Phillies 2016-2017 offseason Discussion

allentown 2017-01-23 22:38:20 UTC #1062

Not to re-fight an old argument, but I must voice my opinion that Bobby Abreu most certainly was a superstar. Pat Burrell was not, although he was a very solid slugger.

Abreu has a career WAR of +61. Burrell's career WAR is only +19. At 288 career HRs, Abreu is only 4 behind Burrell, but to that he adds a career OBP of .395 -- a truly incredible figure. In his prime, Abreu had a stretch of 11 seasons in which he exceeded .400 OBP 10 times. He had a 6 year period in which he exceeded an OPS+ of 140 5 times, maxing out at 151. Those are stuperstar numbers. If Franco can do what Abreu did, we would be very fortunate indeed.

VoteForKalas 2017-01-23 23:01:35 UTC #1063

Amen - Abreu should already be on the Phillies Wall of Fame, every year he is not drives home how criminally under-rated he is. The Phillies should be shamed of themselves imo.

allentown 2017-01-23 23:26:41 UTC #1064

Julio points out the very real danger of an article like this one. "Franco needs to be a superstar." Not because he necessarily has all the ingredients of a superstar, but merely because the Phillies need one.

The article is also wrong in its assumption that one superstar is enough to build around. It isn't. This is the sort of thinking that anoints one young player as the savior and expects him to carry an organization on his back. We've seen Mike Schmidt not do that, and be booed as a result, for many years, when he clearly was a legit superstar. Same for Abreu. Guys like Rolen and Burrell who carry that "needs to become a superstar" label and develop into solid MLB starters but fall short of super stardom get booed, because they commit the severe crime of failing to live up to writers' and fans' expectations of what they 'should' or 'have to' develop into. Once that tag of "needs to be a superstar" is hung on a kid, he will be relentlessly punished for merely having a very good career.

Odds are somebody on the farm will develop into that star, but the who is less than apparent and the odds on any one player far below 50%, which we all knew when Moniak was taken with the 1.1 and Crawford was drafted at the outside edge of the primo slots.

Philly is a city where media and fan pressure and denigration can ruin a young player. This sort of article is most definitely not what is needed to move the re-building process along. It is not impossible that Franco becomes a superstar, but even if he gives his utmost effort every

Austinfan 2017-01-24 00:15:54 UTC #1065

Meh, you don't need superstars, you need a solid team from top to bottom.
Same with #1 starters, in 2008 we had Hamels (who wasn't established) and some mediocre starters, Lidge having a career year and a decent but not great group behind him. We went out and got a bunch of #1 starters and it made no difference.

As far as hitting, a balanced lineup is the key, OBP players at the top, solid hitters in the middle and Weaver three run HR guys at the bottom.
Look at the Angels, stars aren't enough.
Conversely, SF, Stl have got a number of rings without a "Superstar."
If you need 40+ WAR or so, you can have a 8 or 9 WAR player or lots of 3-5 WAR players.

California_Dreamin 2017-01-24 00:20:39 UTC #1066

Forget the Hernandez to the Dodgers talk..they just acquired 2nd baseman Logan Forsythe from TB for pitcher Jose DeLeon. They expect Forsythe to lead off.

Given my high regard for Kingery, I would have traded Hernandez for DeLeon. And these are the kind of moves that I have not seen the Phils doing lately, the kind of moves that fish alluded to.

Its as if the Phils believe they are prospected out and don't need more. I think you always need more.

andyb 2017-01-24 00:33:05 UTC #1067

I would have done Hernandez for Deleon also. I guess Forsyth has more of a track record (2 good years instead of 1) but he is also more expensive. I don't think he is really more valuable than Hernandez though you could argue that a team like the Dodgers does not care about the cost difference and likes the 1-year contract aspect.

But still I am with you on the needing of more prospects, especially high end prospects. This does not mean we continue a constant revolving door of young talent. But judicious trades from positions where we have depth that might turn out better (i.e. Kingery) are sometimes very wise.

California_Dreamin 2017-01-24 00:51:29 UTC #1068

andyb...yes, if I can speak for him, I believe this was fish's argument when he was discussing the seeming difference between the Phillie philosophy and what is taking place with the Braves.

Both decided to completely rebuild their teams from scratch and while the Phils have done an admirable job it seems it stopped with the Giles deal. Its almost as if they decided they had enough young players and didn't need anymore.

Contrast that with the Braves, who seem to have stockpiled a plethora of young prospects and continue to do so, almost every other week. I applaud them for this simply because the law of averages states that while many will fall by the wayside, some won't...so the more you have, the better off you will be percentage wise.

This may be another reason Keith Law downgraded the Phils so much and while I agree that Law is no fan of the Phillies and that he is really the only one I have seen who has had them so low, it was a sharp blow to see them rated 14th on his list.

One thing I learned from allentown, julio and others several years ago was that while you may have what you think are good prospects but they well could pale in comparison to what other teams have...thus the need to continue and stockpile.

I know the Dodgers were interested in Hernandez, I saw his name bantered around here in SoCal quite often. I also know the Dodgers had let everyone know DeLeon was the guy they were offering. This seemed a deal that could well have gotten done, especially given that the Phils and Dodgers have a good working relationship [Utley, Kendrick, Hernandez a few years ago.]

My concern is this. In a year or so, its very likely that Rupp and Hernandez will become second stringers and their value will diminish. I am of the mind that moving them now when their value was high would have brought the most return...probably up to 3 solid prospects. It simply does not appear that the Phils are thinking this way.

And that this may cause their rebuild to stall in a stage that will once again force them to use money as the main means to improve. I am an advocate of spending wisely [Lee, Ibanez] but still think they need to bring in as many youngsters as possible.

The Phils appear to disagree.

zambonir 2017-01-24 01:01:57 UTC #1069

Not to re-fight an old argument, but I must voice my opinion that Bobby Abreu most certainly was a superstar. Pat Burrell was not, although he was a very solid slugger.

Abreu has a career WAR of +61. Burrell's career WAR is only +19. At 288 career HRs, Abreu is only 4 behind Burrell, but to that he adds a career OBP of .395 -- a truly incredible figure. In his prime, Abreu had a stretch of 11 seasons in which he exceeded .400 OBP 10 times. He had a 6 year period in which he exceeded an OPS+ of 140 5 times, maxing out at 151. Those are stuperstar numbers. If Franco can do what Abreu did, we would be very fortunate indeed.

No argument here, it was a very casual comparison and I love Abreu. A term like "superstar" (as opposed to just "great player") has very little to do with production anyway. Putting aside the failure of Philadelphia to properly appreciate Abreu, he played on some mostly forgettable teams (nationally), only made the All-Star team twice and never finished higher than 12th in an MVP voting (and that was for the Yankees). Pat never made the all-star team but did finish 7th in MVP voting one year. I get that we would like to see more than that from Franco, but such honors also have little to do with performance. Of course we are not likely to get either the OBP or the defense from Franco, but if he comes through with the power he will be rewarded, as power usually is. (Another reason Werth and Burrell were less appreciated, that they were as good or better at getting on-base than hitting them out).

The fourth or fifth best hitters on the great Phillies teams were probably Victorino and Werth, I'd take that from Franco and Herrera too

tom81 2017-01-24 02:51:50 UTC #1070

Hernandez is worth more than Forsythe, he is three years younger, controlled for two more years and are coming off similar years. I think many are selling Caesar short and dreaming of the unproven youngster. We would need to get more for him than De Leon.

Austinfan 2017-01-24 03:38:07 UTC #1071

When Hernandez became the leadoff hitter, he was putting up All Star like numbers.
.296/.405/.408/.812.
Now maybe that's a half-season fluke, maybe he's just more comfortable in that role.
But if no one is offering a blue chip prospect for him, I'd like to find out.

For one thing, does any think Kingery is going to put up those kinds of numbers?

California_Dreamin 2017-01-24 03:59:31 UTC #1072

With all due respect, DeLeon is a blue chip prospect.

andyb 2017-01-24 05:08:14 UTC #1073

Deleon is #33 on the 2016 MLB.com top prospect list. Right now Crawford and Moniak are higher. #8 on their new RHP list which suggests something in the 20-25 range on the new top 100 list when it comes out. He had a really good AAA season last year (though he did miss some time with an ankle injury and shoulder inflammation with the latter being my only concern).

If we could get a prospect that would be our 2nd or 3rd best prospect in a deep system for Hernandez I would do it. It is also possible as Tom81 says that Hernandez might be worth more because of the controllable years.

Yes, we do think Kingery is capable of being as good as Hernandez. He is a very good prospect in his own right and Hernandez may be overrated because his good performance is a small sample size and what we see on defense really looks worse than the advanced metrics say.

zambonir 2017-01-24 05:20:51 UTC #1074

The knock on Hernandez is obviously his baserunning, gotta subtract some of those caught stealings and outs from that OBP. So long as he keeps the OBP as high it was that's not nearly enough to matter, but if he reverts to .330-.350, that (and other things) don't look too good.

I think the Phillies can afford to bide their time here though, until Crawford comes up. At that point they can make the call. Who's worth more, Galvis who can play SS and is more expensive and less controllable, or Hernandez.

BostonRoss 2017-01-24 06:10:08 UTC #1075

I thought the Phillies had some rules about how long a player had to be retired to be on the Wall of Fame. Thome had been retired for almost four years when he was selected last year, and I think all of the other Wall of Famers had been retired for even longer. Abreu played two years after Thome.

mdougherty12 2017-01-24 06:51:32 UTC #1076

You would have to define exactly what you mean by "Superstar" to evaluate this claim, but technically, St. Louis hasn't won any rings since Pujols left, though they've certainly remained competitive. San Francisco hasn't won any rings without Buster Posey, who seems to me to be a "Superstar" by any reasonable definition.

ZardozMD 2017-01-24 09:46:57 UTC #1077

Maybe its too early to be asking this, but how many slots are we looking to open in the bullpen? Everyone who looks like a lock for the pen next year is a righty (Neshek, Benoit, Gomez, etc). Who's our potential lefty relief?

tom81 2017-01-24 11:09:50 UTC #1078

This team could really use a coach like Davy Lopes! We should have a tremendous amount of speed at the top of the order for a few years and maximizing it should be a team goal.

Austinfan 2017-01-24 16:35:56 UTC #1079

Rodriquez is the leading candidate for LH RP, though they might want him to get more seasoning. He was lights out once they moved him to the pen.
Windle has the stuff, but was a bit shaky at Reading last year.
I don't know if Morgan is suited to that role, depends how his stuff shows in relief, but he's got more of a SP profile.

bkeich 2017-01-24 16:45:14 UTC #1080

I hate the idea of trading any of our younger players. It just seems counter productive.

I think if we have 2 players at one position (like with Franco and Asche) it makes sense but until then I would not even consider trading Hernandez unless some team comes up with a huge offer. Yes, there is Kingery, but he is a prospect, and he isnt like Crawford who is almost certainly going to be starting soon. Kingery may be a year away, he may be 2, he may be never, all are reasonable guesses.

I think we could look to move Galvis is some team needed a SS, yes, he could move to another position but that is lowering his value. We should be able to get a solid prospect for Galvis once Crawford is ready (or even a little before if we have to).

allentown 2017-01-24 17:24:38 UTC #1081

I agree. Crawford is a guy who could be brought up quicker than optimal and the only serious negative would be on starting his arb/FA clock. A big thing the Phillies like about him is his makeup. He's a guy who could come up, play good D, and not suffer developmentally or psychologically if he floundered at the plate for a while. So yes, if we get a very good offer for Galvis, then I would trade him and bring up Crawford, even if that good offer came in the middle of ST and Crawford became our opening day SS.

I still don't see Kingery as our slam dunk 2B of the future. He simply has not put up the numbers to anoint him with that role. I think it possible that either Hernandez or Valentin better in the short-intermediate term, with Brito being the eventual 2B of the future. Kingery has advanced through the system very fast, but now he perhaps needs to slow down and excel at a level. Valentin and Kingery are the same age. Valentin put up a .706 OPS in Allentown, while Kingery was putting up only a .606 OPS in the hitter's paradise, which is Reading. Hernandez is only 4 years older and put up a .764 OPS in the major leagues. Hernandez could well be our best 2B choice for the next 4 seasons and then Brito is ready.