2018-19 Phillies Off-Season News/Notes/Discussion

[andyb]

But you can't really do any of it until the Machado or Harper shoe drops. The former affects the entire rest of the infield except for 1B and the latter affects the entire OF as well as, potentially, 1B.

That was kind of what I was getting at strategically. Figure out what expensive game-changing free agent you can get. Then shuffle the deck with a few trades because in many instances we have productive players in the wrong roles. We are actually wasting some of our talent by playing them out of position.

Maybe in hindsight Santana was signed for his veteran presence and how he might teach some of his approach to younger players. Maybe that was a mistake because they got enough out of their young pitching to compete this year, and then Santana forced as many bad things defensively as good things offensively. They probably did not truly believe they could compete even though their free agent signings obviously made the team better. I think I said before the season it might have moved up their postseason odds from something like 10% to more like 30%-40%. 5 extra wins did that. But since the percentage was probably still below 50% they thought the good from Santana (approach) was more important than the bad (defense).

[tom81]

I'm in the minority again but I think this team will play more like they did in the 1st half of the season in 2019 and with the additions they will make in the off-season they will be right there in the hunt for the division. The young guys and new staff went through growing pains this year and I believe they will be better off in the future for the pain. It pointed out things to work on, both for the players, coaches, and for the GM. I think they will add 2-3 major pieces to the team in the off-season, probably both via trade and free-agency, both what exactly they do will be guided by their most pressing needs and the market conditions. The things I think most likely are:

1. The addition of a middle of the order bat, most likely one that plays either SS, 3B, or OF.
2. The addition of a second middle of the order bat, most likely one that plays OF, 3B, or C.
3. The addition of a left handed SP.

Names that come to mind as possibilities are Machado, Harper, Arrenado, Ramos, Suarez, Yusei Kikuchi, Corbin, Bumgarner, Kershaw. Who they land is an unknown but they have around $80 million available to spend before they get to the competitive balance tax, based upon estimated arbitration expectancy, so I expect they will spend at least half of that amount.

[andyb]

There is probably something to be said about the September managing of the 40-man roster. I don't discount CD's and others' observation that the addition of veterans displacing the young players would not have been a positive. Though realistically the bigger thing is that Cabrera was just so bad defensively and then did not have an 800 OPS so he just did not make the team better. Of the other early trades Ramos was hurt half the time and Loup was also hurt and ineffective.

Then Bour and Bautista contributed to the problem of the 40-man roster managing.

That is a separate problem. When we went from managing a 25-man roster to a 40-man roster we suddenly gave lots of players new roles. Pitchers like Velasquez were told to throw hard for a few innings and then would likely be pulled. I submit that the change in usage for all the starters not named Nola might have taken them out of their routine and hurt their confidence. It is less of a problem with players like Kingery, but it can't do wonders for your confidence to be pinch hit in the 2nd inning.

So maybe we should stick to something in the 30-32 range in future years to keep the players that got us there in some semblance of their roles and have enough players to make traditional moves and get the bullpen rest. But not enough where half the roster is sitting around wondering what their role is.

Or just hope baseball has a "designate 25 man roster for each game" rule to prevent these 4-hour 9-inning monstrosities from happening.

[Austinfan]

The problem with the young pitchers was simple, they were pitching longer and under more pressure than they had in their careers, and they're works in progress, look at Eflin throwing changeups his last start, if he could consistently throw a plus changeup he'd throw fewer FBs, less wear on his arm, more weak contact and more IP. And so on. Arrieta wore down and his command deteriorated, Nola is hitting 200 IP this year, far beyond his previous high.

I doubt we have a shot at Machado, and Harper is not a "game changer," he's a slight upgrade in RF.
Any other 26 year old FAs this year?

Patrick Corbin is the only pitcher worthy of a real contract, and he scares me, two mediocre seasons, followed by a big contract year performance, he's a guaranteed disappointment if you''re expecting 5-6 WAR, his two best previous years were around 3 WAR. Durability is also an issue, he's not a workhorse and you have to wonder if he'll hold up. His money pitch is his slider, but he lost velocity on his FB this season. He's also been aided by a good defense.

If you want a read on how good our starting pitchers actually were, check the chart toward the bottom of the article that gives xWAR and see how they rank among all SPs:

Defense, Contact Quality, and the NL Cy Young | FanGraphs Baseball

[Lucky_Beagle]

Bohm is far away. I understand by level is has a long climb, however he is 22 years old. If he is going to be an elite player than he needs to sky rocket through the system in the next 2 years. If he is on a slow path maybe he becomes an average player for a few years, but I can't see him become a star.

AF ask how many other 26 year old FA...How many players ever become a FA at age 26? How many players actually start their careers before age 24? How many of the current young Phils were thought to be so good they forced their way onto the team by age 22?

[andyb]

We actually don't know if the pitchers wore down from overuse. None had a huge amount of innings for their age. Arrieta's velocity was just fine. It is equally possible their luck evened out, and maybe they were not as sharp as their roles were in flux.

That chart you reference shows our young pitchers were pretty good. Nola was a little lucky with home runs and that evened out at the end of the year. Eflin, Velasquez, and Pivetta all had records a bit worse than their peripheral stats which could easily be explained by bad defense.

There is as much evidence of that as our pitchers wearing down. The defense was awful. It got even worse in the last month with Cabrera playing SS and Santana playing 3B.

Our starting pitching is a strength. That does not mean we should still not look for a left-handed starter (Corbin or Kikuchi or trade). And shuffle the deck a bit with a plan that gets us a better defensive team. Doing little is not the answer here unfortunately as this current team has flaws. Not just lack of experience. Actual flaws.

[zambonir]

The late-season quick hooks for our starters didn't seem like a real problem to me. We got a lot of good games from the bullpen. That we also got a few bad innings was inevitable, and not necessarily worse than what the starters would have done.

It's hard to imagine the nature of the 40-man roster will allow for actually carrying more than 32 or 33 players in future years. This year was unique, between stuffing a few extra vets on the bench and having so much available talent in AAA (I use the word "talent" loosely). In some cases it was as much to reward players (including the two guys who either had to be activated off the 60 or released) as to give Kapler more bodies. They would have gotten by just fine without the AAA starting pitchers, Walding, and Cozens if they'd wanted to. Next year there will presumably be more players on the 40 who won't be ready for a call-up.

[flyers19rw]

We actually don't know if the pitchers wore down from overuse. None had a huge amount of innings for their age.

Its been said with young pitchers that adding 20 innings per season or a ten percent increase is what should be expected until they reach their full maturity as a starter.
-Nola is up to over 200 IP from 168 last season. He probably should be shut down.
-Pivetta is at 159.1, lower than the 165 he threw last year after doing 148.2 in '16; 129.2 in '15; and 132.1 in '14. He probably has a couple of short starts left in him this year
-Eflin is at 125 this season up from 119.2 last year but he threw 131.2 in '16; 131.2 in '15; 128 in '14; and 118 in '13. Like Pivetta he could go for a couple of more short starts this year if his knees aren't hurting him.
-Velasquez is a unique situation with his past arm issues. He's thrown 143 innings so far up from 82 last season and has up and down years for IP in the past. 136 in '16; 88.2 in '15 and 124.2 in '13. Out in '14. How much more he could throw this season is dependent on his health.
All in all Kapler probably deserves some credit with the way that he used these young guys. Arrieta has been a disappointment in that the Phillies probably expected more quality IP out of him than he gave them. Not being in for a full ST was not a positive thing with him.
Klentak most likely saw the IP issue staring him down in last year's off season and it was the reason that he nabbed the FA relievers that he did. The BP was going to get used heavily this year. Again, unfortunately the vets got hurt which put some of the young guys into positions where they were overworked and it showed in the last seven weeks. The rancid defense that has been played behind the pitchers this year has been no help to them at all.
The SP and RP for the Phillies has not been a huge problem this season. Both are statistically in the middle of the pack for the NL. Its been a marked improvement from the last few seasons.

[andyb]

Velazquez is unique because he is also a little older. 143 innings this year (or probably up to 160-170) is just fine for a pitcher his age. The number is most important for somewhat younger pitchers and some of Velazquez' injuries were not arm-related. It has been reported that the Phillies have told him to throw hard for 2-3 innings. I think that messed him up to some degree because it got him away from trying to manage his pitches and really use his entire arsenal.

The only real IP issue was Nola. And the team was not going to back away from it. To some degree his innings have been a bit easier than others that have thrown 200. He economizes pitches pretty well. Maybe they should have not done the every 5th day thing regardless of the rotation on a young pitcher, but it is hard to complain about his usage and the increased HR rate of late could easily be luck shifting.

[tom81]

-Eflin is at 125 this season up from 119.2 last year but he threw 131.2 in '16; 131.2 in '15; 128 in '14; and 118 in '13. Like Pivetta he could go for a couple of more short starts this year if his knees aren't hurting him.

Eflin has also thrown 20innings in the minors this year so he is at 145 IP this year. It looks like he will get two more starts so he should end up a touch over 155. I also don’t see any risk in his workload this year. It’s actually somewhat fortunate for our young pitchers health that we won’t make the playoffs, I think the extra innings may have been risky.

[gmwannabe]

i have hope for the "young pitchers. elfin and pivetta seem to mirror what Folty did at the same age last year. hopefully they can each have a baby and grow like he did for next year. how are the phils looking in the '19 draft now?
gm

[andyb]

This could be in the international thread but since he is 27 it probably belongs here. Yusei Kikuchi is the Japanese left-hander that will likely be available this winter. The market will not be as hot as it was last year as his 2018 was not quite as good as his 2017 and he did miss a few starts on the DL in the middle of the year. He is a left-handed starter that sits 92-93 with 3 major league pitches (including a slider and change). Number 3 type starter most likely.

He should not be anywhere near as expensive as Corbin and obviously won't come with draft compensation. There will be money from the posting system that has now been revised and is based on the guaranteed money in the contract. 20% of the first $25 million. 17.5% of the next $25 million. 15% of everything above $50 million. Thus a $100 million contract would have a $16.875 million posting fee. $150 million would rise to $24.375. Real money but something the Phillies could handle better than most teams.

https://fancredsports.com/articles/jon-heyman-meet-yusei-kikuchi-the-next-big-impor

[EDmuch]

Another lesser name that perhaps should be considered is Chris Heaney of the Angels. He has shown promise but has also been inconsistent. I would love to see what Kranitz could do with him. I am sure we could work out a trade for him. Of course, Duffy from KC could also be a target. Again, i am sure we could work out a trade for him. I like what Kranitz has done this year with the young pitchers and it could be interesting to see what he could do with Heany or Duffy.

[EDmuch]

I have also slowly come around to the idea that we should probably pursue both Machado and Harper. There are no more cavalry at LV to come to the rescue. And I do think we need more than one more power bat in the lineup.

[bkeich]

IMHO, Santana has to be traded or play 3B full time, allowing Hoskins back to 1B
So Santana or Franco has to be traded.
The OF has been a mess (except for Quinn, who can't stay on the field) for 2 months, since Herrera went into his slump. Upgrading that group will be a challenge.
Machado has to be the #1 target.
Do you keep Ramos?
Probably one or two of Crawford, Hernandez, and Kingery are possible trade candidates (depending on Machado).

There are a lot of chess pieces that might be moved, Klentak has to step up his game.

I agree with your ideas, but I think you are being wildly optimistic about Santana. If he was even a possibility of being a 3B they would have tried that in past years, I think he is ok as an emergency or for an inning or 2 a month kinda guy to allow for moves to be made, but he can't be our starting 3B. Sadly this means he may be completely untradeable, so I think we are stuck with Hoskins in LF for at least 1 more year.

I think that is not as bad as it has been. Hoskins needs time to get better as an OF, he is athletic enough and apparently a hard worker. We are talking about LF here, it is doable. No Gold Gloves, but not the worst defender in the league again.

[andyb]

Santana did play 26 games at 3B in 2014 when the alternative was Lonnie Chisenhall. By 2015 Jose Ramirez had taken over the position so there was no need to look at Santana there.

I don't think Santana is that good at 3B. But neither is Franco and short of this team getting Machado for either SS or 3B I think you have to think about it if Santana remains on the team.

[Austinfan]

If you don't think the Phillies are ready to contend in 2019, then Hoskins mastering LF to the extent of being competent before moving to 1B adds flexibility, the same way Kingery learning to play SS and relearning OF, Crawford playing SS and 3B, etc.

Now I don't recommend as much shuffling as Kapler was doing this year, but injuries happen and the ability to move players around for a month to compensate is a big competitive advantage, as are bench players who can play multiple positions and who are real switch hitters (Knapp, Quinn, Santana). A smart manager can manage to avoid bad defense but still get his backups 300-400 PAs and keep them sharp and set optimal lineups against tough pitchers.

I do think "cross-training" should start early in the minors, identify what a player can handle then have him work on it, like they've been doing with Luke Williams.

[allentown]

No problem with cross-training our players at multiple positions in winter ball and ST. When the regular season starts, my strong preference is for them to play at their best defensive position 80% of the time, with perhaps 20% at their second best position, just to their defensive skill at the alternate position. That is enough to cover for injured players. I guess ideally, the bench would be good enough that a bench guy could cover for an injury, at least short-term. Very ideally, we have a stash of good AAAA players and minor league prospects at AAA who can fill in when needed longer term.

[zambonir]

It does kind of remind me of the old QB/hockey goalie saying: if you've got two, you don't have one. That was basically true of 3B and SS this year. But it all depends on Machado and Cesar really. Whatever they do there will seal Kingery's short-term fate, as well as Crawford's and Franco's.

[EDmuch]

Did anyone read the Athletic article about how much the Braves improved their defense and how many it contributed to their winning margin over the Phils, particularly Dansby Swanson at SS?