2019-2020 Phillies Offseason News and Speculation

[allentown]

Your premise becomes an endless process. First you add $10 million to protect the $200 million investment, then there is another worry so you add $20 million to protect your $210 million investment, then the team loses a lot of ST games and a SP is getting hammered, so you have to consider trading away the farm to fill that gap and protect the $230 million investment. The problem(s) with this are: there are amateur acquisition penalties for exceeding the lux cap; you never know when enough is enough; spending an extra $50 million may turn out to be iinsufficient; and you may have to cut guys who are ultimately more value to add the new FAs. The FA pool is quite picked over, already. Other than bringing a bunch of guys in really cheap to see what happens pen-wise in ST, I'd sit with what we've got, at least for now.

[andyb]

Surprised to see that Connor Seabold was not invited. He had a good season last year capped off by nice showing in the AFL. He'll be 24 years of age this month so he's ripe for the show.

Probably more of an innings/steady work question. I would bet he still appears in 2-3 games with the big club but there is just no chance he makes the team because he is like 11th on the starting pitcher depth charts at the moment.

Relievers (i.e. someone like Rosso) theoretically have a better chance a the moment.

[zambonir]

You can't run scared and never sign another $10 million reliever again but given what they got out of Nicasio, Hunter, Neshek and Robertson it's hard to fault the plan. All relievers break and many relievers are highly variable so at least make them cheap.

I don't think Ed is saying we need to spend $10 million on a reliever now, but that we should have when Hudson, Harris, Bettances etc. were available. YMMV.

My guess is they break camp at the luxury tax already, once the roster is actually set. The minor league guys still don't count now but the ones who make the roster do. Harrison probably has incentives. Should they get Miller again he'll be $1,000,000 or so, not six figures. And once you call up a reliever or an injury replacement from the minors that's another $1,000,000. They also might lose the Realmuto arbitration. Neris too. Depends whether they intend to negotiate.

They'll have to go over the tax at the deadline.

And we still don't know how January will shake out. A trade is still entirely possible.

[allentown]

Well, 0 for 4 recently for expensive relievers is a fairly strong indication that our baseball people and medical staff lacked the skills and due diligence necessary to identify who was worth giving big $ to as a reliever.

Look at the slugging 1B/corner OFs we gave big $ to in the draft and international over the past 10 years. Didn't do well there either. Our baseball people don't do well judging certain types of players. In the slugger department, we did better with 4th and 5th round guys.

Article in the Athletic looking at the new defensive infielder stats suggests that the MLB Phillies team was the 9th worst in MLB in positioning IFs. It also shows that for individual players the new stat not as repeatable over past few seasons as the older stats. But just another suggestion, can't call it proof with such a new stat, that we are behind the pack in utilizing IF shifts and positioning. We may have a burgeoning analytics department, and they may be learning and improving, but all available info for past two season suggests to me that they are sub-par compared to rivals.

Sarris: Five thoughts on Statcast's new infield defense...

[zambonir]

Well, 0 for 4 recently for expensive relievers is a fairly strong indication that our baseball people and medical staff lacked the skills and due diligence necessary to identify who was worth giving big $ to as a reliever.

I don't really think so though. You'd probably have to sign 100 relievers to have a meaningful sample. Plus Hunter produced in the first year of the contract, and Nicasio was just a throw-in/$ element to the Segura deal. The Phillies could have tried to get Britton or Miller over Robertson but was that really a scouting failure/incorrect choice?

Nearly every team in baseball bombed on their reliever signings last year. A few were lucky (Yankees) and we were especially unlucky. Carrying all four of those guys on the roster was probably a mistake but the young, unproven alternatives weren't necessarily better (or healthier). This year we'll put that to the test.

[andyb]

Neshek was also really good the first time we got him. Now clearly injuries are a risk with older pitchers, but what happened with the Phillies is as much due to bad luck last year as anything else.

I would also throw out that the need to acquire veteran relievers (or any relievers) is as much about what we have currently. That IMO is below average for MLB when you count our existing relief corps coupled with those in the upper minors. Teams do not decide to spend money on relievers because they enjoy spending money. They do it if their projected bullpen is not that good. Saying you can always find good and inexpensive young relievers is a bit of a cop out. You can really say that about most positions. Relievers have a higher variance in their outcomes because of small sample sizes and abusive usage. While we can say one can always find young relievers inexpensively, one can also find bad young relievers inexpensively.

Clearly the bullpen is not a priority for the Phillies ahead of the other moves they made (Didi, Wheeler, etc.). What remains to be seen is whether the Phillies were correct in that assessment. Part of their salary situation is their own doing (the free agents they signed, the Segura trade, etc.). If the bullpen ends up being a problem then it is a problem they created on their own. If they solve it with inexpensive young relievers then that is great. I just don't have much confidence in the Phillies doing that.

[Florida_Sunshine]

I think another way of looking at it is that the Phils prioritized their spend on SP and the starting 8. If we in fact need relievers, they are the most easily acquired at the deadline from non contending teams.

If you try to make everything a priority, you have then made nothing a priority.

[Austinfan]

They're inviting 5 young RPs to camp, so I suspect they don't pay for 2nd tier RPs until they have a good look at their own kids and whether they've made progress.

Any RP available at this point probably has as many questions (health, stuff, consistency) as your own prospects.

[andyb]

Or they invited those kids because they decided not to invest in their bullpen and they have no idea if those kids are good and/or ready. They are the best we have at the moment. They also should not be compared to the bullpen arms that are now left. They should be compared to the arms that signed in the $5-$10 million range over the last month or so.

[zambonir]

Klentak was fairly proactive last year - go out and get a bunch of new position players, put all your chips on a deep and expensive bullpen in flexible roles behind a so-so rotation. This year he's being reactive - bullpens are unpredictable and, it turns out, less important than they were two years ago, so focus on the starters and the line-up while having more defined relief roles (or so seems likely).

I agree you can fix it at the deadline. I don't think the bullpen is going to be the reason we're not in the division race in June. I think we will be.

[Austinfan]

Doesn't the 3 batter rule go into effect this season?
In which case you don't need as many RPs b/c you have to let them pitch deeper into innings.

[zambonir]

Which seems like an argument for having better relievers, not throwing more against the wall.

[schillingfan]

Yeah I was just speculating based on what I usually see happening and what little knowledge we actually have as fans. I suspects whether or not there is surgery depends on the size of the tear and whether subsequent MRIs show healing. Of course every body is different. I guess I was trying to justify my hope that Seranthony will be just fin this year.

[Austinfan]

Also different types of RPs.
The LOOGY is now dead.
The RH who lacks a changeup or 2 seamer to deal with LH hitters is in trouble.

This will make FB/slider pitchers less effective and FB/changeup pitchers more valuable.

[zambonir]

Nick Martini doesn't look like a bad pick-up to me, btw. Career .400 OBP in the minor leagues, not especially great in MLB (though he was in 2018) but still gets on base and can play CF. As a depth/defensive guy probably more interesting than the two minor league deal guys, plus he has an option. If it shakes out that he's still around on Opening Day he's Quinn insurance, basically (while Williams would presumably get the call for Bruce).

[fish]

Nick Martini doesn't look like a bad pick-up to me, btw. Career .400 OBP in the minor leagues,

He looks like the kind of guy that good teams can turn into useful big league piece, though two of his prior teams (st Louis and Oakland) weren’t able to do it and they are some of the best at it. If the Phils are ever going to be good again they need to get good at that.

[zambonir]

Miller was a similar dumpster dive. The Phillies could certainly stand to be better at it and yet they haven't really had any ABs available (until the injuries hit at least).

For now he just looks better than Mahtook or Sczur as the guy to stash in LHV, and obviously our GM still values OBP.

[David_Criss]

I think the bench will be fine with Quinn, Herrera, Martini, Miller, Goesselin, etc. all in the running.
The pitching staff looks much worse this year then it did at this time last year.

25 of the 40-man roster spots are taken by pitchers and by my count there are only 6 solid knowns (Nola, Wheeler, Arrieta, Eflin for the rotation and Alvarez, Neris for the pen). Then it is all question marks and minor league spots.
5 possible future help (Llovera, Medina, Romero, Sanchez, Cleavenger)
4 possible 5th starters with questions about bullpen readiness (Irvin, DLS, Pivetta, VV)
3 coming off of injury and unknown (Arano, Dominguez and Morgan)
2 decent gambles in Kelley and Stock
2 who showed promise in AAA, but struggled in the bigs (Garcia and Hammer)
1 former AAA starter who was put in the pen in Suarez – could he be a 5th option?
1 on-the-bubble in Davis
1 who should be released in Robertson

[andyb]

I feel better about the 5th starter spot than the bullpen. Eflin, Velasquez and Pivetta are rotation candidates because they have the stuff and upside to be there. We also have some credible depth behind them in 5th starter candidates like Irvin even though they might not be better than 5th starters.

The difference with the bullpen is that we really have little at the top. While we have lots of numbers (depth), we have less quality. This leads to guys who would be fine in rolls in the middle or the bottom of the bullpen fulfilling roles at the top. This includes Neris who I would consider to be below average to be the best arm in the bullpen but fine as the 3rd best arm out there.

That is the question of whether it is worth adding arms to the bullpen. I agree they need to be quality arms and there is a risk to any $5 to $10 million deal. Thus what is out there would not help. The Segura trade really cost us that extra $10-$15 million needed to answer that question below the luxury tax threshold. Obviously the Arrieta and Wheeler contracts factor in too, though those were attempts to address the middle and top of the rotation with guys who belong there (i.e. addressing a more important question than the middle of the bullpen).

I think management feels they can address the bullpen mid-season if they need to. I just worry the prospect cost in doing that might be high.

[EDmuch]

Exactly. When they start "addressing the bullpen at mid-season" it will cost us prospects. Andwe don't have all that many "prospects" to begin with.