Phillies 2018 Season News/Notes/Discussion

[tom81]

Meghan Montemurro on Twitter

[California_Dreamin]

Interesting that the more we examine the Amaro deals the more impressive he looks. With Valentin getting to the bigs, the Hernandez for Arano/Valentin deal looks quite impressive. If memory serves me, that was really the first deal he made where it was obvious that he had given up the ghost of trying to maintain the Phillies wonder years and was prepared to wave the white flag on that 5 year run.

His Hamels deal looks good to me, the Byrd for Lively deal was decent, Eflin for Rollins works given that at least Eflin has potential and Rollins is retired [though he might not know it yet!]

As someone who was once one of RA's biggest boosters, then one of his biggest critics, I am comfortably at peace with his run as GM. Would have preferred Arbuckle and still believe the biggest mistake the Phils of the 21st Century made was letting him get away but Amaro, in hindsight, was quite successful at doing whatever he was told to do...first trying to keep the winning coming [didn't happen] and then start the rebuild [ did happen.]

[Philsmania]

Interesting that the more we examine the Amaro deals the more impressive he looks. With Valentin getting to the bigs, the Hernandez for Arano/Valentin deal looks quite impressive. If memory serves me, that was really the first deal he made where it was obvious that he had given up the ghost of trying to maintain the Phillies wonder years and was prepared to wave the white flag on that 5 year run.

His Hamels deal looks good to me, the Byrd for Lively deal was decent, Eflin for Rollins works given that at least Eflin has potential and Rollins is retired [though he might not know it yet!]

As someone who was once one of RA's biggest boosters, then one of his biggest critics, I am comfortably at peace with his run as GM. Would have preferred Arbuckle and still believe the biggest mistake the Phils of the 21st Century made was letting him get away but Amaro, in hindsight, was quite successful at doing whatever he was told to do...first trying to keep the winning coming [didn't happen] and then start the rebuild [ did happen.]

You've said so yourself that you thought Gillick was essentially Amaro's puppet master in 2015. But then, over on the minor league thread, we're talking about how Gillick's fingerprints are all over the Moniak debacle.

[zambonir]

I think most of Amaro's failings were ownerships' failings, on any number of levels (sentimentality for Howard, refusal to do analytics, being cheap at key moments even when spending was high, not prioritizing development, especially during the win-now years). And of course he never gets the job if the Phillies weren't the kind of organization it was. Real change has only ever come to this franchise when things get very bad (the Giles to Monty transition, the hiring of Gillick, the hiring of MacPhail and Klentak).

But in the end, as with Wade, we'll probably read some stories about how the next Phillies championship team wouldn't exist without Ruben. At least, I hope so.

[Philsmania]

Assuming the lopsided score of today's game holds, the last two series against the Diamondbacks and Braves combined to be a pour cold water on us moment. The offense is struggling. Hoskins is in a bit of a funk with few extra base hits lately, Kingery looks lost, Franco is looking more and more like a lost cause and Alfaro and Santana just can't get going (and we are no longer at the point with the last two where we can say "It's still early."). On the pitching side, Pivetta came back to Earth a bit, the bad version of Velasquez returned and we didn't really get any good starts outside of Nola and Arrieta. And, the defense, which was supposed to be a strength, got noticeably sloppy.

But still, this is definitely an improved team and it is, at least, competitive now.

[zambonir]

I'm still not that worried about Santana, there's no suggestion of physical or mechanical issues with him, the hits just haven't fallen in (or out) yet. He's still getting on base at a very high rate considering his BA (and at a pretty high rate w/o qualifiers lately).

Alfaro OTOH, could be a year or two away from being a complete everyday catcher.

Altherr's probably the most disappointing player. The other hitters are all basically rookies (and Franco's not disappointing per se, just...the same).

[LoneStarPhan]

I think I am guilty of expecting the winning to continue at the pace we had going for us after the sweep of the Pirates. I believe we are going to be fine but this may well not be a season to get to the playoffs. What we need is to see the young players get plenty of playing time. The GM will have to make decisions of who is part of 2019 and who is not and add through free agency or trades by next season to fill the gaps that remain. 2018 should be looked at a building and evaluation year to get a team ready to be a legitimate contender in 2019.

[zambonir]

Ha, was it only four days ago we were wondering about getting Machado in July to make a run at the division title? Either way, it's a long season, one that probably still turns on the bottom of the rotation more than the disappointing hitters, who will have their ups and downs as young players generally do (it would have been nice if the Phillies had another rookie who just exploded onto the scene, but nobody ever really thought we did, Kingery's ST run aside).

16-10 currently. They were 14-10 in April of 2016 (even after they lost their first four games).Things are obviously better now.

[tom81]

(it would have been nice if the Phillies had another rookie who just exploded onto the scene, but nobody ever really thought we did, Kingery's ST run aside).

Minor League Games - Sunday, April 29, 2018

Quinn doing everything he can do to get promoted. Hitting .318 with an 800+ OPS, decent walk rate, and 9 SB in less than a month. Wonder if there is a flip with Kingery if Kingery does not do well over the next week of starting regularly

Quinn is one who has the potential to explode onto the scene. Williams isn’t playing much and isn’t playing well when he does play. A flip flop of these two, or for Kingery as andyb wonders, makes sense to me to try to spark this offense.

[zambonir]

A spark perhaps but probably not an explosion. We’d be lucky if Quinn stayed healthy long enough to lose his eligibility.

[allentown]

All the more reason to bring him up now, when he's healthy and playing well. Get the performance in Philly, rather than in Allentown, although it's easier for me to watch him in Allentown.

The Phillies just seem not to be as good as the Braves. Acuna is a super prospect. Our strategy across the board needs to be geared to catching and surpassing the Braves. Their farm is rated higher than ours. That was after their penalty for LA cheating.

[andyb]

Their farm is rated higher than ours. That was after their penalty for LA cheating.

Of course Acuna is a big part of that ranking. Organizational rankings are much more about stars than depth. The Phillies' ranking will take a hit this year and that is partially due to number one picks not being top 100 prospects (Haseley still might be). The bigger reason will be graduating 2 top 50 prospects in Crawford and Kingery plus losing Alfaro's prospect status. We are down 3 top 100 prospects and will replace that with one hopefully in June. Maybe we'll develop another one but our fringe top 100 guys (Medina, Romero, Ortiz) have not taken steps forward yet. Maybe De Los Santos is becoming a fringe top 100 guy now, but none of that is going to replace a couple guys ranked in the 30s by most people in Kingery and Crawford.

[Austinfan]

SSS blues. We're already seeing Altherr get into the groove.
Crawford could struggle all year, or turn it on after he returns.
Kingery could be going through growing pains or not as good as advertised.
Pivetta looks great, Velasquez has crashed to earth.

Just way too early to get a read on this team, I didn't buy the hot start, I don't buy that players are going to remain below the Mendoza line.

Right now I see this as a 80-85 win team, and two years away from being a serious contender (because young players and prospects often are one step back, two steps forward until they establish themselves). That's a little better than pre-season, but unless some young players really turn it on, about as much as you can ask.

[zambonir]

All the more reason to bring him up now, when he's healthy and playing well. Get the performance in Philly, rather than in Allentown, although it's easier for me to watch him in Allentown.

Agreed but I don't see him coming up, winning one of the three starting OF jobs, and becoming a ROTY candidate, especially now that Altherr is coming around. That's what I mean by exploding. Hoskins did it but he couldn't win the award (too late last year, now no longer a rookie). Who knows if Acuna will be that guy right away, or not hit a sophomore slump but we know what it was like to be a team with that kind of supersonic young talent, and we still aren't (and obviously the recent top draft picks aren't busting down the door). It's a long season and a long process but it sure would be nice if Alfaro was a good as Sanchez (even though he can't win it either) or Crawford was as good as DeJong. Kingery gave us a taste of that excitement and if he can get back to what he was doing in ST and the first two weeks of the season he'll still be in the mix.

[EastFallowfield]

The Good Phight post today says that baseball reference says the Phils schedule so far is actually the hardest in MLB.

[VoteForKalas]

I think most of Amaro's failings were ownerships' failings, on any number of levels (sentimentality for Howard, refusal to do analytics, being cheap at key moments even when spending was high, not prioritizing development, especially during the win-now years). And of course he never gets the job if the Phillies weren't the kind of organization it was. Real change has only ever come to this franchise when things get very bad (the Giles to Monty transition, the hiring of Gillick, the hiring of MacPhail and Klentak).

But in the end, as with Wade, we'll probably read some stories about how the next Phillies championship team wouldn't exist without Ruben. At least, I hope so.

Amaro's public statements made it clear he was a bad GM who understood very little about how things worked. To say things like "walks do not matter" and mixing up PA with AB are not accidents.

The organization was tremendously old school and in denial about the modern game, but, like you said, the fact Amaro was hired and retained despite driving a strong team completely into the ditch made that evident enough.

[allentown]

But he didn't drive a strong team into the ditch. That the 2008 Phillies were WC was partly a fluke of short playoff series and the Phillies hot. The strongest team of the era was RAJ's 2011 team, which bombed in the playoffs. RAJ lost possibly his best chance when owners forced him to give away Lee to stay on budget after signing Halladay. A $9 mill overage for just one season was rejected out of hand by owners... what might have been? Both the 2009 and 2010 teams were as good as the 2008 champions. As far as the ditch, I remain convinced that in 2012 (understandable after a hugely strong 2011) and later the owners were determined to sell tickets based on nostalgia and to reward the 2008 core after 2008. We saw the same collapse, much faster, after 1993. Owners then, as well. Giles instilled an attitude that if the MLB team was good enough, you didn't spend on the farm. He had bought a good organization from Ruly and starved it from the bottom up. Every Phillies GM was hobbled by the owners and forced to either blame the owners, the manager, or themselves in order to shield an awful owner group. These things change slowly. Like Wade, I think history will treat RAJ kindly. Even Gillick began his tenure needing to spin why he was giving away Abreu and Lidle to improve the team -- a hard sell after your first attempt at improvement was trying to persuade Burrell to accept a trade and you could hardly stop the tears while spinning.

[Austinfan]

RA was trapped by the Wade/Giles management, but I don't think he was the type to put his foot down and take a stand, either.
The current rebuild is taking two years longer because they didn't start in summer 2013.
Flyers had the same problem with Holmgren wasting two years trying to patch a team that needed a rebuild.

[zambonir]

Yeah I see no need to defend Ruben hard but I don't think every choice he made was his own, and for all his idiocy there were eventually some signs that he would have been willing to learn or do things differently, which was obviously not the case for the more calcified parts of the ownership group and front office.

I don't know that they wanted to market nostalgia per se, but both Monty and Middleton couldn't see any of those players clearly. The nostalgia was personal. The Howard extension was a direct response to losing the 2009 World Series (recall the anecdote about Middleton and Howard and "I want my --ing trophy back"). Nobody considered that neither Howard nor that contract would help achieve that goal (not to mention that he was still signed through 2011 without it). They definitely had magical thinking about Halladay and Lee and even Oswalt too, that they wouldn't decline.

And then of course they had neither the available young talent nor the will to rebuild w/o J-Roll, Chase and Chooch, though the 2013 and 2014 teams would have been no better or worse.

[tom81]

Hope it is just a 10 day DL visit.

Todd Zolecki on Twitter