2024 Phillies Late Season Discussion

[zambonir]

Everyone except the Braves and Mets announcers have always known this.

[mdougherty12]

CBP is relatively HR-friendly (114 3-year park factor on Stat cast), but neutral for run scoring (101 3-year park factor).

[allentown]

CBP started as a bandbox, but changes were made.

[Jazzhead]

I hope Covey can show he's ready to go. I think he's the best bet for the last bullpen arm, although if the assumed role is to be able to mop up 3 innings, Walker provides that potential length

[andyb]

Covey has been a 1-inning pitcher at AAA almost exclusively (1.1 max). No way he going more than that even if he gets a callup. His last inning included 4 BBs as well. Just don't think his stuff is where it was last season.

[zambonir]

Yeah I don't think Covey is actually in the mix for anything other than possibly a "what the heck" call-up and a free trip to Clearwater on the taxi squad, but he has to get on the 40 first for either. Walker aside Covey's still behind Lazar and Marte and currently Allard and Gilbert (both still on the major league team).

Banks also doesn't look like anyone who can provide more than mediocre length. If he isn't needed or can't be used in a key spot early against a LHB he just becomes a mop-up guy. No problem with them bringing Lazar back for a lesser role either, they just can't yet.

[Philsmania]

Cubs are faltering late against the Athletics. The Brewers might not have something to clinch tonight.

[zambonir]

Well, they are still chasing us for the #2 seed (and technically they aren't out of the #1 either).

So there's plastic up in both clubhouses, unless the Phillies took theirs down with the East no longer in play this series (it still was on Monday), vs. just celebrating playoff berth.

[zambonir]

Zolecki has already made his pitching playoff roster. Allard, Lazar, Turnbull or Gilbert would be #13 (but he figures there won't be one).

Twelve pitchers are safe bets to make the roster:

Right-handers (six): Carlos Estévez, Jeff Hoffman, Orion Kerkering, Aaron Nola, José Ruiz, Taijuan Walker, Zack Wheeler

Left-handers (six): José Alvarado, Tanner Banks, Cristopher Sánchez, Matt Strahm, Ranger Suárez

https://www.mlb.com/news/phillies-roster-decisions-for-2024-postseason

[phillychuck]

Apparently Zolecki can't count--that's 7 righties and 5 lefties.

[zambonir]

That's why they used to have editors.

[andyb]

For all of our pitching woes, we still setup as the number one pitching core for the postseason. Tonight might be a little ugly (Walker plus the bottom of our bullpen), but it is not about tonight.

Ranking each MLB contender’s postseason pitching core — from shutdown to suspect

[zambonir]

For all our pitching woes we have the best record in baseball! I guess it will still sting if they end up missing out on one of the top seeds (NL or MLB) by a game.

More importantly, hope we see some hitting. 2 runs and 1 run in the losses at Milwaukee.

[Austinfan]

They need more time against the pitching machine throwing breaking stuff.
It's the pitchers with good sliders etc that kill them - the hard throwers don't give them as much trouble.

[zambonir]

Do you think they are spending too much time watching videos on their phone or with the machine set to fastballs? I'm sure it is their primary and daily focus.

[donaldorc]

I don't know where else to ask this, so I'll do it here. For those of you who use your iPhones to comment here, what app do you use? I haven't found any way other than computer and tablet to have a reasonable way to comment.

[tom81]

I’m writing this reply in the safari browser on my iPhone.

[zambonir]

yeah I'm not iPhone but I just use Chrome same as on my computer. More typos or bad autocorrects with the tiny keyboard (or voice to text) so I try to mostly stick to reading. Mostly.

[donaldorc]

Thanks for your replies. My experience with Safari is similar to zambonir's.

[Callison]

Tough loss yesterday, but silver lining in seeing Nola pitch at peak performance level again. Against a playoff team, too, so it shows he can be dominant against anybody, like the Phils need him to be. Hitting corners and completely fooling batters. Not fatigue after all that turns him into batting practice. IMHO, Nola will tell the future for the Phils.