2019 Phillies Season Discussion (part 2)

[Philsmania]

I just want to add another of Klentak's goof ups. Sure we all saw that he missed big time on Keuchel in June. But let's not forget that in the off season he could have added Charlie Morton who currently has 15 wins for the Rays. And Morton was not looking for a long term deal and his salary demands were commensurate with his performance. Not being involved in the bidding for Morton was another in the long list of Klentak's mistakes. I have no idea how MIddleton can overlook Klentak's numerous personnel mistakes. I know Klentak was given an extension before the season started, That seemed to be based upon the Segura, Realmuto trades and the signing of Harper. But after seeing how the season has played out and how far off Klentak was in his confidence in Pivatta, Valasquez and Eflin, I cannot believe that Middleton doe not have some very harsh opinions about Klentak's performance.

Speaking with a friend of mine last night, he wondered if their experience with Arrieta may have made them gunshy about Kuechel.

As for Morton, see also to a lesser extent Lance Lynn, another guy connected to the Phillies by way of rumors in recent years.

[fish]

I honestly believe that both Klentak and Kapler need a response to the obvious statement that Middleton is going to make, which is "we added X dollars of payroll, more than any team in baseball this offseason, and the results this year are the same as last year, a .500 team and no playoffs". Both of them better have an answer to that better than "injuries" because honestly if they don't they are in big, big trouble.

I think that if Klentak were left alone he would not have signed Harper...maybe not even Arrieta the year before. I think he realized that the depth wasn't in place to be successful yet and probably wanted another year or two of rebuilding. I mean, the depth isn't there because of his own decisions, but I think he was able to recognize that deficiency. He had to be pushed out of his patient complacency by Middleton. Klentak has a mindset like a Motley Fool investor- buy and hold...patience... patience... patience... and in the long run after the peaks and valleys you will have gained more than you lost if you invested wisely. But he didn't invest wisely, and he didn't build nearly the foundation that the Padres and Braves have. In baseball you don't get 5+ years to wait to find out if what you did worked. The troughs and plateaus mean something- and if it's not kids with a lot of obvious growth ahead of them that are the reason you aren't winning, then it really isn't likely you are going to be a winner in the long term.

[andyb]

Speaking with a friend of mine last night, he wondered if their experience with Arrieta may have made them gunshy about Kuechel.

That explains not offering a 3+-year deal early in the offseason. It does not explain not offering a zero compensation 1-year offer in June.

They were wrong in their evaluation of Keuchel, though they should have realized their rotation had serious problems in June. They chose not to fix that. I think this has little relationship to the Arrieta experience, especially since Jake was pretty good in his first year.

Any GM is going to be wrong a great deal of times. There are so many variables in determining how players perform. The question for Klentak is whether he is wrong more often than his peers. It is probably too early to tell about that, but he certainly gave up on this season and competing for the wild card pretty early when he did have options to add players for cash. If we assume that the owners would have spent that extra bit of cash up to the competitive balance tax line then that is something that Middleton and others need to evaluate.

[schillingfan]

Any GM is going to be wrong a great deal of times. There are so many variables in determining how players perform. The question for Klentak is whether he is wrong more often than his peers. It is probably too early to tell about that, but he certainly gave up on this season and competing for the wild card pretty early when he did have options to add players for cash. If we assume that the owners would have spent that extra bit of cash up to the competitive balance tax line then that is something that Middleton and others need to evaluate.

I feel like it’s a damned if you do and damned if you don’t for Klentak with regard to trade deadline. Last year there were a lot of complaints that all the new bodies showed lack of faith in the kids. This was probably a post hoc fallacy about the collapse. This year our decline started before the trades with all the injuries and people will complain he didn’t do enough. Keuchel was a mistake assuming he could have been had. Obviously Klentak was unwilling to give up any real prospects in a trade.

I originally thought Kapler was safe if the players liked him, but the fans’ knives and sticks are out for Kapler’s blood and he’s the easiest to sacrifice. Kapler is too California for Philly. The fans are too conservative to accept analytics as good management, Kapler has to be the sacrificial lamb. Next year hide the analytics.

[EDmuch]

Charlie Morton is no where close to a Lance Lynn. Morton was an all-star pitcher LAST YEAR. He has pitched like an all-star this year, And all he wanted was a 2-3 year contract. The Rays got him for two years at $30 million total with a third option year. That would easily have fit within the Phils' budget. Imagine if we had had Nola and Morton at the top of the rotation with Arrieta a Number 3 and two of the kids at 4-5. The addition of Morton alone and his current 15 wins would have significantly closed the gap on Atlanta and, at a minimum had us comfortably in a wild card spot. It was malpractice of the highest order for Klentak to have made no effort to to sign him. I am not big on Kapler but to me this situation was primarily the creation of Klentak and his astonishing ineptitude at evaluating the talent on his roster.

[zambonir]

But he didn't invest wisely, and he didn't build nearly the foundation that the Padres and Braves have. In baseball you don't get 5+ years to wait to find out if what you did worked.

Preller has! And it still hasn't worked. Even if the future is bright.

I think you can just as easily conclude from this season that Klentak's patient approach would have been better than Middleton's aggression. But otherwise they needed more aggression (perhaps unreasonably so given they turned out not to have a 3B or a CF on top of the starters and the injuries in the pen).

I don't think you can sit here and say "don't use injuries as an excuse" either. A full offensive line-up and a bullpen with this mediocre rotation is still making the playoffs today. Plus they would have been more aggressive at the trade deadline.

We shall see. Still not sure regime change would be better than giving everyone a third year. Maybe even Young (but the question there is what is the problem? Is it the analytics or his ability to coach the players one-on-one?)

I think the big disappointment is still the sense that the Phillies don't have any kind of edge when it comes to making players better or finding hidden gems. They put all their chips on FIP with last year's starters and lost every bet. It's understandable they didn't love Keuchel and maybe believed Morton couldn't keep doing what he's been doing but they were wrong (though they probably came closest to signing Happ, who would have fit right in).

Safe to say that pretty much every game is must-win from here on in. 12-2 is needed to get to 88 wins (and that only assumes the Nats and Cubs play .500 ball.

lol, I'm just wondering if they can win six games! Which would be 82-80. If you take away the ability for them to say this year was better than last year, even if it's just by a couple of games, I do agree that Kapler could be toast.

[gmwannabe]

i agree edmuch. i thought they should have resigned him 2 years ago, when he left the phils. you could see that he had great movement on his pitches when he pitched for the phils. it was a shame that he injured his leg (hammy i think). they should have never let him go. he has really gotten better with age. hind sight is 20-20 but just the way he was pitching for the phils before the injury, he would have been a great option. i wonder what turned the phils off about him.
gm

[zambonir]

I mean, he's 35 years old. No one can sit here and say with any certainty that he was going to work out. The Astros didn't think so either. (Ditto Keuchel. But I guess we're not good enough to reject the Astros' rejects.)

Of course if Chris Young is terrible maybe it wouldn't have matterd who we got. We're talking abut the Dallas Keuchel who is coached by Kranitz. And the Morton who is coached by Houston and Tampa.

[EDmuch]

Of course no human can see the future with complete certainty. But from a probability standpoint, it seems it was far more probable that an All-Star pitcher would have another outstanding year than that all 3 "never was" young pitchers would all blossom into ML starting pitchers simultaneously over one off-season.

[zambonir]

That's fair. But we probably only needed one of them to do so. Except we also needed Arrieta. And a better Nola early on.

I think it's correct that Arrieta meant they did not want another older expensive pitcher, especially since they were all guys with softer stuff (except Corbin who they actually offered on).

The thing is, Charlie Morton and Dallas Keuchel and Jake Arrieta were all "never was" young pitchers too. But getting traded and getting second chances often is part of that process, so there's probably not much the Phillies can do about it. We'll get no-hit by Nick Pivetta on the Marlins in two years.

[andyb]

We'll get no-hit by Nick Pivetta on the Marlins in two years.

Except he'll probably be on the Dodgers or Astros then.

[Austinfan]

Keuchel wasn't coming here on a one year deal, he was just unhappy we didn't bid up the price to the Braves - he would have required a 2-3 year deal for a lot more money to come here.

Morton wasn't an easy decision either way, it's not like he has a long history of consistency or health. Hindsight is 20/20, but with our luck, he gets 2/30 and breaksdown in June.

Young has been a failure, they screwed up Eflin for a while (right about adding the high 4 seamer, wrong about making it his main pitch), couldn't teach Velasquez better command or Pivetta to throw a consistent breaking ball and/or changeup. Notice they fired the Lehigh pitching coach, I suspect Young follows and they revamp pitching instruction up and down the system.

Vegas had them at 88 wins in the spring, if they end up with 84-85, to me this season is a resounding success - the bullpen collapse probably cost them 3-5 wins. The key this offseason is to extend Realmuto, add pitching depth and find a better pitching coach for both the ML team and the top minor league teams.

[BostonRoss]

You can make a good argument for completely cleaning house. I think Klentak will see the writing on the wall and fire Kapler, knowing that if he keeps Kapler and he fails again, they’re both gone.

[zambonir]

Which is a good argument for keeping Kapler! I still mostly agree with AF (though not about Keuchel, he wasn't asking for multi-year deals in June), the season was not a failure and if Klentak believes his plan his manager should get a third year, because they will win, and everyone will be back in 2021 too. If he doesn't believe in his plan having him change to a new one isn't necessarily a good thing. If the plan is already thought to be a failure than yeah, fire Klentak. Arguably the plan has only failed because the expectations changed.

But clearly this is not a team that's about to change GMs, barring a big surprise. He's probably already interviewing replacements for Almaraz and his development director just made a ton of personnel moves. If there were going to be even bigger changes you'd want the new person to make them.

Clearly in hindsight the Phillies should have signed Keuchel. But on June 7 they were 11 games over .500, had just won three games in a row and still led the Braves by two.

Zach Eflin was 6-5 with a 2.88 ERA.

Arrieta was 6-5 and his ERA had only just started to climb (it was 3.60 on May 25).

Pivetta had already returned from AAA and made three very good starts, including that complete game.

It was completely reasonable to think they had enough starting pitching to get through the next six weeks, at which point they would have traded for Greinke or Ray or Boyd. The only reason to prefer Keuchel was there was no trade price, but a younger or better longer-term acquisition would have been worth it.

[flyers19rw]

Reports are out that Corey Dickerson has a broken foot and is out for the rest of the year.

[mdougherty12]

The Phils should probably keep Haseley and Kingery out of LF the rest of the season, just to avoid whatever curse was placed on that part of the field.

[bkeich]

By that logic no one should take the mound either

[zambonir]

Well they can put Nick Williams there then I guess?

Seriously though - they are not going to go 12-2 and they will be hard-pressed to go 8-6 (which will mean 84 wins). Do you keep managing to win every game or is it time to start evaluating and showcasing some people?

Notably Grullon, and maybe give Cole Irvin a start or two (either over Vargas or to give Nola more rest, why push it at this point?)

Franco and Williams if you think that has any value (Williams certainly can't play any worse at this point. I noticed he wasn't participating in the extra live BP they've been doing for the less-used players either).

[andyb]

After a couple more losses they should start letting some young players play. Give Irvin a start. I'd give Pivetta a start or two also. No need for Nola to pitch his final turn if we are eliminated.

It is odd that they have not used Grullon even to pinch hit or to come in on defense in a game that is out of hand.

And if Dickerson is really out, they should play Williams in LF most of the rest of the way (beside Haseley in CF).

It is not time to do this yet. It might be by the weekend though. They will still need to put representative teams up against the Nats next week also no matter what.

[zambonir]

Sure, you can't put a total white-flag roster out when other teams are still in a race, but we've given Rodriguez, Miller and Knapp enough regular starts that any given day with Williams or Franco or Grullon is not egregious.

If they were trying to win we'd probably still see Haseley in LF and Kingery in CF or vice-versa but that still leaves nobody great for 3B.

Logan Morrison still plays on this team too huh?