Phillies 2018 Season News/Notes/Discussion - Part Deux

[EastFallowfield]

His OPS is .770 RH and .743 LH. Bour is better vs righties and very worse vs lefties.

[andyb]

Santana really does not have much of a LH/RH split if you look at his career numbers. Bour may be slightly better against RHP but is pretty unathletic and bad defensively so I am not sure how much you gain there.

I am curious if they will play Santana at 3B more now (they did a defensive switch in the last series) to get Bour in the game against right-handed pitching.

Main issue with Santana is that his production is just not special for 1B. We expected more offensively. Could we be a better team with Hoskins at 1B and a 725-750 OPS plus defensive OF?

[DurhamBull]

I can’t figure out how Santana walks a lot, hits for power, and still has a miserable BA. I keep expecting him to find his groove but it’s been a while and maybe that’s just not going to happen. At his current level of production, I can understand that the Phils might not want to keep him around for next season.

[EDmuch]

I tend to think that whatever they do in the off season it will be driven rather heavily by analytics.

[zambonir]

They would probably not take the PR hit of dumping Santana for no return and 50% of salary, but he's still a pretty good player. If they were motivated to move on from him there are probably deals to make where you still get something (prospects, a reliever) for him.

As with Herrera, Santana's also disappointing on defense. These guys were both up for Gold Gloves last year (I think Santana even won one of the other awards) so for them to fall short of expectations while also struggling with offensive consistency hurts (and makes it harder to justify putting up with Hoskins' defense in LF, because that was supposed to be balanced by Santana being a better defensive 1B than Hoskins).

I'd be surprised if Santana got any starts at 3B but it does give them something else to do earlier in a game. They'll also have Florimon and Crawford soon enough.

[Lawman]

Philadelphia Phillies (Phillies)

[andyb]

Seems a bit better than Loup - and if Loup is legitimately hurt maybe they are just moving on. 40-man move could be interesting especially as we look at Eickhoff in AAA and what that means. Taveras seems the easiest option to me at this point if they have no other 60-day DL options.

[Lawman]

Reports are that Taveras has been DFA'd.

[Lawman]

Avilan is a good addition. But, if the team doesn't find ways to generate consistent offense, shuffling the bullpen will prove to be akin to shuffling deck chairs on the Titanic.

[andyb]

They do have a weakness against left-handers. It has been strange carrying 9 relievers with only one left-hander.

Agree these are not game changers. They need to hit. Ramos and whether he can consistently hit would upgrade the entire lineup and give them a consistent presence in the middle. Batting Hoskins 2nd only works if someone is hitting well behind him.

[zambonir]

Cabrera also has yet to have an impact. Hopefully Hernandez will finish strong. But mostly it's about the core guys. Santana and Herrera need to find their way back and can Franco and Williams keep it up? Even Hoskins hasn't done much in August. And overall they just don't hit on the road.

[Lawman]

I think there is a possibility that the Phillies overachieved slightly in the beginning of the year, and are now regressing to what we though they were going to be going into the season - a .500 ballclub. If so, hopefully they can make it close enough the rest of the way so that we're not playing out the string for the last 3 weeks. But, they've been playing with house money for a while now, so my expectations are pretty tempered.

[zambonir]

They were only 2 games over .500 (and four games out, behind Washington no less) on June 9. Plus they had two really bad pitchers in June. So I don't think it's linear. This might just be a normal lull. It could also just be the schedule taking a less favorable turn. Three of our four series losses have been on the road (and technically we split with the Mets at home, then flopped in W'port). Unfortunately that aspect of the full remaining schedule may not favor them.

[Lawman]

Three of our four series losses have been on the road (and technically we split with the Mets at home, then flopped in W'port).

On the road, yes, but also against bad teams. And, don't forget, a really bad loss at home to a bad team.

[Lawman]

Phillies are certainly looking for ways to increase position player flexibility.

Jim Salisbury (JSalisburyNBCS)

[andyb]

Bour and his 265 pounds in LF would be a potential disaster. Assume they are thinking more emergency late inning defensive shifts, but still. Our GM clearly doesn't care about defense.

[LoneStarPhan]

I see that Luis Avilan is signed through 2019. I assume they will retain him on the 40 man roster over the off season and that he will likely be in the bullpen next season.

[tom81]

They were only 2 games over .500 (and four games out, behind Washington no less) on June 9. Plus they had two really bad pitchers in June.

It sure would help if Eflin got on another roll like he did in June, 6 runs allowed in 5 starts.

[ButlerBulldog]

The 2019 regular season schedule has been released. The Phillies open at home against the Braves and will face the AL Central in interleague action.

[flyers19rw]

Cesar hasn't been the same since he fouled a ball off of his fit a couple of weeks ago. He's been playing through it but his performance has slid. We don't know how badly he was/is hurt.