it did with Doc.
4. I would resign Ruiz, assuming he comes back and demonstrates he is at least something close to his former self. I think with the suspension and injury he will be more likely to re-sign for less than what he would have before all of that. I’d take advantage of that as Rupp and Joseph are not the answer at this point in time. I’d try for a 2 year deal on Ruiz, but willing to go to 3 years.
5. As soon as Ruf gets hot in AAA, I would call him up and play him in LF every day and see what we have. I’d move Dom over to RF and just keep playing him obviously as he is doing very well. I would also continue to play Revere every day in CF and find out the rest of this year what we have with those 3 outfielders. There is no point anymore in playing Delmon or Mayberry. Mayberry is a good 4th or 5th OF who will never be anything more and Delmon at this point looks like he ought to be the next Matt Stairs (the RH version) and do nothing more than pinch hit.
6. Other guys I would consider trading, although it is unlikely the Phils would get much in return, would include M Young, Adams, and Lannan. I have no problem keeping these guys either, but I don’t love the Adams contract going forward and someone might value M Young as he is a good guy with solid playoff experience.
7. I would not rush the following to the majors this year unless they absolutely prove over the top they are ready – Asche, Biddle, Morgan, Joseph, and Martin. The guys I would bring up are primarily in the bullpen – Aumont, Diekman, DeFratus, Stutes, and Rosenberg. (I know some already are.) I’d like to find out what these guys have and have Charlie use them regularly independent of performance so they can gain confidence and pitch. Charlie too often buries guys after a bad outing or two and then they just sit. I’d like to see these guys up and pitching.
8. I sure would love to see Howard turn into the next Ortiz, and I sure would love to see a team be willing to trade for him but I just don’t see either of those things happening. At this point, I think they have to hold on to him and hope for the best. Maybe he goes on a hot streak leading up to the trade deadline and another team suffers a key injury at 1B or DH and there becomes a match, but I just don’t see it. At a minimum, they need to drop him in the order out of the 4 hole, he is just killing the team hitting in that spot.
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Agree with a lot of this, not all of it. On Papelbon, though, a (partial) defense. I don’t necessarily disagree with the conclusion (if they can get a top 100 prospect in return), but the reality of the closer market means that a replacement on an AAV basis is going to cost almost as much. His contract was unusual more in the length (and thus total value) than the AAV.
It’s easy to say the team should go with an internal option or sign or trade for a player with closer potential who is not an established closer (and thus cheap), but I doubt the organization is creative enough to consider either option – and, in the former case, probably properly so, as there IMO isn’t anyone in the organization who is ready for the role.
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Very good post. I agree with at least 90 percent of this – like Larry, I wouldn’t trade Papelbon due to the unsuitability/cost of any likely replacement. Still, we need another post – how to make this team competitive again – your outline goes over current personnel – but so much more needs to be done. I may post on this subject in the coming days. The problem as many have aluded to is that the free agent market is fairly dry and I don’t think that will change anytime soon. Boy, how much better would this team look just with a guy like Cespedes. If I”m the Phillies I strongly consider trading for Melky Cabrera and ask for Toronto to kick in some salary. It might not work, but it’s probably worth a try and it’s a hell of a lot better than Delmon Young.
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If we won’t be good enough to reach the playoffs in 2014 anyway, then we might as well audition/try to groom a closer who will be a lot cheaper than Papelbon. You will get a good prospect for Papelbon, especially if we eat his 2013 salary, which has already been budgetted.
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“I would listen on Lee if a team was willing to offer up a top 50 and a top 100 prospect as part of the deal, but short of that I don’t believe he is replaceable. “
Huh?
You want to trade Cliff Lee for two pitching prospects? Did you hit your head?
There’s only one Cliff Lee and he’s one of the few things that are going well for the Phillies. Trading him is unthinkable at this point in time. It would destroy the teams competitiveness. The bottom would fall out, no base at all.
The TV people are not going to pay mega-dollars to televise a ten year rebuild.
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Agreed.
Lee, Hamels, Utley and quite possibly Papelban are off limits for me.
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Lee’s shelf-life is coming soon.
And you remember what the late, great Branch Rickey once said.
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Cliff Lee will be good when he’s forty years old. He’s going to sign another big money deal. I’m more worried about Hamels in three years than Lee. Cliff is the most consistent top quality pitcher I have any memory of seeing.It’s not clear that he has had his best season yet nor is it clear that he can’t hit that mark two years from now.
Cliff Lee looks like he’s getting better while Hamels looks like he’s struggling to maintain what he was.
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I’m not sure I am a full blow the team up person, I haven’t been in the discussions threads enough to see what the two sides of the debates fully encompass but I will try to verbalize my view on why at least a partial sale is in order. First off, I agree that teams like the Red Sox or Yankees do not blow up their rosters. However, I would also like to suggest that such organizations are so well run that they plan several years down the road. They are preparing for the eventualities of when that player is too old and its time to walk away from them.
I simply have seen no evidence than RAJ has done this. All his moves appear to be shortsighted. As such, the Phils get put into positions where they cannot walk away from that aging veteran talent. Sometimes that may be lack of a viable replacement, other times that may be due to an albatross contract. Regardless, the Phils have been manuevered into a position where it is very difficult to reload on the fly (a la the Red Sox between their 2004 and 2007 titles) and it may be easier to try to blow it up and try to start anew.
However I agree that is a very difficult decision to make, because in doing so you are alienating paying customers. In addition, they have the TV deal coming up on the horizon and if they are lousy at that point in time, it would significantly hurt them, so they need to keep attendance and viewership up. So what I suggest is some sort of selective fire sale. Try to see what value you can get for some pieces while rebuilding around others.
To start, Michael Young just needs to go. We have no sentimental attachment to him, we do not appear to be in contention, so there really is nothing to gain by having a veteran 3B. Deal him and see if you can get a Victorino like trade return, then promote Asche and give him the reigns for the 2nd half of the year.
Same thing with Delmon Young. As soon as he heats up, flip him for whatever they can get. If Ruf is hitting, give him a shot in LF and move Brown to RF. If not then go back to a Nixberry platoon.
Next, deal Papelbon. Closer is a luxury that you should not be paying a premium for on a non contending team. There are some contending teams that may be willing to part with significant talent for him and I think it is in the best interest of the franchise to pursue that route.
Next one is the most difficult for me, but they should test the waters with Rollins. I am a fan of his, I have enjoyed him on this team, I think he gets a bit of a bad rap at times with fans, but he has trade value and has a potentially competent replacement. The tricky part is he is a 10 and 5 guy so he has full veto power and has only indicated an interest in returning to the Bay area, where both teams seem set at SS.
I would then try to resign Chase to a 3 year deal and try to hold onto Lee and Hamels to front the pitching staff. Frankly I would put Howard on waivers every August and let him go as soon as a team puts in a claim on him (which is unlikely to happen) for no compensation. At this point I don’t think Howard brings fans to the ballpark and getting out from his 25-30 million a year is more valuable than what he can contribute to the club offensively.
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I agree with most of this except that we should keep rollins unless were blown away and i would only take utley on a two year deal maybe with a vesting option on games played because we have gotten burned on three year deals i.e. Ibanez andPolanco we should keep our starting pitching depth and just re-tool the offense. and fire Amaro and cholly
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Solid post but not so sure when you say the Sox are so well run that they have a plan several years in advance. They held Youk over Beltre and how do you give them a pass over the debacle that was Bobby V and Fried Chicken Gate? Are we going to say they are jerking Jacking Bradley because they sent him down after he was clearly over matched or should we say they rushed him to soon?
You can’t say the Yankees when they have consistently gone outside their organization to stay in contention.
I mean they traded Austin Jackson in favor of Granderson, signed Tex to an albatross and were so thin in their farm they had to go and get Overbay and Vernon Wells. Let’s keep it real they were just rolling the dice on those moves and its working out. Let’s talk about how they drafted Gerit Cole and then wouldn’t give him the money he wanted and how Pittsburgh turned around and drafted him two years later with Yankee’s luxury tax money. and that’s before we even get into A-Rod’s deal.
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When speaking about the Red Sox, I was more referring to them during the Theo Epstein run years. But yes, late 2011 and 2012 were rough for them. And yes, teams will not make the right decision every time. They held Youk over Beltre, something they probably would like back now. If planning ahead means to you making the correct personnel decision 100% of the time, then that is unrealistic and unfair expectations.
But take a look at their 2 WS teams. Between their titles in 04 and 07 they turned over 6 bats in their lineup, 3 starters, and their closer. Only starting bats left from the first title were Manny, Ortiz, and Varitek. Schilling and Wakefield were the only starters held over, and neither were frontline starters in 2007. Yet despite that roster turnover, they were able to either replace from within (Lester, Papelbon, Youkilis, Pedroia, Ellsbury) or supplement from outside (Drew via Free Agency or Lowell and Beckett via trade).
Basically the point I was making is that there felt like there was a cohesive strategy in place for the long term. Yes sometimes decisions did not always work out such as the Beltre/Youk one, or letting Damon go to the Yankees, but there was always options for them to go multiple directions as needed.
As for the Yankees, I did not say teams had to build from within. I just said they had foresight to plan ahead. Now the Yankees are fortunate that they have a mountain of money to play with, so they are better able to buy their way out of mistakes than other teams.
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Fair enough just trying to add balance to the debate. Pointing at other teams and saying they are so much better than we are needs to be tempered from time to time.
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Agree with alot of what you say. Nice read.
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“in addition, they have the TV deal coming up on the horizon and if they are lousy at that point in time, it would significantly hurt them, so they need to keep attendance and viewership up.”
This is really my only hesitation in blowing it up. The issue is, its hard to speculate just how much losing in the short run will affect the overall $ amount, Keep in mind, these TV contracts last for roughly 2 decades. Surely the Phillies are smart enough to argue that they won’t stay bad for long, and given their recent success, its a pretty solid argument.
Here’s a good article about recent TV contracts. Notice that the Astro’s contract wasn’t THAT much worse than the Rangers.
http://www.fangraphs.com/blogs/dodgers-send-shock-waves-through-local-tv-landscape/
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The first player who needs to go is Ben Revere.
If that’s not clear to you then you understand nothing related to baseball and you are part of the problem, not the solution.
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Revere is here to stay…..dang now I am replyig to myself in contradictions!
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I’m not sure that the ‘blow up the team’ people and the ‘don’t blow up the team’ guys are even defining the term the same way.
I think Brian is correct that the window has closed on the old core. That means some sort of rebuild is required. That means the strategy has to be built around something other than venerating the core and selling out the future to add pieces around it. It means the team has to get both better and younger and needs to plan for its next post-season run being sometime after 2014.
If you are doing that, you have to decide whom you want to keep, for how long, and at what price. You also need to decide what holes can’t be filled from the farm or FA by the time you plan to make your next pennant run. That likely means you need to unload some players to add young talent to fill those otherwise unfillable holes. Since we aren’t going to contend in 2014, that means trading vets rather than minor leaguers to acquire that talent. That means deciding whom to move at the trade deadline.
Looking at our vets:
1. Howard — I don’t think he is tradeable. I think you bite the bullet and platoon the guy. His salary is a sunk cost. If we have a better chance of winning a game with Howard on the bench and somebody else starting that particular game, then that is what you have to do. Howard has become both stubborn and pathetic. He refuses to even try to defeat the shift. With a runner on third and the opposition having nobody on the left side of the IF, he refuses to accept the cheap RBI by bunting or slapping a base hit to the left side. Benching him likely angers him, which might actually prompt an improved approach. Babying the guy hasn’t helped.
2. Utley — a tough choice, as a fan favorite and a guy who is still very good when he is healthy enough to play. Can’t count on him for a full season. If you keep him, you have to do so expecting him to still be a plus guy in 2015. I think what you do with him depends upon how long he is out with the current injury, how well he plays when he returns, what we are offered at the deadline, and whether he is willing to sign a reasonable extension. Realistically, you know you are signing him for less than 140 games per season.
3. Rollins — I’d trade him if I could. Galvis can do as well. Galvis can also replace Utley if he is the guy traded, but Utley likely sells more tickets than Rollins. Rollins has taken a poor approach to compensating for his declining offense. He is healthier than Utley, but his skills when he’s on the field aren’t up to Utley’s.
4. Lee — I would keep him. Yes, there is always the risk of injury or falling off the cliff with an older pitcher, but Lee has performed well and I wouldn’t bet against him being good in 2015. If you trade Lee, it’s a long time until he can be replaced with as good a starting pitcher. The good ones aren’t going to want to come to Philly and there aren’t many good ones available.
5. Hamels — Of course you keep him and build around him.
6. Papelbon — He should be tradeable and his contract and few IP are the equivalent to holding onto the family Bentley after you’ve had to move into a slum apartment.
7. Kendrick — I’d keep him. He will still be a value over the next couple years.
8. Lannon — may not be healthy enough to trade, or good enough when he comes back, but if you can get something for him, do it.
9. Adams — hardly knew ya. If he is healthy and pitching well in July, then he has value and should be gone. Next to Papelbon, the second biggest luxury expenditure.
10. Ruiz — Earlier in the season I said definitely trade him. He hasn’t played all that well, so his value is definitely down. Also, the guys in the upper farm don’t look ready for prime time as a starting NL catcher. Tough choice. Comes down to what he’ll sign for and what we’re offered. On both Ruiz and Utley, I’d hold contract discussions in advance of the trade deadline, so as not to be surprised by salary demands.
11. Both Youngs — gone. Won’t bring much, but gone.
12. Revere — give him another season. I doubt he brings much in trade now.
13. Brown — like Utley, a guy you build the next core around
14 Galvis — ditto
15. Mayberry — I’d keep him. He’s not great, but you also won’t get much for him.
16. Nix — time to move on
17. Kratz — teams need backup catchers. What you can trade him for might surprise.
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I don’t think it makes sense to trade both Adams AND Papelbon. If you trade Papelbon and make Adams the closer and he has success, you have a valuable piece next year at the deadline if the team’s out of it.
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I don’t think it really matters if you don’t have a back end guy. Like I was saying, the window’s close. Blowing a game here and there because you don’t have a reliable back of the bullpen arm isn’t really much of a concern at this point.
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This is true. Even being as optimistic as I can be, I can’t see the Phillies in the 2014 playoffs. They have a better shot this season. I say this because not a lot up from the farm next year and a bad FA season. Also, certainly not a year to trade prospects for a major leaguer. THe Phillies will also have more money than they can spend over the winter with Halladay gone, so no reason to move Lee. Lee can help in 2015. Relievers are so up and down, especially with heavy use, that I’m not going to count on Adams or Papelbon for 2015. I’d consider Utley and Ruiz, if the $/years are right as guys who can possibly help in 2015. Ditto Rollins. It depends what we can get for them and what sort of contract they want. Part of being a good GM is knowing when it just isn’t your year. 2014 just isn’t going to be our year.
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I agree with a lot of this (I feel like I’ve been saying that a lot in regards to your comments in this thread).
1) I’m not so sure that Howard is stubbornly not trying to beat the shift. I think it is/was simply management telling him not to because, prior to this year, doing so hindered his value. At this point in his career though, I don’t think that’s still the case, and the Phillies will likely realize it eventually. So it wouldn’t surprise me if does start to beat the shift when they give it to him.
2) I agree with your point that if you think Utley can still be effective in 2015 you hold onto him; I just HIGHLY doubt that’s going to be the case. I think he’s got about 2 good years left in him at the most, which is why I don’t think he’ll be on the team next year. Either trade him, or if there’s not a good enough market, hold onto him and collect the draft pick in the offseason.
3) I’d definitely try to get rid of Rollins. If you agree to pay the rest of his contract, I think you could get at least a top 75 prospect in return. WAR still liked him last year (and somewhat this year too), and he’s a notoriously slow starter. By the deadline, I think there will be a solid market for him.
4) Really all depends on what you can get for Lee. I will say this though, I’d rather trade him a year too early than a year too late.
5) No brainer, keep Cole.
6&9) Agreed on Paps and Adams
7) Kendrick is tricky because its hard to know who the real Kyle is. What ever management does is entirely dependent on how they project him going forward, which means their decision is basically a self fulfilling prophecy. One of the few things Amaro has been good at is knowing when to trade homegrown pitchers. I’ll trust his judgement here.
8) Lannon somehow still has a year of team control left. Keep him for next year, then decided where to go from there.
10) I’m leaning towards trading Ruiz. Catchers don’t age well. I think whatever prospects we can get back will hold a greater EXPECTED value than a contract extension with Chooch. You also probably can’t offer him arbitration because there’s a good chance he’ll just accept the ~$13M/1yr deal.
11-16 agree
17) Assuming Ruiz is gone, I wouldn’t be opposed to having Rupp and Kratz split the reps next year as a bridge to Joseph.
18) Keep Halladay and offer him arbitration. I doubt whatever you can get for him in a trade is worth more than the draft pick. Even if he accepts, you can just deal him at the deadline next year when he’ll, presumably, be healthy. That might actually turn out to be the best scenerio.
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I didn’t list Halladay, because I strongly doubt he pitches again this season, or possibly next. There will be no trade and if RAJ is sane he doesn’t offer arb, so no draft pick. Older pitchers just don’t bounce back from shoulder surgery. Halladay’s operation was described about the same way as Savery’s college surgery and we know what a hard time Savery has had regaining velocity, control, and effectiveness. I’m assuming Halladay will not pitch again for the Phillies and possibly not for anybody. A shoulder injury for a pitcher is a really serious thing.
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I look at it as a risk reward thing. There’s 3 possible outcomes to offering him arbitration:
1) He declines, and we get a draft pick should he sign elsewhere. Obviously, draft pick is better than no draft pick.
2) He accepts and sucks. If that happens, we’re essentially out $13M. A good chunk of change, but nothing crippling. Given that payroll is probably going down next year, the org can stomach that.
3) He accepts and is a somewhat useful pitcher. On a 1 year contract, that’s exactly the kind of guy you can deal at the deadline for a useful prospect.
Unless you’re absolutely sure the guy is cooked, I think you have to offer him arbitration. Luckily (if that’s what you want to call it) he should be ready to at least make a few rehab starts before the end of the year (according to the timetable the Phillies gave), so we should have at least some indication of whether he’s still a major league pitcher or not.
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“12. Revere — give him another season. I doubt he brings much in trade now.”
Revere is a pinch runner who can play a decent left field, but he has Greg Luzinski’s arm.
You don’t think the Phillies can get much for someone like that, but you think they should continue to send Revere out there?
“15. Mayberry — I’d keep him. He’s not great, but you also won’t get much for him.”
You like The Stink? Could you explain why?
Do you enjoy watching the Phillies lose? Are you entertained watching a team that has one of the very worst lineups in MLB? Do you think scoring runs is just about entertainment and is divorced from winning baseball games? Do you think “Pitching is 90% of baseball?”
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Mayberry is a good, cheap 4th/5th OF or a platoon guy. He’s not as bad as you make him out to be. Revere is a guy who had a .333 OPS and a reputation for good D last season. He has underplayed that rep this season, but the season is young, we’re unlikely to make post-season, Revere is young, and it just seems prudent to wait and see what we’ve got with him. I see no benefit in throwing him away.
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Nobody seriously believes that pitching is 90% of baseball, but in a short playoff series, the quality of your top 3 starters is huge. There is nothing wrong-headed about the Phillies focus on their big 3 starters. The surrounding cast was still good enough for 102 wins in 2011. The Phillies strategic error has been under-spending on the farm and losing too many primo draft picks for FA who weren’t worth it.
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I actually take steps back and look at bigger pictures. This regime made the right moves in the window they were in. They got back to the WS in 09 and lead the MLB in wins in 10 and 11. Now that the coin has clearly flipped I’m going to wait and see what happens next. Like the Cards moved on from La Russa we will likely move on from Charlie.
IDK I guess I see quite a few GM’s and in some cases owners effing up their teams yet I saw a stat the other night that said since 05 (I believe) we are in the top 5 in winning %.
I see posts giving the Yankees all kinds of credit and since 08 we have as many WS wins and 1 more WS appearance as they do. I see the Braves and ask what have they really done. What have the Sox done, what have the Rangers Done, the Rays and the list goes on.
And then you have that goof ball Sabean with 2 WS in 3 years (trades Zach Wheeler) for Beltran rental then doesn’t even resign Beltran and still smokes the Cards in the NLCS. Where are the analytics in that.
I say its more luck than any kind of statistical genius or skill.
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Great reasonable post DMAR. Billy Beane recently commented on the MLB playoff structure and it was not complimentary saying it is a crapshoot that the best teams don’t usually win. No one likes to witness the decline of a once great team in front of our eyes but it is the choice the Phillies management made to secure the largest possible cable contract from Verizon or Comcast. 2014 will be a very interesting year for the Phillies.
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With all due respect, I don’t think they are following the correct approach to securing a big TV contract. The TV people aren’t dumb. They aren’t going to pay going forward based upon the W-L record of 2013 and 2014. They are going to pay based upon what they see the team realistically doing from about 2015-2020. If that future is grim, because management tried to eke the last possible win and fanny in seat out of the old core in 2013 and 2014, then they won’t pay. 2014 could be not that good, but if the moves management has made make the future look bright, then they will pay.
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You’re joking right? Please say you are.
TV folks don’t give a damn about the Phillies trying to “eke the last possible win”. TV people care whether the Phillies are willing to spend their enormous revenues – and if necessary personal wealth of the owners – to win.
When a team looks like the Phillies did last year and their manager publicly pleads for outfield bats and the response by the ownership is to trade for Ben Revere while the lowly Cleveland Indians spring for both Nick Swisher and Michael Bourn….
Do you need any more help to understand how it works?
Choo-Choo Train and Robbie Cano. That’s what the TV people want to see.
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Actually TV people want to see WB Mason, make Herr’s yours, Turkey’s Hill, Zoom-zoom Mazda, and every other car dealership in the area.
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I hear you and I agree we are probably all over reacting a bit, but there are some assumptions that RAJ made that were wrong that have hurt this team very much and we cannot look past them because they are huge misses.
1. Trading away Cliff Lee after acquiring Roy Halladay. This was bad on several levels. First, the prospects we received will not end up adding much value, certainly not worth Cliff Lee. Second, it caused us to have to trade for Roy Oswalt. I would rather have those prospects than the ones we received for Lee. Third, the Phils ended up paying Lee more to bring him back than they would have re-signing him during that off season.
2. The Ryan Howard Contract – Had the Phillies allowed him to go year by year into free agency, he literally would have torn his achillees in his last game before free agency. I understand that nobody knew this was going to happen, but what kind of a deal would he have gotten that off season had he not torn his achillees? Would it have been that much longer or more than 5 years and $125M? Would the Phils have even been willing to give him that if he hadn’t gotten injured? This is further evidence of RAJ’s lack of accepting uncertainty going forward. Rather than rolling the dice some and waiting, he jumped too quickly and it cost the Phils big time.
3. The RF situation – I totally understand not signing Jayson Werth for $120M and I don’t blame him for not doing it that offseason. However, the mistake was that they could have offered Werth $80-90M during the season and he would have likely accepted it and stayed for 6 years. Now I’m still not sure that he is worth that much and he hasn’t exactly gone to Washington and had great years. However, if they resign Werth, the Phils don’t suffer through 3 months of Ben Francisco (a terrible miscalculation on RAJ’s part), don’t have to trade Singleton, Santana, and Cosart for Pence, and don’t have to endure the Mayberry / Nix / Delmon experiment this year. Werth was a plus defender, with plus speed, and worked pitchers as well as anyone on the current roster. I would much rather have Werth today along with Singleton, Cosart, and Santana vs having that money in the bank, Delmon Young, and Tommy Joseph.
If RAJ had gotten even 2 of these 3 big things right, this franchise would be in much better shape today than it is and would not have sacrificed wins in any of the playoff seasons.
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Ruben didn’t resign Jayson because he walked too much.
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Ruben got cheap….gave Werth a two-year deal in Dec 08 vs going one more year with aggregate increase in salary, and would have avoided a whole lot of problems.
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If you’re talking history, I think there should be a 1A before your point 1. RAJ SHOULD have traded for Halladay in 2009 when we needed one more ace to win our second WS ring. Based on what we gave up the next year, I think Dom Brown was the only thing holding up that trade from happening one year earlier. Then, if we had Halladay, RAJ could have let Blanton walk and kept Lee the following year (basically the same AAV in 2010). Imagine 2 WS titles, Halladay/Lee/Hamels anchoring the staff in 2010. No guarantees on any further WS rings in 2010/2011/2012 but we would have saved the prospects we used for Oswalt for some offense help in those years. Anyway, IMO if RAJ had made this decision, the other 3 doesn’t matter or doesn’t happen.
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If we traded for Halladay in 2009 then Cliff Lee never would have been a Phillie. As it was the second Cliff Lee trade was forced upon RAJ by ownership because of the stupid luxury tax following.
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Buddy, maybe it is me but I think Amaro was forced to trade Lee because the ownership wanted it done for darn salary cap reasons. Was that really a RAJ trade in context of his other trades? I agree with the Ryan Howard contract which then would have solved your third issue in RF.
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Of course that is the case. Halladay in and Lee out was a package deal and the owners wouldn’t sit on the extra salary for even a week.
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“3. The RF situation – I totally understand not signing Jayson Werth for $120M and I don’t blame him for not doing it that offseason. However, the mistake was that they could have offered Werth $80-90M during the season and he would have likely accepted it and stayed for 6 years. Now I’m still not sure that he is worth that much and he hasn’t exactly gone to Washington and had great years. However, if they resign Werth, the Phils don’t suffer through 3 months of Ben Francisco (a terrible miscalculation on RAJ’s part), don’t have to trade Singleton, Santana, and Cosart for Pence, and don’t have to endure the Mayberry / Nix / Delmon experiment this year. Werth was a plus defender, with plus speed, and worked pitchers as well as anyone on the current roster. I would much rather have Werth today along with Singleton, Cosart, and Santana vs having that money in the bank, Delmon Young, and Tommy Joseph. “
This is one of the most astute observations I have ever read on this forum. How you can see this but still not see that Ben Revere is nothing more than a toothpick bat pinch runner only fit to play left field is unfathomable.
Carry on. No doubt the bell will go off in your head on Ben Revere and you’ll wonder what it is you ever thought you saw.
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Oh DMAR…now you did it…mentioning luck more then stat genius…LarryM will respond now! Better head for the storm shelter the LarryM tornado is coming.
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“And then you have that goof ball Sabean with 2 WS in 3 years (trades Zach Wheeler) for Beltran rental then doesn’t even resign Beltran and still smokes the Cards in the NLCS. Where are the analytics in that.”
The “analytics” you need to become familiar with are OPS+ and ERA+.
If you were to become familiar with these “analytics” you would stop saying “It’s all about pitching, look at the Giants!”
The Giants are one of the very best hitting teams in MLB. Buster Posey and Pablo Sandoval are two of the very best hitters in MLB. If these national media guys understood the “analytics” they would be talking about Sandoval and Posey the same way they speak of Cabrera and Fielder.
Buster Posey if he continues the way he is for another six years will be a first ballot inductee into Cooperstown. He is a magician with the bat. He just grabs that huge heavy wand by the very end and swings it and magic happens.
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I disagree on Sandoval who is just merely good. Posey has gotten plenty of media attention with winning an MVP and batting title. When the Giants won in 2010 it was because of pitching with Cain, Bumgarner, and Lincecum carrying a bad offense through the playoffs (with a little luck from Cody Ross). If anything the Giants as currently constructed are a balanced team that is likely due for a little offensive regression (Brandon Crawford) and a little pitching regression up (Matt Cain).
——-(Now More General Points)———-
The Giants aren’t on the cutting edge of the numbers analytics, but they are one of the best scouting organizations in baseball. They have “lucked” into a lot of their core with high draft picks, but they have also developed Crawford, Belt, and Sandoval along with acquiring Pagan. They may not use numbers to find bargains but they know what good baseball players look like. Yes the Beltran-Wheeler swap was dumb at the time and now it looks even worse (they could have signed him and not given up Joseph and Rosin to get Pence), but the Phillies won the World Series after trading Gavin Floyd and Gio Gonzalez for a start of Freddy Garcia. Good organizations can survive dumb mistakes, what they cannot survive is a system of not bringing talent into an organization.
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Sandoval is kind of a special case. He is, in fact, a tremendous natural hitter who unfortunately seems to have no consideration for taking care of himself which drags down his production and will mean that he is unlikely to age well.
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SImilar to John Kruk…hit tool, fitness concerns and weight.
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Yankess won so many titles its not right to list them. they won in 1999,2000 and 2009. The rest of you statement list expansion teams, and remember this, the Phillies have won only two titles in there history. ties them with the cubs. for least amount of world championship. and they are, if I am not wrong. one of the original eight teams. I want a organization run like the cardinals who draft well ,and fill in with veterans like a beltran and Berkman when they need that veteran to put them over the top.
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Even the pre-Oakland/Kansas City As have more titles then the Phillies.
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As I see it, even with the Phillies budget, we need 2 star homegrown position players and 1 star pitcher to win a WC. The rest can be signed via free agency and supplemented with the farm.
Star being defined as a true ACE pitcher, and for position players, transcendent of their position (if recall my previous post about this concept, but basically I mean a player who’s offense would play at any position, EG Buster Posey, Chase Utley in his prime, Ryan Braun, etc.)
Assuming the phillies have a 3 year playoff holiday (until 2016) who are those 3 stars based on the current system?
1. Cole Hamels (injury risk/talent decline, say 80%, and i’m being kind)
2. Biddle (10% odds)
3. Franco (10% odds)
4. Quinn (5% odds)
5. Some one coming on out of the blue (5% odds)
I feel like i’m being very generous in these %’s, if you disagree, cite why.
Which means, in the next three world series, the Phillies have a <1% chance of winning one by 2016. 2017 it's probably closer to 1.5%, 2018 3.1% and by 2019 5% or so.
I regressed to the norm (1 divided by 32) by the 2018 number, 2019 is above the mean because of the size of the Phillies budget/market.
Does anyone see it different? Not agree with my premise on 1 Ace and 2 Star positions players required for a championship?
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You list Quinn and then quote W odds through 2019. Quinn could be a star, but he won’t be in Philly before 2017 and may not his his prime until 2019. Franco might be a year ahead of Quinn. Since the playoffs are so much chance, I really wouldn’t bother estimating the odds of anything beyond reaching the playoffs in a given season.
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Biddle, Franco and Quinn all have greater odds for stardom.
I’d say there’s about a 30-35% chance (essentially one in three) that Biddle becomes an Ace and probably a 50-60% chance that he becomes a solid 2 or better.
I’d say with Franco that there’s probably a 30% chance he becomes a star and probably a 60% chance that he becomes at least a solid regular – with the exception of speed, he profiles exactly like a star – a 20 year old in high A ball, with excellent power, a very good hit tool, decent plate discipline and fine fielding skills – that’s exactly what you want. He’s the best pure hitting prospect the team has had since Utley (although Brown was a more valuable overall prospect due to his athleticism).
Quiinn is probably in the 10-20% range on stardom because he’s still so far away. Those odds could increase dramatically by the middle of next year. He has the highest ceiling of any player in the entire system, including Biddle and Franco. If everything comes together for Quinn, he’s Jose Reyes in his all-star years – a 5-7 WAR player.
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I wish I had the time and the skill to do the analysis, but I wonder what the Phils bullpen average fastball velocity is vs other teams in MLB. It seems like every team the Phils play roll out multiple guys throwing in the mid 90s most of whom are home grown young relievers.
Our relievers I would say roughly throw low 90s – Papelbon sits 92-94, Adams 90-91, Bastardo 90-92, Durbin 87-89, Horst 87-90, DeFratus 92-94, Stutes 89-92, and Aumont was 92-95.
I’d also love to know over the past decade how many saves, holds, etc the Phils bullpen has gotten from homegrown relievers vs other franchises. Madson was tremendous for many years but I don’t think they’ve developed much else, other than a year or two here or there from guys like Bastardo.
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Yeah, you guys are right… contenders aren’t going to give up a significant prospect for this type of performance.. my bad.
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Yes, trading Lee is the best and only way to acquire superior prospects, both in the pitching and RF positions. All three should be of a caliber that promises superior play. Lee has at least another year on his contract so the team trading for him can look forward to having him all of ’14, too. doubly attractive.
Right now, Lee is among the top half-dozen pitchers in the NL…with years of experience.
RAJ MUST obtain such a trade!
The future for this ffanchise will rest with Dom Brown, Cesar Hernandez, Asche, Franco, Altherr, Dugan, Joseph, Galvis, that to-be-acquired RFer, Biddle, Hamels, Kendrick, Revere (sorry, but he will get better in ’14),DeFratus, Stutes, plus the two pitchers to be acquired. Howard, too…unfortunately, and Paps plus Adams…for now.
need to re-sign Ruiz (if he’s not now an injury-prone catcher) since he can/will work with the newbies for the staff.
Now, THAT’S a plan!
Go!
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Watching last nights game. I just really believe, this team needs two players a good leadoff hitter and a clutch four hitter, to boost the offense. and watching lee and pap. just cant image that the rangers wouldn’t give up a lot to get lee. He right now is a pennant difference maker. just like schilling was for Arizona. oh forgot how bad that trade was. but the right deal for lee must net us two good prospects. one being a outfielder with power. I really don’t trust Amaro to be the man who brings this team back. Hope ownership realize how bad a job this guy has done. The reason that lee should be the one is , age, replacement within the system, and the value he now has, to other teams.
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I say Pap will garnish a hot prospect, then re-sign MadDog for next year.
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What will he “garnish” the prospect with a sprig of parsley? Mint leaves? Just messing around. I think, “garner” might be a better word for the job. : )
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Thank you for that lesson in correct English usage. This site is amazing!
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The comment actually had nothing to do with your English usage. It was a comment on your word usage. : ) Considering you are an Anonymous poster I would not think you would take umbrage with comments to your posts. lol I really was just messing around as mentioned in the original post. I pictured the scene you conjured of Papelbon garnishing a prospect and laughed to myself. No offense intended.
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Boy Larry, you are quiet… Still think that Lee doesn’t bring you a top 50 guy?
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I would call Boston today and offer Lee and half his salary for three of these five: Ranuado, Barnes, Swihart, Cechinni, and Brentz,
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Because trying to work out a deal in May/June is dealing from a position of strength.
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If you can make a deal that is beneficial for your organization then what does it matter when you do it.
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I think you may be able to get more in mid-July when contending teams are at a point of desperation to ensure making the playoffs.
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Yep.
Cliff Lee has been dealt three times for garbage like that. I wouldn’t trade Lee for all the prospects dealt for him in all three trades.
The only player the Rangers have who would get me to thin about trading Lee is Profar. For the Red Sox it’s Bogaerts. No team has ever been willing to deal position players of that caliber for Lee though and I see no reason to think this will change.
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Honestly, I look at Amaro’s job and there are some big misconceptions about his performance. A lot of people say he traded away the farm and if he hadn’t, we would have a good farm system. You look at the prospects he traded away in three trades (lee, halladay and oswalt). None of those prospects panned out and honestly, he received good value for them. The bad moves Amaro has made are trading lee for prospects who use to have high value and were sold low. The prospects in the Pence trade are still to be determined. Yes, Singleton looks like he may be good, but everyone thought Drabek would be #2 SP. Amaro got caught up in the core that we had and thought they could carry the team, he needs to refilter. Phillies big problem is scouting and international signing. We have a few prospects who look promising, but have missed out on a ton of talent. The fact we have not produced any other pieces form the system (regardless of those trades) is the problem, not even a bullpen arm that looks promising.
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BlueHen, I understand your points – not all of Ruben’s trades or signings were bad. The Halladay trade was a good one as was the first Cliff Lee trade. The problem with Ruben isn’t one move in isolation, it’s the full picture.
First, you can’t trade all of your good prospects every year and hope that, when the dust settles, you will have the next generation of prospects ready to go. Good organizations pick and choose their spots – Ruben didn’t do that and the Hunter Pence trade probably will be the back breaker because if Singleton were here, he’d be slotted to play first or the outfield sometime next year and Cosart would be a very dangerous potential middle of the rotation guy – he has an elite arm, something none of our other starting pitchers in the minors have right now (Kenny Giles probably has an elite arm but he’s a reliever and he’s injured; Aumont has an elite arm, but he’s a struggling reliever).
Second, Ruben has no idea about how to construct an offense or identify talent. A modern general manager who professes a disdain for on base percentage should be out of a job immediately – it’s utterly and completely mind boggling – like a CEO of a multinational corporation who doesn’t “believe” in computers (the analogies go on and on, but the point is that if you are a modern GM and don’t value on base percentage you create a conclusive presumption of incompetence). But Ruben’s misunderstanding of how to construct an offense goes also to talent evaluation – they’ve been really bad at judging talent on the offensive side of the ball for the last 4-5 years. Ben Francisco and Delmon Young are not good options. In a related development, the team has been unable to mine for diamonds in the rough, either through free agency or trades. If there was one thing Pat Gillick was really good at, it was picking up valuable loose parts in unexpected places – Amaro has not been able to do that on the offensive side of the ball, but has had mixed success doing this with pitching (the Pedro Martinez signing was obviously a good one). By the way, the disastrous Ryan Howard signing is symptom of this fundamental misunderstanding of who is and is not a good offensive player – the team is going to sink another $18 million or so this year and an additional $85 MILLION in the following years to Howard and I am losing hope that he can even get back to even being an okay player.
Third, Ruben doesn’t understand or accept the fundamental concept of the aging curve. That this team has gotten old AND expensive all at once is entirely and completely on him – it didn’t have to be that way, at least not to this extent.
Fourth, the team did not overspend on quality prospects/signings/draft picks when it had the ability to do so. Cespedes, for example, would have solved a whole bunch of problems for the team.
Fifth, I’m not so sure the team does a very good job developing hitting prospects or assessing its talent internally. They seem to do a much better job with pitching prospects (as far as I can tell they are doing a pretty darn good job bringing along Jesse Biddle).
Sixth, I think the drafting and signings (especially in the last two or three years), have actually been okay, with the one exception that they continue to miss on high draft picks with good raw tools who have not demonstrated sufficient baseball aptitutde, continuing a time honored tradition in Philliesdom of missing badly on these picks (hello Jeff Jackson, Greg Golson, Anthony Hewitt, Jeff Stone – the list goes on and on), but while they could get better at drafting and signing players (all teams can), I don’t think that’s their biggest problem by a long shot. I would say the team also needs to do a better job getting usable college talent with mid-round picks (3rd through 10th rounds or so), but I actually think they’ve been doing okay with this recently – Asche and Perkins are two examples, as is Darin Ruf. Again, fortunately, I don’t think drafting is the biggest problem, although they could certainly get better.
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I agree with most of your points. My post was in regards to other comments stating that Amaro has traded the farm and for that reason, he has been awful. I agree that the Pence trade will probablyt be bad in the end, although I disagree with the view on Cosart as I think he is going to end up a bullpen piece at max.
I agree that the moves Amaro has made to put pieces to support our core has been poor and did not really discuss that in my point.
In regards to their drafting, yes, they have added a few pieces that look promising in the past 2 drafts, but the several drafts before them, they clearly missed on a lot of the prospects they picked as you mentioned. International signings is what really annoys me. Now there will be a draft and cap for international. We had a chance to outspend teams like we do on free agents (such as Texas has been doing and has had good luck).
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This team construct is one big contradiction. You dedicate yourself to pitching but then surround it with a suspect defense and bullpen. All we’ve done is replaced productive offensive players with less than replacement-level hitters and watched as our core nucleus got older and more injury-riddled along the way. Where was this offense headed? Where has it been headed for years now?
I’m not going to pick on RAJ. He was at the helm during some of the most exciting off-season moments in Phillies history. How much of that credit goes to him and his creativity as opposed to the resources made available to him is another story.
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Th one thing Ruben has done correct and should be commended by all is his massaging and handling of the development of Domonic Brown. Not rushing him, like the Braves can be argued did with Heyworth, has proven to be best advantageous to the Phillies and Domonic.
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Please tell me you are not serious. What they did was worse. The Phillies delayed Brown’s development by probably a year to a year and a half by jerking him around – sending him up or down depending on the whim of the moment and not just letting him develop wherever they were going to develop him. They did a MUCH worse job with Brown than the Braves have done with Heyward, which is reflected in Heyward’s burgeoning WAR scores. Heyward is already a really good player and, to be fair, Heyward’s just a lot better prospect/young player than Brown – Heyward, Stanton, and Harper are the three best young position players in the NL.
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LOL. Right – perhaps that was a tongue in cheek comment?
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Completely agree, if they had treated Brown better he could have arrived earlier and possibly avoided the Hunter Pence trade.
I don’t understand why Heyward doesn’t get more credit either. He is 23 years old and has already amassed nearly 15 wins of value. He has had his ups and downs but he is a star in the making.
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Dom broke his hamate bone in 2011 though. He also wasn’t having a terrible year in 2011 to warrant a trade for Pence. That trade was made because you had a manager publically calling for a RH bat to “protect” Howard.
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Mayberry was hitting well enough in the second half of 2011 to make the Pence trade unnecessary. Also the 102-win team, which was good for a couple more wins if the foot not removed from accelerator at end of season, was strong enough not to need a trade for Pence. Pence didn’t help at all in the playoffs and was a bust in 2012, after the Phillies enthused about how the trade was so great because they controlled Pence in 2012. Pence just wasn’t the calibre of player that RAJ thought he was, but the trade was a foolish gut the farm to gild the major league lily. A totally unforced error driven by the very public complaints from Cholly. Of all of the RAJ deals, this one was the stinker, every bit as bad as Gillicks trading of Floyd and Gonzales.
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Larry duly and fulled warned us and he was right – give credit where credit is due.
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you lawyers all stick together…uuugh.
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Catch, have to disagree with you there as Brown was given his chances earlier but did not take advantage of them. Dom seems to have gotten it now as before he was not 100% healthy(broken hand, knee problems) and was not mature enough before to handle the Philly crowds.
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In July of 2011 before the trade Brown was hitting .296/.398/.366. The power was obviously down from the hamate injury but he was certainly making the best of his chance.
Just show how luck can play a factor here is Brown in 2011.
June .165/.258/.354 – .148 BABIP
July .297/.398/.366 – .382 BABIP
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How was he given a fair chance? In 2010 they brought him up and didn’t play him. In 2011, he was just starting to play well and they got Pence. In 2012, they finally did the right thing and allowed him to develop (and overhaul his long swing and play the outfield better) and when they called him up, they did in fact play him, which resulted in him doing well in September and again this year. But I think it’s almost universally acknowledged that they jerked him around a lot – he’s a developing player, he needs to play.
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What did he have left to prove in AAA? Ideally the next step was the Phillies and he played much better when there was no pressure.
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Also the manager was the one to publically call for bringing Brown up in 2010. RAJ said at the time bringing him up could hurt his development, and it did because the manager sat him on the bench instead of playing him. It’s almost as if those two really don’t work that well together.
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I think they clearly don’t work well together. Cholly directly and indirectly dings RAJ in the media quite often. If RAJ had the authority to do so, I have no doubt he would have read the riot act to Cholly after offense #1 nad fired him if it were repeated. When the manager of a 102-win team poor mouths the quality of his team and demands reinforcements, you know that even in his own mind he is a Montgomery who can’t defeat the other teams’ Rommels without totally, overwheliming talent odds in his favor.
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Ricky Botalico from Comcast mentioned last night that Dom seems much more calm and has his emotions under control than before. I am glad that Dom is doing well now.
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Hiow many hits did you get off him Riggs?
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Same here. I saw Brown on Tuesday night at Fenway and his home run was awesome. 400 foot low fly to center field. One of Brown’s most encouraging stats is his BABIP is only .257 looks like it due for some regression once he starts keeping his hits in the ball park. He has also swiped 3 bags without being caught.
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Dom Brown: Coming on!
Though his ISO (.257), WAR (.5), BABIP (.257), OBP (.298) and OPS (.817) all could be a tad better, his UPS is outstanding…..what can Brown do for you?
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“his UPS is outstanding” – agreed, Brown DELIVERS.
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bradindc is not the only comedian on this website!
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I actually think that tat was a knock on the phillies when they were (unjustly) jerking him around… more like “WTF do I have to do to get consistent playing time?”
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In this case, I believe you mean progression (vice regression)?
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don’t discount Brown too soon he is having a much better year than Heyward who has been awful this year. Brown with his 12th tonight
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and 13th
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This is only partly true. Yes, picking up the Youngs showed a lamentable willingness to surrender defense for very little offense. Revere was acquired to up the OF D. I don’t get your comment on the pen at all. If anything, RAJ has overspent on the pen. In Papelbon and Adams we have an incredibly expensive back end of the pen. SOme bad choices have been made, such as Durbin, but he was a double minimum-salary guy brought on board specifically to improve the pen. The problem with the pen has not been under emphasis, but rather some poor talent assessment and the unfortunate injury to Adams, which given history was likely foreseeable.
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His injury really had nothing to do with the surgery he had so I don’t know how it was foreseeable other than the fact that he is in his 30s.
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Allentown, as for Michael Young people complain about the Phillies lack of OPS. So who leads the Phillies in OPS?
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John Lannan
Of position players it is:
Utley – .814
Brown – .780
Mayberry – .728
Howard – .722
Michael Young – .700
Young has been really bad, down to .2 WAR on the year
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Matt, my bad I meant On Base Percentage.
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Catch, just curious but you are using hindsight to backup your arguments. Would you have torn the team down after 2009? As for the aging problem don’t you think that RAJ with Gillick mentioned this to the ownership? My thinking is that the ownership is waiting for the cable deal(if it has not already) to go through before they really start rebuilding. Having a rebuilding team would have a severe economic reduction in the cable deal and don’t forget that baseball is big business now.
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Rebuilding now really would not hurt the cable deal. Going into the next few seasons in desperate need of a rebuild and having done virtually nothing, that will hurt the cable deal. You keep assuming that cable deals are backward-looking or focused only on the present. The cable companies are smart enough to know when a team is going into decline and budget accordingly. Postponing needed changes isn’t going to fool them. This is the second year of wins down and attendance is also down. Putting the best possible light on 2014, our chances for post-season play don’t look good. Do nothing but kick the can down the road and 2015 is going to look equally unpromising. The team needs some younger players and needs to start rotating out the old core. The two Youngs and Durban were a desperation kick the can down the road. Acquiring Pence though was the true killer. Before that, the pennies saved on draft and international bonuses are going to cost the team dollars on the penny in terms of the cable deal and attendance going forward. That was a truly stupid decision by ownership. They made Selig happy, but they seriously harmed their franchise. Selig is just ignorant. In an era of major league mega-salaries, the money spent on amateur bonuses is little more than pocket change to baseball. To pick this as the area to make your financial stand is ludicrous.
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I’ll disagree with you that acquiring MYoung and signing DYoung and Durbin was kicking the can down the road. They were signings for this season. Whether or not those moves are successes or failures is not the argument but those signings were for 2013 only. This season is to see if the core can make one last run. If they don’t, you will see selling and hopefully some young talent coming back. None of this will have a large impact on the cable deal. Philadelphia is such a huge market that one of the major networks will pay out the nose for the Phillies TV rights.
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Sorry, I retain too clear a memory of the Phillies attendance and media share pre the new stadium and current string of winning seasons and am already seeing a fall off in the team’s draw.
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But what does that mean? Do you have access into Verizon’s or Comcast’s or Foxsportsnet’s numbers? Just because you remember what happened when the Phillies were a bad team means absolutely nothing now. There is no precedent for what is happening with these TV deals. Regardless of past performance, the Phillies TV deal will be huge.
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Sorry Bill Giles in 1994 said Philadelphia was a small market team…and he would know.
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Isn’t signing a guy just for this season and providing no help in future seasons the very definition of just kicking the can down the road. It is really low leverage back and fill with an old, insufficiently talented team which has little chance of winning in 2013. Another words, trying to be ‘respectable’ for another year, while leaving all the big problems to fester, that is kicking the can down the road. RAJ could have said 2013 was the last chance to go for it and spent $$$ for enough talent to truly go for it. Or, he could have spent what money he had to fill one or two holes for the future. He did neither. He did a poor patch job on about a half dozen perceived holes and accomplished neither a partial rebuild in establishing part of the base for a new core, nor going all out to win or really to provide a realistic chance of being a strong contender in 2013. In a situation where he needed to be black or white, he chose an ugly grey.
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I don’t think we need to trade Lee, but what about trading Lee only if a team agrees to take Howard too. i.e. The dodgers with Crawford, Beckett, and Gonzalez. You’d probably sacrifice getting high level prospects to get Howard’s contract off the books, but that would really change the outlook for the next 5 years. The discussion board question: potential trade partners? Those who need pitching and potentially a DH. Not sure they’d have the financially flexibility but the Orioles. They need a DH and a big time pitcher. The Phil’s won’t get Bundy or Gausman, but could take a bunch of guys after that. Who else might be interested?
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It would make the capital available for a huge free agent, (40 million) but most of these huge free agent contracts don’t work out. The only one I can think of that has was CC Sabathia
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Plus… who’s available for next year? You gonna outbid the yankees for Cano? (If he even makes it to FA)
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I’m thinking less a bout one free agent and more about how that flexibility over the next 5 years. The Red Sox spread it around and filled a lot of holes.
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Okay, for the last time – THE PHILLIES SHOULD NOT TRADE CLIFF LEE. The only exception is if they are offered a package of prospects and/or young players that are so overhwelming in value that they couldn’t possibly say no.
Okay, there, I’ve gotten it out of my system for the day.
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. . . would add another ‘if’ there; as in if they could pull off a deal to also include Howard. .01% chance as it may, there’s been more than a couple examples of teams willing to take on bad contracts in recent years.
There’s too many moves to be made here that don’t involve Cliff Lee. In any year, Lee and Hamels give you as good a chance to win a playoff series as any other team.
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“In any year, Lee and Hamels give you as good a chance to win a playoff series as any other team.”
Bingo – if you trade Cliff Lee, you’ll run around like a chicken with your head cut off for three years trying to replace him and when you do the cost will be prohibitive. How good would Curt Schilling have looked for the Phillies in 2002-04 (?) – that trade probably cost them at least one wild card spot.
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‘….that trade probably cost them at least one wild card spot.’ It wasn’t a feather in Ed Wade’s cap either.
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How can a guy who was no bat defensive player have no regard for defense and getting on base.
Ruben has got to go. If you even think about blowing up the team, what do want back.Gillies etc.
The king of the solo home run should be dethroned. The broadcast are terrible to the eye and even worse to the ear. Frankly it is hard to keep interested.
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I hear a lot of we.” aren’t going to get top players back for lee”. then you keep him, and take Halladys money and go after a outfielder or third basemen, I don’t want to hear about luxury tax. how about the people who spent good money for season tickets, to watch this bad bunch of players like Michael young, Delmon Young , Durbin, Horst. Mayberry and my favorite Revere, a speed guy who cant steal. misplays balls, and hits into double plays, I just don’t want a return like the schilling deal. lee should bring us back at least two top prospects.
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The constant criticism of Revere is kinda mind boggling. What did you guys think the Phillies traded for? A star CF?
Revere’s problem is not that he can’t steal. His problem has been, at least this year so far, that he has not been on base enough to steal. Revere is a complimentary piece. I don’t think the Phillies were under any different assumptions that he was anything more than that. He was the Phillies 3rd or 4th choice in center.
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and he’s 24. Last season was his first as a full time starter. We argue about prospects on here who are doing less in the minors (Gillies, Ruf, etc) and are older than him. Shouldn’t we expect him to get better as well as he gets older? Plus his big thing was that he was brought in to steal bases and play a good centerfield, which he has but for a few games
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I thought we were getting, a 290 hitting centerfielder. with basestealing ability and good defense. Maybe that player is still in Minnesota.
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The guys who were the biggest proponents of the deal thought Revere would give us a .350 obp, lots of steals at high efficiency, and great CF D.
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Thought we were getting above average defense, good contact and stolen bases. We got a spike in strikeouts, a drop in already-miniscule power, fewer steals at a worse rate, and crappy defense.
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” don’t think the Phillies were under any different assumptions that he was anything more than that. “
This is the problem. The Phillies need SEVERAL PLUS BATS but they either think or pretend to think that they just need some slightly better than replacement level bats who can catch the ball.
The Phillies lineup is PUTRID. Their pitching is very good and that pitching is the only thing keeping them from being another version of the Astros or Marlins. The Phillies lineup is really that bad.
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Roccom don’t want to make you sound like an idiot but which 3B or OF would you like to give a $100 million dollar contract to?
Third basemen-
Wilson Betemit (32)
Eric Chavez (36)
Mark DeRosa (39)
Mike Fontenot (34)
Jerry Hairston Jr. (38)
Brandon Inge (37)
Placido Polanco (38)
Mark Reynolds (30)
Juan Uribe (34)
Kevin Youkilis (35)
Michael Young (37)
Right fielders
Jeff Baker (33)
Carlos Beltran (37)
Shin-Soo Choo (31)
Nelson Cruz (33)
David DeJesus (34)
Mark DeRosa (39)
Matt Diaz (36)
Jeff Francoeur (30)
Corey Hart (32)
Xavier Nady (35)
Nyjer Morgan (33)
Hunter Pence (31)
Juan Rivera (35)
Free agency isn’t what it once was, with more and more teams shifting to a model of buying out young players remaining years and signing them long term. How many of these besides maybe Choo are worth over $100 mil? Saying money doesn’t matter, just sign a FA pisses me off almost as much as “Rube, just let the young guys play.”
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You have to figure that eventually young players are going to realize that they could make a lot more on the open market and stop signing those pre-free agency extensions.
When the Angel Pagans of the world start landing $10M a year deals on the open market, other players are going to start wanting in.
It might take a couple years, but you have to figure this is going to reach some kind of equilibrium.
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Not sure you are right about this. Generally, the pre-FA contracts which buy out FA seasons are a win/win for players and teams. Sure, on average the players are going to get less money long term, but I think it is a very rational decision to become a guaranteed multi-millionaire versus a chance for even more, but also a chance of essentially zero. Security – lifetime security as a very rich man – is worth locking in even at a cost in expected lifetime salary.
And if the market does shift, teams can shift with it. The advantages of locking up young talent from a team perspective are so great that, even if teams need to shell out more money than they are now, they’ll keep offering those sorts of contracts.
It’s somewhat counter intuitive, but my (somewhat) greater enthusiasm for playing the FA market this past off season is coupled with the recognition that, long term, developing prospects is more important than ever. I think that the days when a team with mediocre player development can still succeed by spending a huge amount of money in the FA market are past.
Of course, more specifically, the current Phillies team is not likely to have serious payroll problems for at least the next few years, and salary dumps are pretty much worthless for the team now. Even if the market does turn around in, say, 3 or 4 years, and spending a ton on FAs makes sense again, by then the team is going to have a HUGE amount of payroll to play with. Unless, of course, a series of 100 loss seasons kill attendance and ruin the next TV contract.
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“Saying money doesn’t matter, just sign a FA pisses me off almost as much as “Rube, just let the young guys play.””
1) The Phillies don’t have “young guys” who are really good.
2) The Phillies have almost unlimited financial resources to draw from to sign free agents.
You need to grasp these two facts as they are crucial to understanding and planning the Phillies future.
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Revere is all of 24….be a patient!
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“I don’t want to hear about luxury tax.”
That’s the only thing that made any sense in your post.
Choo-Choo Train and Robinson Cano. We need to see those Dodgers dollars the Phillies have because that’s who they will have to outbid for “Don’t you know, it’s Robbie Cano!”.
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Cesar Hernandez up to the big club. M Young on bereavement leave.
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I’ve officially given up on Larry Green Jr.
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I officially have given up on revere I Can find kids in high school, that can catch fly balls.
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Again, please tell me why you have given up on him? He’s 24. He’s not a bad baseball player. Your expectations of him was much different from what it should’ve been when the Phillies acquired him.
But then again you were probably one of those who gave up on Dom Brown in 2011 too.
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He gave up on Brown in spring training this year too. He’s a bit of a downer
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Ah yes I do remember that. Obsessing over one player is pretty ridiculous. Is Revere playing as well as he should/could? No. But to say you are giving up on that player after only 200 PAs is pretty short-sighted and frankly, stupid.
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Is someone a Ricky Bo fan? I called him a name and that post was deleted. It wasn’t even that bad of a name haha
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btw, galvis has been horrible offensively since homering off chapman. thinks he’s a home run hitter now, swinging for the fences and striking out way too much.
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Wow, Dominic brown with 2 HRs tonight, this is starting to get out of hand, I never, even when he was a top prospect, projected him to show this kind of power. Now if only his ability to take a walk would be encouraged we could really have a star in the making.
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Good discussion over on The Good Phight about this. Basics – seems he’s really aggressive in the zone. Not so aggressive outside the zone which means the walks will come once pitchers stop throwing in the zone to him.
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The metrics don’t quite back that up. He’s been more aggressive in and out of the zone.
If this is what he is … well, the total package is still pretty good. But I don’t see any link between the aggressiveness and the power, If he can go back to his old, more disciplined ways, and maintain the increased power, he can be a very good hitter. If the defense comes around (and there are some signs that it is), then he could be a borderline star.
Regarding another comment, his BABIP may indeed, hopefully will, regress (technically; colloquially we might say progress) to to the mean, then he might be even better. Some caution there, as his BABIP has been low throughout is major league career to date. Of course if was quite high in the minors.
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“Some caution there, as his BABIP has been low throughout is major league career to date.”
At the same time his LD rates have actually been pretty good. Though in 2012, a 25% LD rate yielded only a .260 BABIP. Ratios have been similar throughout his major league career. Has to be a high pop out rate in there somewhere. All in all, there’s really not a whole lot going on here other than the ball going over the fence at a higher rate. I suspect his batting average remains in the .250-.270 range and he ends up closer to 25 hrs than 35. Still, it would be a good season for Brown and much needed lift to an offensively challenged ball club. Breakout though? Meh. His BB rate is half of what it was last season
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Very simple concept here. Only trade players when you are ready to bring viable replacements. Rollins is a proven leadoff hitter. He should be kept until Revere proves to take over that slot. Galvis needs to be clean from PEDs for awhile before being entrusted with the everyday SS spot. M. and D. Young need to be traded to make room for Galvis at 3B (everyday) and Ruff (LF) I believe Galvis gives you more gap power than Young. Asche should be a September call up. His .265 BA and average fielding do not warrant an immediate call up. I think C. Hernandez is young in personality and needs more time to grow. Not sure Utley should get more than a 2 year deal. Ruiz is a good mentor to young catchers. Rupp could be the first C call up while Joseph gets more time in the minors. Would you sign Kendrick to a 3 year deal for $24M? I would not, this will be his highest trade value.
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Kendrick may get more than that on the open market. However, he has 1 year of arbitration left.
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I’d sign Kendrick to that in a heartbeat. We’d spend more for less in the open market.
Of course you could replace him internally. With Morgan on the shelf, I’m not so sure that is viable in the short term, even assuming Lee is retained. Lee/Hamels/Pettibone/Lannan for next year … Biddle likely won’t be up till 2015, even if he is, we would be one injury away from Cloyd and company as the fifth starter. And Lannan as fourth starter…. not sure you want to go that route. Looking ahead to 2015, you have Biddle but lose Lannan – an upgrade, but still leaving the team without a fifth starter. Maybe Morgan … maybe even Martin. But that’s a lot of maybes, and 3/24 is dirt cheap.
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It is cheap, but I think that’s roughly his market value, or perhaps a little more, but definitely less than 3/30. Id’ trade if If were overhwhelmed by the offer, but, otherwise, they should just get him signed. Never thought Kendrick would end up as a legit #3, but that’s precisely what he’s been for the last year and I don’t see that changing anytime soon as he has “figured it out.” Amazing.
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Your post confuses me. You state that Kendrick has been a legitimate #3 for the last year but that you think he is worth less than 3/30. I think a #3 pitcher coming out of arbitration is worth more than you think.
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Anibal Sanchez was sign to be the Tigers #3 and got 5/80 if I remember correctly.
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Sanchez has a much, much stronger history than Kyle Kendrick (and hit free agency half a year younger, but I don’t think that’ll matter). Sanchez’s career ERA was about half a run lower than Kendrick’s, and his FIP more than a run lower. I don’t know that teams will be lining up to give more than 3/30 to a pitcher who’s shown maybe a year and a half of #3 quality after ~5 years of being a #5 and swingman.
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I think his mixed history and lack of great stuff and a great record are going to limit his perceived “market value” – not what I think he’s worth mind you, but what I think he would get knowing he has an arbitration year left. I’m betting the contract is going to be similar to the Victorino and Blanton deals unless Kendrick truly becomes dominant this season, which I do not expect. I’d be shocked if he got an AAV of $11 million or more.
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Revised – early/mid season top 10, with short quips on my picks
1. Biddle – great poise, attitude and stuff has ticked up a bit. Curveball is a knee-buckler – a true out pitch and fastball hits the mid-90s at times. Even more distance now between him and the other prospects. Not likely to become an ace, but has true ace potential. An A-/A prospect – should be in top 50 lists soon if he isn’t already.
2. Franco – has everything you want in a third base prospect except good speed. Potential perennial all-star; advanced for level; power keeps developing. A solid A- prospect – should be in some top 50 or 75 lists.
3. Quinn – they’ve thrown a lot at him and he’s still struggling in the field, but, after a brief month of struggling at bat, his hit tool and plate discpline are coming to the surface again and the speed is apparently blinding. Still has the highest ceiling in the system. A strong B/B+ prospect that could easily be an A- prospect by the middle of next year.
4. Tommy Joseph – still hurt and didn’t get off to a strong start, but he’s extremely talented, very mature and is a strong, strapping lad. He has a ton of upside, but has to figure out his passed ball problem as it is a little disconcerting. A solid B prospect for now.
5. Cesar Hernandez – the biggest jump in the organization thus far. Hernandez has done everything you would like to see a growing prospect do as he settles in at the highest level of the minor leagues – he has gotten better at everything – really, everything – and a lot better at some important things (like drawing walks). Furthermore, he appears to have put on a lot of muscle weight and the weight is exactly where you’d like to see it on a baseball player – on his forearms and legs. Last year I saw him and he looked so small that I sort of dismissed him – this year, I think he’s for real and could end up being a pretty darned good starting player in the majors, especially if he can keep improving, which is more than possible. B/B- prospect who could turn into a revelation for the team.
6. Cody Asche – has actually done pretty well thus as he settles in at AAA after a meteoric rise through the minors over the last year. His fielding is said to be good, he has a nice line-drive swing and the intelligence and work ethic are off the charts. Profiles to be at least a borderline regular, but could develop into a borderline star if the power comes along. A very nice guy to have in your system. B/B- prospect.
7. Adam Morgan – has really solid stuff and a great approach, although he is still working on secondary pitches and command. I would have rated him a little higher, but his career is in limbo right now until more is known about his arm injury. If the arm injury is not serious, he could shoot back up the list (I had him at 3 in the offseason), if the injury is bad, he could drop right out of the top 15. But in terms of pure talent, if the injury does not set him back he has the stuff to be a 2 or 3. B/B- prospect currently; if healthy, he’s a B/B+ prospect.
8. Larry Greens – just kidding, the guy is a complete bust.
8. Anthony Hewitt – no again, insert laugh here.
[Real] 8. Ethan Martin – the control/command issues are frustrating, but the talent is very real. Fastball is an above average to flashing plus pitch. The curve is a true plus pitch and the slider is above average. He has the stuff to be a 2 or a 3 but it’s all about the command. B- prospect.
9. Carlos Tocci – it’s not easy to be 17 and hold your own in Lakewood. His ceilng is high, but he’s so far away right now and so skinny, that’s a little hard to rate him. B-/C+ prospect with the possibility of developing into an A- prospect over time.
10. Aaron Altherr – is starting to show me something, but I’m concerned about the strikeouts. We’re told he’s a great athlete and has filled out, so I’ll give him a little benefit of the doubt because God knows we could use a right-handed Dom Brown. C+ prospect.
Just missed the top ten:
1. Darin Ruf – I still believe in the hit tool and the fielding is apparently coming along – I could easily have rated him 8, 9, or 10.
2. Cameron Rupp – starting to hit for power and plate discipline is good, completing excellent fielding and game calling. Really, he’s the sleeper of the system in my view.
3. Share Watson – because everyone says he can be good – not a big fan of righty pitchers who rely on curveballs as their out pitch. Cautiously pessimistic.
4. Yoel Mecias – Good performance and apparently a hell of an arm – could be a fast riser very soon.
5. Kenny Giles – wonder where he is and what’s wrong, but not a lot of guys can throw 100 MPH and strike out batters the way he does, so he has some support from me.
6. Kelly Dugan – yeah, Kelly Dugan. It appears that this dude can really hit and a close look at his playing history reveals how much his career has been delayed by injuries. Could break out big in Reading next year or later this year.
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Dugan’s my boy. Been saying it since last spring.
I like the list though personally, Asche has given me the confirmation I have been hoping for. I’m not saying he’s a star, but I’m seeing a regular top half of the order player. He’s still a kid – won’t turn 23 until June 30. I think the age gets lost in the fact that he’s a 3rd pro out of college. Right now I slot him behind Biddle and Franco
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I’m not THAT high on Asche, but it is funny that, if he were born a day later, his “baseball” age for this year would be 22, not 23 – still, it shows that he remains relatively young for a starter at AAA.
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Agreed.
For comparison’s sake, Utley was also only 23 during his first season in AAA wiht a final line of .263/.352/.461. Asche (currently at .263/.318/.426) could easily put up somehting comparable judging by the way he tends to take off once getting comfortable at a level.
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The big difference there to me is the .90 pts of OBP vs Average Utley had. One of his most valuable tools was his ability to take a walk. If Asche does that, i would be very very surprised. I’m luke-warm on Asche, he’s likely a second division starter but could be more.
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I think it’s unfair to compare Asche to Utley – or any young player to another player who has performed at a Hall of Fame level for an extended period of time in the big leagues. I think Asche is a good young player whose upside is unclear but who has met every challenge head on and succeeded. It is critical to note that Asche has never had more than 270 at bats at any level and has ascended very quickly since the end of 2011 (you could even call his progression meteoric). He also has a nice history of adjusting and then excelling. I’m very curious to see where he is at the end of July. If you forced me to guess, I think Asche is going to be an above average big league regular (I see him hitting 6th or 7th on a decent team), but if he develops more power (and that appears to be happening now), he could be better than that.
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18 of the top 20 third basemen since 2010 by fWAR played in the majors at Asche’s age. Some had played several seasons. He’s not young for his level relative to the typical major leaguer’s progression. If anything he’s a little on the older side.
Also I don’t know if it’s been an issue his whole career, but he’s not hitting lefties at all this year. He’s not an everyday player if that’s the case.
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Ok…so he will be in the 10% club.
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So in 2016, we should check back to see if Asche is a top 18 third baseman?
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My point was only that he’s not young. Isn’t it useful to actually look at the group of players we hope he becomes and see how he stacks up?
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Interesting tidbit but still don’t see the point. Are you contending that Asche doesn’t see the majors this season? If he does, and in 2015 has a Top 20 type season for third baseman – is he any different than your 18 of 20?
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I’ve got a feeling that this team needs one more change to really break out into the elite layer of teams in baseball. I would like to see someone beat out Michael Young. I think Frandsen could do it, or Galvis, and maybe Cesar Hernandez could force himself into the picture and somehow Young would become the odd man out. Michael Young has been a great player in his career, but we need a third baseman who can drive the ball a little bit. I would like to see one of the three players I mentioned force themselves into the picture and beat out Young. This could provide an injection of energy that could put this team over the top.
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Granted Young is in his slump right now, he has been one of the most consistent hitters all year. Few people have complained about him not driving the ball/hitting home runs… If he is going to hit 270 on average, I will take him over Frandsen and Galvis every day. Michael Young is not the problem, nor is replacing him the solution to this team.
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Baseball Reference has him at -0.4 WAR, mostly due to his slumping offensive numbers and horrible defensive score. Currently on the year he is hitting .258/.347/.354, the on base numbers are awesome but outside of a towering pop fly HR over the Green Monster (that is a lazy fly out everywhere else) he has not hit the ball with authority. This has caused the 12 GDPs and an ISO of only .096. He is certainly as big a problem as the rest of the lineup right now. The .301 BABIP is also in line with his career trend.
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All valid points, but I think you missed the reasoning for my reply. I was trying to state that his conclusion of Galvis or Frandsen outplaying Young will make this team in the top level of teams is false. Obviously I would love a upgrade for Young, but are you going to tell me he is the big problem on this team and reason we are in the spot the club is? I say no. Although his offense and defensive numbers aren’t great, I would still take him over Galvis and Frandsen at this point and don’t believe they bring much upside over him besides defensively. How about Bullpen, Delmon Young, Revere (only starting to hit), Kratz barely hitting (although he has hit past few games) Rollins swinging at first pitch? Young the biggest problem on this team, no way. He is one of many which is why replacing him with Fransen and Galvis does not make the team much better
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And Ryan Howard in the 4-hole is killing the team.
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Hopefully it was just an overly euphoric expression of a view that one significant offensive upgrade could make us a wildcard-caliber team. I mean upgrading a position by a +6.0 WAR would be a huge deal, while the Phillies are already sitting 7 games in back of the NL elite after about a third of a season. Making that gap up over a full season requires several +6.0 WAR upgrades.
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Disagree about his HR. If it wouldn’t have been a HR in some other spots I think it would have at least been a double; he hit it very well. I think it’s gone in most places.
I don’t think now is the time to pull the plug on Young. He is slumping terribly but if he can get his BA back into the .280-.290 range and keep up the walks then he’s a net gain, if a small one. And there’s the possibility of building up his value for a trade later on.
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Welcome CD.
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Hernandez gets the start tonight in the 2 hole. Hopefully he takes a couple more pitches.
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Fangraphs has a nice article on age/level nuances with a paragraph talking about Tocci:
http://www.fangraphs.com/blogs/for-prospects-age-can-be-more-than-just-a-number/
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I think he makes an excellent point. Improvement with age is caused by both increased physical maturity and increased baseball experience, causing one to project much greater improvement for the skinny Tocci than for the hefty Larry Greene, Jr. from the same team. Both need to demonstrate that they can hit HRs, before they make it to the majors (unless Tocci is to be simply the second coming of Revere).. Being taller, slighter, and younger, the odds seem to favor Tocci over Greene in developing adequate HR power. That’s a strange suggestion since LGJ is said to have a 70 raw power tool. Unfortunately his actual in-game power rates about a 30 — no HR in over 100 AB this year and just 2 in his 367 professional AB.
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http://www.baseballprospectus.com/article.php?articleid=15295—
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Yes, draft age for HS kids needs to be factored in strongly when evaluating their stats. The counter-point to the young Trout was the extremely old Hewitt. The Phillies failed to discount what they were seeing for the fact that Hewitt was a year older than his peers. The difference between a 19-year old HS kid and a 17-year old is huge.
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Wow. That is a rather huge difference.
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Excellent article, read the whole thing. Definitely gave me a new perspective.Thanks for posting.
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I did not get to watch the game but Hernandez had a good boxscore. Any comments on how he looked overall?
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I was there, he looked good. My guess is, at worst, he’ll be a second division regular. At best, he’ll a borderline star. The actual outcome is like to be something in the middle – an average to above average middle infielder – a 2-3 WAR player. Very useful and inexpensive to begin, but not Chase Utley or Brandon Phillips or Ian Kinsler.
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sorry for the typos
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Jose Altuve?
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Not a bad comp – but with a little more plate discipline and not quite as good of a hit tool. In other words, exactly the type of player that Ruben will trade at exactly the wrong time.
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With Utley perhaps coming back on a 2 vest 3 year deal…CeHe becomes trade phodder.
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It’s getting to the point where the outfield offense is so bad, that having Utley play a little in left, with Brown in right and Hernandez/Galvis at second, might not be a bad option. Even on a two year/third year option contract, I don’t see why you need to get rid of Hernandez. If Utley can play, he’ll always have trade value (if he physically can’t play, Hernandez plays anyway) – so if Hernandez breaks through, you’d have options. If I’m trading Hernandez, I’d really want a guy who the team could sign and keep (think a trade like the Cardinals made for Matt Holiday – enough of the one year rentals, please).
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Holliday was a rental. The Cardinals re-signed him as a free agent.
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He wasn’t a rental because the plan was always to get him comfortable with the team and sign him. So, yes, it was a risk, but the idea was to get him into the fold. And because he was already with the team, no draft picks were lost.
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That’s easy to say with the benefit of hindsight. Holliday had Boras as his agent. The Cardinals were the highest bidder in the offseason. That’s why he signed.
It’s silly to say enough of the one year rentals when the Phillies haven’t done one year rentals, then turn around and cite a trade that was the definition of a rental.
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Actually, you are technically right about the one year rentals for the Phillies. They have gone out of their way to obtain at least an extra year on the contract. So you’ve got me on that but, due to my failure to frame the issue properly, my overall point (which is accurate) is being missed.
The issue is that they have not acquired the type of player that they wanted to keep, or were able to keep, after the trade. Oswalt was no good after 2010 (meaning they essentially rented him for a few months); Pence was traded wtihin a year at a steep discount (meaning the value they got was mostly limited to a few months plus a reduce value trade chip which yielded prospects that were clearly not as good as the ones they surrendered); and they traded Cliff Lee within months after trading for him (thus perhaps costing themselves a second World Series title – dumb asses – and forcing them to surrender further prospects to obtain Oswalt). Now, Cliff Lee being here, did help them negotiate a free agent deal to bring him back, but in the interim, a unique opportunity to win back-to-back championships was gone (and don’t tell me that Roy Oswalt was Cliff Lee’s 2010 post season equivalent, that’s ridiculous).
The point on Holiday is that the Cardinals paid a fair price but were able to sign him and include him long term as a cornerstone of the team. I hear you on Boras, but I would find it hard to believe that Holiday did not stay, in part, due to his comfort with that organization and the city, comfort he gained after playing there.
Soooooo, my point is – if you’re going to give up a big prize package of prospects to get a player, I’d like them to obtain the type of guy who is going to be a centerpiece of this team for years to come.
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Durbin released. Savery recalled
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Brad the prognosticator. Chad Durbin finally put out of his misery; same could be said for Phans. Joe Savery gets another shot in his place. Joe has another opportunity here, though you have to think if this may also be his last
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That’s some way to lose to the Brewers, who are last in the NL Central, for a second straight day. Can’t hit a guy with a 6.35 ERA, $6 million set-up man Mike Adams gives up another homer on a meatball right down the middle, Manuel pinch runs for Howard when they were down 2 runs not 1, had to use Kendrick to pinch run for gimpy Rollins when Martinez should have still been available, and have Martinez end the game with a broken bat looper out of the cleanup spot. Good lord.
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of course, KK was safe at second when the guy dropped the ball, and would’ve scored the tying run. but i agree that manuel’s move left a lot to be desired.
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What an awful way to lose a game. Can’t hit a guy w/6.35 ERA, $6 million man Adams gives up HR, Manuel pinch runs Martinez for Howard down 2 runs not 1, Kendrick runs for Rollins when Martinez should have still been available, Martinez ends game out cleanup spot. Good lord.
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An unsigned Grady Sizemore has resumed baseball activities. With the FO taking so many high risk (and silly) gambles of late, here’s one that I could actually endorse. If he could get back on the field by August he may be worth a look
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I’d also be interested in Sizemore here. If it paid off we’d actually have 2 real outfielders, which looked like a pipe dream a month ago.
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Firstly, there is not often any distinction in accommodation.
Anddes Leiser is involved with Property Miami for over ten years.
Outline a request to their management and see enough time they try respond.
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Both fire damages and water damages are difficult and repair will be slow.
Use a blow dryer to dried the of your computer. Pourr in thee mixed
epoxy sealer after mixingg its two parts together.
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Baseball America Top 30 is
1) Franco
2) Biddle
3) Crawford
4) MAG
5) Tocci
6) Martin
7) Hernandez
8) Altherr
9) Sev Gonzalez
10) Quinn
11) Morgan
12) Perkins
13) Encarnacion
14) Grullon
15) Z Green
16) Rupp
17) Dugan
18) Watson
19) Pujols
20) Giles
21) Joseph
22) Cozens
23) Yoel Mecias
24) Knapp
25) Sandberg
26) Jan Hernandez
27) Collier
28) Canelo
29) Wright
30) Dan Child
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Expect to see Franco in the top 20 of baseball Americas top 100
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