2020 Phillies Spring Training News, Notes & Discussion

[phillychuck]

I really like having Quinn hitting second after McCutchen and before Harper. Harper will drive in a ton of runs with those two in front of him.

Quinn has a horrible OBP and has never been really great at getting on base. He's a speed/power guy. He would be better lower in the lineup (SABR lineup designs like low OBP/Speed/Power in the 5 and 6 holes).

[andyb]

Quinn has a horrible OBP and has never been really great at getting on base.

It is actually not horrible. ,321 in his major league career. .349 in AAA. .358 in AA. And we all have suspected he could do better if he did not get hurt all the time. Haseley was .324 last year. Kingery was .315. Quinn is a bigger threat on the basepaths so he is better suited to the top of the lineup than those two and if he could get his OBP in the 350 range he definitely should be batting 1 or 2.

Cutch clearly belongs at the top of the order. I am just not sure who else does unless we put Harper there. Segura was .323 OBP last year too. Realmuto is the other possible though with both he and Hoskins you wonder about a catcher getting all those on base opportunities and wearing out while with Hoskins he is just slow.

The issue is really only having one guy suited for the 1 and 2 spots in the order.

[zambonir]

Quinn's gonna get on base with infield singles presumably but is he really going to be our starting CF? If all else is equal Haseley still gets the more regular side of the platoon (Quinn being a SH who is weaker from the left side). Or Quinn gets hurt. Either way I wouldn't design my everyday batting order around him.

[andyb]

Never said Quinn should bat first or second. Just pointed out that his OBP is not horrible and he is in the same OBP range as other top of the order options that run well. Maybe Cutch and Harper 1-2 is the best solution.

I would also throw it out there that I would not be shocked to see Haseley and Quinn get 70-80 starts combined now that we have the DH. When Cutch is the DH I might prefer Haseley in LF to Bruce.

[zambonir]

We don't even know what kind of bat Cutch is going to bring to the party this year. IMO he was impressive/a surprise last season, but with one more year of age and an injury he could be closer to his floor (2016, .336/.430), and he might have levelled off over a full season last year too. I'd probably settle for what he did with SF in 2018 (.357/.772), though he got hot with the Yankees that year.

I get the feeling that Bruce is going to play a ton. He's a squeaky wheel about it and Girardi's a veteran's manager. Haseley really seems to be forgotten in some ways. But with Bruce and Quinn's injury history it probably won't matter. With this shortened season it seems like we won't be any closer to settling on a true starting CF for 2021 either - we still won't know if Haseley is a plus everyday player, we still won't know if Quinn can hold up and Moniak obviously won't be able to take another step.

[andyb]

Small note for us out of towners - the Monday night exhibition against the Yankees is on the MLB Network schedule. Nothing in the regular season till the game on the 28th against the Yankees on FS1 , but MLB Network tends to add a bunch of games in the week before the broadcast.

[zambonir]

I bet MLB TV is free right now too. I expect all three games to be on (unless the Nats don't have a broadcast Saturday. NBC Philly is airing both Sunday and Monday, latter is presumably the Yankees feed - for MLBN as well).

[andyb]

Just checked and the 19th is on the schedule. 18th looks radio only. No indication it is free, but today there is a list of free intrasquad games including the Phillies.

6:05 PM tonight. We can pause the announcer annoyance to actually see a little baseball....

[tom81]

Never said Quinn should bat first or second. Just pointed out that his OBP is not horrible and he is in the same OBP range as other top of the order options that run well. Maybe Cutch and Harper 1-2 is the best solution.

I would also throw it out there that I would not be shocked to see Haseley and Quinn get 70-80 starts combined now that we have the DH. When Cutch is the DH I might prefer Haseley in LF to Bruce.

I said that Quinn should bat second. Obviously everything about Quinn is SSS but this season is all about SSS so I'd roll the dice with him. As you said his MLB OBP of .321 is about league average while his career ML OBP of .355 is really quite good especially giving his speed tool. The improvement in OBP you would get from Hoskins or Harper over Quinn isn't enough IMO to give up the disrupting effect Quinn will have on the bases with Harper and Hoskins hitting behind him. They will see lots of fastballs.

I agree on giving Haseley starts in LF when Cutch DH's. For me the only position I would put Bruce in the field is 1B and that only rarely.

[andyb]

If Bruce gets 30 starts at DH plus a handful at 1B and LF that should be plenty.

The real big question about playing time is Bohm of course. I guess he could be the RH DH in the back half of the season, but I might also like to give Realmuto some of those starts. Bohm at 3B could push Kingery into the CF mix again though we only pull that trigger if the CF platoon is not doing well.

Chances are that someone gets hurt or COVID gives us enough random missed games from various players that everyone gets their share of playing time, but if everyone were healthy Bohm really would force some plans to change. I wonder if the team would almost prefer for Segura and Kingery and the CF platoon to play well so they don't have to deal with Bohm forcing his way into the conversation.

[andyb]

Game is on. Arrieta with a clean inning other than a Harper double. Pivetta will be pitching in the bottom half of the inning.

[zambonir]

30 does seem like more than enough - except maybe if you're Jay Bruce, who I don't think has ever truly accepted that he's a bench player, and doesn't sound like he accepts being a DH either. But between the health/availability of the Phillies OFs last year (Bruce included) and now the virus, it hasn't been an issue, and probably still won't be given the short season and COVID variables (to say nothing of his own chance of another injury). Had the Phillies and Bruce himself been healthy last year he might have been traded two different times (deadline or off-season).

We should be so lucky as to get great play out of all those IF bats (Hoskins included) to where they have to struggle to get Bohm his opportunities. In reality, there's a pretty good chance he's one of the 9 best bats on the roster and they'll need him. Or the Phillies won't be competing for the playoffs in September and they'll want him to get action.

[andyb]

Howard to pitch after Pivetta.

Howard looked pretty good. Fastball clearly in the mid 90s (as was Pivetta). Changeup had the late movement we saw a little of in the Fall League. Breaking balls were a mix of very good with some sliders that did not move as much as he wanted. He also tired a little in the 3rd inning but it gets tough to watch also with coaches in the field and innings ending on pitch counts rather than outs.

Damon Jones is supposed to pitch the last couple. Arano also for one in his first appearance but I need to move on to other things. Nice to see a little baseball at least.

[LoneStarPhan]

You really have to pay attention to the action in these scrimmage games: innings ending on a HBP and another on a double; players batting twice in the same 5 batter inning; non-players playing, etc.

But enjoyable fun to see baseball.

[zambonir]

Well I'm glad someone finally tackled this topic. Even just adding two players (one position, one bullpen) was going to be tricky in a normal season. But with the expanded roster it's even tougher. Adding Bohm and Howard could help later (i.e. Bohm would make less than Harrison or Walker, and if Velasquez is moved to the pen for Howard they could cut someone like Swarzak).

Why the Phillies might not be able to avoid paying baseball’s luxury tax this...

Liriano and Swarzak, for instance, would have made $1.5 million over a full season in the majors. Carrying both of them in the opening-day bullpen could push the Phillies over $208 million, and that’s before adding Walker, Forsythe, or anyone else.

[LoneStarPhan]

I am not really sure how the luxury tax is figured when much of the salaries will not be paid, if I understand what is happening, but clearly it is still a concern. Might be a factor in why someone like Norris was cut.

Phillies Release Bud Norris

Note Davis and Marchan added to the 60 man pool.

[zambonir]

The tax will be based on the full value of the salaries is all. If they prorated the tax the prorated salaries would add up and max out in the same way. It's just easier to do the math if you work with the original salaries (i.e. the Phillies have $2.8 million and adding two vets to the roster would cost $3 million).

But the tax is also not determined until the end of the year, so if they replace some of the vets with younger players or are deadline sellers, they won't hit it. Conversely, they don't really have room to add a player of any note if they're contending, unless they could get someone to take Herrera in the deal.

Norris had an opt-out, he probably wasn't heading for the 40 anyway (in which case he wouldn't count against the tax until called up) with some of the other guys ahead of him. Same with Drew Storen at the start of camp. Even without the tax they don't have room for more than two relievers (if that) on the 40 and Storen wasn't one of the top two or three.

[tom81]

Another thing to think about is that OBP may also be dependent upon the position in the order a player hits in. You tend to get pitched differently hitting in different positions of the batting order. In SSS Quinn has a .371 OBP batting 2nd and .379 hitting 9th in the order.

[phillychuck]

OK, just from the eye test watching Quinn, I don't see him being a patient hitter that works the strike zone in an AB.

The 6 fangraphs projection engines all have his OBP projected at around .310 due mainly to his low projected AVG and medium discipline. His O% swing is also pretty high relative to truly patient hitters. Maybe he could improve with more consistent, injury-free playing time, but at this point I have a bit more faith in Haseley to be the better player eventually. I certainly wouldn't bat him second--I think he'd be a pretty big hole in the lineup.

This is arguing about a very small impact, though. If Hoskins recovers his form, the offense will be fine.

[Philsmania]

OK, just from the eye test watching Quinn, I don't see him being a patient hitter that works the strike zone in an AB.

The 6 fangraphs projection engines all have his OBP projected at around .310 due mainly to his low projected AVG and medium discipline. His O% swing is also pretty high relative to truly patient hitters. Maybe he could improve with more consistent, injury-free playing time, but at this point I have a bit more faith in Haseley to be the better player eventually. I certainly wouldn't bat him second--I think he'd be a pretty big hole in the lineup.

This is arguing about a very small impact, though. If Hoskins recovers his form, the offense will be fine.

That is usually the case with smaller or thinner speedster types. There is rarely much divergence between their batting average and on-base percentage. They generally don't have a lot of power so pitchers generally challenge them more with pitches in the strike zone since they are not much of a threat to hit the ball out of the park. The result is that there are more pitches that they have to swing at, lest they strike out looking often. They don't necessarily have bad strike zone judgment. They just don't have as much stuff outside of or on the edges of the strike zone thrown to them. Ben Revere was a good example of that. Just applying the eye test, he never really struck me as a hacker but he never walked a lot because he wasn't really thrown bad pitches quite possibly because he had all of seven career HR's.