2021 Phillies Major League Regular Season Discussion

[Taudawg]

Quinn's injury looked pretty ugly on replay - I would think he will go on 10 day before Sunday's game and maybe 60 day. Sad, I feel real bad for the guy. He certainly has heart.

[LoneStarPhan]

This is probably going to put him out for more than ten days. He has been playing pretty well too. Phillies seem doomed

[bkox]

Jankowski was pulled from Game 1 of the DH in LHV and is not in the lineup for game 2.

[zambonir]

Definitely feel bad for the guy but also probably some clarity for the roster and OF picture long-term, rather than hoping to get him back in three weeks and then losing him again, lather, rinse repeat.

[zambonir]

Headline is not wrong. He's probably a non-tender on a team squeezed for both cash and 40-man space, even if the specifics of those things will change somewhat in the off-season.

Roman Quinn’s season and perhaps his Phillies career may have ended on Achilles...

[flyers19rw]

Right now this is not a good ball club. People can rag at Girardi all that they want but he's trying to squeeze lemonade out of a few lemons. Cutch is finished. Harper and Didi are hurt. I'd venture that JT is "ok" but barely. Who knows what's going on with Segura? He doesn't seem engaged with the game here for whatever reason. The rest of the on field players are not up to MLB standards. Bohm needs to go down to LV and get his act together; he's lost at the plate and in the field. Hoskins hits but for every hit he botches balls with his fielding. Fortunately the good Odubel has shown up so far this season. Perhaps things will improve when/if Harper and Didi get well and Haseley returns but that's an iffy thing. Dombrowski needs to re-work the roster when trading options arise.

[zambonir]

All these things are true, but also not true. Girardi has added little value, arguably negative value, but managers rarely matter more than the talent of the roster. And this is the same club Klentak built, and the same .500 team in need of a few breaks that nearly everyone thought it was before this season. The entire premise of the franchise is that the talent was already there, and just needed a better manager and a better bullpen. That premise was wrong. Other than Bohm, the injuries and declining performances are to be expected when your entire core is free agents. The bullpen actually is more than a few wins better than last year but the hitting and defense is worse, so it's wash.

But, Dombrowski's job is ultimately not to make the team watchable or live up to some objective standard of good baseball, but to compete for the NL East title, and this team is no worse than any of the others in that regard. And the things we are seeing this year are happening to nearly every team.

Until then I'd say this team is overachieving, given all the problems outlined in your post. They should be sinking into last place, and they're still treading at .500, though the Mets are defying all their own problems and opening up a little space. Yesterday was a bummer loss, but it was to a significantly better team. We'll see how they do with the Reds and the next homestand; if things go wrong they could be heading for the white flag by the end of the West Coast road trip. If not, and they don't make some big trades/$ expenditures, nothing will change and there's not really even a wild card available.

[andyb]

Quinn to the 60 and Jankowski selected to the roster officially. While Joyce will play more in the immediate future with Bryce out, I am not sure his position is secure on a fully healthy roster yet. Quinn served a purpose as a CF alternative. Ideally the team would want a right-handed option there, but without him and Haseley there are really no other CF options.

I think Jankowski sticks with the team until Haseley is ready for the majors again. Or until they acquire a RH CF.

[zambonir]

Haseley needs to be back on the 40 in two weeks, the question is will he need to play in the minors beyond that. Prior to yesterday the answer was maybe/probably; now perhaps it's not.

It is just a bummer how many problems a functional Haseley and Kingery would have solved, even though Herrera and Maton have been pleasant surprises.

Not to easy to find new players right now with every team so injured. Where's Sean Rodriguez when you need him? You'd think they could just trade Joyce to a team that is in same spot as the Phillies, except with an extra RHB.

[BostonRoss]

Herrera has consistently hit LHP better that RHP since 2017. No problem with him playing CF against LHP.

[zambonir]

Oh, Herrera was clearly playing every day regardless of Quinn's status, but they still need a RH bat, and you'd want him to be a good enough fielder to play CF and RF. They could pursue an IF too but 3 of the 4 guys in the IF are RHBs, and so is Torreyes, who I don't think is going anywhere. Of course Torreyes can also play CF in a pinch.

[BostonRoss]

Agree we want another RH bat, but it doesn't have to be one who can play CF.

[zambonir]

Well as long as either Jankowski or Haseley are on the team, no, but I'm not sure either of those things are the best-long term solution (nor is Joyce). Particularly if the bench stays short.

[fish]

I wouldn’t be surprised if that was the last game Quinn played with the Phils. I’m sure if he can find a club that understands he’s not built to be a starter he can realize his value.

[zambonir]

I think the Phillies had already come to understand that too, but that didn't stop him from getting hurt. Even if this time was partly because he'd been pressed back into starting temporarily.

Either way his value still appears to be Billy Hamilton-level, a guy who's already been on the non-tender/DFA train for a while. Except Roman didn't even get to his first arb year.

[Philsmania]

Unfortunate in that, I think, I Quinn was starting to settle into a role in which he was useful.

[Philsmania]

All these things are true, but also not true. Girardi has added little value, arguably negative value, but managers rarely matter more than the talent of the roster. And this is the same club Klentak built, and the same .500 team in need of a few breaks that nearly everyone thought it was before this season.

Yes, the problems, it turned out, are deeper than the manager's office. Out in San Francisco, Kapler keeps on winning but, with a team of 30+ veterans both in the lineup in the rotation. Maybe, like Francona, he really was miscast as the manager for a younger team and/or a team in search of an identity and a guy whose method and demeanor works best with veterans who generally know what they are doing and can do.

[bkeich]

In the mid 70s you could see that this team was building something.

In the 2004-6 period you could see young players starting to build up to where we might have some successful years.

This is a team of guys in the 27-33 range leading the team and the young guys (what few they are) demonstrating that they may, in fact be AAAA or bench players ona good team someday.

This has to be the worst rebuild I have ever seen. We built to a high point of a perennial 500 team, then spent all of the (essentially) salary cap on a few players in hopes of maintaining that .500 team.

I started a “when do you think the Phil’s will make the playoffs” type poll a few years ago amd the resounding answer was1-3 years from then. That didn’t happen, now I am starting to think it won’t be this decade.

I see no reason this team will improve in the next 3 years. We don’t have one player in the minor leagues that even projects to be a good player. Stott, maybe in 2023/4. Abel maybe in 2025/6. By then we will have 2 huge albatross contracts and Nola will be on the downside of his career if still here.

2030? Later?

We have to restart the rebuild from the beginning soon.

[flyers19rw]

It is hard to overestimate the damage done to this franchise by the MacPhail/Klentak years. Ownership was willing and ready to spend to revive the organization. However M/K made one horrible move after another. Resources were squandered, poor players were drafted and development was nonexistent. Today, the only quality players on the roster came before M/K came on board or were brought here by ownership’s wallet. I thought that the Giles era was the worst; maybe not.

[Philsmania]

I give it one more year or through 2022 to try to wring something out of this failed rebuild. By 2023, we should be starting over. I don't think Dombrowski will be the guy to oversee it. He's strictly here as Mr. Fix-It Now. The problem is if that this season ends as a flop but 2022 is successful, it will be hard to make the case to start over again in 2023. See how 1993, as much of a joyride as it was, put off the "start over again" for three years as doing so would have infuriated the phanbase which would have thought (incorrectly) that they were dismantling a winner and led them to believe that they were close to getting to the pinnacle.

Considering that it usually takes five years to get from beginning of rebuild to contention--IF IT IS DONE RIGHT--that might get us there in 2028 or so. If we keep pushing it back in a futile effort to wring something of a nucleus which is unsalvageable, that might preclude contention this decade.

Heck, we are already in our longest run of non-winning seasons (nine years...and counting?) since 1933-1948. We can make the case that we are in one of the worst stretches in franchise history (the worst was 1918-1948 with one barely winning season in 31 years under Baker and Nugent). The stretch from 1987-2000 was also bad but at least there was that oasis in 1993 (the only winning season during that time).

I do feel bad for Harper. I don't think Middleton sold him a bill of goods but he's going to spend the rest of his good years in obscurity in all likelihood and that is going to weigh on his HOF resume eventually.