Kingery and "prospects" to watch move up this season

[David_Criss]

https://www.msn.com/en-us/sports/mlb/this-kid-doesn-t-have-a-chance-how-the-phillies-inevitably-ruined-scott-kingery-marcus-hayes/ar-BB1f7del
Hayes does a great job of explaining what Kingery needs to do and what caused his move to AAA.

[Taudawg]

Hayes does a really good job of blaming everyone except Kingery. Not to say the others don't deserve blame, but there are plenty of examples of other young, high touted prospects who switched positions or played multi-positional roles and still succeeded. Hayes can always hang his hat on what "would" have been had Klentak/Kapler/Phillies not meddled, but that isn't necessarily what would have happened. It's a speculation piece. Kingery could have been handed the 2B job and still ended up in the same place. If Kingery never reemerges, Hayes can stick to his argument and knowing him, he will.

As always, I'll keep my fingers crossed and hope for the best.

[zambonir]

Hayes is a bombthrower who carries water for whatever argument suits him, whether out of conviction or just for the sake of argument (or because the argument has been assigned to him, while Murphy or Sielski make a different one). If Kingery's name was "Wentz" it would be a completely different column.

I think the Phillies' main issue has been the lack of consistency across the board, not just for Kingery in particular, though all the other moves invariably affected his position and playing time. Every decision they made involving Crawford, Franco and Segura, as well as their shift from Machado to Harper, also scrambled the picture for Kingery. As did COVID obviously. Not only do we not know what Kingery might have been like last year without being sick and injured, but he actually would have had 40-60 games at one position (either 2B or 3B) before Bohm came up. I would still love to see him thrive as a Davis/Zobrist/Merrifield type player and agree that there is absolutely no reason to think playing one position would fix his hitting, even if it did mean more time to focus on that instead of fielding practice at multiple positions.

And from what Kingery has said it's not at at true that Kapler and Mallee messed with his hitting. His current messed-up swing and power-happy approach is the one he developed with a private coach in 2017 and the one that earned him this contract. But its holes began to show once he started facing better pitching.

Hayes is probably right about one thing - having made the commitment to him like they did, they probably should have just traded Cesar - or even turned him into the supersub. In that sense Kingery was a victim of his own talent, he had the better defensive toolbox to play on the other side of the IF even though Cesar used to be a SS too.

[David_Criss]

At AAA he will play everyday and get regular at bats. That is what he needs right now.

[zambonir]

For sure, he has played so poorly that they can't even afford to give him 2-3 starts a week, never mind what's best for his own development. What will be interesting to see is where he actually plays in AAA (keeping in mind that for the next four+ weeks he's really just in extended spring training). It should still be multiple positions, and CF, because he is still blocked at 2B (to say nothing of SS and 3B). We should be so lucky that he comes back strong enough to displace Segura. Hopefully it won't also be because Segura struggles.

[Taudawg]

It should still be multiple positions, and CF, because he is still blocked at 2B (to say nothing of SS and 3B).

Agreed. There are other prospects in AAA that need play daily as well...I want Moniak playing every day in CF. In the off chance Kingery never fully recovers his potential, they should not double whammy themselves by slowing the growth of another player(s) that could help in 2021 or beyond.

[andyb]

Moniak (or any AAA) players probably gets rotated between positions as well as getting a day off each week. There are plenty of places and chances to play Kingery at multiple positions while keeping other prospects like Moniak at their best positions. Maton, for instance, should probably rotate between 2B, 3B, and SS as that is his likely major league role. Moniak will also have to play some corner OF if he gets promoted later in the year.

One of the lessons with Kingery is to probably not expect him to be able to play multiple positions in the major leagues effectively if he ONLY played 2B in the minors. The last couple of years the Phillies have been much better at rotating most players between multiple positions in the minors.

Maybe rename this thread "2021 Minor League Prospect Discussion"? Or merge it with the 2021 general minor league thread? As opposed to the daily threads which won't start till May.

[Taudawg]

One of the lessons with Kingery is to probably not expect him to be able to play multiple positions in the major leagues effectively if he ONLY played 2B in the minors. The last couple of years the Phillies have been much better at rotating most players between multiple positions in the minors.

Yet defensively, switching positions in the Majors did not seem to be the issue. Kingery held his own on defense regardless of where they ran him out. Defense at multiple positions is not why Kingery got demoted. If he had just hit a little bit this spring, he'd be on the 26 man.

I agree players should be developed at as many positions as possible - as early as possible.

[andyb]

The first year Kingery was pretty bad at SS. Got better as the year went on, but it contributed to his lack of overall value in 2018.

Clearly his offense not being ready was the biggest problem. I also think that we don't really know if playing multiple positions hurt his offense because he had too much to handle. Probably did not help, but the biggest thing is Kingery got away from using his speed and never really learned the strike zone adequately.

[zambonir]

So much of Kingery's path was determined by other players and poor, or at least ill-fated, Klentak decisions. When he made the team as a bench player they certainly didn't envision him playing SS. But then Crawford got hurt, and so did Florimon, and Jes Valentin wasn't much of an option either. Next thing you know they are claiming Kingery is a better SS than Crawford - which didn't stop them from deciding they needed Asdrubal Cabrera's bat for what turned out to be a futile playoff run. It's not even accurate to say he was hurt by playing too many positions in 2018 - he made 101 starts at one position. It just happened to be shortstop.

And then the same thing in 2019... except now they have Segura and still kept Hernandez and Franco. But Franco stinks, and CF becomes a trash fire, so he ends up as a 3B and CF.

[Taudawg]

He doesn't really have the range for SS despite his speed, but his other measurables at SS are solid. He can pass there when needed. I agree we don't know if the multiple positions factored in on offense. My thoughts are - I hope not. If he can't focus on hitting when it's time to hit, I would see that as another red flag and actually a fairly big one. I don't know a data source I can filter to find comps to Scott, as far as his multi-position role, but plenty of players are asked to play out of their natural position without issue on offense.

[zambonir]

It's impossible to separate any of it. Maybe if he'd gotten 150 ABs at AAA in 2018 - regardless of whether they'd been in April/May, which would have happened without the contract, or July/August, which maybe should have happened despite the contract (and needing him at SS) the transition wouldn't have been as difficult.

But it also does seem perfectly logical to me that if you have to carry around five gloves, and take infield and outfield practice, and perhaps devote additional attention to the two most challenging defensive jobs, that you might not get as much time in the batting cage (or video room).

But that's also okay. So long as Kingery is that guy, he doesn't have to be an all-star bat. Just a plus offensive player. And in the short term (i.e. this year), just not an unplayable bat.

[Taudawg]

We can speculate on the position changes, amount of batting practice, video time all we want. The facts are Kingery modified his swing on advice from Richard Schenck an independent hitting instructor he (or agent) contacted. He also bulked up last year, by all accounts on his own as his physique in 2020 spring training was a surprise to the team. By Kingery's current accounts, he stills gives credit to his breakout 2017 MILB season and improvements in 2019 to the Schenck approach.

What we don't know may have had an impact on Kingery the hitter, but that will remain a mystery. What I do know, is Kingery should not be absolved. The biggest problem will be undoing the damage. If he's being playing one style of baseball for four years, this isn't likely to be a quick comeback. He hit for little power in college and minors before the changes. If the net result is the pre-2017 Kingery, I really don't know what he is. Is he a plus offensive player?

[zambonir]

Well, everyone thought the pre-2017 Kingery still had the potential to play an all-star 2B and hit for average with 15 HRs. That'd be okay!

Whereas Cesar was a minus offensive player for 3 of his five seasons, and that got him non-tendered once he made more than $6 million. Phillies don't have that option with Kingery, but it's only for one year. Of course he still has to get himself back to replacement level first.

I don't think this is that big a disaster, I still view it as the same as Hoskins in the end: a guy who had a really good first half of 2019 and then couldn't keep it up, and now needs to adjust. He had no chance to do that last year under the circumstances, so this is Take 2.

Phillies should be more hands-on about off-season training or nutrition, I know the agents and trainers are powerful, but it also can't help when you change managers, hitting coaches and GMs all over a two year-period.