2019 Phillies Season Discussion

[mdougherty12]

Phils' TV ratings up so far this season:

https://sports.yahoo.com/bryce-harper-and-manny-machado-have-singlehandedly-increased-local-tv-ratings-182131960.html

[bkeich]

Our 3 veteran relievers didnt even get to 20 innings this year.

Tommy Hunter Undergoes Season-Ending Surgery

[allentown]

And that may be the biggest argument for not trading a top 10 prospect for pitching help. Yes, not all prospects will make it. Equally true, not all pitchers you trade for will make it. Sometimes teams trade a pitcher to save money, sometimes to accelerate a rebuild, but sometimes the main reason is to unload a guy with questionable arm health and let him do his full breakdown on somebody else's nickel. I think Garcia was in that category. We gave up two young pitchers for him. There was a pro and con of evidence from the prior season as to whether or not he was damaged goods. Turned out he was very damaged goods. Like Arrietta now, a significantly injured pitcher can turn in some good starts.

The advantage that a prospect has is that in case of injury the team has many years to gain WAR from him. Arrietta may have already pitched his last healthy game for the Phillies. He may have done so quite a few months ago.

[Florida_Sunshine]

Any wonder as to why the Cubs made no effort to keep him?

[zambonir]

Luck is the residue of design eh?

I think the Cubs had some reservations about Arrieta physically but he was also not available at anywhere near the discount price for them, and they chose to aggressively overpay for someone else instead. Arrietta was (and truthfully, is) still a good signing for the Phillies.

[bkeich]

And that may be the biggest argument for not trading a top 10 prospect for pitching help. Yes, not all prospects will make it. Equally true, not all pitchers you trade for will make it. Sometimes teams trade a pitcher to save money, sometimes to accelerate a rebuild, but sometimes the main reason is to unload a guy with questionable arm health and let him do his full breakdown on somebody else's nickel. I think Garcia was in that category. We gave up two young pitchers for him. There was a pro and con of evidence from the prior season as to whether or not he was damaged goods. Turned out he was very damaged goods. Like Arrietta now, a significantly injured pitcher can turn in some good starts.

The advantage that a prospect has is that in case of injury the team has many years to gain WAR from him. Arrietta may have already pitched his last healthy game for the Phillies. He may have done so quite a few months ago.

but....

If you dont try and fill in the gaps with FA's and acquire older players to try and make a run at a championship then the team is the Montreal Expos. They never succeed.

A good GM needs to make a reasonable decision to say "now we try and win", I think it is clear now that Klentak did that too early. There were too many things that were needed for this team (and we had some bad luck with injuries). But the simple fact is to win you have to also have depth, and we had absolutely none. Every player that got hurt was replaced with someone who is a problem (except the surprise of Kingery, but really he was originally part of the plan). We didnt have a 6th starter ready to go, etc.

I think what we are seeing now is that Klentak made a calculated risk and his risk is looking like a failure. There are just too many holes left in this team to make it a contender at the moment and he moved the clock forward to the point where we dont have alot of time with this "core" before they start getting older. This is the Phillies of 2007, but we dont have nearly as good of a team and our pitching staff is a disaster (although 2007 wasnt exactly a good year of pitching). The difference our current pitching staff probably isnt going to get better on its own. (and yes, I know 2007 won the division, but they had better luck)

[allentown]

I didn't say to never fill gaps with FA. I am a big advocate of adding talent for $ only, as we did with Harper and Arrietta. I favor trades which use our $ to acquire talent, rather than our top prospects. There are times that trading prospects for established players, even upper level prospects, makes sense. I think the Lee and Halladay trades made eminent sense at the time, because the Phillies were very strong at the MLB level and the key players were aging, setting a limited window, AND the Phillies seemed to have soured on most of the guys traded: Marson had taken a step back, Knapp was hurt, Donald seemed to not have a high ceiling, and doubts were emerging on Carrasco. Although I hated to see it, there was logic on gambling on trading Sixto this past off-season: his distance from MLB coupled with the injury. As with knapp, it seemed we had an injured pitcher credited at surprisingly close to full value.

I don't think this is the time to trade top prospects for pitching. I can't convince myself that adding a good starter and good reliever to the team we've got produces a team which is able to advance in the playoffs. On the other hand, I can easily convince myself that trading a Bohm, or Haseley, or Howard prematurely closes our window for contention..

[Florida_Sunshine]

Realistically, what was the difference in cost?

I keep hearing that we got Arrieta at a discount and wonder about that.

[Austinfan]

Paying for hitters makes more sense than paying for pitchers, yes, they can flop and get injured, but usually there's a pretty good track record, history on decline rates, and fewer whiffs. Cutch may have gotten hurt, but that was a fluke that could have happened to Rhys just as easily - that is, he was durable, crap happens, nothing to do with free agency. He should be back next year.

Pitchers are just too much of a crap shoot to give long-term deals, and if you do so, better the pitcher you've had a few years to observe, than the one another team deemed unworthy of a big contract.

Now that doesn't mean you don't sign pitchers, but better three Mortons (high upside, reasonable cost, high risk) than one Arrieta (high upside, high cost, moderate risk). Grow your own and fill in with affordable patches. Look at the bullpen, Hunter, Neshak, Robertson injured, Nicasio pitching like a $2M pitcher. Meanwhile Neris, Morgan, Suarez, and low cost Alvarez are the heart of the pen.

[Florida_Sunshine]

Agreed, as opposed to many, I actually like and believe what we have on the farm, and added to what we have, is actually pretty good.

If I were the Phillies, I would not overreact.

[zambonir]

I certainly think Arrieta wanted somewhere closer to what the Cubs gave Darvish. You can go back and look at the MLBTR predictions from that year. The Phillies upped the AAV in exchange for shorter years.

[allentown]

Realistically, what was the difference in cost?

I keep hearing that we got Arrieta at a discount and wonder about that.

We did not get a discount on Arrietta. Perhaps a discount from what he hoped somebody would pay him, but not from market value. I didn't expect a discount. We weren't even a .500 team, so we just weren't a team that a pitcher would sign onto cheap, because he was so hot to win and thought they gave a great chance. I don't think there is any question that we got Arrietta, because we offered the most money, after his preferred destinations offered significantly less. Perhaps some bridges were burned because of an initial wide divergence between what he wanted and was was offered and feelings were hurt, although feelings don't seem to significantly enter into FA decisions all that often.

[zambonir]

We offered the most money at the time but I think he turned down better offers that were no longer available when we got him.

Interesting, MLBTR pretty much nailed it on Arrieta. They thought Darvish would get more.

2017-18 Top 50 MLB Free Agents With Predictions

Arrieta claims he turned down six years, $120 million from the Cubs.

Arrieta Reveals How Cubs Departure Went Down

[Florida_Sunshine]

OK, so I looked it up.

Arrieta wanted 6 years at $25M per. He was offered 6 years at $20M/year by the Cubs.

Darvish signed for 6/$126. We got Arrieta for 3/$75M with Arrieta having a kick out after year 2. He would be able to kick out after making $55M over 2 years with us. We also could lock him up for 2 more years.

I think he had confidence in himself, he certainly made more annually with us.

[Austinfan]

What's the recovery time for bone spur surgery?
Arrieta had surgery in 2011, didn't pitch well in 2012, but he wasn't established then, did have a K per inning.
He didn't arrive until 2014 in Chicago, but how much was the spur and how much just learning how to pitch?

If he can't pitch effectively, better to shut him down, hopefully get him back for ST next year. Obviously, Arrieta is not going to void the 3rd year and the Phillies aren't going to pick up their option for years 4 & 5.

[Florida_Sunshine]

I think you are correct.

[zambonir]

But Arrieta is pitching effectively (if only in two most recent starts), and certainly no worse than his replacement (as things currently stand). It's not ideal, but he's apparently a 5-inning, twice-through-the order pitcher, which is admittedly harder to manage with the thin bullpen, but that's true of all the other starters not named Nola too.

[jimbomill]

we got Arrieta at a discount and wonder about that

same here. Maybe there was a rebate we don't know about

[Lucky_Beagle]

Miller to the IL and Rodriquez back to active roster according to article I saw online...sorry no link.

[Mod: added link to tweet]

Jim Salisbury (JSalisburyNBCS)

[flyers19rw]

An interesting comparison to the Phillies hitting philosophy under Mallee. The Twins are cranking it while the Phillies are not.

How the Twins Are Obliterating Baseball’s Home Run Record