Discussion

julio 2018-03-26 16:50:37 UTC #523

Just my opinion/guess here, but:

Kingery signed a six-year deal, with extensions to nine years, that is extremely favorable to the Phillies if he meets what they believe his projections to support. If he doesn't continue to develop, the Phils take a hit - but not a particularly large hit. If Kingery does continue to develop, the contract is a bargain.
I suspect the Phillies would be happy to ink an equivalent deal with Hoskins; but it takes two to tango. Hoskins (or his agent) may look at what he did in 2017, and conclude that he would be foolish to agree to a deal that mirrors Kingery's contract; they may conclude that he's much better off to just hit the cover off the ball in 2018, and then they can talk - about rather higher numbers.
Just speculating here, but the Phillies may see Hoskins as more of a risk than Kingery - because his value is pretty much purely his offense; they have him in left field, but nobody's kidding anybody about his flexibility, his ability to contribute defensively at a range of positions. If he doesn't continue to adjust as pitchers identify weaknesses, or if he loses a bit of bat speed as he ages, his value declines. With Kingery, they have a guy who can play several positions where defense is important - which means even if his bat proves to be less than dominant, they still get value. If his bat is real...well, as I said above, this becomes a steal.

This wasn't done as a "rush," DC. Signing this contract bought the Phils two years of additional control of Kingery -- and did so while sending him (and other prospects) a positive message, as opposed to sticking him in the minors for a few weeks just to manipulate his service time.

andyb 2018-03-26 17:20:04 UTC #524

I think that is the real reason, coupled with the fact that the price would be $50 million and not $24 million. Big HR guys tend to get overpaid in free agency and arbitration. The Howard contract is an example of that from years ago.

If I had to guess Hoskins might want to do a shorter deal for 3-4 years, maybe ending before his last arbitration year or two to preserve some flexibility to land a big contract, but get some millions in the bank as a hedge.

allentown 2018-03-26 17:46:14 UTC #525

I think that both the Phillies and Kingery didn't want to see him at AAA for 2 weeks to a month. The third option year is the agent's concession that the Phillies could reluctantly send him back to AAA and gain a 7th year of team control, so this is basically two years of team options. Also, with the explanation that Williams pressed and as a result played lousy at the end of 2016, it is for the best that Kingery knows he is a major leaguer. It is good to be guaranteed $24 million as a young man. Even with fairly free spending, that's set for life and if he is good enough that the options kick in then he has $70 million and a good likelihood of signing a good multi-year deal after this one is over. He is the sort of player who can be a plus at 35 if he continues to develop.

I agree that Hoskins is greater risk going beyond his years of team control, both because he will be bigger $ on an extension than Kingery was and because he probably doesn't age as well.

allentown 2018-03-26 17:47:36 UTC #526

I don't think a 3-4 year extension for Hoskins benefits the Phillies in any way.

andyb 2018-03-26 19:44:20 UTC #527

Probably not unless he just wanted to make it team-friendly. I just don't see a guy who could be a $20 million plus arbitration player accepting half that now for security. So the only thing available is shorter term where we do not buy out the last year or two of arbitration.

andyb 2018-03-26 20:19:53 UTC #528

Knapp and Kingery both go deep today. Of course someone stole home on us so wondering what happened there.

julio 2018-03-26 21:21:05 UTC #529

LoneStarPhan 2018-03-26 22:04:37 UTC #530

The DL continues to fill up with pitchers. Goes to show why they need a stock pile of pitchers who can pitch in the majors.

Luckily, they have a supply of candidates to fill the slots.

donaldorc 2018-03-26 22:33:07 UTC #531

On the radio broadcast today, LA went on and on about how Kingery is the next Chase Utley, and that in fact has more talent at this point than Utley did. Gritty, hard-nosed, blue-collar, no fancy-dancy acts on the field, just all out play with an over abundance of talent. A player that Philly can get on board with.

zambonir 2018-03-26 22:37:11 UTC #532

This is usually CD's department but I don't think you can underestimate the symbolic message the Phillies sent with the Kingery signing. It tells players (their own and future free agents) and agents that they value performance and their own belief in players more than they value manipulating the CBA. Certainly not the message they sent to Maikel Franco.

It also really highlighted the relationship between Kapler and the players and Kapler and Klentak, I think. Kapler obviously wanted this guy on the roster, today, and as a former player, it probably rubbed him the wrong way to send Kingery down. It's Klentak's job to counterbalance that emotion with what's best for the team's business, and in the end he found a way to make everyone happy.

It's also potentiallly very progressive and prescient if the Phillies essentially flip the service time/salary formula on its head of their own accord, before there is another CBA.

andyb 2018-03-26 22:54:54 UTC #533

Fangraphs is almost done with their positional rankings and our starting rotation has actually been pushed up to 14th overall.

Starting pitching here:

There is a convenient pull down also for all the Phillies rankings. Now if FG could get their Phillies prospect list done we can die happy. They were doing NL East last week but suddenly jumped to the Yankees today. Hopefully later this week.

andyb 2018-03-26 22:56:07 UTC #534

There is a possibility of earlier free agency I suppose. If that is the case we just saved a whole lot of money potentially.

zambonir 2018-03-26 23:24:46 UTC #535

Or earlier arb, or higher starting salaries. Which wouldn't matter to the contract but would still look prescient.

Meanwhile though, weren't the Phillies unable to come to mutual terms with Hoskins this year? They gave him a small bump and the automatic renewal, but he hadn't agreed to it (presumably because he wanted a bigger bump). That's more the MLB SOP.

julio 2018-03-27 00:36:29 UTC #536

As has been discussed, I suspect that the Hoskins camp would have been looking for bigger numbers than Kingery got. If Hoskins is real, he'll command big numbers pretty soon. The thing is, if he's not quite the offensive player we thought we saw in 2017... well, he doesn't bring much else to the table. Kingery's a gold-glove candidate second baseman. If the power he's shown in the last year or so is real, and he can manage any kind of decent OBP, then it might actually begin to make sense to talk about him as "the next Chase Utley." (For now, I think that's premature.) They signed Kingery to a contract that - if he's the "next Chase Utley" - is ridiculously favorable to the club. I wouldn't expect Rhys Hoskins to be interested in that kind of contract - because if his bat is real, then he's going to command much bigger numbers. If his 2018 looks anything like 2017, I wouldn't be surprised to see a long-term contract, but with a lot more than $24 million on the table.

donaldorc 2018-03-27 00:42:09 UTC #537

I’m not sure if it will translate into more wins during the year, but this spring has a different feel to it from past years. This is a new direction, a coming out of sorts from the dark ages, and I am impressed with Kapler.

Austinfan 2018-03-27 01:10:30 UTC #538

Even if Hoskins turns out to be everything we think he could be, it might be better for the Phillies to take the six years and then let him walk, the track record of over 30 1B free agents is pretty horrendous. Think Pujols et al. By that time Ortiz will be hitting his prime.

Hoskins will be 30 for his free agent year, so if you can't extend him and he's putting up Howard numbers from 25-29, just remember what happened to Howard, Hoskins will have to show me Thome like discipline and great durability to pay him top dollar from 30-35.

The optimum for the Phillies if he's performing at a high level will be to buy out a couple arb years in return for a couple post-arb years at a market discount. I don't think you can do much more than that with him. Keep him through age 31 and let someone else pay for his declining years.

zambonir 2018-03-27 01:37:44 UTC #539

I just thought it was interesting that the Phillies went the old-school route with Hoskins, and he returned the favor. He's getting $552,500 instead of 545,000; how much more could he have really been asking for and what would it have actually cost the Phillies (literally or symbolically) to give him a little more? I'm not saying they should be trying to extend him or that his small sample is going to make him an all-star (and if he is, he'll get paid). Just saying that even as they made MLB history with this Kingery contract they gave Hoskins the same treatment Howard and Hamels got from the old PTB.

Squire 2018-03-27 01:53:51 UTC #540

Its also completely possible that the Phillies offered Hoskins a similar or better contract extension like Kingery and he just decided to risk it an go for the bigger score.

zambonir 2018-03-27 02:13:32 UTC #541

Also true, though I get the sense that they weren't even thinking this way until they realized they didn't want to mess with Kingery's service time.

It's just that "renewal" is inherently oppositional, this year's non-arb-eligible contracts were mutual for 31 other players.

On another note, I know Randolph still has a ways to go, but at what point do we actually give Almaraz some credit for his first (and only non-small sample) draft? It was also pre-Klentak of course.

David_Criss 2018-03-27 14:01:33 UTC #542

Rupp was granted an unconditional release, so no chance at going to LeHigh Valley, no chance of trading him for even a low A player....