Phillies Acquire 1B Justin Bour from Marlins

[el-pietro]

Thanks for that Julio. Agreed, very creative roster management. Sorta sucks for Eflin to lose the major league salary for the next ten days (and service time) but if the team makes the playoffs I'm sure he won't mind.

[Lucky_Beagle]

I don't think he will lose his service time since he will be recalled within (20?) days If I recall correctly....Julio will know!

[zambonir]

Well, it appears he does lose out. But this seems like an easy thing to smooth over, just make it right down the line in the contract renewal offer or arbitration figure.

A shrewd Phillies transaction rooted in logic, but at what...

[el-pietro]

They mention in that article that the Phils did the same thing with Pivetta previously and he was also unhappy but that it had no long term effects.

As long as Kapler/Klentak explain their reasons for doing it, explain that hes not being singled out and that this is just to help the team get to the post season then I'm sure he'll be fine, and come back ready to win some ball games.

[zambonir]

Yup I barely remember the Pivetta thing and that was obviously a different manager too.

It also says he has to physically report to Lehigh Valley which I can't say I realized. Hardly a big deal though. He can fly home with the team tomorrow and pop in there Monday. It's not like the sending down of the 5th starter is especially unusual now. It's just that it's usually for a reliever, and Eflin's not necessarily the 5th starter (but he was. In fact he was technically the 7th starter in March).

[Lucky_Beagle]

I may have remembered the wrong information...I think this is what I was thinking of...

If a Player is optionally assigned for a total of less than 20 days in one
championship season, such optional assignment(s) shall not count as
an optional assignment in connection with the limitation upon optional
assignments provided for in Major League Rule 11(c). See Article
XXI(B).

so it appears an option year would not be used if Eflin's "demotion" doesn't last at least 20 days. It appears this language benefits the team as opposed to what I was thinking would have been better for a player. (adding to their service time_

[andyb]

Is there anything preventing the team from just paying him the 30,000 as a bonus? Seems the right thing to do.

[zambonir]

Yup I knew what you meant LB but wasn't sure of details either. Of course Eflin already burned his option this year in April.

I doubt the Phillies will give Eflin $30K for no reason but they can make it up to him with next year's contract renewal. Of course they refused to give Hoskins any extra $ this past off-season. Teams - perhaps data-driven wonk-run teams more than others - don't do things out of the goodness of their heart.

But why should they really? While the Eflin thing is a technicality and not really merit-based, is anyone going to feel bad for Andrew Knapp if he loses 10 days of service time this month (should Ramos be ahead of schedule)?

Conversely, they really should (and probably will) send Kingery down on the 22nd, and he'll still get paid.

[LoneStarPhan]

I would hope the team does keep in mind that this is costing a player real money out of his pocket and it is a player who is not making multimillions as yet. Still, even the MLB minimum is a salary that few of us have or will ever see. Interestingly, that was not always the case. At one time, I made more than the ML minimum salary, but that was a long time ago.

I can also see this loop hole being closed to some extent in future agreements.

[tom81]

I’m looking forward to seeing how they set their rotation up for the Nats series on the 21, 22, and 23. Both Nola and Eflin will be on normal rest for the 21st and Arrieta for the 22nd. It could depend on how deep each of them goes vs the Mets, who they think needs more rest, the matchups against the Nats, how they want to setup their rotation for the rest of they season, etc.

[tom81]

Is there anything preventing the team from just paying him the 30,000 as a bonus? Seems the right thing to do.

Gelb says in the QnA that the team can’t just give him a $30k discretionary bonus because he doesn’t have three years of service time but says they can make it up to him when they set his salary next year. I would think that they could also look to sign him to a long term contract and make it up that way. I would love to see them buy out a couple of Eflin’s free agent years now.

[andyb]

I wonder if that is correct or is in the category of "teams never do it because it would set a bad precedence in labor negotiations".

There are no salary cap issues here. Seems to me that it might be a great way to use a couple hundred thousand dollars to reward some low paid players that have been bounced around on options this year. Like when we bring up a starter like De Los Santos for 1 day for a start rather than letting him get paid for the 4 days of rest before or after this start.

If the Phillies visibly did a few things like this, they might become an even more desirable organizations for international free agent and 6-year minor leaguers to sign with. When a business makes a big profit after a successful year they often reward their workers. Playoff shares are not the only way to do that.

[julio]

I don't think he will lose his service time since he will be recalled within (20?) days If I recall correctly....Julio will know!

Didn't know... but I looked it up! Article XXI.B. of the CBA would prevent a service-time hit if Eflin were optioned for a total of less than 20 days this season (Article XIX.E addresses use of "option year") - but because he was on optional assignment for all of April, neither clause applies here.

As for the salary hit (10 days at the minor league salary of $88,900 instead of Eflin's major league salary of $545,000)... if Klentak is smart, he'll call Eflin's agent and quietly advise him that the club knows it's a hit, and that they'll make it up to Eflin in next year's salary - and then next winter, bump Eflin's salary beyond what it would otherwise be by some multiple (2x, 3x) of the hit Eflin actually took. No need to make this a PR issue; just reward Eflin for his professionalism. It's chump change in terms of the club's overall salary, but it would sent the right message, to Zach and to others.

[BostonRoss]

This is where you need a real scout to explain to the 24-year-old MIT guy that his data may not tell the entire picture.

...

Because the data guy is looking at small sample data and may not be experienced enough to know what is biased and what is significant. They are inventing stuff now and I imagine some of it is good and some of it is less good.

Of course they have a process where information from the scouting and data side get combined and then Klentak's people make a decision. People are less good at handling all this data than they make out to be.

...

I am a data person. But I also have a healthy distrust of inexperienced data people who think they are always right.

It seems you are projecting based on your own opinions and stereotypes. I'm sure there are "inexperienced data people who think they are always right," but to imply that those employed by the Phillies think they are know-it-alls is baseless. And using "24-year-old" MIT guy as if it were a pejorative is stereotyping (what do they know about sports?).

Whatever your own experience outside of sports is, there is no evidence that the Phillies' decisions are being driven by inexperienced non-baseball people, or that "Klentak's people" think their younger charges are better at handling data than they really are. Actually, my experience is that young, smart people (even the ones from MIT) understand that they have a lot to learn and are likely to want to learn from their older colleagues, even when those who have less impressive academic backgrounds. It is sometimes the older, experienced people who "think they are always right."

[andyb]

There is the defensive record on shifts though where we rank (or did as of a month ago) among the worst in baseball.

Yes I have some biases based on my own experiences but there is no reason to assume that the smart 24-year-olds in baseball are better than the 24-year-olds in similar positions in other industries. And I completely agree that older people tend to be set in their ways. But I have also seen lots of situations where younger people misuse their data and I see this because I have the experience as a data person. I also have played 30 years of baseball so that helps the perspective a bit too.

Another example from my political world about data is that the Obama kids only learned how to campaign from a position of having virtually unlimited resources. When faced with adverse situations in 2010 and 2014 and 2016 they made bad decisions because they had not operated with limited resources or in situations where their volunteer-based model would not work.

The Phillies success this year is based largely on a core of young players maturing and getting better at the same time. On the pitching side that includes Nola, Velasquez, Pivetta, Eflin, Arano, and Dominguez. On the hitting side that includes Franco, Williams, Hoskins, and Alfaro among those improving. Management also added key veterans (Santana, Arrieta, Hunter, Neshek) that collectively have performed about as expected.

There is much more evidence that it is old-fashioned baseball moves and young players maturing that has made the Phillies a good team and NOT the analytics which if anything are only responsible for a game or two here and there along with evidence (the shifts) that they are not perfect. I have no reason to believe the Phillies analytics team is bad. They are probably smart kids who are trying a bunch of things. I am just not sure any of that has really helped the team that much. Their anti-defense strategy is pretty provocative. I am sure they have a theory as to why it should work, but I doubt they really know that. In my work I design tests and experiments with treatment and control groups to see what works and what does not. Baseball teams can't do that.

[Austinfan]

I'm not sure there's an "anti defense" strategy, rather, that's just the players they were dealt. If Crawford was healthy with a .750 OPS he'd be starting at SS and they never would have added Cabrera.

If we had signed Machado would that have been an "anti defense" strategy (since he's a below average defensive SS, much like Cabrera)?

I don't think analytics are driving decisions, rather, they're just one input.

[andyb]

I don't think analytics are driving decisions, rather, they're just one input.

Definitely agree with that. Who is playing well and what is available are hugely important.

But you do need to step back and look at the Santana acquisition (forcing Hoskins to the OF) and then getting Cabrera to play SS are decisions that have a huge anti-defense element to it. Yes the price for Cabrera was modest but it was a top 10 prospect. And yes Santana was only money, but there were OF options they could have pursued.

Actions speak pretty loudly. This regime cares less about defense than most others in baseball by the actions they take when they have choices. They DO care about defense as seen by the substitutions for Hoskins and Cabrera lately and the desire to have Quinn, Kingery, and Crawford on the roster. They hopefully make the right in-game defensive decisions. But they do care less about defense in general than others.

BTW Machado is grading out as a plus defensive SS and 3B for the Dodgers in limited sample of course. Some of it is limited data but I might also think the Dodgers are better at defensive positioning than the O's.

[zambonir]

I mean, isn't the best "data" suggesting their approach is working the fact that both the pitching and the W-L record are quite good in spite of the poor defense?

Regarding Eflin I imagine Gelb is correct that the CBA doesn't allow anything other than the minimum agreed-upon salary for early service time players, and that's partly because the MLBPA has never done anything for low service time players, something they need to rethink hard next time.

[andyb]

I mean, isn't the best "data" suggesting their approach is working the fact that both the pitching and the W-L record are quite good in spite of the poor defense?

That is a pretty simplistic theory. Are you saying the pitching and W-L record have little to do with our actual players being better? I'd submit it is 95% the players and maybe 5% the approach. The type of players we are getting may be different because of analytics, but most of our improvements this year are due to improvements from players acquired before Klentak.

[zambonir]

Well yes, it is very crude, but the "better" players, offensively, are also the ones who don't play especially good defense, and while Klentak didn't acquire all of them he has decided how to deploy them (in the defensively sub-optimal ways you have often noted).

Obviously any real data would be about marginal improvements and the Phillies could well be 1-2-3 wins better if they played better defense. The best team in the NL, if so. But, the DRS stats, the shift stats and the little Arrieta dust-up aside, the fact remains that the team is good at run prevention, and we are presuming that is in part due to granular data about three-true-outcome baseball or other considerations that the widely available defensive data doesn't show. But the results speak.