2019 Phillies Season Discussion

[zambonir]

I don't think anyone can disagree with MacPhail's quote. But I'm not sure even a Phillies team that led the NL East by five games was one trade away from the World Series, or should have been trading any Top 5 prospects (we don't have that many "crown jewels" to begin with).

"[It's] hard for us to make the judgment now that we're one trade away from the World Series," MacPhail in a 15-minute session in the dugout before the Phillies opened a series with the rival Washington Nationals at Citizens Bank Park. "As a result, you're going to have to be more judicious with your playing talent. It doesn't mean you can't make a different type of deal, doesn't mean you can't make a deal where a component is taking on somebody's salary. But I think you start to be protective of your crown jewels in the system."

[fish]

Curious to know what the general consensus is on feelings on MacPhail. I find him to be unlikable. Every time he talks I feel like he’s mansplaining baseball to agitated fans.

[zambonir]

Well, he's the new Monty, who was the new Giles. The only difference is he's a baseball lifer and former GM so the media cares more about what he has to say. Hard to really know who makes the ultimate decisions there - or will this month at least.

He's not wrong that the rebuild is sort of on schedule if they make the playoffs but comparisons to the Cubs and Astros (both their talent and their achievement) aren't very favorable at the moment (and there also weren't two wild cards then and both those teams were division winners anyway). They had to give up a lot more (in trade and cash) to get to this point, and it's still not there.

[Jazzhead]

The Phils have followed a strategy of acquiring hitting and developing pitching. At least this year, it doesn't appear to have worked. I agree with those who favor keeping our prospects (most now on the hitting side) rather than trading them for a better shot at a wild card spot. The Braves have turned themselves into a powerhouse, and it's hard to see us catching them. I say we go with what we've got, hope that we finally get some Twin-H power (Harper and Hoskins hot at the same time), and that our pitching regresses to the mean. If we get a wild card with what we've got, solid. Otherwise, the rebuilding resumes next year.

[flyers19rw]

According to an article in the Athletic, it comes out that Arietta knew that he had a bone spur situation near the end of last season. Why wasn’t it looked into at that time? Did the pitcher keep it to himself?

[allentown]

Well, they've stated that strategy, but that demonstrably is not what they've done. Especially when dealing with 16-year olds, it certainly is possible to unearth and develop hidden pitching gems in Latin America. It can be done with H.S. kids in the draft, as well. But, this is neither a sure approach nor an approach aimed at "acquiring hitting and developing pitching". If you are going to adopt that philosophy, then you need to tilt your draft and international bonuses towards pitching. Nola was our last HR in the first round of the draft. He is also the last pitcher we spent a first round pick on. Internationally, no pitcher has reached the $1 million we gave to Encarnacion, let alone the $4 million to Ortiz. It certainly is possible to develop middle relievers from later than 3rd round college pitchers, but it's also possible to develop your bench from those lower bonus draft picks. The current baseball approach gives an MLB roster of 13 pitchers to 12 position players, but the reality of injuries and tired relievers actually makes the disparity between number of pitchers compared to number of position players to make it through a major league season even more unbalanced. You need more pitchers than hitters, yet we have focused our bonus $ upon hitters. Our approach seems to be to get lucky finding hidden gem pitchers in LA and later in the draft. That hasn't worked. It's a shame, because our scouts and development guys seem to do much better with LA and H.S. pitchers than they do with hitters. From Ruiz to Howard to Hoskins, the Phillies have 'gotten lucky' with low bonus hitters more than they have with low bonus pitchers. It just seems the opposite because there are always more 'promising' pitchers on the farm; the vast majority of them have flamed out. Interesting question: when is the last time the Phillies hit a HR with a H.S. position player in the draft? I think it was Rollins. When is the last time we hit a HR with a LA position player? Ruiz certainly counts. Hernandez? I think I'd count him.

[nycphils]

According to an article in the Athletic, it comes out that Arietta knew that he had a bone spur situation near the end of last season. Why wasn’t it looked into at that time? Did the pitcher keep it to himself?

I saw that too and had the same reaction - Arrietta undoubtedly kept it to himself. Very pleased that we are only stuck with him for one more year.

[kmc1019]

Phillies 4 - 16 in the past month against teams other than the Mets.

[Patchmk88]

The two offseason trade look pretty bad as of right now.

[allentown]

The trade was made to boost the 2019 team. It did. The biggest mistake was over-rating our own pitchers and the older relievers who were signed as FA. Part of the off-season was aimed at ticket sales. Alfaro, Williams, Crawford weren't popular, either with the fans, or I suspect the manager. I thought at the time (still do) that the trades being successful depended on a few things:
1. Realmuto's prowess as a defensive catcher significantly boosting the pitching staff. I think this is one reason the team expected the pitchers to do better on the whole than they did in 2018. It seemed they were really down on Alfaro's defense and managing the pitchers. Realmuto's D has been as advertised, but he hasn't significantly boosted the pitching.
2. Adding a big FA bat. They added Harper, whose offense has been a little disappointing thus far.
3. Whether Sixto could get healthy again and stay healthy enough to be somewhere between a #1 and #3 MLB starter. He has returned to health. Still has to stay healthy for a while to reach MLB. If he becomes a #2 MLB starter, then we got creamed in tis trade. The Phillies were in a better position than anyone to assess Sixto's long-term health risk.
4. The Phillies saw a lot of starting pitching prospects to replace Sixto and felt they could afford to trade him. In addition to Sixto health, the success of those minor leaguers bears on the wisdom of this trade. Howard has been hurt and just about all the other prospects they counted on haven't fared well the first half of this season. If Howard were healthy and ready to join the Phillies and Medina, Irvin, De Los Santos, Gowdy, Morales and Garcia were doing better, the trade would look better.

Crawford is playing well, with almost an .800 OPS, although he started the year in the minors. His D is neutral. For some reason, the Phillies seemed very down on him. Playing him at 3B in 2018 did him no favors. He was hurt a lot and likely just wasn't ready for MLB (the same likely true of Kingery, despite a great ST, and he also likely wasn't helped by playing out of position last season). Despite starting the season in the minors, Crawford has 1.5 rWAR, so he is now racking up WAR at about the same rate as Segura. He likely is the better player going forward, but that may well not have happened in Philly.

[andyb]

Crawford has 1.5 rWAR, so he is now racking up WAR at about the same rate as Segura. He likely is the better player going forward, but that may well not have happened in Philly.

Which is a pretty big indictment against the Phillies. There was just no reason to play Crawford at 3B last season when he was healthy and Kingery was the alternative at SS. We can't blame the player here. That was the team's decision and likely some combination of the major league coaching staff (Kapler) and Klentak' staff.

That decision was wrong. It really appears that they let personal issues get in the way of a baseball decision and they have themselves to blame for that.

[LoneStarPhan]

Just based on observations as a fan, I have to say the Phillies management has not done will in the past year. Long term remains to be seen.

Certainly Arrieta hurt both himself and the team by not getting his bone spur problem fixed in the off season. I find it hard to comprehend that he would act so foolishly and irresponsibly. It could end up costing him millions and has certainly hurt the team.

[zambonir]

Seeing as how he'd had a bone spur before, as well as bone spur surgery before, it doesn't really bother me that Arrieta tried to pitch throught it. He said he didn't really notice it affecting him until spring training and obviously it wasn't truly affecting him until recently. Surgery should always be the last option. There's no reason to think surgery would have even been advised in November, nor do we really know if having it would have actually made him a better pitcher this season. If he does have it, we might be looking at a much older, two-time surgery pitcher with even less command and velocity at the end of his career. (Cliff Lee, we may recall, simply decided to skip his last surgical option and retire).

Ultimately it's on the Phillies that they are willing to keep putting him out there. They could certainly insist he have the surgery but then his season is over and obviously they don't have any better alternatives for the rotation.

[flyers19rw]

I'm going to take a minority stance on the issues laid out by A-town. Neither Harper or Realmuto's play has turned me off at all. Both of these players have had to become familiar with a new team, and other on field circumstances as well as having pregnant wives. One would have to believe that these things would impact their play to some degree.
Time will tell on the Realmuto trade as to whether or not it as a wise move. He's an AS catcher; Alfaro isn't at that level and may never get there. Sixto has had arm issues and more may come for a pitcher his is not physically dominant and throws as hard as he does.
Segura is a very good SS with a strong resume. There was something off with the relationship between the Phillies and Crawford. It may never come out but they didn't seem to be on the same page with his development and play. If Seattle obtained a good player in the deal, that's fine because the Phillies did as well.
There is no doubt that the club is not living up to the expectations of the phans so far this season. I'm not hanging that on the players. I see a good roster that is underperforming. To me that calls into question the manager and his field staff for not finding the best way to utilize the assets that he has at his hand.

[flyers19rw]

Reports that Hasely has been recalled. Realmuto activated. Brantley DFA'd and Sean Rodriguez to the IL.

[DurhamBull]

@flyers19rw I'm with you; I feel like the trades were reasonable gambles that might work out well for the Phils or not.

The player I'm most surprised by is Harper. He still has his characteristic aggressiveness and fire which is energy the team needs, but he's cooled off after a hot start and hasn't really heated back up again.

[flyers19rw]

Harper may not be tearing the cover off of the ball but he has been a bit better over the last ten games or so. His hustle in the field is noticeable. He’s noted for having better second halves of seasons. Let’s hope that that trend continues.

[Jazzhead]

Those are good points, Allentown; no question the Phils have been lately spending their big draft money on hitters. I was thinking in terms of 2019 roster construction. They rebuilt the lineup, but bet that out of Pivetta, Eickhoff, Valasquez and Eflin they' fill out the rotation with rising, analytically-minded arms. None of these guys has seized the reins on his golden opportunity. I don't know who to blame for that. The coaching? Why have they all hit a brick wall?

[allentown]

I'm going to take a minority stance on the issues laid out by A-town. Neither Harper or Realmuto's play has turned me off at all

I didn't say the play of either guy turned me off. What I said was that Realmuto does not seem to have boosted the performance of our pitchers as the team expected. I said his D has been as expected... but, I think the Phillies expected more than that, in part because they were unreasonably down on Alfaro, as they were on Crawford, and had convinced themselves that Alfaro was a significant part of the reason our young starting pitchers weren't performing as they expected. Rather than add a SP in the off-season, they repeatedly said they wanted to see what the in-house guys could do. They also changed pitching coaches. I think they believed that the rotation would be fine with a better catcher and coach. That is one place this season plan went awry. I'm not saying they had a rational expectation -- I don't think our 2018 rotation problems were because Alfaro was awful at calling pitches or managing pitchers. They simply haven't been good enough and the Phillies over-valued their ability or maturation as pitchers. I think they honestly have been surprised by the performance of the 2019 rotation, because Realmuto hasn't been a miracle worker.

I understand Harper's situation, and also believe that some players press too hard after signing a huge contract. We saw that with Pat Burrell years back. Still, I think the Phillies (and admittedly myself) are a bit disappointed by Harper's first-half offense, although his defense has possibly been a pleasant positive surprise.

[mdougherty12]

Harper may not be tearing the cover off of the ball but he has been a bit better over the last ten games or so. His hustle in the field is noticeable. He’s noted for having better second halves of seasons. Let’s hope that that trend continues.

Bryce Harper career splits:

1st half - .273/.390/.520 - .910 OPS
2nd half - .282/.380/.492 - .872 OPS

Harper did have a much better second half last season, due to a large spike in BA.