GDT 8/20/20 Philadelphia Phillies (Velasquez) @ Toronto Blue Jays (Thornton)

[flyers19rw]

Good post regarding the status for several of the RPs. Girardi is no dope. When he does things that are questionable, it might be a good idea for the phans to consider the fact that there are situations going on that we don’t know.
If this season continues in its present direction, heads will have to roll. There is a level of incompetence going on that rivals the Giles era. The decision to not get Realmuto signed this spring is proving to be disastrous. Either he will now get a bigger deal than what could have been had at that time or he will walk.
Player acquisitions have proven to be a major area of failure. The main reason that was given for the hiring of Klentak was his comfort with analytics. Either he isn’t good at deciphering them or he’s not getting the right data. Reasonably good talent has been traded out for little return aside from Realmuto. There are other people out there that can better evaluate players than Klentak and his crew. Time for a change.

[Philsmania]

Good post regarding the status for several of the RPs. Girardi is no dope. When he does things that are questionable, it might be a good idea for the phans to consider the fact that there are situations going on that we don’t know.
If this season continues in its present direction, heads will have to roll. There is a level of incompetence going on that rivals the Giles era. The decision to not get Realmuto signed this spring is proving to be disastrous. Either he will now get a bigger deal than what could have been had at that time or he will walk.
Player acquisitions have proven to be a major area of failure. The main reason that was given for the hiring of Klentak was his comfort with analytics. Either he isn’t good at deciphering them or he’s not getting the right data. Reasonably good talent has been traded out for little return aside from Realmuto. There are other people out there that can better evaluate players than Klentak and his crew. Time for a change.

This is an unfolding disaster. That's why I said Klentak is our worst GM since Giles acting as his own GM. I think our whole analytics staff needs to be cleared out, root and branch, and bring in new people. '

With regard to Realmuto, again he's brutally misreading the market. We saw it in his first year when he didn't trade Hellickson at the deadline thinking that someone would sign him to a big deal in the offseason which would net the Phillies a comp pick (as a result, Klentak demanded first-round pick talent in exchange for Hellickson). In the end, Hellickson took the QO because he saw little interest on the market. Now, we saw it again when he didn't renegotiate with Realmuto thinking the market would be depressed. Looks like he'll be wrong again.

I wonder what Harper will do. I'm sure he didn't sign up to spend his best years on a 100+ loss team. Plus, Harper LOVES Realmuto and I am sure that the Phillies trading for him was at least partly to try to induce Harper to sign here. If Realmuto leaves, he will be very unhappy and this will make for a combustible situation. Will he demand a trade or ask Boras to renegotiate his contract to get him some kind of an opt-out?

[fish]

Now, we saw it again when he didn't renegotiate with Realmuto thinking the market would be depressed. Looks like he'll be wrong again.

And the ultimate kick in the pants will be if the qualified offer system is gone and they can't even get a draft pick for losing him.

Chaim Bloom was a finalist for the job when Matt Klentak was hired. That's as gut wrenching for me as it is to think how bad their 2016 draft was with the number 1 pick. More and more it feels like Klentak's only credentials were being a good assistant ("as stupid as they appear, they are actually quite good at paperwork") and in good standing with McPhail. I can't believe I've watched them run this for 5 years. Or that they were even given the opportunity to keep failing that long.

[andyb]

We are of course not sure Chaim Bloom is any good as a GM either. He is blowing up that team aggressively. We just don't know if he can put together an actual good team yet either.

[zambonir]

No, but he comes from a successful family tree...with lots of recent success. Our guys did not do anything of note in Anaheim or Baltimore, though they helped build the latter in the same way Wade helped build the Phillies.

The Mets also failed to hire Bloom. It worked out very well for him because he got to run Tampa for a while and get the President's job instead of the GM job when he finally went to Boston. Of course Boston is a mess at the ownership level too. But at least they managed to win during their mess.

Unfortunately I don't think signing or not signing Realmuto is really that big an issue. I guess I'd say that if the only reason they didn't sign them is because they didn't want to pay the tax, and failed to construct a roster that allowed room to sign him, that's a pretty big failure. But it was reasonable at the time to think that they could strike a deal to be announced on Opening Day. The virus changed all that.

If you think this team is not in especially good shape, and is hamstrung by contracts, without much talent in the pipeline, why would you want to sign a 30 year-old catcher to a four-year deal, let alone a five or six-year deal? At this point you only go all-out to sign him if you still think you can win division titles in the next two seasons.

And I'm less worried about Harper demanding a trade as I am that it might be better for the Phillies to get him to accept one. Again, if this team is only a marginal wild card contender at best for the next two seasons, they'll have wasted Harper's prime.

I'm not prepared to hold a funeral for this season, the team is pretty good but for the bullpen. Or the next two: they'll have money to spend next year with Arrieta and Robertson gone (even more so if they don't sign JT). But if Cutch and Segura remain in decline and with 1B, 2B, and CF still in question, plus nobody ready to just step into LF or SS, there are more holes than there are ways to fill them.

[allentown]

I'm not prepared to hold a funeral for this season, the team is pretty good but for the bullpen. Or the next two: they'll have money to spend next year with Arrieta and Robertson gone (even more so if they don't sign JT). But if Cutch and Segura remain in decline and with 1B, 2B, and CF still in question, plus nobody ready to just step into LF or SS, there are more holes than there are ways to fill them.

I'm not ready to give up on them either, especially next two seasons. However, I'm not at all convinced that leaving MacPhail/Klentak in charge isn't equivalent to doing exactly that. For the budget they've had available to them, which must mean that they also are allowed to hire whatever scouts, coaches, minor league instructors and managers, they choose and given Middleton's insistence that he is willing to pony up to win, and considering that we are many years from a positive record, -- it just seems bizarre what a lack of urgency and consistent direction/philosophy these guys have shown since MacPhail was hired. The internal part of the Phillies rebuild has been distinctly unimpressive. Taken as a whole, the post-2011 story of the Phillies has been nothing short of pathetic.

I don't know quite what to make of Kingery. The performance has certainly been outright bad. Post-Covid, minor injuries, no second phase of ST -- that's at least a partial explanation of the performance, but if the theory was that he would play his way out of it, that notion seems to have been disproven. It seems past time to sent him to Allentown to get back in baseball shape -- physically, mentally, and timing-wise. O and D, he has just been all-around bad. The O puts him below what a fair number of pitchers could do.

BA ranks the farm 26th,; except for Nola our young home-grown players aren't doing well; the team has a losing record. It's one heck of a rebuild.

[zambonir]

Middleton is all talk, given how MacPhail has run the organization, as well as the fact that so much of the organization was allowed to linger. We've frequently wondered when Sal's time is finally up, but another person who hasn't left is Mike Ondo. As the director or professional scouting, it's his department that was responsible for evaluating the players we chose to acquire from other organizations, even if their faillure also falls on our development staff (up to and including the GM).

Also you can't tell me that if Middleton really wanted JT badly, and was willing to pay what JT's agent currently wants, it wouldn't already be done. Klentak doesn't get to do that - or even squeeze JT in arbitration - if everyone's not aligned.

There is probably a better case for changing GMs if you still have hope than not. A complete rebuild and sweep-out of all that Klentak has done, even if so little of it seems worth saving, means another five-year plan, and even if Harper is still there for it, Nola wouldn't be. But this team, with a checkbook, could bring in a Gillick/Dombrowski type to try and do short-term fixes. I just don't know where that would leave us in 2023.

[allentown]

I have two questions:
1. Is there any sign that Klentak can turn this around in less than 5 years? That he can turn it around at all?
2. How have other GMs turned it around in less than 5 years?

I guess a third question: What signs are there that progress is being made in either our major league or minor league organizations?

I certainly agree on Sal. Our yield of above average talent from international has been pathetic.
I'm not as sure about Ondo, but we certainly haven't been getting talent steals and have taken on more than our fair share of injured guys/problem contracts/guys who never developed for us.

[zambonir]

Oh I'm not saying Klentak is the guy. But you make a very different hire/conduct a very different interview if you want to blow it up vs. not. And I doubt Middleton wants to blow it up.

Other GMs turned it around in five years by drafting better and picking better people to run their scouting and minor league ops. And also inheriting a less terrible organization (Wade left the Astros with a lot more than Ruben and Gillick left Klentak). But it still takes five years. I don't really think the Phillies are in a position to wait for three more drafts, or to sweep out people who have only just been hired in the past 2-3 years (that is, Bonifay and Barber and so forth, not Klentak).

Of course this all starts with MacPhail. If they canned him and brought in a new president with a baseball background Klentak would either have to work for him or forfeit his salary for the next two years, which would actually be a clever move by the Phillies. And if they fire Klentak but not MacPhail what has changed?

[flyers19rw]

There is chatter out NY that the Yankees are extremely interested in signing JT. To the point of moving the inconsistent Gary Sanchez to either another position or another club. So if the Phillies intend to re-sign Realmuto they’re going to have to dig down deep to come up with the paper.

[LoneStarPhan]

MacPhail has been president of baseball operations for just over five years now.

During this time, the team has shown some improvement is some areas but has remained unsatisfactory in many key areas of baseball operations. Really, bottom line is that I expect the Phillies to be in the post season 4 out of every 5 years. So far, MacPhail has failed. Sadly, I don't see much more than a team trying to play .500 baseball and not quite reaching that mediocre goal very often.

I do not however think it is fair to say that they are a hundred plus loss team, as some have said. Maybe I am wrong. The upcoming series in Atlanta is critical and they must win two of the three to keep the hope of a .500 season alive.

There is no doubt that the last three games were played at the level of a 120 loss team, but even this short season should not be characterized by 3 games.

[Philsmania]

The way I see it, the best "hope" for this organization in the short-term is another 1993--a glorious patchwork job that manages to pull an inside straight one season in which everybody stays healthy and relatively low-cost veteran patches all play up to their potential or have that last hurrah season. The Red Sox also did that in 2013. It's important to note that Lee Thomas failed to rebuild the Phillies in accordance with the mandate he received when he was hired in 1988. Though he failed as a builder, he was a crafty wheeler and dealer who knew how to get the right guy to fill the right hole. He gave us quite a joyride in 1993 but, obviously, that team had no staying power and that season proved to be just an oasis in the desert of two long rebuilding plans. That '93 Phillies team's postseason roster had only FIVE homegrown players--Daulton (who was really a vestige of the Paul Owens administration, drafted in 1980), Morandini, Stocker, Batiste and Jordan (and Mike Williams was the only homegrown pitcher on that team that much of significant contribution though he was left off the postseason roster). That is probably the best we can hope for right now before we face the music and have to begin a painful rebuild filled with tanking seasons. But, if we do pull it off, don't expect the glory to last long.

Unfortunately, I don't think Klentak is the GM who can pull that off. For all his intelligence and Dartmouth pedigree, he just isn't that crafty or "baseball smart". Perhaps a veteran president/GM like Dave Dombrowski on a short-term contract to give us one shot at glory before heading off into the sunset (along with Girardi) and leaving Middleton the job of having to bring in a new management team to attempt a painful rebuild. Resigning Realmuto is an essential step one--though it would be best for his sake and ours that any no-trade clause isn't too strong.

The choice, as I see it, is go for broke in 2021-22--luxury tax and the short-term future beyond then (2023-25) be darned--and only in 2021-22 or throw in the towel now and rebuild. If we don't throw in the towel now, then blow the tax and trade guys like Stott, et al. if we have to in order to get us pieces to put us over the top in this short-term window since we are not going to win with them in 2023-25 anyway.

Here's the history of the Phillies in most of my lifetime:
1970-73: rebuild after the Dick Allen Era fell apart.
1974-83: Phillies Phirst Golden Age
1984-88: Phillies flailed away to restart the expired Golden Age with a patchwork strategy
1989-1992: Rebuild under Lee Thomas which ultimately failed, though we did end up with some good pieces.
1993: Thomas's glorious patchwork job
1994-96: Phillies flailed away trying to recapture the '93 magic
1997-2000: Rebuild under Thomas and later Wade which through fits and starts, ups and downs, ultimately succeeded in building a durable winner
2001-11: Phillies Second Golden Age, reaching its peak in 2007-11
2012-14: Phillies flailed away trying to restart the expired Second Golden Age throwing money at veterans
2015-present: rebuild that looks like a failure though we do have some good pieces. We could use a '93 which is NOT followed by a flail away

[zambonir]

MacPhail actually didn't take over until the 2015 season ended. One of the many mistakes which preceded his tenure, not having him just come in and start running things the minute he was announced. He's not even technically the person who fired Amaro, who remained GM until September 10th of that year. By then Milwaukee had already hired a new GM away from Houston. One can only assume that Klentak was unwilling to leave Anaheim until season's end, or they wouldn't let him, since it's not like the GM search was truly that exhaustive.

It's all well and good to expect the playoffs four out of every five years but first you have to actually pull off the initial rebuild. The Phillies built very little from 2015 to 2017 so of course it hasn't paid off. The Cubs and Astros and Red Sox are already back on the down curve of their rebuild

2018 was supposed to be when things started to heat up but instead they had to blow up that team, and then blow up the manager after 2019 (while also sweeping out 3 of 8 position players). It's not really that mysterious.

But yeah, the choice now is '93 Phillies, 2013 Red Sox, or rip it up and start again. I would agree Klentak is probably not the wheeler-dealer to do it.

And yes, the Yankees and other teams will probably go hard after JT. Giving JT a huge contract that will turn into a sunk cost is what a rich contending team must do. Are we one?

[Philsmania]

But yeah, the choice now is '93 Phillies, 2013 Red Sox, or rip it up and start again. I would agree Klentak is probably not the wheeler-dealer to do it.

And yes, the Yankees and other teams will probably go hard after JT. Giving JT a huge contract that will turn into a sunk cost is what a rich contending team must do. Are we one?

The latter depends upon what we choose to do in the former. Go for broke in the short term, do it and then trade him (and a big stack of cash) after 2022. If rip it and start over again, let him walk and take the pick.

[zambonir]

If you rip it up you probably don't even take the pick. Trade him now. The value of the pick is tied to the value of having him for another month, and having an exclusive window to re-sign him. Take those two things off the table and you make the biggest blockbuster you can in current climate.