I like Marsh, I think he does bring something, but would much rather see him as a 4th OF. He has great grit, speed. I like him, but he is really only just better than what we had.
Have approx $61m to play with and need an infielder to replace Segura, a pitcher to replace Eflin and Gibson in the rotation but one that can come out of the pen if need be, and a couple of relievers to replace Hand/Knebel/Robertson.
Trea Turner would be my first choice - 5yr/$150m is probably what it takes because if he wants a shorter deal LAD will overpay for that.
Syndergaard would be a fine choice for the starter - should he take 2yrs/$17m or 1 yr/$10m? He’s not likely to get the $21m he got this year since his performance was very much 4th/5th starter-ish, not better. In the playoffs his performance suggests he could go out of the bullpen if both McGarry and Painter pan out in ‘23. Another choice could be Dylan Bundy, or someone similar. That’s $40m between Turner and a starter.
One or two relievers would cost another $15m or less, so that leaves about $6-10m for any other needs, including giving Nola a revised deal.
Lineup: Schwarber, Marsh, Harper, Castellanos, Bohm, Turner, Stott, Hoskins, Realmuto
Rotation: Wheeler, Nola, Suarez, FA SP, McGarry/Painter/Falter/Sanchez
Bench: Maton, Sosa, Vierling, Stubbs, Guthrie
Bullpen: Alvarado, Belatti, Brogdan, Dominguez, Andrew Baker/Morales, FA RP1, FARP2
I sure don't think so. .773 OPS and 116 OPS+ 0.9 WAR in a Phillies uniform and he still only barely has one full professional season under his belt, plus he made the Gold Glove short list from his time in the AL. Not only is that miles better than what we had (Herrera .684 OPS 84 OPS+ 0.2 WAR) but we have yet to see what he might really be.
Doesn't mean you don't let Vierling face the tough lefty, of course.
Certainly if he can maintain those stats we have found a solution, but I don't think that is really the likely result at this point. His numbers before Philly implied that those numbers are a bit of a mirage, but who knows. I think closer to .700 OPS would be a 75% percentile expectation, and .600 OPS would be the floor.
It'll be interesting to see Bohm, Stott, Marsh, Vierling, Maton, Guthrie and Sosa next spring after Long has a month to work with them - I don't think any are finished products at this point.
I also look forward to the IF coach continuing to work with the kids on their fielding, Bohm has made tremendous strides, from a total liability to making key defensive plays in big games.
I think, after watching Marsh in CF, he is far from a gold glove. Average at best. I think the gold glove talk was about him as a LF. Not that he's not a valuable player, he is. I think I would also like to see him in some sort of rotation where he gets about 400 PA in a season.
I definitely want to see what Long can do with Marsh. Hopefully he’ll start working with him throughout the winter. Marsh has the jitters at the plate. Because of that no two swings are ever the same.
The Angels system is a fiasco so I doubt if he ever had a hitting coach consistently working with him to develop a sensible approach to hitting and a consistent swing which would maximize his skills. Watching him now with all of his fidgeting around is painful. It’s as if he has a nervous disorder. There may be something there with him but it needs to be reined in.
Yeah Marsh is pretty twitchy up there. Like you said, hopefully Long can settle him down. Maybe he just needs to cut his hair.
Stott has made a living lately of fouling off fastballs in the upper right quadrant of the zone, but would be nice to see him start to hit those the other way instead. I’ve mentioned before that it was my impression that his swing is not in time with his hips. Hips lead, hands follow. But his hands seem too close behind his hips.
Certainly something is "behind" Aqua, because Stott really cannot hit a fastball. Hopefully they can work with him to improve that, it is easy to believe, he essentially skipped his last year of development.
I am not saying he is a gold glove but I see no reason to think he can't continue be a .725 guy who catches what he's supposed to catch. And he came here with significant defensive WAR (and no offense). To assume he would revert to the slow start of his early career, well, we can still fear the same about Stott and Bohm. In Marsh and Stott's case they don't have to do quite as much at the plate, especially not on this team.
The AL Gold Glove was for LF and he is probably among the best there. Agree he is probably an average CF now. Pretty good instincts. His speed is good, though merely around average for a CF as there are very few CF with below average speed. I think he is fine there. He'll cut down the handful of mistakes like most young fielders do.
We just don't know if he can hit that well. There is so much movement in his setup that the coaches probably can settle that down and speed up his bat a bit. But will he ever have the batspeed to hit a good fastball? Not sure. There is probably more power in him though. Could easily see him hitting 20 HRs.
Long is a good coach, but he is also no miracle worker. Hopefully he can connect with Marsh and smooth out his issues a bit. But we also should not expect Long to make batters be something they are not. It is very possible that Marsh and Vierling are destined to be platoon partners. Like it or not we traded for Marsh to improve what we had (which he did), but there is no guarantee that Rojas won't take the job by the end of next year. Rojas offers even better defense and speed, though also a lower floor on offense.
If Rojas takes the job and turns Marsh into a 4th OF that's just fine. There might also be a period where improved defense and an average bat makes him just as good a LF as anyone else the Phillies have as these bats get older and move around. But either way I think Marsh is clearly a work in progress. He was drafted the same year as Moniak and started his major league career a year later than Bohm. Because we traded for him at the deadline I think he's perceived differently (because deadline deals are usually prospects for veterans/finished products).
Jury's still out on Matt V too. He profiles the same as Marsh from the weak side of a platoon of course but I wonder if that's the one bench spot they could upgrade next year (especially if they still need a RF for several months, maybe more if Harper has to ease back into it). You'd still have Guthrie as the young depth and Maton behind Sosa. And there's still no spot for Hall in the long run.
I think of him as cheap injury insurance for an injury to any one of Harper, Hoskins, Schwarber, or even Castellanos. If Harper can play the field next year then Hall could easily be up for half the season if any one of them is out. We don't have too much power on the bench or the upper minors so Hall does fill a need even if it is the 27th man on the roster.
Oh for sure I wouldn't trade him. And the cheap young bench has been good/fun. But I'm still imagining a non-existent world where they could actually have better corner OF option to replace Bryce, and/or pair with Schwarber (if RH). Hall if he could actually play OF. Or a better-hitting version of Vierling who you'd actually want to play everyday while Bryce is out (instead of Castellanos).
I hope they go back to a shared DH next year. And that should include JT for 10-20 games. Would really like to keep his bat in the lineup while also lowering the number of innings he catches.
I guess it could be Hall/Castellanos with a few turns for JT until Bryce comes back. But every time you have anyone other than Castellanos or Schwarber (or Hoskins) at DH you're worse in the field somewhere.
I suspect that many phans don't realize that Brandon Marsh is the youngest player on the Phils postseason roster, even ~2 months younger than Bryson Stott.
Much younger than Guthrie, even!
We just need to wait for him to get better nutrition so his body can fill out. 
