2019 Phillies Season Discussion (part 2)

zambonir 2019-08-26 17:55:22 UTC #223

Rodriguez's numbers against LH pitching aren't "fool's gold." He actually did that. It just doesn't make him a good hitter, in the long run, or a good pinch-hitter. There's almost no such thing as a good pinch-hitter anyway. The difference between a .180 PH and a .230 PH (which would be average) is maybe two hits a year.

And Franco can't hit LHP for some reason, so he's not actually better. (He's also a career .171 pinch-hitter himself, not that he's had many chances).

The missing piece here is Quinn. Kind of crazy to rely on Roman Quinn, but he is and was our top RH bench bat.

Otherwise Klentak's biggest mistake was not deciding about Franco before the trade deadline. Remember, when they sent Haseley down (which is looking like a correct decision), it was supposed to be so Kingery would play CF regularly). Then five days later (with the Bruce injury in between) Kingery's the 3B.

The bench was fine this year until the injuries and Herrera's suspension hit. Kingery, Quinn, Bruce and Knapp, with Haseley in reserve and AAAA guys for ballast, nothing wrong with that. At the start of the year it was Williams instead of Bruce and Altherr instead of Quinn, exactly the type of players (young) you'd rather have instead of a Rodriguez. But they weren't actually better than Rodriguez.

Gillick did not acquire Victorino btw.

flyers19rw 2019-08-26 23:24:39 UTC #224

https://twitter.com/matt_breen/status/1166081304795983874?s=21[/quote]
It might have been best to just indicate that a move with a player was an "internal decision" and let it go at that. Now there's a he said; he said, between the manager and his 2B man. The same goes for with what Kapler said about Pivetta when he was sent down. I don't care for players being called out in public. Add to that Franco being sent back down to LV on his birthday and there's some bad form being shown here.

bkeich 2019-08-27 00:11:52 UTC #225

I really don’t like it when Managers take their disciplinary actions to the media. Kapler has clearly improved his game day mangaement this year, but moves like going to the media are the quickest way to lose a dugout.

I think it is safe to say that Hernandez will not be happy. He might accept getting a day of fromlack if hustle, it happened to even great players, but finding out the reason from the media should be an issue for him. Add that to the showing up of Pivetta this week and a “players manager” can quickly become a guy highly disliked in the dugout. I think Kapler might have some damage control to do here, but honestly I am not sure he is even coming back next year, and I assume next year is surely his last if he can’t start getting results.

allentown 2019-08-27 01:02:36 UTC #226

Not really a good thing to say, but would any of us really expect anything different from Kapler. A frustrated manager using his players as scapegoats for two years of problems which belong as much to he and Klentak as to the players. It's a sign that he sees his job as being in jeopardy. I stopped listening to WIP decades ago, during my short drives to and from work, so don't know what they're saying. I have been struck by how harsh the WRTI classical radio newscaster has been toward Kapler on the 7 AM news. Let's just say losing the last series and season series to the Marlins really ticked him off, but it's not the first time he's vented on the Phillies in general and Kapler in particular, with some past comments directed at Klentak as well. Just not what you'd normally expect to hear on the Temple NPR station. In case anyone missed the point, I really hate it when a manager does this and think it is terribly counter-productive. It's an invitation for fans to boo their own players and for the manager to project a tough-serious-guy persona at the expense of the players. Follow the Eagles' approach: "I need to put the players in a better position to succeed." True in spades last year for Kapler, and I think still true. He's not a great in-game manager. If he can't motivate his players on his own without recruiting media thugs to help pummel them and if his staff and he can't teach them a new pitch, find a hitch in their swing, suggest a better stance or timing trigger -- something to improve their performance -- don't throw the players under the bus. This team has a lot of weaknesses. That's due to injuries and a string of bad decisions by GMs and scouting staff going back a decade.

zambonir 2019-08-27 01:10:43 UTC #227

To me it smells like Klentak or McPhail told him to do it, and told him to do it in the media. This was a public relations issue, not a clubhouse issue. And it all goes counter to Kapler's usual M.O. (has he even had a team meeting before, let alone one he told the press about?). He is usually bland and always backs his players. MacPhail had to tell him to be less bland and more critical this off-season, remember? Because the fans want that.

The Pivetta thing I think was Kapler just talking in anger, like Mackanin used to. He said that right after they'd been yelling at each other in their private meeting. Still not good, but it happens.

But yes, if it came from Kapler himself, then he is feeling the pressure - whether from above or from the press/fans/radio. This was purely red meat for the fans who get mad when (usually non-white) players don't hustle, and the press who have written all the stories responding to (or provoking) them.

I think Kapler deserves to keep his job if you evaluate only the team's performance, in the context of what he had to work with (both on opening day and now). But you lose your job anyway if the fans and media aren't in your corner. Obviously the Friday game lit the kindling again.

bkeich 2019-08-27 01:55:33 UTC #228

Dont really agree, if you look at the team's performance in the context of what he had to work with. Every position player (except Kingery) is hitting below his career averages, every single one. If we had a large number of older players that wouldnt be all that crazy, but most of our players are either in their prime or younger than that, and the team is underperforming.

The pitching staff isnt doing well either, it is harder to evaluate because that is where the injuries have really crushed the team, but we are near the bottom of the league in almost every stat.

I can't say I think Kapler has done well at all. Is it him? No idea. Does the manager really influence the play on the field that much, hard to really say. But given expectations and results, it is hard to make much of a case that he has done well.

LoneStarPhan 2019-08-27 03:24:25 UTC #229

I think Kapler is on thin ice. He may make it through this season and continue into 2020 and a major jump forward for the Phillies, making him a successful and beloved manager. Then again, he may not make it to the end of this season. This series with the Pirates and the remainder of the season are extremely important for him.

The Hernandez flap, especially if Hernandez didn't know about it prior to Kapler going public, is certainly not a good PR move. If fact, it is a PR disaster.

I don't like constant unrest with the manager or the GM, but periods of very good success have raised expectations. Miserable play and the failure to beat bad teams are now a serious issue for both the manager and the GM. Patience can run thin quickly with baseball fans.

zambonir 2019-08-27 03:32:50 UTC #230

Managers are just not that important when you drill down hard on player performance or even strategy/wins. But at the end of the day the team is winning more games than it did last year and would, IMO, be easily on pace to win 90 games if things had broken right. Mostly injuries but ultimately Klentak had too much faith in the starting pitchers, and Franco and Herrera too.

And I'm not sure the theory that our individual players aren't living up to their potential holds up to scrutiny:

Realmuto, as it turns out, might be having a career year, because everything about his defensive game has improved here. He's putting up the second-best OPS of his career and may yet have his best offensive season ever. He's one of the best players in baseball.

Harper's well on his way to having a normal or even very good year, especially if you value RISP (which people seem to). On top of that his OPS is currently the fourth-highest of his career (in eight season) and may end up third. The things that are wrong with him were already wrong with him last year.

Segura is actually out-performing his career OPS and has also raised his OBP.

Hoskins' is obviously not getting it done lately and yet his OPS is still second-best on the team and better than last year.

Hernandez is disappointing but I think he's just injured/aging/declining.

Kingery's been great.

And this is a team that thinks with one brain, between the GM, the manager, the analytics department, and the coaching staff. Changing the manager won't change that unless the owner or MacPhail decide to really shake things up.

LoneStarPhan 2019-08-27 04:10:48 UTC #231

This is truly amazing and something I wish the Phillies could approach in 2020 for the eight regular starters:

Austinfan 2019-08-27 04:17:34 UTC #232

Well, add Bohm, get Cutch back and they could approach that.

zambonir 2019-08-27 04:55:55 UTC #233

I just wish we had the Yankees' bullpen. Imagine if we'd rolled the dice correctly (and I use that phrase to mean it's basically luck) on Ottavino or Britton instead of Robertson.

mdougherty12 2019-08-27 06:33:39 UTC #234

The Yankees hit 61 HR against the Orioles this year.

California_Dreamin 2019-08-27 18:11:55 UTC #235

Worth noting that Bryce Harper told Peter Gammons last week when they were in Boston that this has been the most fun season of his career. Said he loves his teammates. Made sure to indicate that he thoroughly enjoyed Washington also but this was his most enjoyable season.

Gammons wrote an article today about Harper for The Athletic.

Mod's edit: For those with access, here's the missing link to the Athletic's story:

zambonir 2019-08-28 01:07:30 UTC #236

Another Athletic article rounding up yesterday's Hernandez controversy. What's actually most striking to me, especially in retrospect given how last night's game played out, are Sean Rodriguez's pre-game quotes. He was willing to call out Hernandez - and Kapler.

“It doesn’t take a lot to ask somebody to show up with everything they’ve got for three-and-a-half hours, so when you see some of the stuff that’s been happening, heck yeah, it’s frustrating. For a lack of a better way of putting it, it’ll chap my ass,” said Sean Rodríguez, who hit the walk-off home run in Monday’s victory.

“It can’t happen,” he continued during an interview before Monday’s game. “It can almost ruin the feeling in the clubhouse, the mojo of what’s brewing. … It sucks at this point. At this level, you have to address stuff like that but sometimes that’s how it is.”

Rodríguez said he would’ve liked to have seen more emotion from Kapler and some of his teammates during the meeting.

(Used to be whenever those of us with a subscription plugged an Athletic article, if someone clicked on it and subscribed we got a reward. No more, so here's my reference link.)

zambonir 2019-08-28 06:47:40 UTC #237

I think the front office should probably stop reading the media. First the Hernandez stuff then the Rodriguez stuff (with Gabe feeling the need to "disagree" with his player) and now this. I haven't even read the column yet but I assume it's Brookover arguing that getting this wild card is more important than anything else, for PR reasons and to save Gabe's job (and ultimately Klentak's). But it isn't.

andyb 2019-08-28 12:41:01 UTC #238

It does seem that Smyly is a worse bet to be here than Vargas next year. He was a good chance to take because the cost was nothing, but we got a false sense of security when 3 of his 4 first starts were against teams that were terrible against LHP. He just gives up too much solid contact in today's game with the lively ball and while he is not as bad as he was early in the season, he's just not that good.

I am guessing we see once around the lineup from him much of the rest of the way, backed by a long reliever/tandem starter once the rosters increase. Starting Pivetta in September might be the best baseball call, but I am guessing we are not going to see that. Maybe Pivetta and Velasquez and Eflin are all seriously flawed, but they are also probably 3 of our 5 best starters on this current team.

flyers19rw 2019-08-28 14:22:21 UTC #239

I wouldn't be quick to write off Smyly. Prior to going down in 2016, he was a promising pitcher. He's still on the comeback trail from TJ surgery. At about this time last season the Cubs shut him down due to his recovery being behind schedule. This season, he's made it through the year and is lengthening his outings. Its not been a great season for him this year but that is usually the case for pitchers two seasons out from TJ. Actually last night he almost made it through the sixth inning with numbers that would have made it a quality start. Perhaps Kapler let him go one inning too long?
As for Howard, he's had some arm issues this season already so innings are probably an issue with him. The plan for him to get time in the AFL. Long term it might be better for Howard to do the stretch in the Fall League after a bit of a rest than spend September pitching in Philly.

andyb 2019-08-28 14:45:23 UTC #240

Pittsburgh is the worst team in the league (30th in OPS) against left-handed pitching. SF was 29th a few weeks ago and has improved to 27th. But still, 4 of Smyly's 7 starts have been against one of the worst 4 teams against LHP and only 1 (Boston) has been against a team above average.

Right now Smyly just is not that good and his stats are somewhat acceptable because of his competition. I would have no problem bringing him back next year on a minor league contract with a chance to make a couple of million at the major league level. He is certainly young enough to get back what he had. He is not there now though and is really not helping the team that much.

flyers19rw 2019-08-28 14:45:30 UTC #241

Matt Gelb has an article up in today's Athletic on the booing/Rodriguez situation. Gelb's point is that the phan base is booing because they are fed up with the length of the rebuild and it's inability to show the improvement in the quality of the play on the field as other franchises has exhibited. The Braves, Dodgers, Yankees, Red Sox etc. have developed far more quality players than the Phillies over the same time. Carry along with that the dearth of potential stars in the minors and the comparison doesn't do much for the Phillies.

Austinfan 2019-08-28 15:57:34 UTC #242

It's Smyly or Irvin, Pivetta is history as a starter, they're just trying to salvage him as a RP at this point.
Velasquez is also on thin ice as a starter.

Guys like Smyly and Irvin have far more value as starters than RPs, b/c they won't get that velo boost.

I think the change in baseballs has really screwed up pitcher development, you almost have to write off a half a season while they make the adjustment from AA to AAA (and we'll see big hitting numbers in the AFL for that reason). Baseball needs to decide on the ML baseball, and make them available to all minor league teams.