Phillies Prospect Lists

[andyb]

They are not though. Verlander. All the free agent signings. You are just creating a narrative to fit your opinion.

Free agents and trades for veterans can be very effective. Cliff Lee and Roy Halladay come to mind. You do say that pitchers can and should come from everywhere. But then you go off on a tangent saying all that is a waste of money and prospects.

Clearly this team has a bunch of 5th starters and AAAA pitchers. It is a problem.

[Austinfan]

Lee and Halladay were expensive in terms of prospects, as was Verlander.
You make those trades when you're already a 90 win team and pushing for a post-season edge.

Not when you're still rebuilding (and this team is, the bump in the farm system came from trades, otherwise we had little homegrown talent until recently, Franco, Hernandez, Galvis, Quinn (2011), Giles (2011), Morgan (2011), Crawford (2013), Knapp (2013), Nola (2014), Hoskins (2014), Davis (2014), Kingery (2015), Irvin (2016), Haseley (2017). Until we have a solid ML lineup and depth up and down the system, we can't make the big trades for pitchers.

And buying pitchers? We're spending $60M for Arrieta and the IR list.

We gave up Sanchez (2015), Alfaro (trade), Santana (money), to get Segura and Realmuto.
We almost have to buy players to have players to trade.

[andyb]

Depth of AAAA players is not really depth

[allentown]

Lee and Halladay were expensive in terms of prospects, as was Verlander.
You make those trades when you're already a 90 win team and pushing for a post-season edge.

As things turned out, Halladay cost practically nothing in prospects, in terms of their career WAR. Phillies got a quick 21 WAR from Lee
Lee basically cost Carrasco, who accumulated 21 WAR, but delayed 4 years; Phillies got 17 WAR from Halladay in first 2 seasons

If you can do that as a pair of trades, I think any team does it any day of the week, regardless of how strong they are. Lee and Halladay were very good value.

As I think of to me the iconic PHillies pitchers during my lifetime (I'm sure I'll forget some):
Grow your own: Roberts, Simmons, Short, Wise, Hamels, Nola
Acquired: Konstanty, Bunning, Carlton, Schilling, Lidge, Lee, Halladay

The two relievers for basically one super great season.

[Austinfan]

The odds that you'll pull off trades that turn out as well as Lee and Halladay is almost zero.
You're just as likely to make a Garcia for Floyd and Gio deal.
Which is why you need surplus talent, because it's a numbers game.

[bigegypt0417]

Clearly this team has a bunch of 5th starters and AAAA pitchers. It is a problem.

1000% true.

AF builds teams based on a singular template...you're broke and Moneyball is the answer.

He is watching right now what happens when you depend on fringe prospects and low end talent but is doubling down on the strategy even though it's blowing up in front of him.

[andyb]

I would not say that guys like Pivetta and Eflin and Velasquez are fringe starters. They have the stuff to be more but are not currently doing that. It was a fair bet to give them all another chance. I might have preferred to bring in one established guy and let the three compete for two spots.

Or now, with the bullpen in tatters, add a veteran starter like Cashner and move Velasquez permanently then. Maybe fix two things with one move. De Los Santos and Anderson and Suarez are all AAAA starters. Keep Suarez where he is because a 2-inning lefty in the bullpen has value and he seems to be pitching better in that new role. Leave him there. Don't jerk him around in different roles.

All in all this is not a great team. We have only a handful of starting pitching prospects (Howard, Medina, maybe Jones) that are close to the majors. I don't think a 50% chance at the wild card is worth trading them. We need to build depth. So let's pick up $15 million of salary from someone for a C level prospect and it might help almost as much.

[bigegypt0417]

I would not say that guys like Pivetta and Eflin and Velasquez are fringe starters. They have the stuff to be more but are not currently doing that. It was a fair bet to give them all another chance. I might have preferred to bring in one established guy and let the three compete for two spots.

Fringe may have been unfair. the phillies needed to bring in another arm that was at least middle of the rotation good. Those arms were out there and we passed on them. You had a set of potential starters who profiled just about the same and with the money you put in to this particular team there should have been one more arm.

[Austinfan]

Fringe arms are fringe until they're not, that is, most solid starters spend their first few years as fringe starters until the light goes on (i.e. they fix mechanical issues, add a secondary pitch, develop movement on their FB, etc.). Eflin is on the verge of the next step, Pivetta and Velasquez are running out of time to make that jump.

There are few reliable FA SPs available at a reasonable price, two years ago it was Darvish and Arrieta, how's that working for you. Last year it was Corbin, so far so good, but 5 years left from age 31-35 - fine for a team with a window closing soon, but not for a team trying to become competitive.

Trading for a top pitcher is expensive, and requires a deep farm system that can afford to give up 2-3 top ten prospects. Phillies are years away from being in that situation, we gave up 2 of these guys and got two starters (Segura, Realmuto). Right now we don't have 10 guys who deserve to be considered top ten prospects.

Adding patchers on 1-2 year deals is a crap shoot, remember Morton? Right pitcher, wrong year.
But it's only money, we tried to build a bullpen that way, oops.
[between Arrieta and the veteran RPs, we're paying $61M for 1 WAR, Eflin (BR) is worth 1.5 WAR]

[bigegypt0417]

Fringe arms are fringe until they're not, that is, most solid starters spend their first few years as fringe starters until the light goes on (i.e. they fix mechanical issues, add a secondary pitch, develop movement on their FB, etc.). Eflin is on the verge of the next step, Pivetta and Velasquez are running out of time to make that jump.

Give me a good list of examples.

you make it sound like a rule.

It's also not a strategy that teams looking to win do.

[phillychuck]

I think both AF and BE make sense. The Phils needed to find a way to give Eflin, Velasquez, and Pivetta a chance to prove themselves. But they also needed to realize the odds were strongly stacked against all three of them becoming even average starters, so their strategy should have been to acquire one more solid piece to add to the rotation. Corbin would have worked out, it seems. Charlie Morton, too. Paxton, too, in trade. Homer Bailey would have eaten innings but been an average pick-up. Wade Miley would have been good. Bret Anderson has been good. Go to this link:

Every transaction from this offseason, team by team

And scroll down the list looking at pitchers who have been given starting roles. Probably about 40% worked out, about 30% were average, and about 30% were just awful, obvious team-dooming disasters.

It's harder to count the results for scuffling younger starters given their shot, but I doubt their odds are better.

Interesting discussion.

[zambonir]

I think the Phillies starter strategy comes back to their bullpen strategy. They were prepared to have just three reliable starters (Nola, Arrieta and whoever rose to the top of the other three), with a deep bullpen propping up the 4 and 5. Plus a lot of runs. Then, come July, they'd make the upgrades.

And when they've had a lot of runs, it has still worked. But the bullpen fell apart, and all three guys in the 4/5 role have pitched poorly enough to be removed from the rotation (though in VV's case he was injured).

And, they guessed right on Happ, wrong on Morton (but could you really blame them given his age and injury history?). And they actually offered Corbin a five-year contract so that's not exactly passive. The Yankees - who still need pitching in part because of guessing wrong on Happ - got outbid too.

[Squire]

Keith Law in Yesterday's Chat about Mickey Moniak:

Brian: You didn’t seem particularly impressed with Mickey Moniak. And yet, in May he hit .290 with a .755 OPS, in June it was .294 w/an .872 OPS and a big spike in walks & in July it’s been .320 with an .850 OPS. That sounds a lot like the Steve Finley type player discussed when the Phillies drafted him. What are you seeing and hearing from scouts that the stat line isn’t showing?

Keith Law: OPS sucks for individual players, more so for trying to evaluate prospects. It’s not a good swing at all, not going to generate power, and his approach isn’t good. He’s also probably not a CF long term.

[phillychuck]

How could every scout that saw Moniak in HS evaluate his swing as excellent and complement his approach if Law is correct here?

What metric does Law advocate for evaluating players? RC, or RC+, or some sort of linear weights? How about wRC+ compared to league (Moniak is at 122 now)? Or is he one of those "I know a prospect when I see one" guys? How can Moniak be 7th in the EL in doubles and first by a mile in triples (despite missing time) and not be able to generate power? Power is more than just HRs.

And he allegedly is a hard worker. I'll bet he becomes a decent CF. He's put up a few highlight plays this year, might be improving...

[Squire]

I agree with you. This is a bizarre and wildly negative take

[bigegypt0417]

How could every scout that saw Moniak in HS evaluate his swing as excellent and complement his approach if Law is correct here?

What metric does Law advocate for evaluating players? RC, or RC+, or some sort of linear weights? How about wRC+ compared to league (Moniak is at 122 now)? Or is he one of those "I know a prospect when I see one" guys? How can Moniak be 7th in the EL in doubles and first by a mile in triples (despite missing time) and not be able to generate power? Power is more than just HRs.

And he allegedly is a hard worker. I'll bet he becomes a decent CF. He's put up a few highlight plays this year, might be improving...

Not that i'm comparing the two but when Juan Soto was promoted to AA Law came out and said he wasn't ready and his approach was not for higher levels. I think one thing about Law is he formulates an opinion and doesn't really deviate from it regardless of numbers. This is fairly consistent for hm.

[andyb]

Law always has a negative reaction when he perceives some part of a question as naive. Here it is OPS and I am guessing he is going back to the OPS in Reading is meaningless criteria. There is something to that of course, but also one must weigh the improvement and the fact that he is not one of these 25-year-old overrated sluggers like Ruf or Listi.

By most accounts Moniak is a tweener between CF and a corner, though I would guess he has not seen enough of Moniak to have a meaningful view of whether his defense has progressed enough. Haseley is in the same spot. If either is not a CF, their offense does not look good in a corner (hence the 4th OF/below average regular projection).

Law is overly negative and dismissive here, but parts of what he says represent the consensus evaluation of not being sure he is a CF and not buying the power because of his swing.

[allentown]

Have the Phillies changed Moniak's swing? Is it not as good a contact swing as his H.S. swing was. Gillick loved his swing, but I never had the impression that Gillick was a proponent of the Phillies' new emphasis on loft, especially for a line drive hitter like Moniak. If Moniak is beefing up to increase power, as has been reported, then Law may well be correct that he soon won't be a CF. I've watched him play CF and his reads on balls doesn't seem great. Watching him run the bases on a triple, he still seems fast. He's improved in recent months, actually in multiple ways offensively. I still see a ceiling of average MLB starter. Perhaps that's sufficient for a 1.1, but I must admit disappointment. I wanted the Phillies to go college with that pick. I wanted Senzel. I realize that the 1.1 adds bonus pressure, but Senzel signed for less than Moniak. That might look better if Gowdy was throwing above 90 mph and Cole Stobbe was looking like any sort of prospect (He isn't, and I wonder if he isn't a victim of Phillies' hitting philosophy. He has 8 HR, which I regard as good for a Lakewood player at this time of year, but he's batting .179 with almost a K every 2 AB).

We talk about the depletion of the farm during the neglect under RAJ/Gillick, but I think we also need to point to the 2016 draft as a disappointment and giant missed opportunity. To be honest: many an MLB team has deliberately tanked to be in this position, as I believe we did, and we blew the chance to benefit greatly from that near-tank. We had all of our picks and the number one slot -- the ideal situation to reload the farm. We went Moniak, Gowdy, Stobbe. I accept that injuries happen to pitchers and not everyone recovers from TJ, but still, that strikes me as a pathetic yield from your 3 primo picks when sitting in the top slot. We did follow those three with Romero and Irvin, who may help us, but I don't see as difference makers. We added some interesting talent further down that draft, indicating that some of our scouts had a good year (Julian Garcia, Andrew Brown[although he's pretty much fallen apart this season and I wouldn't be surprised if we learn of an arm injury), and the definitely injured Kyle Young). Josh Stephen, in the traditional take the best H.S. guy you aren't quite sure you can sign #11 slot, is only 21 at Reading, but also hasn't looked plus at any level yet.

[nycphils]

Law always has a negative reaction when he perceives some part of a question as naive. Here it is OPS and I am guessing he is going back to the OPS in Reading is meaningless criteria. There is something to that of course, but also one must weigh the improvement and the fact that he is not one of these 25-year-old overrated sluggers like Ruf or Listi.

And Moniak has better power numbers on the road vs, at the Reading park.

[andyb]

It is all kind of small sample size though. I think Reading tends to help the real power hitters more than the gap hitters also.

In terms of tools his power is still probably like a 40 now and maybe a 50 potential. I think he is an above average runner but no more than a 55 run tool. Hit tool around 50 now also as it has not been plus.

This is all why the ability to play CF is crucial for Moniak. He has a chance to be a decent regular there. His offense is probably not enough in a corner though.