2023 Phillies Regular Season Discussion Part 2

zambonir 2023-08-29 17:44:27 UTC #423

Yeah Rojas has had a ton of BABIP (though speed also helps there) and Pache is obviously Mr. Small Sample but I think when they decided not to acquire a RHB bat and rolled the dice on Castro that was based on the idea that Pache and Rojas can both give you offense (Pache still has that .957 OPS) and even when they can't the defense is worth it, and Marsh can just play LF.

CF for Cave is probably not on the table, even if he did get one game finally. But still useful that he can play it if you wanted him to PH for one of the RHBs and leave him in.

andyb 2023-08-29 17:57:51 UTC #424

Never said that Cave should play CF. It is only a late inning/injury option. He is just a pretty good OF. If defensive ability in the OF is put on a 0-10 score with Schwarber at 0 and Rojas at 10, I think Pache is a 9.5, Marsh a 7 or 8, Cave a 6, and Castellanos a 3 or 4).

We don't lose much playing Cave in LF defensively. Getting 2-3 at bats out of his is worth the slightly lesser defense for part of the game.

zambonir 2023-08-30 13:35:20 UTC #425

More of a memory lane thing than a former Phillies thing. But also perhaps germane to tomorrow's potential waiver wire activity (at least in theory). I do think we sometimes forget which guys were big trade deadline acquisitions and which guys came in August.

8.29.2008

News breaks that the Phillies are acquiring Matt Stairs from Toronto.

Stairs has 12 career pinch-hit home runs. pic.twitter.com/Ypqq9kpCKF
— John Foley ( @2008Philz ) August 29, 2023

gmwannabe 2023-08-30 13:46:32 UTC #426

"stairs sends one into the night"!!

Philsmania 2023-08-30 14:17:56 UTC #427

Eyre was also an August 2008 acquisition and he was awesome for us. He had pitched poorly for the Cubs and was probably going to be released by them if he cleared waivers. Gillick pulled the trigger while he was on waivers.

zambonir 2023-08-30 14:23:31 UTC #428

As was Jamie Moyer in '06.

And J.C. Romero wasn't even a trade (or trading season) guy, he'd been released in June of 2007 when Phillies took a chance on him.

Callison 2023-08-30 15:24:36 UTC #429

Still some serious cleanup to do on the roster.

Exorcise Castro. To Cleveland someplace.

Before yesterday, I thought Covey had wrapped up the worst performance by a ML pitcher this season, but Bellati is now competing with him. He was handed an opportunity to put away a game and earn his spot in the pen for the playoffs with a 7 run lead. He was so bad he nearly made it into a cliffhanger. Too bad about Turner's error to prolong the disasterous inning, but when you soil the mound that way after the rest of the team has played so well, your team will lose some concentration. He had pitched better previously, and I WAS all for him in place of Covey, but he's just as bad. Ortiz looks like he has ML 12 - 6 curve, but not much else. Covey, Bellati and Ortiz - three names for "incompetent pitcher" - the Phils need to lose them ALL.

Rojas is getting torn up reaching for high pitches. The Phils need to give the CF of the future the PT to overcome that. He's an exciting player. Gotten picked off twice, cause he's so eager to steal. Remember what your coaches said to you when you got picked off? The Phils are paying some dues with him, but he looks like he has a huge upside. IMHO, he got nailed on the safety squeeze. The run scores and he's on first. How is that not a hit??? The Phils are bursting with extra OFs. When it becomes a defensive game, Rojas plays. Otherwise going righty/lefty with Cave and Rojas looks like the way to go.

Lorenzen looked better. Whew. Three earned, but looked crafty from time to time, including one long AB - constantly near the plate.

Getting exciting at CBP.

phillychuck 2023-08-30 16:23:50 UTC #430

Bellati gives up at most one run without the bad fielding behind him last night. Certainly adequate for mop-up duty. It's really a roller coaster ride exercise analyzing relief pitchers based on their last few performances. Very high variance.

zambonir 2023-08-30 17:27:34 UTC #431

Rosenthal had a great pair of notes on bullpens the other day: how the D-Backs have thrived since acquiring the Mariners' closer, but also how the Mariners have thrived without him (and with a bullpen of mostly no-names, which Sewald used to be too).

bkox 2023-08-30 21:09:41 UTC #432

The Phillies franchise is 1,680 months old.

In this month, August 2023, the team hit more home runs than ever before. Here are all of them. #RingTheBell pic.twitter.com/BhuIqQw9i6
— John Foley ( @2008Philz ) August 30, 2023

Callison 2023-08-31 15:18:52 UTC #433

"Eh, that's good enough." Mediocretes

Austinfan 2023-08-31 15:23:19 UTC #434

What I look at is more how they pitch than how successful they are.
That is, a starter can struggle for an inning, with some bad luck and still have a good start, a RP looks bad if he comes in for an inning and things don't go well.

My problem is the RPs haven't looked good lately, Bellati didn't have good command of his slider, SD still hasn't regained his mojo (used to be unhittable), Kimbrel looks like he's "off" (probably should be forced to go MIA for a few days), Alvarado is still working back into game shape. Strahm looks like the best arm out there right now, but he's a 7th inning guy.

Soto is too erratic for anything but middle relief and Covey is just an innings eater.
Just don't know what happened to Brogdon, and the young RPs in the minors are probably a year away.

zambonir 2023-08-31 15:35:00 UTC #435

A poster on Ye Olde Phillies listserv argues that Kimbrel has not been particularly overused compared to other Phillies closers, though he is older - in some cases considerably - than all of them

Kimbrel, 2023: 59 appearances, 57 IP, 13 back-to-back, never 3x in a row, never more than 1 inning.

Neris, 2021: 74 appearances, 74.1 IP, 18 back-to-back, 11 multiple inning appearances

Lidge, 2008: 72 appearances, 69.1 IP, 25 back-to-back, never more than one inning

Williams, 1993: 65 appearances, 62 IP, 21 back-to-back, 4 multi-inning.

Of course not all of those guys had perfect outcomes (let alone in October!)

andyb 2023-08-31 16:12:20 UTC #436

I guess the comparisons there are not wonderful given how pitching has changed in the last 15 years. Neris was a little unique in his durability too which was a huge part of his value.

For Kimbrel besides his age he just has not approached this workload in over a decade. He'll probably get to 70 appearances and he has only done 70 once back in 2011 when he was 23. He did 67 back in 2017 when he was 29.

Like it or not in today's game they probably should have targeted 60-65 total appearances for him. Back before he earned the traditional closer role we closed with other pitchers half the time with Alvarado in particular getting several 9th inning outings. I know nobody else is stepping forward, but I think it would be really nice if they alternated closers in back to backs the rest of the way. Hopefully we can also get Alvarado and Dominguez and maybe Hoffman used to some big innings again before the playoffs.

Give Kimbrel a month of no back to backs and hope he is back to being himself in October.

BaseballCat 2023-08-31 18:04:56 UTC #437

I guess we don’t need any help after all… I assume most were ahead of us in claims

bkox 2023-08-31 18:26:41 UTC #438

All but the Mariners were ahead.

phillychuck 2023-08-31 18:43:34 UTC #439

I can't believe we didn't claim Grichuk!

andyb 2023-08-31 18:59:54 UTC #440

Assume we decided Leone (after seeing him this week) was no better than the guys we have at AAA already much less the current staff.

andyb 2023-08-31 20:22:30 UTC #441

Predictions on who we add tomorrow?

On the pitching side Suarez might start Sunday. Do they add a reliever Friday (Marte or Ortiz?) and send somebody else down Sunday (Bellatti?)

Hitting options on the 40 are Marchan, Clemens, Hall, Ellis, Wilson, and Muzziotti. Feels like Wilson or Hall to me based on recency and who is hot. It really does not matter that much as this is really for a pinch hitter. If Pache is ready it obviously could be him.

zambonir 2023-08-31 20:32:47 UTC #442

I guess I'm not surprised in that they could have traded for him at the deadline for almost nothing to begin with - he and Cron only brought back two pitchers between them with Rockies paying 50% of the $. Seems like they already made their decision at the deadline to go with Pache (who I think will indeed be the call-up) and Rojas, and also not to have a bench with only one infielder.