2020 Philadelphia Phillies Season News/Notes/Discussion

[Austinfan]

Even Williams' 2017 performance was devalued by his high BABIP.

I'm not sure why he was considered that good of a prospect in the first place, he had nice numbers in the Texas league and Reading, struggled his first season at Lehigh, then improved. If he was a plus defensive OF, that would have made him a good prospect, but as a minus defensive LF, good but not great hitting makes you a marginal player.

Haseley at the same age hit better at both Reading and Lehigh, and is a plus defensive OF.
He had better BB and K rates in the minors.
He's easily the superior prospect.
This season I'd basically give any young player a mulligan, it's just too weird of a situation.

[Austinfan]

One thing that bears watching is how players progress at Lehigh, where instead of playing minor league games, wasting a lot of time traveling, etc., they play scrimmages with extra ABs, hands on coaching, etc. If players progress faster in this environment, this may push minor league compression, because it may simply make more sense having most of your minor league players at Clearwater, getting intensive play and coaching, and only have a couple layers of minor league play.

Especially for younger players, does playing games against slipshod competition help development more than hands on coaching in a controlled environment where you can give them far more reps and make corrections and adjustments.

[phillychuck]

"Slipshod competition"?

[zambonir]

Yeah I think the grind of a real season and the level of competition in real games is significantly higher than these alternate site games, and also, the Phillies barely have any prospects in Allentown. The main purpose of the camp is to keep guys like Garlick and the pitchers on the 40-man and the AAAA reinforcements game-ready. Not sure there is really that much hands-on coaching; sounds like the coaches are too busy pitching or playing second base in the fake games! Just because some guys might be getting 6 ABs in a fake game instead of 4 in a real one doesn't make it "intensive." And for the hitters in particular, they are only facing fringe pitchers or pitchers who have never even pitched in AAA.

[Austinfan]

When you are at A or A+ level, most of the competition is unlikely to make it to AAA ball, much less the show.
So you're not facing a lot of decent secondary pitches or ML FBs and so on.
And the fielding behind pitchers is enough to swear off permitting hitters to make contact.

[andyb]

You just don't get it. Williams had some value. We got nothing for him. That was a mistake. And the comment about Haseley was sarcasm. It had a ring of truth because you love him way too much compared to his actual value which is more 4th OF than anything else. Sometimes Klentak is not perfect. He makes mistakes. Does some good things too. He just never seems to get any criticism from you. Sometimes we need to get beyond our first impressions and biases.

[Austinfan]

If Haseley is a 4th OF, Williams is a 5th OF/marginal DH (a DH of any value has an OPS > .800, hopefully > .850.).
Now what are 5th OFs worth?

[schillingfan]

If Haseley is a 4th OF, Williams is a 5th OF/marginal DH (a DH of any value has an OPS > .800, hopefully > .850.).
Now what are 5th OFs worth?

You miss the point. It is not what Williams is right now that matters, it is what was his perceived value n 2017.

[zambonir]

Well, no, Andy is arguing he had value in 2019. In 2017 he had modest prospect value, he'd already been a big disappointment in AAA the year before (performance-wise, never mind the off-field stuff) then turned it around and got the call-up.

They're both probably 4th outfielders, Haseley just doesn't have to hit as much as Williams to earn 400 ABs since he can play defense.

To me most of Klentak's biggest mistakes involve not properly evaluating the players inherited. That may yet include Kingery but also Williams, Altherr, Herrera, Franco, Hernandez, Pivetta. He cast his lot with all of them and they all became worthless (Kingery still could too when the fat part of his deal kicks in). You can't help but think that's also why he found it easier to punt on Crawford and Alfaro, though obviously the circumstances there in both cases were different.

Obviously Santana and moving Hoskins was another big mistake. Right now though, the Cutch contract and the Segura trade look a lot better than they did two weeks ago, especially since Kingery hasn't been able to make Segura redundant.

[andyb]

Technically BEFORE 2019. The second they signed Harper they should have dealt him. Even if he was just considered a 4th OF at that point he had value. And yes, the poor evaluations and waiting till someone has value (or maybe missing something like we fear with Edgar Garcia) - those are part of the issue with Klentak. We will probably lose both the Segura and the Realmuto trades badly in the long run (though maybe we can salvage the Realmuto trade with an unlikely WS run this year!).

[phillychuck]

AF, the '27 Yankees weren't available for a weekend series in Lakewood or Clearwater. 'A' ballplayers playing other 'A' ballplayers is appropriate competition, not slipshod.

[zambonir]

For sure. But Harper didn't sign until March 1. That's not quite April 1, but I still think the offers probably didn't exceed the perceived value of having Nick Williams instead of a Sean Rodriguez or Gosselin type (but lefthanded, obviously). Of course that's not how it played out.

His trade value was probably like John Mayberry Jr., for whom we gave up Golson. Or David Delucci, who actually was traded to us at the end of spring training for not much (I think Robinson Tejeda was already no longer a prospect)

We should have moved him for a reliever but we had enough of them at the time (it seemed).

I don't think we can lose the Realmuto trade because of how well he's actually played. Of course it's true that they may have won 81 games last year just the same without him, and it's also true that they've traded the future for short-term gains that haven't come, but a lot of mistakes were made. I don't think you can evaluate the Segura trade in a vacuum either, you have to include Cutch and Hoskins in the equation.

I'm sure Klentak would tell you outcome doesn't matter, that the process that led to the trades was good regardless. But he hasn't actually shown his front office has that sort of acumen.

[baseballoldie]

Zero chance any team would trade 2 of their top 10 prospects for Nick Williams. Probably zero chance a team would have traded 1 of their top 10 prospects for Nick Williams when he was at his peak. Do you have any examples of a team's top 10 prospects being traded for an unproven reserve outfielder?

[andyb]

It happens quite a bit, though most of the trades have the young player as key pieces in the deal to get more established veterans. Hunter Renfroe for Tommy Pham. Alfaro for Realmuto. Jorge Soler for Wade Davis. A rookies with some track record is always more valuable than a top 100 prospect with zero track record.

And anything received is better than the nothing which is what we ended up with. We (the Phillies) clearly valued him enough even this winter to keep him on the roster. Trading Williams would have probably been for $0.75 on the dollar and the timing after March 1 would not have been ideal, but it is not like trades don't always happen right before the season starts as teams set their rosters.

[zambonir]

I mean, Williams himself was our #3 MLB.com prospect in 2016, but wasn't even on the list in 2017 (was he just too old? He was still a minor leaguer until July 1).

But it's really not that big a deal. They needed him in 2018, which was his peak value. They still wanted him on the bench in 2019, after he'd already fallen off considerably in 2018 (if he hadn't, maybe they prefer Machado to Harper). OF depth was not really a strength for them, with Altherr and Cozens also failing and Quinn with his usual issues.

By the time they signed Harper I'd say Williams was about as valuable as Kyle Garlick, so yeah, they should have gotten something for him. By last year's trade deadline he either had no value or they legit still wanted him for depth. By this past spring training he had Alec Asher value.

In a normal season he'd probably still be here, they only lost him this time because of the expanded game roster and unusual level of reliever churn. He may never play for the Reds either.

[zambonir]

Kingery isn't eligible to come off the IL until Thursday; I don't think you can come off any earlier because of another injury (unlike when someone is optioned and can be recalled).

Article also mentions they aren't adding Herrera, lol. They did add Singer (as previously posted), Henri Lartigue and Luke Williams.

Haseley has just 3 ABs against LHPs and we're facing two LH starters in the next three games.

Phillies outfield shortage should lead to more playing time for Adam Haseley

Gosselin could play CF I'd think.

[andyb]

I think you would start Bryce in CF if you did not want to start Haseley. Cutch would volunteer but probably not the best idea for the team.

[HopeSpringsEternal]

I’d start Haseley every game in CF until Kingery returns, assuming he spends the minimum amount of time on the IL. Need Haseley’s defense, and this gives him a chance to get some consistent at bats

[zambonir]

Bryce is probably not a bad idea for at least one game, but it might be a toss-up whether he or Gosselin is better (though Bryce has more major league experience, and is younger).

It's not an easy call. A normal season in the middle of July, sure, you let Haseley face LHP for three or four games or even 10 games, who cares? He does need to show he can do it (and hasn't been given the chance to). But it's already the heat of the division race and to even just go 1-2 heading into the Miami roadstand could bury us, at least as far as first place. And Haseley's CF defense is not so elite that it's necessarily worth it, even as well as he seemed to do last year.

As Andy has noted it's probably just a matter of time before David Hale gets exposed to waivers again so the other option is to swap a reliever for Mahtook or Martini (Torreyes playing CF was also floated but if it's really that easy why couldn't Didi do it?)

[andyb]

I probably would not DFA someone like Hale if Kingery was ready Thursday. Let Haseley play against the first LHP today and see how he does. Then on the DH if you decide to start Bryce in CF for the other LHP we are probably talking 4 or 5 innings of a 7-inning game before Haseley is back in anyway.

If Kingery is out beyond Thursday then maybe you consider other options.

If this went on a longer time, the crazy idea that makes a little sense if they had ever practiced it would be to put JT out there. Knapp is actually a bat now that deserves a little more time in the lineup and JT is clearly fast enough to play CF. They won't do that of course. Maybe Knapp at least deserves a DH start or two with Bruce out.