Phillies Better Now Than Two Weeks Ago?

[schillingfan]

This adding of talent, may have an anti-chemistry effect as seemed to happen with the 2009-2011 Phillies as the overall quality of the team improved from 2008, yet their post-season success became progressively less.

I think this is a key point along with the clear message to the young players "you're not good enough for a pennant race, we had to bring in vets to save us". That is the wrong message.

But if they hadn't added help the message would have been we don't think you're good enough to make the playoffs. Teams trying to win add players. The only players affected in terms of reduced playing time were Kingery and Knapp and Maybe Alfaro. I think the problem was hitters al slumping at the same time , except Franco, followed by young arms hitting the August wall.

[zambonir]

Franco is slumping now too. Sub-.300 OBP in August. And Williams' OPS is .690 over the last 14 days. It's been a real team effort.

I think when you don't make trades on an older contending team that only has so many chances let it sends a message that they don't believe in you but this team is a little different. It's not like Arrieta and Santana were sitting around thinking, "if only we didn't have the worst hitter in the league at shortstop." (If anything Arrieta would have liked to see defensive upgrades). Still, if the deals were working it wouldn't matter. Chemistry doesn't lead to winning; winning leads to chemistry.

[Lucky_Beagle]

Franco is slumping now too. Sub-.300 OBP in August. And Williams' OPS is .690 over the last 14 days. It's been a real team effort.

yet without the bullpen giving away games the last 2 weeks the Phillies would be within a game or two

[zambonir]

Yup. But even in this day and age of third-time penalties and elite set-up men I tend to think if you need your bullpen that badly you're not that good. There have been bad outings by starters in the past two weeks that hurt just as much as the blown saves. And a lot of the one-run games they've been in didn't have to be one-run games. But they are 0-6 in those in the second half. 20-8 in the first half.

[andyb]

Yes, but being mediocre at the Major League level is different than being mediocre at Triple-A. Whatever the reason for his struggles, Crawford isn’t getting it done at a level that’s much easier than the level at which Kingery is playing.

Crawford has had 40 AB at AAA with a .697 OPS this year. Not sure one can draw too many conclusions from that. He has a higher OPS than Kingery does at the major league level. I still am looking for actual evidence that Kingery is better. Healthier yes. Better - not really. The Phillies have had their own reasons for playing Kingery over Crawford. Those reasons are not based on any known stats unfortunately. Kingery has gotten a lot more playing time than he deserved this year and it is a bit of a mystery as to why. Not upgrading SS at the deadline was the move that may be the most important trade deadline decision this year.