19 Pittsburgh Pirates (Musgrove) @ Philadelphia Phillies (Vargas)

California_Dreamin 2019-08-27 19:18:23 UTC #201

Lawman...fine, then why bench him yesterday? I have a new puppy and one of the first things our dog trainer told us is that if/when you are going to discipline a puppy and have him understand why he is being disciplined it must be done immediately.

Benching Hernandez last night simply looks silly and is unlikely to be viewed in a positive manner in the clubhouse. And count me as one who doesn't believe you ever allow your place in the standings to dictate what rules you enforce. If you have a rule, enforce it or it really isn't a rule.

Even Rodriguez said he felt Kapler should have been more forceful.

Lawman 2019-08-27 19:24:38 UTC #202

Good question, I don't know the answer to that. Was wondering the same myself. Although Hernandez said he sat yesterday for reasons unrelated to the non-hustling issues. So, perhaps, the two are unrelated?

Whatever.

mdougherty12 2019-08-27 19:29:38 UTC #203

I would guess that not pulling Hernandez during the game Sunday was simply a pragmatic decision to not burn a player in the middle of a close game when you have a 4 man bench. Another possibility is that the decision to bench Hernandez didn't come from Kapler, but from higher up in the organization.

julio 2019-08-27 19:32:02 UTC #204

CD... You didn't say that. I agreed with you (thus, my post started with "Yeah.") The rest of the post? Well, it isn't always about you? Sorry if that wasn't clear.

California_Dreamin 2019-08-27 19:47:24 UTC #205

julio...no problem, but it did sound like a response to me...especially since I have been commenting on it for the last hour or so. All good.

California_Dreamin 2019-08-27 19:49:25 UTC #206

mdoughty...I agree with both of your premises but repeat what I have said innumerable times, its is Kapler who insists on a 13 man pitching staff, he has admitted as much quite often. And this denies him a 5 man bench.

Philsmania 2019-08-27 20:02:17 UTC #207

One advantage that the Braves had over the Phillies when they started their rebuild after 2014 is that they had still-valuable veterans who could be cashed in for young talent or assets--guys like Kimbrel, Heyward, Simmonds and J. Upton. The Phillies veteran assets were all past their prime not worth nearly as much. But yes, they clearly scouted, drafted and signed, both domestic and in Latin America..

Philsmania 2019-08-27 20:08:49 UTC #208

California_Dreamin:

Rodriguez was not wrong, of course. And I have never liked booing, still recalling the booing of Richie Allen in 1964. But what Rodriguez fails to mention is that fans often boo because many players talk and act entitled. We see this every day.

Hoskins has never been one of those players to be sure. And the Rodriguez story is complicated one because A] a case can be made that there are 3-4 more deserving players at LHV today [including Franco] and B] everyone and their father knows Kapler is a good friend of Rodriguez, which MAKES him look entitled, even though all reports are that he is a good guy, good teammate and great in the clubhouse.

I appreciated him defending Hoskins but would have preferred he say what he said while adding "but you know what, given how I have scuffled lately I would probably boo me too!"

Philadelphia phans would have loved that and he might well have endeared himself to them.

It's one thing to stick up for a teammate who the fans are picking on but when a player complains about the fans booing him, fairly or not, that comes across as thin-skinned and whiny and doesn't help him public relations-wise. That was a contributing factor to Rolen losing the public relations war when he and the Phillies fell out. It's probably better to turn the other cheek or find other ways to stand up to booing fans. I remember when the Phillies signed Lance Parrish to a big free agent contract in 1987. He struggled early and fans booed him mercilessly. Then, in the later innings of a June game, his at-bat came up and got booed as he stepped into the box. He promptly slugged a big game-changing home run. Fans clamored for a curtain call and he refused to step out for it. Fans didn't boo him after that.

mdougherty12 2019-08-27 20:24:42 UTC #209

The 13 man pitching staff appears to be the standard number in MLB in 2019, and it doesn't show any signs of decreasing.

julio 2019-08-27 20:39:50 UTC #210

No it doesn't.

Next season, rosters will expand to 26. As of now, there's no rule prohibiting clubs from further expanding bullpens - although there evidently have been discussions about perhaps needing to do that (per the discussions at the time of the MLB/MLBPA announcements about 2019 and 2020, this past March).

andyb 2019-08-27 20:48:15 UTC #211

I thought the 26-man roster had a fixed limit of 13 pitchers (with exceptions for 2-way players like Ohtani).

This is an interesting long term development question because as starters pitch fewer innings, a fixed bullpen size means relievers need to increase their innings. I would love to see a team experiment with a 4-man tandem rotation as a way to get more pitchers into that 110-130 range which might be a healthy limit. 40 3-inning appearances for each starter and reliever. Maybe you would need the starters to go 4 innings. Teams will need to get creative when nobody throws 200 innings any more.

zambonir 2019-08-27 20:55:41 UTC #212

Kapler may like having a 13-man pitching staff but Klentak likes it just as much if not more. When your GM/analytics people are telling you to play reliever match-ups (or not use a starter third time through) they darn well better give you enough players.

Anyway, we didn't have 13 pitchers when Bruntlett, Castro, Valdez, Blanco, or Florimon took up a bench spot. Or the legendary So Taguchi for that matter.

And the facts say Rodriguez was better than all those other players this year. The numbers don't lie. He's been solid and he's hit lefties. Just because he's 1-15 in August doesn't change that, even if you think Phil Gosselin would have gone from a .536 OPS to .800-something had he stayed.

The only argument against Rodriguez is the one Andy has made, that Klentak should have found the RH equivalent of Jay Bruce instead of so many lefties. It's not like it was hard to see that Franco was done, and not a good fit sitting on the bench. You can find posts on this board saying that three months ago.

I'm sure the clubhouse loved what Rodriguez said last night. Truth is this team still lacks vocal leaders besides Harper, even if his style is more of the 'I'd boo me too" variety. Hoskins, like Howard (who could let Jimmy soak up the spotlight and Utley set the one) doesn't seem to have that in him. Again, I don't want to overrate the leadership thing but they brought in Cutch for that reason and they brought in Bruce to partly fill that same void.

Funny about David Bell though. Honestly it's still not clear to me, of David Bell, Barry Bonds and Jeff Kent, which ones were truly selfish in SF. But of course Bell is a manager now. I'm quite happy to have Kapler instead of that Phillies-style hire (Reds "family' and all that).

julio 2019-08-27 21:37:12 UTC #213

To the best of my knowledge, no final decision has been made on this. The March 14, 2019 announcement said:

The number of pitchers a Club may carry on the active roster will be capped at a number
determined by the joint committee.

As far as I know, no subsequent ruling has been announced.

I'm attaching a copy of the March 14, 2019 MLB/MLBPA press release, for those that may not have seen it.

MLB-MLBPA Press Release.pdf (110.8 KB)

This is, of course, true - but because we didn't have 13 pitchers, the club found itself depending on these guys as pinch hitters somewhat less. The impact of the expanded bullpen is that, while clubs still need to keep a backup middle infielder on the roster, they sacrifice an offense-first bench guy, which means the light hitting middle infielder gets more PH appearances - and generally, they're not very good at it.

schillingfan 2019-08-27 21:53:28 UTC #214

One advantage to having versatile players is that you don’t need that light hitting utility infielder. There often is not a good hitting infielder who can play shortstop. Kingery does provide that advantage as he can play all the infield positions. Thus we could have a pure designated hitter type on our bench if we wanted to.

Austinfan 2019-08-27 22:28:55 UTC #215

Stott and Simmons may also provide that flexibility as SSs with the arm and athleticism to play 3B, 2B and probably the OF. Notice a lot of minor leaguers are moved around to different positions, probably to audition their potential for mastering different spots at an acceptable level. I expect Bohm to see time at 3B, 1B and LF/RF next year for that reason.

zambonir 2019-08-27 22:37:59 UTC #216

But Kingery is no longer a bench player (and hasn't been for months), that's exactly why we have Miller and Rodriguez! Our four-man bench at this point should have been Quinn, Bruce, Knapp and one of the two utility guys. With Quinn and Bruce out we still have both utility guys plus LoMo.

Perhaps Franco should be here instead of Morrison solely because he's RH but I'm confident the utility guys give this team more of a marginal advantage than Franco does, for the roles required.

It's all moot as of Sunday but I also don't blame the Phillies for doing what they could to keep guys off waivers.

I suppose it must be true that we did not have to see bad bench players PH as often when there was a five-man bench, but that's not how I remember it anecdotally. Lots of complaints about Bruntlett getting ABs (often because he would then stay in the game as an OF too), or the catcher (guys like Kratz, and Bako). Sometimes the manager would burn that guy early in the lowest-leverage situations but other times they'd actually come up last in the highest-leverage situations, because they had to be saved in case of injuries or a double-switch.

Bruntlett had 31 PH opportunities in 2009, when he had a .462 OPS in 118 PAs (that pretty much ended his career). Rodriguez has 26 PH opportunites and has a .709 OPS in 101 PAs. He's probably faced righties more than he should have (and his LH OPS has declined thanks to that poor August).

It is the great luxury of good teams to only gripe about bench players and closers, I guess we're good (except our real gripes are still the rotation and our 1B).

schillingfan 2019-08-27 23:52:47 UTC #217

Right, Kingery isn’t a bench player, but if you have a regular who can play the three infield positions, then you don’t need a utility infielder for backup.

zambonir 2019-08-28 00:14:55 UTC #218

Well, clearly our GM and manager don't agree. Anyway, if the bench was Bruce/Quinn/Morrison/Knapp, who would have played 3B last night when Kingery got his start at 2B? What if Segura had gotten hurt (assuming Quinn can't really play there, in this theoretical scenario)? And then Kingery himself left the game.

You gotta have one middle IF/3B guy on that bench, and it's either gonna be someone who can't field or someone who can't hit (and unfortunately Franco had become both).

I would have loved to see them get Derek Dietrich or someone else who could play 3B but Dickerson was obviously more available, and OF had become just as big a need.

It's been moot because of the injuries, and no trades, and after Sunday there's room for everyone.

schillingfan 2019-08-28 02:40:55 UTC #219

Miller can play third base. That makes five bench guys. Or Kingery can move to third base from second and Hernandez plays second. If Kingery can start a game at center you don’t need a utility infielder. This isn’t hard to me. I’m not the one wanting players who can play many positions. But if that’s their philosophy, then it makes no sense to have a utility infielder. We have a multiple position starter, which should leave a bench position for a better hitter, rather than poor hitting utility defender.

zambonir 2019-08-28 02:43:30 UTC #220

Miller is not on a four-man bench with no utility player (or in the scenario I described). He is the utility player.