2023 Phillies Regular Season Discussion

[zambonir]

Yeah, but desperate times... he was on that fast track to the bullpen last year and he's two years older than Abel. And obviously Painter was more advanced but he'd barely pitched in AA either. If they keep getting what they are getting from both the 4 and 5 spot how many 6th starter types can they cycle through? They can wait another 2 or 4 weeks but not necessarily another two months.

[flyers19rw]

Pitchers are breaking down at a phenomenal rate. Arms, legs are both blowing out. It could be the effect of the WBC on ST; the pitch clock or whatever but these pitchers are getting hurt.
The price to obtain a decent pitcher has to be prohibitive. The Phillies aren’t the only ones with this problem. The Dodgers are probably going to reach down into their AA system to fill in their gaps. McGarry or Abel in Philly by AS break is certainly a possibility.
It may be time for teams to readjust their pitching philosophies. Starters in two pitcher tandems going every four days; three innings a game backed up by two of four BP pitchers handling the last three innings between them. Whatever; the existing system of six innings and 100 pitches isn’t working.

[David_Criss]

Not to excited about Covey. Then again it cost the team nothing. Can't see him getting more than two starts to prove he belongs. This buys them more time to right the ship with Suarez, Walker, Falter, Sanchez and Plassmeyer. We are 25% through the season. If you would have told me Harper would have been an active participant for 3-weeks and that Jeff Hoffman and Dylan Covey were on the roster in Spring Training, I would have said you were crazy.

[zambonir]

Is this actually true? i.e., are more pitchers than ever going on the IL? Very few of the good ones actually participated in the WBC so I doubt that's an issue. The pitch clock probably is. But this year doesn't seem any different than previous years, at least from a Phillies perspective (or the Braves and Mets for that matter). Both Suarez and Wheeler spent time on the IL last year and Eflin missed half a season; the laundry list of 5/6 starters they've had over the past four years putting up ERAs over 6.00 while other guys got injured still seems pretty interchangeable (though Kyle Gibson's looking pretty good right now). And Painter is just the latest hot young prospect to be slowed by injuries.

The only difference this year is Dombrowski's moves haven't worked. He thought Walker would be an innning-eating, unquestioned #4 that would make the quality of the #5 less important, and that Painter would also upgrade the #5 spot (if not on April 1 certainly by now).

Where it does seem to be a bigger issue is in AAA. Phillies didn't have much down there to begin with and if Nelson and Sanchez were options (or Plassmyer didn't look even worse than Falter) they wouldn't have claimed Covey.

[Callison]

SO glad to see lineup adjustments. The one that Big Rob wants to work isn't right somehow.

Two of the strongest lineups in the game, Phis and Pads, playing like they're rebuilding.

[gmwannabe]

I see turner is back in the lineup. after scoring 11 runs, why change? They'll be lucky to get 4 runs today, after yesterday's slugging. I hope walker is on his game. Does anyone remember who was in on the bidding, with the Phils, to get turner? Phils need some decent pitching additions. Just saying.
gm

[schillingfan]

Left hand starter today.

[gmwannabe]

lefty...righty... looks like it doesn't matter.

[Aquapong]

Maybe a six man rotation is more appropriate? Or stop expecting starters to go 7 innings in this era of increased velocity? Maybe guys going in tandems is the answer. That would put more pressure on starters/followers not getting knocked out early because there isn’t much bp behind them. An injury to one of the tandem in game would also really mess up the pitching plan for the week as well. You’d almost need to have one emergency long man on the roster all the time or have an emergency long man for each stadium like hockey arenas do with goalies. 🤪

[zambonir]

The truth is teams are already doing this. Rosters should probably be expanded more (as we've discussed) for a variety of reasons but most teams are carrying a pitcher as the 26th man and it's semantics whether you call that last guy a sixth starter or a long reliever. (Ditto what the Phillies did with Strahm really). To some extent it's also semantics whether you plan for tandems/bullpen games, or just wait until they happen. And teams have always needed 8-9 starters. There just isn't enough good pitching, but it seems to me that will remain a problem whether you expect five guys to pitch 5-6 innings or expect 9 guys to pitch 3-4 innings.

In the end, it affects every team equally - except the ones with the best talent and best luck (and most money or minor league depth) will overcome it most easily.

The way the Phillies look right now a major pitching deadline move does feel inevitable. Someone better than Thor last year, and possibly sucking it up and paying the price for someone controllable (which would also be Nola insurance). They can probably get by without a starting-caliber position player but waiting on Painter is no longer an option (if he shows up and can still start or contribute bulk relief innings in September, great).

Moving Strahm back could also be an option but then you'd be putting an expiration date on his season for sure.

[LoneStarPhan]

With the way pitchers are used now, the 14 man pitching staff is needed. Increase active rosters to 27 with up to 14 allowed to be pitchers.

Interesting to see Covet Tuesday. His past record shows little to predict he can rise to the level of mediocre.

[flyers19rw]

On a positive side, Castellanos is playing some good baseball. I’ve been impressed by his hustle. It doesn’t always work out but he’s putting in the effort.

[andyb]

With the way pitchers are used now, the 14 man pitching staff is needed. Increase active rosters to 27 with up to 14 allowed to be pitchers.

The goal with the 13-pitcher limit was to hopefully develop more pitchers that could last longer in games. Clearly development has gone even farther into developing velocity (and 5-inning starters and 1-inning relievers).

I am not sure what baseball can do to change this. The 15-day IL is a little of that. I want the 42-man roster instead of 40 simply because teams need more bodies with the injured pitchers and expanded major league roster.

I always come back to deadening the ball. Take home runs out of the game a bit. That would lower the incentive to be a 3-outcome hitter. I might move the mound back but I think MLB has shelved that experiment because all the pitchers hated it. I do take comfort that Theo Epstein is in charge of this and he probably gets all these big picture issues better than any other executive in his role.

[Aquapong]

If we soften the talent pool even more, I think we’ll see teams literally throwing games because they have to carry guys that can’t really compete at that level. They may just throw all those guys out in one game a week or something to rest everyone else and if the offense wins the game, great. But they aren't expecting to win on pitching.

[andyb]

Some of this goes to pitcher usage too. The Phillies used far too many pitchers yesterday in a what they probably thought a must-win game. They are probably assuming Wheeler will go deep today, but they got 2 outs from Seranthony and 1 from Soto yesterday. Only 1 inning from Strahm and 2 outs from Brogdon.

One of those pitchers should probably have been held back yesterday. We'll probably need 2+ from Strahm on Tuesday, but a fresh Soto might have been nice for tonight.

[Callison]

Let's see.... finally got the team to hit a little Saturday with a new lineup....so let's shuffle it again!!!

Really glad to Stott making the statement that he wants to be the leadoff guy. The Phils need one. Another nice looking save by Kimbrel, too, who looked like he was long gone against LA.

It is really frustrating seeing all these proven hitter do so little. This team should be putting up 5 runs a game on a bad day.

[Philsmania]

Meme seen on ESPN's social media.

[phillychuck]

That's baseball...

[zambonir]

Strahm today's starter (or opener I guess, strictly speaking).

[andyb]

1 day rest so assume max of 2 innings. Really preferred them to not use him Sunday if they had a choice.

I am actually starting to trust Vasquez in more situations. His stuff is so strange with the sweeping breaking balls that he is just inducing light contact from everyone. I was a big doubter in Spring Training (Ortiz too) but they have both shown to be astute pickups. Marte also even thought he results are poor so far. Add in Hoffman and one might think we have an assistant GM who used to be in Tampa.