2020 Phillies Spring Training News, Notes & Discussion

[zambonir]

That ship has obviously sailed. A team with JT that's at the CBT threshold isn't going to spend $2-4 million on a back-up catcher, and anyone who makes less than seven figures won't actually be better. They might be better at different things and worse at others, but not actually better.

Our manager is a catcher, our 3B coach (and almost-manager) is a catcher and Knapp is one of the few players who wasn't even a Klentak guy, so if they all still like him I'm fine with that. I think he still has a 2017-like season in him. His 2018 was obviously awful (but he was also forced to play a lot more).

Maybe by July if he's not doing great again you upgrade (just as they did in 2018) or give Deivy his shot (though I doubt that will help in the short-term).

[bkeich]

That ship has obviously sailed. A team with JT that's at the CBT threshold isn't going to spend $2-4 million on a back-up catcher, and anyone who makes less than seven figures won't actually be better. They might be better at different things and worse at others, but not actually better.

I agree that I would not bust the threshold for backup catcher, but if you are going to bust it, while you are at it, here is a bit of a black hole that can be easily upgraded.

Realmuto is going to break down if we ride him too hard. Honestly, last year might have been too many innings. He had 44 more innings than any other catcher in the NL, and that is not just because he was the best, it was also because the drop off to his backup was so significant.

The fact that Knapp was 32nd in the NL in innings caught (there are 15 teams) is a very telling statistic if you think about it.

[zambonir]

I don't really think that was the reason though. JT wanted to play. Gabe wanted to play him. Whether that was a good idea or not is another story. It's also obviously very unusual when most team are trending more towards 81-81 than starter/back-up.

Not trying to cherry-pick or sugarcoat but I think he has improved at the dish, so if what he did in the second half at the plate (102 OPS+, better than several of our starters, albeit in very limited action) suggests he can build on the promise of his rookie season after a terrible 1 1/2 seasons, that has real value. I think we'd be watching a defensively adequate .220 hitter otherwise (be that a vet or Grullion).

[Austinfan]

I'm more surprised that Knapp hasn't hit better, given his college/minor track record.
Though it may be a catcher thing, they're often slow developers at the plate (Ruiz, Coste).

[andyb]

While I am not the biggest Grullon fan, I also think that between Knapp and Grullon we will get something close to league average backup catcher performance. There just is not someone that much better out there and these are 2 young players that could improve (or at least 1 of them).

There are just better things to spend on if we are limited.

[Squire]

Carlos De La Cruz just hit a 2 run HR (also plating Moniak who had walked)

[bigegypt0417]

Moniak has had a decent Spring although I dont think he's facing high level pitching.

[zambonir]

6.3 on average according to BB Ref (before today). Below AA quality (which would be 7).

[LoneStarPhan]

Pivetta pitching against the Yankees tonight. Three runs in already and he only has one out. I always had high hopes for Pivetta, but he continues to struggle.

[HopeSpringsEternal]

I never thought we could get any value for Papelbon (whom we traded to Washington to get Pivetta). Maybe that presumption was correct after all. I guess it wasn’t all Chris Young’s fault. Still, maybe something will click for him to straighten things out.

[andyb]

The back end of Spring games is certainly more like minor league camp these days. I guess it is replacing some of the reps we used to see go to non-roster invites, but it does make one wonder if Spring Training is really a week or two longer than it needs to be, at least for the hitters.

[LoneStarPhan]

Meanwhile, J. Happ is mowing the Phillies down. No runs on two hits, six Ks, in 4 innings of work so far.

Update:

FINAL

Phillies 2 6 1
Yankees 3-5-1

Pivette lost the game in the first giving up 3 runs on 4 hits. Good pitching after that inning for the Phillies but they didn't have enough offense tonight to overcome the bad start.

[zambonir]

And yet somehow we have Drew Storen, who lost his job to Pap at the time.

[zambonir]

Excellent information. A lot of different situations here.

Which veteran roster candidates have outs in their Phillies contracts?

[andyb]

Harper en fuego with his 3rd HR in 2 games. Let's not waste it. More importantly, Hoskins and Quinn both went deep. Most of this was off of the Blue Jays new Japanese pitcher (Yamaguchi), but he has a shot to be in their rotation so not off some young minor leaguer.

[Squire]

Manny Trillo is this year's Wall of Fame inductee

[phillychuck]

One of my favorite players back in the day! A great choice.

[zambonir]

Guess they did away with the fan voting and nominee process this time huh? Or did we just never discuss?

In a way Roy Halladay (and before the cancellation, Pete) made this possible. You don't have to play for the team very long - or be that extraordinary overall during your short stint with the team - if you made some memories (in Manny's case the Series, in Roy's the individual accomplishments).

Hope they smooth things over with Rolen before it's time to start doing the '08 guys.

[Florida_Sunshine]

I thought things were good now between the Phillies and Rolen. Am I not remembering this correctly? I think he lives in Bradenton now and showed up at Phillies camp a year or two after he stopped playing and was interviewed and everybody was good.

[zambonir]

Scott Rolen visits Clearwater

Good memory. But not sure there's any real relationship there. Of course the people from that era are also gone.

In any case, they don't seem to be in any hurry to put him on the wall. He's been eligible since 2016. The choices since then were Thome, Pete Rose (cancelled and not replaced), Gillick/Halladay, Abreu and now Trillo. Rolen is easily the longest-serving and most productive player of that group besides Bobby. And the fact that they didn't do a fan ballot this year suggests they knew he'd win (even though the fans never had final say).

I'm glad Bobby (who is firmly back in the fold) went in fast at least.

They just seem to be giving so much credit to anyone who played on the '80 team (Rose's issues and dead candidacy aside). They're gonna have to do at least 10 guys from the '07-11 era (Pat and Roy already done, Howard/Rollins/Utley automatic, Lidge a must, Lee a certainty and I don't see how you pass up Vic and Werth. Moyer too, but he was withdrawn from nomination for some reason. They'll probably stop short of Myers.