Phillies Acquire LHP Jose Alvarez

Not significant? He's basically a 0.5 WAR pitcher in a good year for him. I guess he's lefty and better than Garcia, who I always had high hopes for.

Garcia has better K numbers, FIP, and even has slightly better control, so this looks like it was just a righty for lefty swap.

Does Alvarez have any options? I think Garcia is out.

Summary article from mlbtraderumours.com:

Not certain, but from looking at stats on B-R, it looks like Alvarez was probably optioned in 2014, 2015, 2016, which would indicate that he's probably out of options.

Those relief pitcher cards are gonna get shuffled a few times between now and January (to say nothing of March).

This is a good trade as Alvarez has a better shot of making the team than Garcia did. As of today Hunter, Nicasio, Neshekand Dominguez all would have made it over him as a righty simply because of contract and in Dominguez case pure dominance. It could be argued that Arano and Ramos were ahead to. That’s six right handers. On the lefty side Pazos is probably the only sure thing so Alvarez makes sense. They probably are not finished yet with the bullpen. Still think they get Britton

I thought Morgan would be a pretty sure thing...he had an off year, but he was good in 2017.

He could still be there depends on how many relievers his spring training etc.I would think we are going to deal a few of these relievers

This seems to be just a shift of similarly valued pitchers to shore up the left-handed pitching side. I assume we want 2-3 left-handers in the bullpen all season. We probably need a rotation of 4-5 arms to achieve that - in the same way we will probably rotate 10 right-handed arms.

Alvarez does seem more durable than some of the options we have had from the left side. Price is similar to Garcia. And below the 6.00 ERA, Garcia's other peripherals suggest he is at least as good as Alvarez.

This move is a lateral move that is just about positioning the composition of the roster the way Klentak wants it to end up. While hopefully this winter will add a top player like Machado or Harper, it is also about eliminating last year's roster situation of round pegs trying to fit in square holes (or vice versa). We are going to play a real SS at SS. A real LF in LF. We will be better defensively. And we'll have enough left-handed bullpen arms so we don't have to use a Hunter in too many of those situations.

Garcia was not going to make the team, he has great stuff but below par command, and I think they've run out of patience.

Though Alvarez doesn't fit the LOOGY profile (splits are pretty even, less contact but more HRs against LH), he is better suited to the back of the pen role, he won't come in and walk the first two batters on a regular basis!

It's a no lose deal for Klentak, Garcia is well behind Arano and Ramos, and probably even with Rios, who is likely to start the season in Lehigh if he has options left, and if not, will probably clear waivers.At this point, not a sure thing Garcia beats out Leftwich and McGarry, much less Anderson and De Los Santos in a bullpen role.

The only catch with this deal is that we traded away or most likely guy to drop from the 40 man roster if we need a spot.

FWIW Dept...here in Angel territory, Halo fans feel the Phils made a great deal. They believe Alvarez might have been the Angels best reliever, and a guy who was always available to pitch.

Certainly not an eye catching deal but one that former GM Pat Gillick would loudly applaud because his philosophy when making deals was to simply try and make your team a tiny bit better with every move. He really was good at that when he was the GM and Klentak seems to at least subscribe to this same theory.

Everyone is missing the whole point of this deal--we had to establish a relationship with the Angels' front office as a precursor to the Trout trade.

Morgan has value but if I were him I'd be sleeping a little less well now (not that he'd be out of work or anything). Assuming they sign Britton or Miller that would be three LH relief pitcher without options, plus Pazos and Davis. And on the RH side you've got Neshek, Hunter, Nicasio. Plus Dominguez who is unlikely to get sent down. Where are Neris and Ramos at this point?

I still think Neshek is on his way out, but if they can't find a deal they like for him (nor Nicasio or Hunter) Morgan could end up as odd man.

Technically Epler and Klentak worked together for a couple of weeks. And in reality, Trout is not getting traded w/o input from Moreno (and probably Stoneman who is still an advisor) so Klentak's got it covered.

If they sign Britton or Miller they might look to trade Morgan. Or they could just be cruel to Pazos since he has an option left. I am assuming they see Davis as starting in AAA already since he ranks a bit behind the others and has a couple of options left. Injuries could sort things out as well.

Please, no. I don't want to trade the farm for Trout and then extend him for the biggest/longest contract in baseball history. That's paying richly, twice for the same player. He's an undoubted super-star, but I think the superstar who will have the most dead years at the end of his contract. I can accept the dead years, but not after trading the whole farm to get him. That will make him Ernie Banks on a perpetually bad/mediocre Phillies team.