Also the Angels have just traded for Eduardo Escobar and Mike Moustakas in the last 72 hours. They also have a better record and wild card position than the Phillies.
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I feel the Phils will eventually find a higher level of play this season. With over half the season to play, there's a lot of guesswork in predicting final records,
IMHO, all 4 I mentioned are season-changing.
I kind of think that the bottom of the bullpen is not that bad. Now we are choosing to keep Hoffman and Covey now over Bellatti and Brogdon but that is likely a temporary choice because of options.
Is there room for 1 more? Sure. Internal candidates are not wonderful as Baker and Morales have stalled in the upper minors. We'll need a spot for Song potentially and of course we are unsure what we'll get there. Kerkering is probably the only option that would improve us and that would not happen till near the end of the season.
But most teams have depth issues. I feel we can come up with a depth option at the deadline for a low level prospect if we have to simply by taking on salary. That is probably enough as the 5th starter and lineup power questions are more important to address.
Bellatti has pitched well at LHV. Brogdon not so much. I'd like to see them option Marte and call Bellatti back up since the seemed determined to keep Covey for some reason.
They should also option Clemens and recall Hall - infuse some more power into the lineup.
Wish they could find a way to get Cave back, too but that would mean Harrison most likely and like Covey, the seemed determined to keep him even though Kingery could probably do better.
Eh, not quite yet. If youre going to call it speculation / discussion, then you're going to have.. discussion.
On that freedom to drift note, I feel the same as you regarding Bohm. A .272/.322/.393 slash just isn't going to cut it with his glove, especially on a club with a number of 1B/DH candidates with significantly better bats.
I've been wondering about Candelario. He'd be a notch above Bohm, but at the cost of nearly four years in age. Tough call, and I'm not really sure what Bohm's trade value would be. I'd prefer he just work out as a Phillie, but I've gotten more convinced he's more Cody Asche than Alec Bohm circa 2020.
The promise of added power that Bohm showed in the Spring seems to have evaporated. Not sure what the Phillies should do there. Candalerio is better but only short term so the Phillies would not be moving on from Bohm and as discussed, Bohm's offense plays better at 3B than 1B.
I keep coming back to the improvement should come wherever Bryce does NOT play in the field. If we play Bryce at 1B we probably should add an OF. This is why I really want to promote Hall to give him a couple of weeks to see if he is a solution. Could he give us an 800 OPS in a platoon role? That might be enough to keep Bryce mostly at DH and then we evaluate whether we should improve at 3B.
I like to drift as much as anybody but was trying not to specifically discuss the Hall/Clemens question here, for instance.
But I will take the bait on Alec I just reckon he's Franco not Asche.
Marsh is fine, he's adequate defensively and seems to have rediscovered his mojo, OPS still around .800 and his defense is slightly positive. If he got pushed to left field, he'd probably be at least plus defensively, and .800 OPS would be close to 3-4 WAR.
They need to get Harper on the field so they can bring up Cave and put Schwarber at DH permanently - his defense is so bad it completely negates his offense (FG has him at -0.2 WAR).
Yea, the problem is that Castellanos is just as bad defensively (not this year, but over the last few seasons). We need to get both guys out of the OF, but that can only happen when Harper can go back to RF. Castellanos needs to be moved this off-season.
there is no way they trade him this offseason. Hes leading the team in WAR (BBREF WAR) and hes in the top 10 in MLB in BA, Hits and doubles and top 30 in OBP, SLG and OPS.
Among RFers hes in top 5 in most categories
Honestly Schwarber should be the one to go if one has to go. Even with Schwarb's 20 HRs and top 3 in MLB walks, his Offensive WAR is way lower than Casty's (9.2 vs 1.4 on fangraphs. 2.2 vs 0.8 on BBref)
Nah, I get it, just ribbing you a bit.
You're right of course that Franco is better straight-up comparison. I used Asche as a juxtaposition against 2020 Bohm - the other end of the spectrum of what he is not shaping up to be.
Like Andy, I see Candalario as a short term fix. They could try resigning him if they did trade for him, but again, he's 30 in November. So another shift older for the team with no real 3B prospects in the pipeline.
Whatever it is.. shows Casty is better than Schwarbs. Not sure where this team would be without him this year.
I don't think either of them are untradeable, just means including $. But I wouldn't make the decision based on just the one season. i.e. Castellanos hasn't been good 2 of the last 4 seasons (one of which was 2020). Schwarber only 1 of them (also 2020)... because I'm not prepared to say he's going to end up being actually bad this season. Castellanos is also one year older.
Schwarber is what he is and I'd sooner keep the LH DH who can hit 35 HRs for another two seasons (or at least one of the two) and get out from under Castellanos's longer deal before he either flat-out declines or just has another bad one-off season.
But it really depends on so many other things. You probably can't get rid of both Bohm and Castellanos. But neither of them provide enough RH power. And I'm not sure you want Castellanos to be a full-time DH for that reason (but you also don't really want him in the field, even if it's LF).
Maybe they should just move Nick back to 3B 
And now I'm really confused, is this a trade deadline thread or a hot stove thread? (myself included).
I feel like the Phillies' actions speak louder than words here as far as Hall or Cave being some kind of missing piece that keeps them from making a deadline deal. Hall isn't going anywhere (and can be optioned) it seems like the plan is to let him play 1B for 2-3 weeks, at which point he loses the job to Harper anyway until Harper can return to RF. If Hall struggles it is all moot; if he's bopping they can just leave Schwarber in LF longer. But still no real way to get Cave in the mix. I guess those actions will speak louder than words eventually too - if Cave is still in the organization on August 1 and they haven't acquired an OF, he gets his shot then.