Phillies 2018 Season News/Notes/Discussion - Part Deux

[ButlerBulldog]

Didi Gregorius may hit 30 home runs this year, is much younger and plays better defense than Machado.

Gregorius is over two years older than Machado.

[mdougherty12]

Amusingly, Harper, Williams, Hoskins, and Herrera are all in the bottom 7 defensive OFs in 2018 based on UZR/150.

[ButlerBulldog]

Amusingly, Harper, Williams, Hoskins, and Herrera are all in the bottom 7 defensive OFs in 2018 based on UZR/150.

Hoskins’ struggles make sense, as he had never played the outfield full-time before this season. I’m not sure what’s up with the other guys.

[zambonir]

Williams wasn't good in LF either so no reason to think he'd be better in right. He's athletic but not a good defender. Herrera, there are questions about how they are positioning him this year. I don't think Harper's ever been a great defender either; he just played CF and is (was?) a great player so people assume he was.

Have the Phillies positioned themselves to be unsuccessful on defense?

Hopefully when we have this discussion for real again in November we'll be talking about Herrera's incredible September, or how Pivetta's Game 4 NLDS start made him a lock for next year's rotation.

[allentown]

If you ask me, I suspect that Hernandez/Kingery/Crawford will definitely be upgraded and OF will likely be upgraded.

It wouldn't surprise me if one of Hernandez/Kingery/Hernandez was gone. My intuition is that they give another season to Kingery and Crawford, although I haven't a clue where they see Crawford and a lot of hints they have soured on him. He is currently utterly befuddled by AAA pitching, to a greater extent than Kingery was by MLB pitching. To me, Crawford and Kingery are the biggest question marks going forward. The Phillies have to be very disappointed by the seasons both of these guys have turned in.

I would be very surprised if we signed both Machado and Harper and at least mildly surprised if we sign Machado.

[mdougherty12]

This is an important point that cannot be understated. The Phillies are ahead of schedule, so they don’t need to rush into anything merely for the sake of meeting of the adjusted expectations of the media and their fanbase. They should pursue realistic options in free-agency and continue developing their minor leaguers while also adding veteran pieces to supplement their core.

The tricky part is how to balance development versus winning. You want to develop the young guys, but you don't want to repeat 2001-2006, where you're stuck at 85 wins/season for half a decade.

[zambonir]

I don't think the failure to add veterans was a flaw of the 2001-2006 era though.

[bkeich]

Harper can play CF. I put him there with Williams and Hoskins. Sub Quinn into the outfield for defensive purposes later in the game.

Sounds good in a vacuum, but do you really think Harper would come to the Phils if he even suspected that they would sub him out regularly. Maybe you could bring in Quinn and move Harper to left and Hoskins to 1B in that situation, but I doubt Santana would sit for that for a long time. If the NL had the DH this might work, but until then we are going to have to accept that either we get a 2nd line OF, make a significant trade or Quinn is just a bench piece. Quinn has to prove that he will even be able to play 80 games in a season before we start talking about planning with him.

And if you did that I assume you plan to trade Herrera. Herrera is an enigma certainly, but he is not a problem on this team. My guess is that if we were to get Harper, it would be at the expense of Williams not Herrera.

[EDmuch]

Since June, Williams has been a better hitter than Herrera.

[ButlerBulldog]

I don't think the failure to add veterans was a flaw of the 2001-2006 era though.

Nor do I. Those teams were talented enough to win the division but were handicapped by unexpected drop-offs in production (Burrell in ‘03, Abreu in ‘05 and ‘06), free-agent signings that didn’t work out as intended (Millwood), trades involving key players (Rolen) and possible clubhouse/chemistry issues (Houston vs. Bowa), though the last of these wasn’t as big a deal as the others.

The departure of Rolen, in particular, really hurt the Phillies. Had he been with the team in ‘03 and ‘04, it’s likely the Phillies win the division both years. More than sixteen years later, they still haven’t found a replacement for him, as Franco has yet to put together a full season of solid play.

[ButlerBulldog]

Since June, Williams has been a better hitter than Herrera.

But his overall performance has not been better than that of Herrera, as his WAR is actually below replacement level on account of his poor defense. The Phillies have to consider both sides of the ball when making free-agency-related decisions, as their defense has cost them numerous times this season. Whatever the roster looks like in 2019, it must be better defensively than it has been this year.

[zambonir]

Favoring the last two months over the last four years doesn't seem like a very functional roster-building strategy, though if it is, Herrera was the best hitter in baseball for two months this season. I hope Williams is for real but you don't have to look any further than Franco to know that we can't yet be sure (or former all-star Dom Brown if you wanna be really extreme). And that's before you factor in the defense.

Neither of them are untouchable of course. You can get more for Herrera in trade; you can also more easily slide Williams back to a bench role. If you did that, who would you rather keep, Williams or Bour? Bour is more proven offensively; Williams is not defensive plus but he can still play three OF positions acceptably, to Bour's zero.

It's really too bad about Altherr because he and Williams are basically one complete player. In a platoon Williams would get more ABs (as a lefty) and Altherr would start against LHP and also be Williams' defensive replacement.

[ButlerBulldog]

Favoring the last two months over the last four years doesn't seem like a very functional roster-building strategy, though if it is, Herrera was the best hitter in baseball for two months this season. I hope Williams is for real but you don't have to look any further than Franco to know that we can't yet be sure (or former all-star Dom Brown if you wanna be really extreme). And that's before you factor in the defense.

Agreed. As streaky as he is, Herrera has proven he can be a solid contributor at the Major League level, and when he’s swinging the bat well, he’s arguably the Phillies’ best hitter. Williams has been very good since the start of the second half, but he’s yet to show he can play at a high level for more than 2-3 months at a time. I’ve similar questions about Franco.

We can only hope Herrera’s home run is a sign he’s gotten his timing back and will go on a tear over the next five weeks. A red-hot Herrera would be a huge boost to this team.

[andyb]

Sounds good in a vacuum, but do you really think Harper would come to the Phils if he even suspected that they would sub him out regularly.

We would not sub Harper out regularly. If he played CF we might move him to a corner in late innings but that would be it. If we signed Harper it should be with the intent of making him the full time RF (his arm is very good). CF would only be an injury replacement strategy. All the other players would fit in around Harper. If that means trading Williams to accomodate Harper then that would be the best strategy.

[bkeich]

If that means trading Williams to accomodate Harper then that would be the best strategy.

I agree, but honestly unless I was blown away by a trade I would hold on to Williams, at least for a few more seasons. People always forget injuries when saying we should move a person, having 4 OF that can start is actually about the right number. A solid #4 OF can probably get 120 starts, especially when you throw in that our LF is actually a 1B, so really in a way Williams would be backing up 4 positions (he would be the first one of the bench for any of them to rest or injury).

This is the same argument I was trying to make last year before the season when we had Kendrick and people were talking about trading Altherr because (that guy from Toronto, LH, didnt work out) and Altherr were "redundant" in RF. As it turns out Altherr played a ton.

[ButlerBulldog]

(that guy from Toronto, LH, didnt work out)

Michael Saunders.

[zambonir]

No question they need 4 if not 5 OFs but if you have Hoskins, Herrera, FA and Quinn that still leaves Altherr, Williams and even Kingery if he ends up back in the supersub role. And if your FA is lefthanded (as is Herrera) you probably want your 4th to be a switch or RHB. So it really depends on Quinn.

More importantly, Altherr had no value in the example you mention (which was just last season). He was coming off an injury and a .587 OPS. If I trade Williams it's only for value, certainly - to fill an area of greater need. But we don't know what the needs are yet.

Too many unknowns to truly speculate but how they decide to address this season's defensive performance is another big one. The current combined BR WAR of our starting OF is 1.3, which basically means you could throw a couple of .650 OPS hitters out there if they were elite defenders and get the same value (Ender Inciarte by himself is 2.0 WAR this year. I believe his team is in first place).

[zambonir]

Loup out "deep into September," guess that one was real (it never did make sense to send two lefties down at the same time but they were also running out of options with options).

Five trades have not moved the meter much for the Phillies.

Gelb also notes Phillies in control waiver claims-wise for the moment (LA ahead of them but that's about it for the teams in the thick of things).

[Austinfan]

More the opposite, the unwillingness to spend and some bad FO thinking cost them Abreu.

Gillick trying to force the issue by trading Floyd and Gio for Garcia (note, more value than they gave for Halladay or Lee - which shows you that patience is truly a virtue, the best deals come to those who wait).

They traded Polanco in 2005 for R Martinez and Urbina, instead of dumping Bell
They traded Abreu in July, 2006 for basically trash
They finally traded Bell in July, 2006 for trash
They then let Rowand walk after the 2007 season

The problem they had was developing pitching, but mismanagement of assets kept them from obtaining pitching.

[Philsmania]

I wonder if Loup was unknown damaged goods like Turk Wendell was back in 2001.