2018 Season MLB Non-Phillies News/Notes Discussion

[andyb]

While we can talk a lot about deadline moves we did or did not make, the most significant move that we did not make was really trading for Christian Yelich before the season. In the second half he has just exploded in terms of power. It is interesting that his walks have gone down from 80 to 54 but his power (31 HRs) and average (.319) are both up. 954 OPS and 5.8 WAR even with slightly negative defense (mainly from when he is out of position in CF).

Price was 4 decent prospects so he did not come free, but this is the move that probably would have won the division for us and we did explore it seriously. Presumably we would not have signed Santana if we had made this trade so Hoskins would have been at 1B.

Mr. Everything: Inside the greatness of the Brewers'...

[flyers19rw]

Not getting Yelich was the organization's biggest blunder since the changes at the top. He was available and linked to the Phillies around mid season last year. Perhaps the Marlins didn't want to trade him within the division. However there was no way that the Phillies couldn't easily have out bid the Brewers to obtain him. Instead the Phillies signed Santana on a three year contract that was a tad over the money that Yelich was owed for five years going into this season. Trading for Yelich would have left Hoskins at 1B where he best fits.
Doing the deal for Yelich probably put the Phillies in the POs. This and a few other things done by the FO don't give me much hope for this franchise making progress in the near future. It has money to spend but it has to spend it wisely. Making more decisions such as the Yelich/Santana one does not breed confidence in them.

[allentown]

It also would have left us with our 3rd round draft pick.

[zambonir]

The Phillies were mostly linked to Yelich when it looked like they were trying to get him by taking Stanton off the Marlins hand, i.e. by not giving up much of anything in trade, just $$$. He'd look good right now but what would a Phillies equivalent to the Brewers trade have looked like? Williams, Haseley, Gamboa, and one of the Lakewood pitchers (not sure Williams enough compared to Brinson so the rest would have had to be better)? Any one of those hurts a lot more than a third-round draft pic too. Clearly the Phillies philosophy was and continues to be preserving what's in the system; the asset they had to squander was money. Many here were also against trading for a starting pitcher for that reason, so we got the aging bargain FA instead.

Also hard to say anybody saw Yelich's quantum leap coming. Or Herrera's fall. At this time last year he only looked like a slight upgrade.

[andyb]

I think the talks about Yelich were a little more than just the price to offset Stanton (though clearly they were intertwined). It made logical sense though that Yelich was a perfect fit for the Phillies as he is a guy with a superior hit tool that pairs that with decent defense. He is the model they have been drafting for lately (Moniak and Haseley) but even before this year's power surge he was fully formed.

Any package to the Marlins almost surely would have had Williams and maybe even Quinn in it. We probably would have given them a more pitcher-centric package comparatively though since that is the strength of our system. So we would have tried to package a decent pitcher (like Eflin) with a good prospect (like Medina or Romero). Maybe even throw in a Thompson or Lively that would be more valuable on a bad team.

The price for Yelich was always going to be high because of the 4 years of control and the modest salary for those 4 years. It is easy to say in hindsight that we should have done it. We all might have thought the prospect price was prohibitive if the deal had been made. It is just interesting to me that we did try fairly hard to get him. It is actually a good sign that Klentak targeted the right guy in a deal even if he was unable to pull that deal off.

[andyb]

Braves and Dansby Swanson and defense. Sounds like the Phillies need a Ron Washington type to make the infielders better. Is Bowa still involved at all in Spring Training? He did have a pretty good relationship with Rollins if I recall correctly.

Rosenthal: An organizational shift gets Dansby Swanson and...

[Austinfan]

What the Phillies really need is for Crawford and Kingery to stay healthy and learn how to hit.
That would solve a multitude of issues, as would Quinn playing 150 games.

[bkeich]

as would Quinn playing 150 games.

I would like to win the lottery also Same odds.

[mdougherty12]

Bobby Evans removed as GM of the Giants:

Bobby Evans steps down as Giants GM

[mdougherty12]

Post-mortem on Arizona, who also collapsed in the second half:

How the D-backs’ Season Fell Apart | FanGraphs Baseball

[allentown]

This seems to be a giant indictment of the Phillies' new approach to analytics and anyone can play anywhere and we know how to position defensive players better than anyone. The lousy defense is not entirely new for us, since our 2013 and 2015 teams also among 10 worst defensive teams. At this stage in his career Cabrera is a 1B/DH maybe LF and Kingery is a very light-hitting 2B. Santana is n ot a 3B and Hoskins is not a 3B. What we needed at the trade deadline was a guy who could actually play SS. If you believe OPS

[Austinfan]

We had him, he was injured (Crawford). Cabrera was a cheap patch.
I'll give Klentak credit, for all the players he brought in he lost only Kilome, Thompson and Lively.
I'm not sure what you'd have gotten by packaging the three in a trade, but not much more than they got for Kilome.
Though I'd have preferred to trade Thompson and Lively for LA allocation money than lose them for scrub veteran RPs.

[zambonir]

In hindsight the decision to get a bat instead of a glove was incorrect but that's only because the bat didn't actually produce. Brookover wrote a column a while back, one that was silly but not necessarily wrong, saying they would have been better this year with Galvis at SS.

They could have also upgraded the catching defense but Ramos still was one (over Knapp if nothing else), and cost nothing.

And they wanted Adam Jones before they snagged Bour.

The bigger problem is the Phillies defense was so poor to begin with that I'm not sure making it worse mattered that much.

Santana can't play 3B? Neither can Franco really.

Hoskins isn't a good LF? Neither was Nick Williams really.

Hernandez was never great defensively. And the two OFs who actually were good fell off the cliff (Herrera overall and Altherr with the bat). Plus you've got Quinn who can't stay in a line-up.

But Kingery was only at SS because of two injuries. As the trade deadline showed there wasn't much that could be done there, either get a hitter who couldn't field like they did, or get a fielder who couldn't hit. Kingery couldn't really do either (at least not yet).

Crawford should have been an answer but he obviously wasn't in the eyes of Klentak and Kapler, he'd already lost the job to Kingery and would have been playing 3B had Franco not come alive.

[Philsmania]

We have two game 163's to decide the winners of the NL Central (Cubs vs. Brewers) and NL West (Dodgers vs. Rockies). My question is that if all four are in the postseason anyway, why don't they just employ a tie breaker to determine the divisional championships?

[andyb]

I have thought that for years. If football can use tiebreakers for 16 games, baseball can do it for 162 - especially when there is head to head with most teams that would solve any tie before you get into lesser category tiebreakers like division record.

The way to make the wild cards a 3-game series gets much easier with no tie-breaking games.

[andyb]

Interesting side story this afternoon. Christian Yelich could be a 3-run HR away from winning the triple crown. He is 1 behind in HR and 2 in RBI (to Javier Baez though who is also playing today). Would be first NL triple crown since 1937 if he can do it.

[EastFallowfield]

Think that the current system of not rewarding wild card teams with the same kind of playoff berth as the division winners is a good one, so let them play it out. Of course, my team has never won a Wild Card berth, so easy to type.

[EastFallowfield]

But if you're a fan of rest over 'staying sharp' the fact that the Braves (worst record amongst all the playoff teams) get an added day off the other four teams in their league don't is a little unfair.

[zambonir]

Regardless of the play-in vs. three-game series argument it shouldn't be that hard to break the ties. The Dodgers were 12-7 against the Rockies this season, for instance. But you could also go division, league or even run differential.

[Philsmania]

Much was made about the AL having three 100 win teams (Red Sox, Astros and Yankees) but it also had three 100 loss teams (Orioles, Royals, White Sox).