2023 Phils Spring Training News and Discussion

[andyb]

Another umpire clearly hates the Phillies:

Homeplate umpire Randy Rosenberg ejects JT Realmuto for this 🤨 pic.twitter.com/dkQtpU1bHt

— Tim and Friends ( @timandfriends ) March 27, 2023

JT already got a couple of plate appearances this afternoon so this is no big deal.

[phillychuck]

40 spring at-bats is not enough time for one player to "beat out" another one. If Kingery had a good spring, great for him; I'm seriously glad, but send him to AAA and have him prove his improvement and grove his rediscovered stroke under less pressure. I'm not sure Guthrie is the answer either, but I would probably give him first chance based on the entirety o this career.

[andyb]

Even if Kingery played better than Guthrie there is really not that much difference between the two. A couple of 700 OPS utility players who can steal a base and play a credible CF. Letting Guthrie start the season means we get to have both of them rather than losing a player at the moment through a 40-man move. We'll probably need both of them because we don't have much major league ready AAA depth at the moment.

I do still think it is 50-50 though that we'll add a right-handed 1B (Ruf or the 3-4 other options we discussed last week).

[zambonir]

Guthrie got off to a slower start but it seemed like they were roughly equal over most of spring training. And, not for nothing, Guthrie put up better numbers in both AAA and MLB last year, SSS or not (at least in the MLB case).

But most important, IMO, Kingery played SS and 2B exclusively in AAA last year, whereas Guthrie played 84 games in RF and CF and 12 more in MLB. If Harrison or Sosa wasn't on the team Kingery would have made it. If they thought Kingery's CF defense was significantly better than Guthrie's, he would have made it. But right now the tie goes to the guy on the roster.

Surely Ruf will clear waivers, unless the Mets want to buy a prospect by paying all his salary.

[Patchmk88]

Man some of these umpires have ego's bigger than those of star players. Guy thought JT was dissing him, when JT actually thought the ump was just going to throw the ball back to Kimbrel.

[andyb]

Spring exit velocity improvements - Jake Cave.

Analyzing Spring Training’s Exit Velocity Leaders

[Austinfan]

We'll see just how good Long is this year, Catellanos, Hall, Cave and Kingery were his star pupils this offseason and ST.
And of course, Marsh and Sosa, Bohm and Stott.
How much they improve will be a good gauge, you can't fix every player, but even batting .500 would be huge.

[zambonir]

Let's hope for another World Series trip and then a new hitting coach (I assume he can still be bought out if there's a job he actually wants).

[DurhamBull]

you can't fix every player, but even batting .500 would be huge.

If even one of these players ends the season with a .500 BA, Long will go down in history!

(Just kidding, I know what you meant...I'd be thrilled if any of these players bat .300.)

[andyb]

We'll see just how good Long is this year

We'll see how good the players are. Most improvement is on the player, not the coach. He is not a miracle worker.

[phillychuck]

We'll see just how good Long is this year

We'll see how good the players are. Most improvement is on the player, not the coach. He is not a miracle worker.

Except Jeff Stoutland...

[zambonir]

While it's easy to give Long too much credit, he does seem to be pretty a pretty unique combination of technical acumen, teaching ability, having both old and new-school ideas and work ethic. Plus the players are buying in, both with the off-season commitment and in general. He may not be a miracle worker - heck, he didn't work any miracles at all last year really in total, numerous players were either nothing special or worse or works-in-progress - but it's certainly better having him than any of the last few hitting coaches.

I knew a former Philadelphia Flyers player who said he didn't believe in chemistry, that "winning is chemistry" and I think that is part of it too. These guys put in all the extra time this off-season because of what they accomplished last year. If you're a bad team, or a jaded team that's had lots of success, you take more of December and January off.

[andyb]

Hitting coaches just do not make that much of a difference. Long has had lots of failures too in his past and been fired from jobs. It is just annoying to see every post lead with "Long will fix him".

The Phillies drafted a player like Alec Bohm because he already was a good hitter and had good tools (i.e. batspeed, control of both sides of the plate, power potential, etc. Hopefully Long helps him realize those tools, though the difference between the best and worst hitting coaches in the majors is probably about 5%. The players themselves make most of the difference. Hitting techniques are not unique coach to coach for the most part.

Saying "Long will fix them" is just not analysis. It is a crutch to avoid analysis.

[zambonir]

For sure. I think the difference is the Phillies are finally at a place where that 5% difference matters, whether it's the hitting coach or the manager or the guy pitching the 9th. And it's not everyday the hitting coach is on a longer contract than the manager. Obviously baseball has its share of groupthink but there's no question he is one of the best/most accomplished at the job. I would also say that while techniques may not be unique to a particular coach, there are certainly different approaches and philosophies. What Kingery got from the Phillies vs. what he got from his private coach vs. what he's getting from Long were all different.

At the end of the day some coaches get just a little more out of the players and some don't, which would seem to be the main difference between Long and Dillon given Dillon worked with Long. And some coaches connect with certain players but not others; a better coach figures out how to tailor his approach to each of them.

We'll see if any of these guys are even "fixed." It's still spring training as far as some of the more eye-popping results. And Castellanos has a long way to go.

[VoteForKalas]

I knew a former Philadelphia Flyers player who said he didn't believe in chemistry, that "winning is chemistry" and I think that is part of it too. These guys put in all the extra time this off-season because of what they accomplished last year. If you're a bad team, or a jaded team that's had lots of success, you take more of December and January off.

I've always agreed with chemistry being built as a result of winning together. I think you're dead on here.

[zambonir]

Posted about this (and Voit being locked down by the Brewers) in the non-Phililes thread. Dombrowski said today that they are content to go with Bohm at 1B and Sosa at 3B, though of course he isn't going to say if he's considering anything else. But, they obviously passed on taking on Hiura's salary and I'm sure the same is true of Ruf. Harrison is already taking up that (admittedly still modest) bit of $.

Keston Hiura Clears Waivers, Sent Outright To Triple-A

[phillychuck]

Things to worry about this spring:

Starting pitching:
Nola has been hit around and is without a contract extension.
Wheeler has been spectacularly ineffective.
Jeremy Walker outperformed Taijuan Walker.
Falter seems to have lost something from last season
Ranger is hurt.

First base is an offensive wasteland outside of Hall--a good team needs at least an 850 or so OPS out of 1B, and Bohm is not likely to do that when he's there, and Hall is unpredictable.
Stott has not played nearly as well as he did last spring...but that's a high bar.

Good things this spring:

Bullpen has looked solid--maybe we can have two bullpen games each week.
Turner has hit well and fielded his position
Bryce seems to be recovering on or ahead of schedule.
Sosa seems playable at 3B AND CF.
Cave has hit well..
Castellanos has shown patience.
Bohm is hitting better...
Hall.

For the first two months they need to patch together something on the mound or they will be looking up at the division...

[Philsmania]

Agreed, starting pitching is the biggest concern although ST numbers need to be taken with a grain of salt. I have a feeling the top three will be fine. The rest of the rotation may be trouble, however. First base is a question mark. Much is riding on Hall. I have a funny feeling that Cave might be turn out to be a poor man's Jayson Werth.

[zambonir]

That would be pretty great for Cave, question is can he get enough playing time to show that? His story is also similar to Kingery's, funnily enough (struggled in 2020 though I don't know that he had COVID, back injury in 2021 that he's only now recovering from).

[andyb]

I think right now Cave is a platoon starter.

C - Realmuto
1B - Hall/Bohm
2B - Stott/occasionally Harrison
SS - Turner
3B - Bohm/Sosa
LF - Cave/Schwarber
CF - Marsh
RF - Castellanos
DH - Schwarber/rotating

The DH will rotate with Cave included, but we basically have one Hall/Sosa platoon and one Cave/rotating platoon for 2 different lineup spots. Realistically Stott and Marsh will sit against lots of LHP which will get Harrison and maybe Guthrie in some of those games (with Castellanos rotating to DH).

Cave is going to play against RHP until he proves he can't.