18 Washington Nationals (Gonzalez, G) @ Philadelphia Phillies (Arrieta)

ButlerBulldog 2018-08-30 22:03:37 UTC #141

Jackie Bradley Jr. is eligible for arbitration this winter. Given his struggles during the first half, I wonder if the Red Sox would be interested in trading him, as I think he’d be a solid fourth outfielder. Plus, he could start if Quinn were miss time due to injury. He’s streaky, but he’s also one of the best defensive outfielders in baseball.

Lawman 2018-08-30 22:15:48 UTC #142

That's why I limited my caveat to Free Agents. Easier to see who is actually available.

zambonir 2018-08-30 22:33:29 UTC #143

I could be wrong, maybe this defensive season will be a big wake-up call for Klentak about Hoskins in LF, but I'm not inclined to speculate about any roster that doesn't have Santana at 1B, because I just don't see him being moved. Especially if Hernandez might be moved, they are not going to get rid of two high-OBP switch-hitters at the same time. I'd sooner bet money that Nick Williams isn't a starting OF next year.

Also I'm very pro-Herrera but his diminishing value diminishes further in LF (though he'd still be a defensive upgrade on Hoskins.

Still hard to believe Altherr's out of the picture. If he was reliable (both health-wise and production-wise) he would be the guy, with or without Herrera, to back up Quinn and play CF.

bkeich 2018-08-30 23:11:35 UTC #144

zambonir:

I don't think there's any connection between Quinn and Hoskins/Santana. Obviously that would open up more options, but it could just as easily be Williams or Herrera who lose their spot. But you can't really go in to ST with Quinn pencilled in as one of your starting three. He's your 4th OF and if he stays healthy he'll get his 400 ABs and if he pushes for more playing time, that will come too.

I hope Klentak would consider anything, but it is probably pure fantasy to think the Phillies will move on from Santana unless his trade value turns out to be good (obviously Phillies could eat some $).. For one thing, they really like him. He needs to do better but he's third on the team in WAR, second in RBIs and has 20 HRs. They can't possibly be happy with his SLG% but probably don't care about his BA, and see it (and his defensive drop-off) as a one-off not a decline. If they are wrong he'll be a bench player in Year 3 (and hopefully before) but they knew that when they signed him.

The fact that they have Bour - assuming they keep him - may make it more not less likely that they keep Santana. Because even though he's a LHB it's not like Bour would platoon with Hoskins (since Hoskins would play 155 games).

I do see a connection between Quinn and Santana. In other post you discussed having Quinn/Herrera/Hoskins/Williams as the 4 OFs, but I am not sure that works because I think only Williams is credible in RF among that group. Quinn and Herrera dont have the arm and I am fairly certain Hoskins doesnt, so really there has to be a 5th OF for those to work, I assume that is Altherr. So if Quinn were to take a position (assuming he can stay healthy) Hoskins has to go somewhere (or Herrera), and the only real way to do that in my opinion is to move Santana. They could trade Herrera, but they would really be selling low on a guy that may be a very good player once he gets some consistency.

Santana's value isnt going to be high, but frankly it is just going to go down. If they can move him this offseason, it would be helpful in my opinion, he is not really needed, especially if they retain Ramos or get a prime FA this offseason (i.e. dont really need Santana's veteran leadership as much).

I like Santana and I do think he has been a great influence on our clubhouse and players, particularly (maybe) the Hispanic players (but really all of them, dont want to imply he only has helped a certain group), but his play has been marginal at best and he wasnt any better last year. I don't think he really should be in our starting 8 next year, as a 1B only he just doesnt provide enough offense.

zambonir 2018-08-30 23:30:44 UTC #145

I just don't see the connection because I don't believe the front office shares your (or public) opinion about how well Santana played this year. I do hope they consider moving him but it seems just at likely to me that they will hope he has a better season in him, and that Herrera also does (especially defensively). He is still one of the four best offensive players in the current starting 8 (in various categories), even if that is more about how bad everyone is than how good he is.

And I'm not sure I agree about Quinn (or Herrera) playing RF. Williams might have an arm but he's not that good a defender, and you get a lot more OF chances in general than you do put-out chances.

My guess is we either have a new RF (Harper or someone else) or the OF is exactly the same but either way Quinn is either #4 or has to beat out Herrera. It could very easily be moot, unfortunately, while his fragility may be slightly overstated (or bad luck) who knows if he'll make it through September, or spring training after that.

I'd put the "Hoskins back to 1B" scenario as the third or even fourth most likely thing (behind trading Herrera).

tom81 2018-08-31 00:03:02 UTC #146

I wonder why you don’t think Quinn has the arm to play RF? He came up as a SS and in SSS this year FanGraphs rates his arm as 0.1 in RF while it rates Williams arm as -2.8 this year in RF.

I think Quinn is superior to Williams defensively in every aspect of the game. The only thing I would grade Williams higher on than Quinn right now is on raw power offensively.

ButlerBulldog 2018-08-31 00:22:07 UTC #147

Agreed. It’s almost alarming how bad Williams is defensively given his athleticism, and Quinn’s superior speed might offset whatever advantage Williams has in raw power. It’s too bad that Herrera is struggling, as I think he offers the Phillies more than Williams does when he’s playing well, and given that he’s actually shown some signs of breaking out, I’m wondering why Kapler doesn’t sit Williams and play an outfield of Hoskins, Herrera and Quinn. That combination can’t be any worse than Hoskins, Herrera and Williams.

bkeich 2018-08-31 00:57:51 UTC #148

Altherr really is the key to all of this. He and Williams are really the only RF on the team at the moment as I don't think any of the others have a particularly strong arm. I wouldnt want to go into the season with only 1 option in RF.

Quinn has played some RF, but I don't get the impression his arm is really good enough for that to be more than an occasional thing

(Just repeating myself so feel free to just read the one post)

bkeich 2018-08-31 01:05:31 UTC #149

I don't think that Quinn has played nearly enough to look at a comparison of WAR or fangraph arm stats yet. By that reasoning I have a better arm because mine is 0.0.

I believe those stats are counting stats not rates (feel free to correct that assumption), but either way Quinn's stats area severe SSS.