2017-18 Phillies Off-Season News/Notes/Discussion

[julio]

Jon Heyman (JonHeyman)

Jon Heyman (JonHeyman)

Jon Heyman (JonHeyman)

[bkeich]

That seems like a lot to have someone throw batting practice

[tom81]

It is a minor league deal so it won’t be a lot if he is not effective.

[andyb]

The article says he is throwing a couple mph faster than last year. He was pretty good in 2014-2016 throwing 90-92. Last year at 88-89 he probably did not have enough separation for his change. Minor league deal. What is there to lose here?

2014-2016: 183.1 IP, 132 H, 50 BB, 187 K.

[Austinfan]

Yep. A good way to spend money, give some bonus money to bring them to camp, offer incentives and if you hit on one o two you have depth and July trade bait.

[nycphils]

Biggest issue is that he may be able to crank it up to 93 in spring training after 6 mos rest, but not maintain that in season, especially back to back nights and after a month or two - my biggest concern would be that those issues show up in the season during games but we end up setting 10 or 15 games on fire trying to hope that the old K rod returns before he gets cut.

[andyb]

Biggest issue is that he may be able to crank it up to 93 in spring training after 6 mos rest, but not maintain that in season, especially back to back nights and after a month or two - my biggest concern would be that those issues show up in the season during games but we end up setting 10 or 15 games on fire trying to hope that the old K rod returns before he gets cut.

If we don't have a coaching staff capable of figuring that out in Spring Training we really don't have much of a chance of doing anything right though. At some point you need to trust your staff and scouts to make these evaluations. And frankly if the velocity disappears after a couple of months you chalk it up to a small amount of money gambled.

We have a new GM. New Manager. Half of our scouts are new. This does not seem to be any old-school trust the veteran type move. It really looks like a scout seeing the pitcher who looks like the one worth $5 million plus a year ago and signing him for half that with near zero guarantees. I'd worry more if they brought someone like Hamels back and he was pitching poorly but they felt they had to keep sending him out there. This has few worries like that and some small potential upsides.

[zambonir]

This doesn't seem like any more of a big deal than when they signed Andrew Bailey. Maybe it will work out better, maybe not. Only real question is whether he has an opt-out.

[zambonir]

The Athletic has hired Matt Gelb, Meghan Montemurro and Ben Harris as full-time staff writers

Matt Gelb: Why I'm joining The Athletic -- to build a new...

[andyb]

I guess if they are going to hire 3 writers for every team in every city that would be a good sign. One could do analytics, one could do day to day beat writing and game stories and one could take more of a columnist perspective.

Hopefully they have the money to do this because eventually it means hiring 100 writers in every sport that has 30 or so teams and a layer of national writers on top of that. That is a whole lot of $5 a month subscriptions.

[phillychuck]

I'll say it again, the Athletic's writing on the Sixers, Flyers, and Eagles is incredibly good. The video play analysis in both basketball and football is really exciting...it makes me look at the game in really different ways. To me, it's worth way more than $5 per month. That's less than one latte at Starbucks, or one Big Mac meal. I've been disappointed in their Phils' stuff, but Gelb is really good.

PS--I think they're running 40% off sign-ups during super bowl week.

[VoteForKalas]

It is very good. I signed up for it 9 months or so ago and it has been worth every penny. So much better then the Inky or Daily News or ESPN etc. I hope they continue to thrive and produce great content.

[zambonir]

Yeah one week free trial and 40% off.

Sounds like Harris is going to write for them nationally too, but he's the analytics/inside-the-lines guy, Gelb will probably be the most like a beat writer, and Montemurro most like a columnist (though their roles may not be so defined, as they can both do both).

Given when they launched it's not surprising they weren't focused on baseball at the time. I liked the coverage that they did but it sometimes seemed like they were actually trying too hard, just to generate off-season stories, even during the managerial search (given how little the Phillies gave people to cover). Now that they are staffed though, I'm sure they'll do a lot more hot stove next year.

[andyb]

I am happy with Gelb. The stuff in the off-season has been hit or miss though. I think there has been one article about free agent pitching in the last month and typically you might see a series of articles that evaluate the field and whether they are good fits for the Phillies. Maybe some probing about whether baseball people are concerned with Darvish's World Series performance. There really has not been stuff like that so far. And while there are other outlets it would be nice for them to add a national prospect writer.

[zambonir]

Their Flyers writer is super-into prospects, will be interesting to see if they pursue that beat.

The off-season has been hit or miss because they were still just using freelancers (including Montemurro). And clearly, they were otherwise occupied with some combination of the holidays, making these hires and the Eagles.

[Austinfan]

Appleyard? I think he's German, but a great source of information on prospects, he follows all the Europeans as well as the AHL and college feeds.

[zambonir]

I actually meant O'Connor who includes prospect stuff in his regular coverage almost daily, but yeah, Appleyard is the specialist.

Hockey is so different though, players in junior, Europe and AHL are all closer to making an impact, or at least easier to evaluate, almost immediately. The MLB writers do a pretty good job covering AA and AAA guys but that is usually it, except for obvious exceptions like a Sanchez or a first pick.

[LoneStarPhan]

Phillies Sign Adam Rosales

Another non-roster invitee to compete for the utility infield job.

[DurhamBull]

Rosales is good insurance in case Valentin flames out and Florimon gets injured, or some combination of dark luck like that occurs.

[Squire]

RHP Mark Appel is taking an "indefinite break" from Baseball