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

[Austinfan]

Where they better starters or mediocre starters protected from going through lineups three times?

[andyb]

I really don't see any harm to baseball with aggressively using the 10-Day DL rule. Even if not strictly "injured" a tired arm is one that can more easily be injured. Don't we want to keep the players healthy? It is not abusing the rules if you use the rules to keep players healthy.

The main reason is for teams to be able to use more pitchers, not to keep those pitchers healthy. It was advantage to the Dodgers because they had more pitchers and also a large lead in their division so they did not have to really stretch their pitchers.

It is bad for baseball because it feeds into the game using 7 pitchers in a 9-inning game. It hurts relievers because it instituionalizes the "throw hard for 1 inning" style of development. That style injures pitchers. It is good analytically because you use up your relief pitchers in their first 6 years before they get expensive. Throw them away and train some other one dimensional pitchers. Unlimited substitution (using 8 defensive lineman) causes injuries in football too even if it is an effective short term strategy.

[tom81]

If you don't like using 7 pitchers in a 9-inning game you should change the rules to address that directly,rather than trying to do it indirectly. If you mandate that any pitcher entering an inning must face at least three batters in that inning, unless said pitcher get injured, you will greatly reduce the numbers of pitchers in a game. You are not going to change the "throw hard for 1 inning" style of development as that style leads to winning baseball. The problem with injury comes when those pitchers throw too many "throw hard for 1 innings."

Using the 10-day DL to rest pitchers or expanding the roster to 27 men, which you advocate, both will lessen the number of hard 1 innings a pitcher will face. I prefer the 10-day DL route but I understand your preference for the other. I just think they are basically the same.

[allentown]

Well, baseball writes a lot of rules. They tend to be compromises between the big market teams and the small market, between aggressive managements and passive managements, between those that want to win and those who want to fight the players and the agents. The Phillies have generally been one of the few big market teams who have studiously not taken advantage of the built-in, agreed-upon loopholes in the rules. This has made it harder for them to win. With the rules now giving them less international money than most teams and giving their opponents bonus draft picks, it will be extremely difficult for the Phillies to win more frequently than the 'pop up then sink' Marlins achieve. Whether or not it is good for baseball, and I don't see it as any worse for baseball than increasing roster size, it is extremely gratifying to see the Phillies stretch the rules for their team's benefit, rather than losing more games and rebuilding more slowly as they stick to 'the spirit of the rule', rather than the actual agreed upon compromise rule. Baby steps, I know.

[flyers19rw]

Andy, I totally agree with your analysis regarding the use of "RPs". It slowed down the game when it began (by LaRusso?). Now too many organizations are allowing their managers to dominate the game. Perhaps the way that this will get turned around is when quality pitchers realize the debilitating affect that this use will have on their career and refuse to be abused like this. Also the market may come into play and sees RPs that go into FA refuse to sign with organizations that would use them in this manner.
Guys like Craig Kimbrell don't grow on trees. I believe that he's had TJ twice already. If he blows out his elbow again, his career will be over. There are other RPs who are in or close to his situation. These guys need to be team players but also protect their careers.

[phillychuck]

I think you might be able to maintain some semblance of health with an 8-man pen where at least one reliever goes 2 (or more) innings in 5-inning starts. It will be interesting to see if the Phils use their pen creatively. And using relievers at the stat of innings doesn't slow down the game at all.

[zambonir]

Is the guess a 9 man bullpen at times means only 4 starters will be in the rotation at the time or does it mean only 3 bench players? I would be more likely to envision it being with a start sent down or placed on the DL and calling up another bullpen arm till the rotation spot is needed again. We also know there are times when a starter gets skipped due to off days which might allow one to be sent down and a bull pen arm to be recalled.

Well, that's a good point. If your "fifth starter" is actually three interchangeable guys you could just keep swapping them and/or relievers without having to worry about the 10-day recall period. Pretty much the same thing as if you expanded rosters but had two inactive players, who would presumably always be SPs.

[phillychuck]

Interesting how you handle the AAA/AA/A/A- pitching in that event. Needs some careful movement of pitchers up and down the system, and on and off DLs. Let's say you DL Lively after a couple of long starts, and you bring up Eschelman--someone has to replace Eschelman on the LV roster, which moves a pitcher up from AA, etc.

And if a reliever (Arano) is sent down because he can't pitch for 4 or 5 games due to overuse, he's not useful at LV either, so once again a pitcher has to be promoted from Reading (and from the teams below). I believe the minor league DL is 7 days, so you can get a shorter DL stay for Arano by demoting him, but you have to be really flexible with roster movement.

[allentown]

Interesting how you handle the AAA/AA/A/A- pitching in that event. Needs some careful movement of pitchers up and down the system, and on and off DLs. Let's say you DL Lively after a couple of long starts, and you bring up Eschelman--someone has to replace Eschelm

It will certainly hurt Allentown's and Reading's record, but the Phillies likely don't care all that much about that. As long as you don't have real injuries, it shouldn't be a problem. As the season wears on though, the minors will be strapped for pitching, because of IP limitations and injuries. Of course that was the case last year at the upper levels.

[el-pietro]

Sorry if this is mentioned elsewhere but I'm just listening to an interview of John Middleton by Jim Salisbury. He just started talking about Fangraphs and different metrics used to measure minor league systems, as well as the importance of getting players to buy into metrics and my jaw just dropped.

This baseball club is unrecognizable from the one we were watching 2 or 3 years ago.

This is the Podcast but I don't see the episode I'm listening to here:

At The Yard with Jim Salisbury

[zambonir]

Middleton family lawsuit settled. Not even half of the MLBAM money for this year (though I guess he only has a claim on around half of that). I guess if they really were afraid of losing the suit (and therefore $1 billion) that could indeed have impacted the Phillies, but it seems doubtful, as he has a lot more money than that, pocketing profits from the last couple of years wouldn't have made a dent either.

Phillies' co-owner John Middleton settles with sister for $22M - Philly

[tom81]

I

I believe that the increased decline of the effectiveness of the starting pitcher after multiple times through the lineup has a lot to do with technology. Players now have access to tape (and I wouldn’t be surprised if some teams have virtual reality simulations) of opposing pitchers. This allows them to really become familiar with a pitcher’s stuff and tendencies and so they can adjust to it quicker now when seeing it live.

Good article in the Atlantic talks about technology and hitting. It’s a great thing that we have finally embraced technology as an organization. I’d love to see the toys the players get to play with now.

Sarris: The newest tech in baseball, and how it might...