Phillies acquire RHP Sam Coonrod from Giants

[andyb]

t's just that Coonrod is 28 years old and has demonstrated he can't get people out in the big leagues. Honestly, he's never had a decent season as a reliever above high-A ball.

Yes Coonrod is 28, but his stuff is present. Also, he is not alone in terms of pitchers that had success with high velocity after being converted to the bullpen from the starting rotation. This statement though is ridiculous and implies sustained failure as a reliever. The facts in context:

2017 - Age 24 - Mediocre starter in AA.
2018 - Age 25 - Converted to relief AFTER TOMMY JOHN SURGERY CAUSES HIM TO MISS MOST OF SEASON
2019 - Age 26 - First sustained relief. High ERA in AAA but misses bats. Gets callup and pitches decently with a 3.58 ERA. Not a great season but the stuff got him a callup where he was not awful
2020 - Age 27 - Pitched poorly but only 14.2 IP. 98 mph average fastball. PANDEMIC SEASON WITH LAT INJURY LATE.

He has less than 100 IP in his career of real bullpen experience when one discounts the tandem starts when he was in rookie ball. But your entire analysis is based on sketchy major league experience in the last 2 years where 1 year was actually decent. And he came back really quickly after TJ surgery so he may not have been all the way back in 2019.

He is definitely all projection, but portraying him as a failed reliever is just flat out wrong. Ragsdale has almost zero college experience because of TJ surgery but there we just look at his stuff? The same is true for both.

Small addition - from this tweet it seems they are the same type of player. Big guy with a fastball that projects in relief. Coonrod was a 5th round pick. Ragsdale 4th underslot so he probably rated 6th-7th round. No idea if it is a good deal but it is really the classic non-deal of teams shuffling the present for the future with fringe big league players. The new front office should get the benefit of the doubt here before we know better.
https://twitter.com/kileymcd/status/1348001697428361216

[mdougherty12]

z, I was thinking about someone like Carlos Carrasco (also recently traded) as an above average pitcher, and he has about 25 fWAR over the last 7 years. Giving Ragsdale a 5% chance of becoming Carrasco is probably too high, but not by much.

Again, the Phils may have a reason to give up on him, but he is a 4th round draft pick who hasn't pitched in a "real" game as a pro. I also suspect that the Giants had a reason to ask for him, which may indicate he has been doing better than initially projected; maybe not.

You have a very optimistic view of the likelihood of MLB success for a pitcher picked in the 4th round. I took a look on Baseball-Reference at some of the history of the 4th round. Cliff Lee is the best pitcher picked in the 4th round who signed (Randy Johnson was picked in the 4th round in 1982, but went to college), and he had 43.2 career WAR. Corey Kluber is next with 32.3 WAR (and counting, maybe). No one else has cracked 30 career WAR. The 95th percentile outcome for pitchers picked in the 4th round is ~10 WAR - Jeremy Hellickson, not Carlos Carrasco. The median outcome is not making the big leagues.

[Philsmania]

Underwhelming move, in my opinion.

[phillychuck]

Good research! I think it's a much better supported argument than mine was; let's call it 5% chance of 10 War.

By the way, to be fair to me, I did approximate in my breakdowns an 80% chance that Ragsdale never makes it to the big leagues--that would be consistent with the median 4th rounder never making it (as cited in your research).

Re-evaluating that puts the expected WAR value of the trade at around -2. Still clearly minus, though, although by much less valuing a "serviceable" pitcher at +5 WAR over his contract rather than +10, and a solid, 4th rounder at +10 rather than +30.

[zambonir]

At the end of the day, there is a need to trade future WAR for present WAR without giving up too much of the former. If he turns in a season like he had in 2019 and also pitches 40 innings they will get 0.7 WAR out of him, which is no small thing given the state of the bullpen last year. Unfortunately last year, and his peripherals in 2019, suggest he may not be able to do that.

But this is how you build a bullpen. We spent money or traded for "sure things" that failed two years in a row; we are all ready to see guys like Workman and Phelps have bounce-back seasons for someone else. So we better get some bounce-back guys of our own. If he can stay healthy he's also still a very fresh arm, and probably has a few more good years than his age might otherwise suggest.

[allentown]

At the end of the day, there is a need to trade future WAR for present WAR without giving up too much of the former

Why? The Phillies ownership appears determined to cut budget and not spend enough to have a chance at contention in 2021. We weren't even a .500 team in 2020, It's not happening in 2021, so any trading of future for present extends the dark days until we can once again be serious contenders for the playoffs.

[zambonir]

I don't entirely disagree with you, but that's not how the franchise sees it. Girardi says we would have won 38 games last season with a good bullpen. We just hired Dave Dombrowski. If you're still trying to win in 2022 and 2023, when payroll/austerity shouldn't hold you back, you gotta take a shot this year too. I just don't see any point in arguing about how they execute their goals for this season if the argument is that they have the wrong goals.

I assume your move would be to call in Harper, ask him to approve a trade, and ship him out along with Nola, Wheeler and Hoskins? It would certainly be mine, unless Harper said he believed in the rebuild and still wanted to be here in two years. I would also give Girardi the opportunity to leave. But that's obviously not what the team intends to do.

I do think the team still isn't terrible, which is the problem, really. They could end up making the playoffs over the next couple of years. Or, yeah, they'll be repeating the mistakes of 2013 and 2014 and starting another long slog.

[andyb]

There is a way out of this morass without a complete rebuild. It will require better performances from young players like Kingery and Howard. Then you need to layer on good drafting and international spending. Then you also need a GM who can make good trades that also don't rob much of the future. So the trades need to be more balanced, perhaps using money to get prospects back (the anti-Seabold strategy). Then you also need a commitment to spend money.

There really is no rebuild without trading the young players with some value that are getting expensive. That is Nola and Hoskins for now. Harper and Wheeler get you less in return because of their salaries. This team is just not in a position to do that yet. Their money (even if they cry poor) does give them options.

[Austinfan]

What is really comes down to is whether Klentak revamped the organization and it'll bear fruit the next few years, or it was just lip service. The story about Simmons having to figure out the flaws in his swing instead of coaches pointing it out and correcting it doesn't garner optimism.

You don't have to have prospects arrive in droves, but you do need to find some Sixto/Altuve types who play far above expectations if you're drafting in the middle of the pack and have a limited LA allocation. And you have to be able to fill out the roster with later pick college pitchers turned functional RP, trades for guys other teams have underestimated, and coaches who can fix flaws and turn some marginal prospects into players.

Spending $20-30M on the bullpen, and having to spend $20M for SP depth just isn't tenable in this cap environment, especially if you resign JT, pay Harper, Wheeler, Nota, Sergura, et al. The Phillies have to find some cheap help.

Guys like Welch and Victorino were key to the last successful team, low cost starters for years, along with all the hits on draft picks over a six year period.