Bryce is still not playing 1B 2 days in a row. Hopefully he can up his play there to 4-5 times a week.
It probably would not be the worst thing if Schwarber were scheduled to play LF against a LHP and we gave him a rest day. Not sure he has had one this year and he certainly could pinch hit for Castro or Wilson late in the game if they played LF to start it.
Today's Athletic piece basically pronounces Rojas the starting/everyday CF, with Wilson and possibly Castro against LHP in LF. Cave will still get his looks.
They will be fine, just have to get to September 1. By then Pache and Marsh will both be back and Cave might not be worth keeping (because Marsh can just play LF a lot if they're willing to let the two young CFs keep playing there every day. Though they would lack a LH bat off the bench then I guess.
To me Rojas has shown enough that he should be part of the 26 man permanently now (unless things go very far south). He has been solid with the bat so far, adds genuine threat when he is on the bases and seems to be at the very least a good defensive CF.
I know he could use some AAA experience, but frankly if he can already play this well at the ML level, then he will learn just fine where he is. It is only 3 weeks until roster expansion (not as big a deal as it used to be), but his development is much more important than holding on to AAAA types like Cave, Muzzioti, etc.
I think that was already a done deal even if Marsh hadn't gotten hurt. Pache can stay in AAA for 30 days on rehab if need be (but at this point he'll really only need 14 if he's not ready now). And Pache wasn't a finished product when he got here either. Him being on a rehab assignment is free development for a guy without options.
There is no other player (in the majors or minors) who would otherwise take Rojas's roster spot now. And really that's been true since they failed to acquire a RHB OF.
It raises all kind of roster questions for next year, both 26 and 40 (as well as who plays where). But that's a good problem to have.
If Pache is back by the 21st, whomever they send down can come up 10 days later on September 1st. My guess is the Phillies would prefer Pache to win back much of the job as they see him as more of an offensive weapon. At a certain point Rojas will struggle as the league gets a book on him (some of that has happened lately) and Rojas in September would go back to 2 starts a week and pinch running/defense where he excels.
Might be fun to run out a late inning outfield of Marsh, Pache, and Rojas in September.
The Phillies are signing INF Robbie Glendinning to a minor league deal, per source. He was just recently released by the Orioles after posting an .807 OPS in Triple-A.
— Alex Carr ( @AlexCarrMLB ) August 7, 2023
He's from Perth, Australia. Phillies have a solid scouting presence there. He'll act as extra infield depth.
more about AAA and the strike zone.
AL West exec says "the automated strike zone in triple-A is so small we can't really judge hitters or pitchers on that level, We had one pitcher who walked 9. When I watched the video, just a couple of them would have been walks in the major leagues."
— Peter Gammons ( @pgammo ) August 7, 20231
Just the International League (qualified for batting title)
— Matt Winkelman ( @Matt_Winkelman ) August 7, 20231
2022:
OPS>.900: 3
OPS>.800: 19
2023:
OPS>1.000: 4
OPS>.900: 16
OPS>.800: 48
@Callison This is why we dont trust Jake Cave's AAA numbers
This BA article from a few months ago shows they made some changes based on the Florida State League experiment that took 3.5 inches off the zone while widening it slightly. It is also 2-dimensional and not 3. Really seems like a half-baked implementation that might be messing up AAA hitters and pitchers a bit.
So the MLB umps are apparently giving too many strike calls on balls. It's not the AAA zone is too small, it's the MLB zone is too big (or the AAA zone was too big last year). Looking at umpiring scorecards, it doesn't seem that "bad" strike calls outnumber "bad" ball calls by that much. Maybe they do with closer analysis...
This should be amazingly easy to tweak.
It would be awesome ot ask Cave, Clemens, Hall, etc. about their perception and how they adjust to the different zones.
It really looks like they are not calling the high strike. Maybe this helps power hitters more since they are often guess hitters who attack one part of the zone. If you do not have to worry about the high strike, you can swing harder at the narrower part of the zone where you can handle a pitch.
I still think there are useful comparisons of hitters and their relative OPS numbers, but maybe there needs to be some nuance especially when translating to the MLB level.
One other thing - this does not seem a good strike zone for Griff McGarry who presumably will make his first AAA start this week.
So here is the absolutely massive problem, the strike zone in the rule book is 3D. The ABS strike zone is 2D. The 3D strike zone when they tried doing it was a tracking nightmare, but also hugely favored pitchers because it called strikes on pitches that would nick the front corner and drop or enter the zone from the side of the plate, and a bunch of other things that human watching it would call bullshit and unhittable. You don't want modern pitch design going for designing maximized pitches to exploit a computer zone. The problem with the 2D zone is where you place and the shape has a big deal, and it is also much different than the muscle control and perceived zone that the player knows from playing baseball.
Humans are fallible, but the thing human umps actually do decently well is call a "fair" zone as in one that represents the hitting zone. They tend to be fooled on pitch movements much like hitters and so the zone sort of has adapted into what we generally think of it being. Once you put a box on it, the whole relationship and feel for it changes.
But clearly the same goes for Muzziotti (to say nothing of Weston Wilson and Kingery). Somebody's still gotta be a LHB, and preferably an OF.
But did they?
Right. I was just pointing this out to Callison because he was expecting Cave to have finally found MLB magic based on his AAA numbers
All I want is a 725 OPS with decent LF defense out of Cave. That he should be able to do when platooned mostly against RHP.
Yeah. But we already saw him tear it up in spring training and flop in April too. Not to mention for most of his career. Supposedly this was his first healthy season in several years. He just seems like AAAA player to me.
And his OPS against RHP this year is .605. May as well just play Pache or Rojas once Pache is back (and then Marsh as the regular LF).
I'm interested in the automated strike zone discussion. I've also heard that the problem for pitchers is the high strike. As someone who has worked behind the plate (college, not pro, admittedly) the 3D zone is pretty BS, umps don't really have the depth perception to see where the ball is dipping. We all make approximations based on seeing the pitchers' pitches over the course of a game (or similar pitches over the course of a season). The best way to do this might be to use two 2D zones at the front of the zone and the back of the zone, and to expand the high strike a little bit.
