2017-18 Offseason Non-Phillies News/Notes/Discussion

[phillychuck]

Some have asked, "What would our equivalent offer for Cole have been?"

I'll take a shot at this...feel free to offer your own analysis.

1. Our closest equivalent to Colin Moran would be Maikel Franco (older, slightly more expensive, less upside, higher floor) or Scott Kingery (higher ceiling, different infield position)

2. Joe Musgrove is probably either VV or Nick Pivetta

3. Michael Feliz is Adam Morgan or one of the other young relievers on the 40-man roster

4. Jason Martin is a throw-in, probably somewhere between Jiandido Tromp and Dylan Cozens

Pirates wanted major-league ready talent. They didn't get a great return.

[andyb]

I think we're a year away from those deals.
Still building up depth and you want to see what your own players can do.
These are the deals you make when you're an 85-90 win team trying to get over the top.
Renting Cole for two years has little value to the Phils right now, and with Boras as his agent, doubt there would be a discount when he hits FA.

Kind of just an excuse to never spend any money. You argue against getting that extra million in allocations for some reason. You argue against spending more in current payroll when that money could be applied to both current and future wins.

Whenever a pitcher like Cole is acquired you then have the chance to extend them as soon as you want. For Cole it is a huge risk to wait 2 years and 400 innings to become a free agent. So trade for him and use the two years of control to get leverage for a 5 year $100 million contract. Which might be less than the 7 years and $150 million that a similar free agent would want while being a couple of years older.

Klentak has shown he wants to be competitive with the Santana deal. Now he needs to show he knows how to do the other type of deal. All this can be done with secondary prospects or money. This team can be potentially competitive this year without sacrificing the future.

[andyb]

Pirates wanted major-league ready talent. They didn't get a great return

And I do this type of deal every day of the week and twice on Sunday. Probably would not do Kingery but starting a deal with VV and Franco is kind of a no-brainer.

[flyers19rw]

If Cole was a top level pitcher, he would have brought a greater return than this. Additionally, the Yankees would have bid harder to obtain him and could have offered a better package than Houston's offer. Aside from being a Boras client which may have deterred some bidders for his services, Cole does have a history of arm issues which may have affected the interest in him.

[zambonir]

Yeah, I just don't think Cole was the guy. He wouldn't be signing an extension. And he's (sorry) not an ace. Still really good of course. I just think he'd have to come with either an extra year of control or bit more WAR between the last two season (a la 2015) to have caught the Phillies' interest, and to have been worth more in a trade.

Conversely, he's probably cheaper than the players the Phillies like for those reasons.

I'll take a shot at this...feel free to offer your own analysis.

Our closest equivalent to Colin Moran would be Maikel Franco (older, slightly more expensive, less upside, higher floor) or Scott Kingery (higher ceiling, different infield position)
Joe Musgrove is probably either VV or Nick Pivetta
Michael Feliz is Adam Morgan or one of the other young relievers on the 40-man roster
Jason Martin is a throw-in, probably somewhere between Jiandido Tromp and Dylan Cozens

To me Moran would be more like Nick Williams (since the Phillies don't have any similar infielders). Franco (more a bust than a prospect) is not good enough and Kingery is too good.

And Martin is the Astros' 15th-ranked prospect, and the Astros still have a good system. I mean, Cozens is probably about right, but he's still highly ranked, are we ready to call Cozens a throw-in?

Maybe Knapp would have been of interest too. Still, let's say Williams, Pivetta, Cozens and a reliever. It is palatable, but I'm still not sure it's worth it for just two years of a guy, when there are alternatives. They just have to actually land one of them.

[Austinfan]

Stroman or Yelich or Realmuto are not worth 7-9 wins, which is what it would take to get from 76-78 to 85 wins.
All three might get you there.

[andyb]

Stroman or Yelich or Realmuto are not worth 7-9 wins, which is what it would take to get from 76-78 to 85 wins.
All three might get you there.

But adding 2 of them is realistic and they would also not be 1-year acquisitions that should only be evaluated based on that single season. A team that is projected to win 82-84 wins would have maybe a 30%-40% chance of making the playoffs this year. If the team could do that without sacrificing top prospects by leveraging their cash resources smartly why wouldn't they do that?

The one question you have failed to answer consistently is how you would use the team's money to make it better. If this team has a $70 million payroll next year they would have failed to use an important resource to make the team better. If that happens it is a failed opportunity and a potential blemish on Klentak's record.

[zambonir]

I still think they'll have close to a $100 million payroll this year. Unless they are able to trade for a pitcher. But giving up on or trading away younger more controllable players (an OF or C or P) to get better more quickly doesn't seem like a clearly good idea either, especially if it doesn't work (which it won't if the bottom of the rotation flops, or players like Hoskins or Crawford disappoint).

It's not leaving money unspent/on-the-table if you don't actually have roster spaces for the more expensive players. Obviously the case could be made for getting a 3B or adding two veteran starters instead of one, but (while i certainly have my doubts) there is merit in giving Franco and Velasquez (and many other pitchers) one more year to find out if they are worth something, whether it's on the Phillies or as trade pieces when the short-term goal is paramount (which will be as soon as next year).

I choose to believe all these reports that the Phillies aren't in on these pitchers and might have to settle for another one-year guy is the message Klentak is choosing to send to agents and opposing teams. Unless there is a flurry of activity in the next week the market conditions are set up for him to get something he can live with, especially with an AAV overpay.

Beyond that though, if it turns out they really are a .500 team (if they are 76-78 now adding one pitcher should take them to 79-81) they will be able to add talent in July.

I hope I'm wrong but when a couple of the young, still not fully established players disappoint this year, we'll be glad the Phillies have the money and depth to make 2 or 3 big moves going into 2019.

[flyers19rw]

McCutcheon to SF pending physical. No word on who is going back to Pitt.

[andyb]

I still think they'll have close to a $100 million payroll this year.

They are at $63.7 million now. Long way to $100 million. They really should strive to add $50 million or more though.
They just need to do SOMETHING with the extra cash instead of wasting it. This means getting prospects in order to pick up a bad contract. Or signing free agents for only money. Or trading for expensive arbitration-level players.

This is about maximizing their resources. They can afford to overpay to pick up talent because adding some talent is better than nothing. I do not know why people think this strategy is so controversial when the Yankees and Cubs and Dodgers and Red Sox do it all the time. It is a strike on Klentak's record if he is unable to get this done.

[Lawman]

I saw one name confirmed. Kyle Crick

[California_Dreamin]

And #4 prospect Bryan Reynolds, who is a good one and likely to be the key to the deal for Pittsburgh long term. All-American in college, was a 2nd round pick that most scouts felt could have gone in the first. As soon as I saw Cole was moved I figured McCutcheon was coming soon.

[andyb]

Fangraphs has moved their Hardball Times Annual articles online instead of publishing a book. Some interesting stuff here. Assume it collects articles from the past year.

https://www.fangraphs.com/tht/tht-annual-2018/

[Austinfan]

This article is a strong argument for sinking an extra few million into scouting:

The State of Scouting | The Hardball Times

If you find one gem a year by extra scouting in the low minors, it'll pay off the investment, and there are no limits on what you can spend on scouting and player development.

[schillingfan]

This article is a strong argument for sinking an extra few million into scouting:

The State of Scouting | The Hardball Times

If you find one gem a year by extra scouting in the low minors, it'll pay off the investment, and there are no limits on what you can spend on scouting and player development.

I cannot think of a single poster on this site who has ever opposed spending money on scouting. A few extra million, sure, we have it and should use it to pay money to the best or analytics or whatever. The argument you do get is that you keep making an "either/or" argument, with your "either" being a less expensive alternative, which you call spending money "efficiently." I wouldn't support spending more money on scouting as opposed to paying a monetary penalty for exceeding the allotments for draft and foreign talent. We can afford to do both, we don't need to choose between the two.

[allentown]

The other AF argument, which I believe very deservedly receives pushback is that a new GM in the process of revamping the teams roster of scouts, their alignment, and methods can stand back and spend less on draft and international talent and FA talent during this evaluation/transition. The Phillies should always be improving their scouting and development personnel and methods and this is an unregulated area where we should be among the top spenders, but scouting development personnel and bonus spending are synergistic. Bonus spending is also use it or lose it from year to year. So, each year the team needs to get the best talent it can, pedal to the metal, using all the human and financial resources at its disposal. Then is reassesses the results and makes necessary tweaks, but the way to progress is to maximize the talent haul each year. One available resource is space under the MLB salary cap. This needs to be mapped out over the next half dozen years, in multiple, changing scenarios and put to optimum use year in and year out. Optimum meaning to maximize the value over that 6-year horizon. If the team gives contracts longer than 5 years, then it needs a little longer evaluation horizon. This must consider guys on the major league roster aging into lower performance, up and comers at all levels of the organization, and Rule 5, major and minor league FA and trades. Plan for excess talent at a position, as well as talent dearths at a position, before you are over a barrel and forced into a well less than optimal action. A complex linear programming model would be interesting to develop.

[zambonir]

I don't think it's a good thing that the new GM may have spun his wheels for a year or more, but I don't think it's a good thing the team spent more than a year without a full-time president or empowered general manager either. Yet, it happened. We have often observed that Gillick and Amaro did a good job jumpstarting the rebuild based solely on their trading activity but I suspect that from September of 2014 until October of 2015, the front office didn't do a whole lot else, or at least, there was nothing new or aggressive, and a lot of lame ducks, and people without a boss. If MacPhail and Klentak decided the draft and international wasn't the most important thing in a year when they had the most to spend that would be unfortunate. But international talent still strikes me as finite. (Domestic talent, it's basically understood, is finite, by the time you get to the last 10 rounds you are just spending token cash on token players.)

I'm sure this group, with its 20 new analysts and so forth, has plenty of five-six-seven years plans, for salary and the depth chart, and for targeting outside players.

The fangraphs article is very interesting, for lots of reasons. Spending a lot of money and resources on scouting and the front office is an easy call. It probably costs less than a relief pitcher to outspend every other team. But Monty and Giles and that whole crew (including yes, Amaro - it will be fun to read Amaro revisionism going forward but his opinions on analytics and OBP were pretty explicitly stated) - never saw that.

[tom81]

I highly recommend listening to this podcast interview of Brian Cashman. I’ve always hated the Yankees but I do admire the job Cashman has done and I had a Steinbrennerish boss before so it was interesting from that aspect.

http://m.espn.com/general/cast?id=2386164&src=desktop

[Philsmania]

Rangers sign Bartolo Colon to a minor league deal. He and Adrian Beltre are the last MLB players left standing from the 1990's, and the Twentieth Century for that matter.

Rangers, Bartolo Colon Agree To Minor-League Deal

[Austinfan]

We would spend unlimited amounts of someone else's money in any circumstance.

However, owners may be willing to buy success, but they may not be willing to do so if there is a string of expensive failures - it is after all, their money being spent.

So it behooves a GM to spend money efficiently to maintain his owner's confidence in his decision making.