Discussion

el-pietro 2020-09-04 08:19:16 UTC #501

Would love to see more power from Bohm but his approach at the plate is really impressive. He never looks over-matched and seems happy taking what hes given by the pitcher and to spray the ball to all fields.

Austinfan 2020-09-04 12:13:49 UTC #502

I think the power will come, he still hasn't filled out that frame so he should add some strength the next few years.
Given he hit a 420' HR to CF, I don't think he needs to add a lot more.

And he shouldn't even think about adjusting his approach to add power, as he gets comfortable with ML pitching, I think you'll see him jump on FBs early in the count and mistakes more often. Focus on barreling the ball and the HRs will come.

DurhamBull 2020-09-04 12:43:58 UTC #503

I don't follow the farm system except for the excellent conversations I read here, and I thought Grullon had promise. Were the Phils unable to protect him due to lack of roster space?

David_Criss 2020-09-04 13:01:51 UTC #504

I think there was some question about his glove work, but was fairly certain he'd get claimed when I saw the announcement he had been DFA. With their determination to keep so many bullpen pitchers, the only other candidate would have been Walker.

andyb 2020-09-04 13:15:19 UTC #505

I doubt a 7-game regular season series is any sort of record. Remember in the 154-game schedule 8 team league they played each team 22 times. In the era before regular air travel there were lots of double-headers scheduled and even more games to make up. There was also more travel time (the train from Philly to St. Louis took awhile) built into the schedule. I would not be surprised if teams often played their 11 games in a Western city in 2 road trips instead of 3. Or even if it were 3, a few makeups added to a pre-existing 4 or 5 game series would get you up to 7 pretty quickly.

I took a quick look at Phillies schedules in past years and it took about 5 years to find a 7-game series. Check out 1917 in early September:

18 games in 11 days with an off day in the middle of a 7 game series. Not sure what they did September 4th but it is listed as a 14-inning 0-0 tie. Both starters went all 14. No pitch counts available.

andyb 2020-09-04 13:16:32 UTC #506

Not just due to Bohm though. It was also getting Kingery's bat out of the lineup in most games.

David_Criss 2020-09-04 13:43:39 UTC #507

Arieta should be plenty rested for tonight's start. smile: Hope they can keep it going. They will face De grom and Lugo...Keep this up and bring back a healthy and strong Kingery and Morgan in three weeks for the final push.

BostonRoss 2020-09-04 15:53:27 UTC #508

The off day was probably because Sunday baseball was prohibited in Massachusetts back then.

Lucky_Beagle 2020-09-05 00:49:20 UTC #509

The Phillies added lefty Jeff Singer to their pool, Matt Breen of the Philadelphia Inquirer reports (via Twitter).

Austinfan 2020-09-05 12:20:11 UTC #510

There was a good explanation of their moves, I forget where.

Basically, they traded/exposed players they determined wouldn't be on the 40 man roster after the season and would be exposed in the Rule 5 draft, Seabold, Grullon (b/c of Marchan), a couple others. Pivetta they just gave up on.

So from their perspective, they really didn't give up much of value in terms of next season's roster.

DurhamBull 2020-09-05 12:27:40 UTC #511

Probably some site to which I don't subscribe

Makes sense. I know the pharm isn't very deep and I guess Grullon's stock has fallen further than I realized.

andyb 2020-09-05 12:28:25 UTC #512

They clearly were not high on Grullon. I suspect the power numbers were a bit of a mirage because of either Reading or the major league ball in AAA. He also had a bad body that did not project well. Blocking balls is very important, especially in a world where pitch framing becomes less important with robo umpires. I imagine they also felt comfortable getting a AAAA catching backup from somewhere else if they had to. Knapp playing better this year helps.

In general most of their 40-man decisions were probably fine. Sometimes they protect players like Walker a bit much for the short term at the expense of the long term. The argument that they would not be able to protect these players from the rule 5 draft is legit, though one could also argue that players are much more likely to be claimed now when teams have lots of players going on the 45-man DL than in the offseason without that. They also could have gotten some return for players like Nick Williams if they had a little foresight. Williams should have been traded when they signed Harper. Probably would have gotten somebody in another team's top 10 prospects for him at that point. Sometimes Klentak delays decisions until he is backed into a corner. That can make the right short term decision the wrong long term decision.

Austinfan 2020-09-05 12:48:02 UTC #513

I'm not sure Williams ever had much value, he's limited to LF where he's still below average defensively, he's never had good K-zone discipline and doesn't have great power. Even when he put up a .811 OPS in half a season as a rookie, his WAR was only 0.2 due to bad defense, and the next season his hitting came back to earth as ML pitchers exploited his weaknesses. WAR -0.8 when his OPS fell to .749. At that point his trade value was null (and I suspect Klentak shopped him after signing Harper and discovered that).

You can find proven ML hitters for peanuts who can put up .750 OPS with bad defense.
Even as a DH, Williams had limited value.
I doubt Williams would have garnered a top 20 prospect.

andyb 2020-09-05 12:56:56 UTC #514

He had the athletic tools to be a better defender. Any major league outfielder who is 23 or 24 and putting up an OPS in the 750-800 range has value. Because young players with athletic tools get better.

Williams had his weaknesses but he had significant value. Maybe Klentak did shop him around. But maybe he also asked for too much (like a top 100 prospect which Williams had been not too long before than and then followed it up with a decent rookie debut).

It is a mystery why you give Klentak the benefit of the doubt on everything. His mistakes are always bad luck. Williams did not have a "null" trade value after he had a 749 OPS. He was a major league outfielder with some things to work on and even then there was a DH league if the defense never came through.

Klentak fumbled this one. It is not a huge deal, but it is pretty clear that he got nothing for a player who had value. The Hale deal seems like a mistake now too. He gave away Russ for nothing for a pitcher we will likely DFA before the end of the year. He has a very mixed record as GM. These 40-man roster moves this year were all justified by the short term circumstances. That is far different than saying they were good moves in the long run though.

Austinfan 2020-09-05 13:21:06 UTC #515

Williams lacked plate discipline, a high K rate, and no evidence that he would ever improve to an 'average' defensive LF, since he had 7 seasons under his belt. His rookie season was partially a BABIP artifact, .375, which meant his decline his second season as a hitter was simply coming back to earth. He turned 25 in September that season, and at that point, teams would no longer see him as a "prospect" but "what you see is what you get."

There is no reason to think that a 25 year old LF with obvious flaws would have value - we're not talking a CF athlete with flaws that could be worked on, we're talking a kid who was a defensively challenged LF, and like 1B, that's a kiss of death for a young player unless he's a great hitter.

His future was as a DH, and how much value does a .750 OPS DH have?

phillychuck 2020-09-05 13:35:23 UTC #516

While the Phils were not high on Grullon, as someone who saw him a lot at LV last season, I think he could be a MLB starter at some point. When the Iron Pigs were being shut down by opposing pitchers, Grullon would often end the day with (for example) a double and a HR, neither of them cheap. It's hard not watching a whole lot of games on TV (where a catcher's defense stands out) to get an impression of defense, but the IP pitchers repeatedly complimented him in the press and said they enjoyed throwing to him. I don't know the Red Sox' catching situation, but I would not be surprised to see him starting in Fenway soon.

Austinfan 2020-09-05 14:13:07 UTC #517

I think the Phillies simply like Marchan better, a much better defensive catcher who can hit and they expect him to add strength.
And with Knapp going for the batting title, Grullon was expendable.
When they gave up serious assets to add JT, they pretty much made it clear they only saw Grullon as a backup.

I'm sure Klentak asked around, GMs in all sports are constantly talking and throwing names out to gauge interest.

If Grullon had trade value, he probably would have been moved already since they didn't see him as the catcher of the future and knew they'd have a roster crunch at some point.

andyb 2020-09-05 16:28:07 UTC #518

By that logic we should DFA Adam Haseley this offseason. After all, he'll be 25 next year and has not progressed in his second season. Only 1 BB in 31 plate appearances. Stick a fork in him.

The first person that would say the Phillies mishandled Williams would likely be Klentak. He kept him because he had value. Then he messed up his development by not giving him playing time. There is no question that he would have returned at least a top 10 prospect from another team. It might have even been 2 top 10 prospects. Klentak just held onto him because he probably valued him that much as well.

GMs make mistakes all the time. Williams was a small one simply because they did not realize his trade value when the team could have. Take Kyle Drabek for instance. Most observers think he was a mistake by the Phillies. I consider him a huge success. We got unlucky with the TJ surgery but we still built up his value to the point where he helped us get Roy Halladay. Giant victory for the Phillies there. Just as not trading Williams before the 2019 season after we got Harper is a small mistake/defeat for the Phillies.

el-pietro 2020-09-05 17:13:34 UTC #519

Playoff odds up to 93.5%. Only the Dodgers, Cubs, Braves and Padres have better odds in the NL. What a week!

zambonir 2020-09-05 17:33:56 UTC #520

Williams' value was highest after 2017. I don't think it was that high after 2018: a defensively suspect player with a 99 OPS+ and checkered minor league history (right or wrong, teams care about that nonsense and talk about that stuff, and you saw it pop up again when he almost didn't report to AAA).

Now, his value was not nothing either. But they decided his value to the major league bench was greater than his trade value. Then Kapler barely used him and he was unable to handle the role. There is something to be said for the older, less talented bench player (such as Gosselin) or the vet who adjusts to not playing every day (Walker).

Really they should have traded him after signing Cutch, even if we theoretically still needed him at that point. I don't even think they would have wanted him in RF, and I think Klentak also failed to consider how much Cutch would play. By the time they signed Harper most teams had their outfielders.

Nick gets some of the blame too. Klentak failed to move him when he still had good value, and the Phillies didn't do the guy any favors, but he took himself from modest value to no value all by himself, with his performance last year, which also prompted the Phillies to get Bruce.