Phillies 2016-2017 offseason Discussion

[andyb]

A sizeable percentage of that Latino baseball population are American, when I went through the BA 100 list, there were at least a half dozen names that were Latino but were drafted, and this number will increase as the Latino population increases in the US. Only 25% were LA signings, and 2 were Cubans, a vein which has been stripped.

That does not mean anything though. It is probably a little over 25% (especially if you count Asian and Cuban signees) but what you gloss over is that the Phillies have not produced more than a handful of above average regulars in the past 20 years. That is hard to argue. And the LA signees in their system now do not have an inordinate number of potential stars. Ortiz, Sanchez, and Kilome are the best of the bunch (Alfaro was a trade). And they do not represent a haul that is dramatically better than other organizations.

There is just no evidence in results that the Phillies scout dramatically better than everyone else. And there is a huge case to be made that we would have more talent if we had spent more money. Anything else is looking at the organization with rose-colored glasses. We are not bad in Latin America. We have been in the middle of spending and results for the last 15 years. In a system where we will be forced to spend less, however, there is no reason to think we will have any substantial advantage.

[julio]

...one only has to look at the quality of our international minor leaguers and the quality of the guys we have on the major league team. At current time, no MLB stars or minor leaguers singled out as future stars. Yes, this is only a snapshot it time, but it's current time and it shows we have a problem.

I don't follow your logic here, allentown. A current snapshot of our system may tell us something about the effectiveness of our international program over some period of time in the past, but it doesn't necessarily tell us much about the quality of that program now. Have there been changes in staffing in international scouting in the past couple of years? Have there been changes in philosophy? In spending? If the answers to any of these are positive, then your "current snapshol" of the system may say more about a prior, no-longer-extant regime than about the current organization.

I'm thinking that most of the time when you said "have a problem," you would have been better to write, "had a problem," because you're talking about evidence of a past problem, but not really evidence of a current problem.

[schillingfan]

That's a different issue. The big names don't require a lot of scouting effort, everyone knows who they are and a scout can gather film and cover them pretty easily (except of course for the Cubans, and a big chunk of LA stars came from the wave of Cubans who came over "fully developed."). It's water under the bridge whether we should have spent.

You keep shifting your ground. I don't think anyone suggested that we don't have good scouts in LA. We seem to do a good job finding prospects with high ceilings. I think Allentown's response, to which I responded. (It really does help when you at least quote what you are responding to, was this part of your original post.

"It also suggests the best strategy for the Phillies will be to avoid the top 10-20 prospects who will be overvalued, and take advantage of less money chasing 2nd tier prospects (because teams could choose to both overpay the top guys and chase 2nd tier guys for two years can't slide money between years with that strategy) to garner quantity. This is where a decade of building up their LA organization can pay off."

The real issue is what is the best strategy going forward, given we have good scouting and a big budget.

[Austinfan]

My point is not every team has an extensive LA scouting operation, a lot of teams pulled out of Venezuela and don't spend much on scouts in countries other than the DR. So the top prospects will be "over scouted" and overbid relative to their talent.

If you look at the BA 100 list, the big money LA prospects don't fare that much better for the most part than most LA prospects on the list - if you're capped in terms of spending, it may not be cost effective to overspend on top prospects (the expected bang per buck is lower). You're not capped in terms of scouting expenditures or money spent on coaching the players you sign.

Of course I'm in favor of trading for additional allocations as long as the price is reasonabile in terms of prospects.
But Ortiz is a good example, he's a solid prospect, but if you spend $4M on him, you have what? $500K to a million for the rest of your LA haul?

Whether they should have spent the last decade far above the levels they did is another issue, but to me, it's water under the bridge.

[schillingfan]

My point is not every team has an extensive LA scouting operation, a lot of teams pulled out of Venezuela and don't spend much on scouts in countries other than the DR. So the top prospects will be "over scouted" and overbid relative to their talent.

But see, again, you are back to cost-effective. You act like Philadelphia is the equivalent of a third world country among other baseball organizations. I don't care of we spend more than a player is "worth" (however we determine that) if we win, and I don't think Middleton really cares either. It's only a problem when you are spending way too much money on players relative to their worth and thus have a line-up that can't win and no economic flexibility to do anything about it. That's not THE PHILLIES problem.

It's not an intellectual exercise given to statistics students to build a team based upon getting the greatest value per dollar spent. Frankly, with a budget near the cap, there is going to be some wasteful spending. So what? If the money isn't spent it goes back into the owners' pockets, not into reducing the price of game tickets.

Is the winning team the one who gets the greatest return on dollars spent? Is a team that maximizes 90% of a $100 million budget more likely to win than a team that only receives a 50% return on $190 million? The problem I have is that I don't agree with your assumption that the sine qua non of winning is maximizing dollars spent to talent obtained.

[andyb]

My point is not every team has an extensive LA scouting operation, a lot of teams pulled out of Venezuela and don't spend much on scouts in countries other than the DR

But that is generally not true. Every organization has some presence in Venezuela. We are one of 12 teams with 2 teams in the DSL. Maybe that puts us in the upper half but some teams choose to put their better players on one team only. Look at the number of teams signing prospects outside of the DR and you would find almost all of them with scouts beyond the Dominican and Venezuela. We have virtually no presence in Asia and Mexico for instance. That is our organization's choice. Others have much deeper European operations.

There just is no evidence for your thesis that the Phillies' scouts are dramatically better than those from most other organizations or that our complexes are dramatically better. We probably rank in the 10-15 range. Nothing to be ashamed about, but we are not one of the leaders.

[allentown]

Julio --
Yes, it's possible that things have improved recently, but the best indication of where we stand is what is currently in our system. It may not be a current measure of the quality of staff at this minute, but we have no other metric to measure that. It does tell us precisely where we stand in terms of international talent in the organization as we move forward into this next change in the ground rules. Really, having failed to buy allocation for current season and the huge cost of Ortiz last year, the evaluation of the recent is VERY heavily dependent upon how Ortiz turns out. We have changed some personnel, but this has been Sal's show for quite a while. Last year and this year were our chances to gain on the pack. Next year we have no $ advantage and will be $ disadvantaged against many teams. I have yet to read an explanation of how the new CBA effects teams who shattered their current international allocation. Are those penalties simply forgiven, or what?

[julio]

...the best indication of where we stand is what is currently in our system....It does tell us precisely where we stand in terms of international talent in the organization...

Can't disagree with this. What is currently in our system tells us what is currently in our system.

I have yet to read an explanation of how the new CBA effects teams who shattered their current international allocation. Are those penalties simply forgiven, or what?

Read Jonathan Mayo's writeup on the CBA changes. It's linked in the CBA discussion thread, and this specific question has been asked and answered.

[zambonir]

Time for a split thread on Latin American scouting and drafting philosophy?

I reckon there are still 3-4 members of the 40-man roster who won't be there by Christmas (and certainly not by February).

[Austinfan]

Schillingfan, you're missing the point, there's a hard cap, so cost effective strategy is essential to maximizing your take in LA. The past is past, the opportunity to overspend is gone, now you have to work within the confines of a system where the only edge is spending on scouting and player development, not mega-bonuses.

What a player is "worth" under a hard cap is dictated by the opportunity cost of the players you can't sign due to an overpay. It's not a matter of being wiling to spend the money, because you're not allowed to.

And because the new penalties effectively establish a hard cap on salaries (watch the Dodgers scramble), you can't just spend money because you have it, because it may restrict what you do two years down the road. So cost effectiveness not only applies to LA, but to all ML spending as well.

This doesn't mean the Phillies shouldn't spend, but with an eye on the budget from 2018-2025 when they want to be competitve for an extended period. If there's a hard salary cap, you want a spreadsheet of expected salaries and plan 3-5 years ahead.

[schillingfan]

Schillingfan, you're missing the point, there's a hard cap, so cost effective strategy is essential to maximizing your take in LA. The past is past, the opportunity to overspend is gone, now you have to work within the confines of a system where the only edge is spending on scouting and player development, not mega-bonuses.

Still not completely clear what the "hard cap" in the new CBA actually is going to be. But be it the draft, free agent-signing, the international draft and recent Cubans, your default as to philosophy of team building is always "cost-effective and not wasting money. There are lots of ways to skin a cat to stay within draft caps, international caps, overall budget caps. (apologies to my feline friends).

[allentown]

Still not completely clear what the "hard cap" in the new CBA actually is going to be. But be it the draft, free agent-signing, the international draft and recent Cubans, your default as to philosophy of team building is always "cost-effective and not wasting money. There are lots of ways to skin a cat to stay within draft caps, international caps, overall budget caps. (apologies to my feline friends).

Yes, and worry about spending too early, spending before the new team has all its people in place, spending at less than optimal efficiency, spending before we fully understand what we have on the farm -- all of that has caused the last ship to sail without us. We missed opportunities and now we are more thoroughly capped. Not spending 150% of international allocation in 2016 was merely the latest missed opportunity.

The hard cap on MLB salary is still a non-factor for the Phillies and will be for a couple more seasons.

There have been a multitude of excuses offered for the Phillies unwillingness to spend, but I do not find any of them particularly persuasive.

[julio]

10 posts were split to a new topic: Phillies to Sign Reliever Joaquin Benoit

[Lawman]

TR Sullivan (Sullivan_Ranger)

[julio]

TR Sullivan (Sullivan_Ranger)

Well, of course they're willing to deal Odubel. It all depends on what the return would be. They do have center-field options, long-term.

[Austinfan]

I only heard of one small allocation being traded, either teams didn't see enough talent worthy of additional money or sellers were holding out for real prospects.

This will be interesting now that all allocation money is tradeable, what is a 16 year old $1M bonus level LA player worth relative to say a 19 year old HS draft pick (who you held for the one year period before he's tradeable, or have they changed those rules?). We traded two fairly marginal prospects for the money to sign Ortiz, has the price gone up?

[zambonir]

Salisbury

Cesar Hernandez remains a person of interest as Phi...

You can see what the main part of the article is. He also notes that someone will have to come off the 40 to make room for Benoit (obviously) and that Neris or Gomez could still be dealt (in theory). Klentak also has some positive things to say about the idea of Knapp as back-up catcher (sincere, hyping Knapp's trade value or depressing Ellis's salary ask?).

[bkeich]

This is yet another surprisingly inactive offseason.

We added a possibly washed up LF who does not want to play LF. No matter what he is unlikely to be more than average, and there is evidence he could be worse than that.

We added 2 solid relievers.

We return a team that ranked last in baseball in most offensive categories, many of them by wide margins. Our 610 runs scored is almost 40 less than any other team and 115 less than average. It is not possible to win with those numbers.

Yes, we have a young team, but what positions do we expect to be better this year? Maybe 3B, maybe 2B, probably RF, probably LF. Not much else. SS, C and CF will probably regress. We might have 2 league average starters (CF and C) and possible for 3B and 2B. There are no positions that we have an elite or even very good player. This team is no better than what we saw last year and no real effort is being made to improve the team. No effort to spend the Comcast bonanza.

[andyb]

I really want them to go after a left handed corner outfielder with some power. They have not been mentioned in the Michael Saunders mix but if he could be had on a 2-year deal they should be interested. Even 3 years would be OK as he is only 30 so those would be his age 30-32 contract years. If Williams or Cozens develop that would be great, but if we have any interest in dealing Herrera (likely to put Quinn in center with Altherr as a backup), then having another outfielder would be a good thing. Kendrick is likely to be gone after a year or less anyway.

[julio]

This is yet another surprisingly inactive offseason.

We added a possibly washed up LF who does not want to play LF. No matter what he is unlikely to be more than average, and there is evidence he could be worse than that.

We added 2 solid relievers.

We return a team that ranked last in baseball in most offensive categories, many of them by wide margins. Our 610 runs scored is almost 40 less than any other team and 115 less than average. It is not possible to win with those numbers.

I did not realize that it was April 1st. Where did the winter go?!

But seriously - the organization is committed to a long-term rebuild. Slapping something together in the short-term, to placate fans who are too impatient to wait for the long-term improvement, is likely to be counter-productive to the long-term goal. It's the kind of thing that panicky, PR-driven organizations do.

I much prefer to see the organization remain committed to the long-term goal. I've seen quite enough of the Phillies organization, over the years, slapping together short-term patches to give the appearance of improving the club.

Yes, we have a young team, but what positions do we expect to be better this year? Maybe 3B, maybe 2B, probably RF, probably LF. Not much else. SS, C and CF will probably regress.

Four of eight starting positions may be better...but look at the three you characterize as "probably regressing." You think that Herrera will regress. Well, maybe. Shortstop and catcher? If there's regression there, it will be decidedly short-term - because two of the brightest prospects in the organization (Crawford and Alfaro) are waiting in the wings. You're complaining because they're not ready right now? You want the Phillies to acquire somebody - to block these two in six months to a year? Have you thought this through?