Phillies absolutely need both A ball teams to rock out, and some prospects to push their way to AA this year.
Can't do much about 2024, but hopefully young players will be in AAA by 2025 and 2026 and they'll have more options than broke down veterans and AAAA types.
Shows why you need a top ten farm system even when you have money if you want to seriously compete every year.
Luplaw is terrible. Has never gotten a hit at any level. May not even exist.
The story you are telling about Luplow and Dahl is just as easy to tell about Cave. He started struggling during the COVID season and then the dude broke his back in 2021. Everything he's doing since then, including last season, has been part of attempting to return to full health and form/timing, which is also really hard to do if you're a major league bench player. His AAA/spring training numbers actually suggest he'd be better off on a team with smaller ambitions, playing every day, or at least every day against RHP. He's barely going to play for the Phillies (assuming everyone is healthy and Rojas is the CF) which means he's unlikely to really get hot, but it also doesn't matter. He will play so little, IMO, that they could still consider keeping Pache, or giving the spot to Clemens if they really are worried about Harper. But it won't go to Dahl (and Luplow's already been sent down).
And easier to tell about Kingery. All of these guys are marginal and throw the spaghetti against the wall and see if it sticks guys. Totally fungible. I admit, in my mind so is Merrifield and I may very well be proven wrong on that one as he only needs to be okay for one year.
By the way, why are the spelling police out in such force lately?
Just to be snarky and extra-argumentative? Also that's the tradition set from the top 
But also for real I think people really don't know who someone means when a name is mangled. And I don't know why anyone wouldn't use the edit function. (I make typos in almost every post, and probably don't catch all of them either. Have also had mods go into my post and fix them for me.
I agree Merrifield may well be just as big a fungible. And therefore perfectly fine in the limited role for which he is overpaid. Though Harrison (who was fairly paid) obviously was not last year.
Kingery could probably do almost as well as Sosa if he was the actual utility IF. I wouldn't really try to roll with him in the OF at all but you could say the same about Merrifield. And Clemens is probably better and a better fit as far as giving Bohm days off.
Sosa obviously the better SS.
I'm sorry, but I have to comment here. 
I don't get bugged by somebody misspelling Luplow's name (if that's the spelling!), because he's nobody much, he's new, and he's probably gone soon.
And I'm not bothered when people get their wires totally crossed and refer to one player while meaning another (I'm 70; this stuff happens!).
I did get bugged at people who couldn't manage to keep Scott Rolen and Jimmy Rollins separate, in their writing if not in their heads. It seems to me that there's some kind of minimum consciousness that's required to actually be a Phillies phan, and keeping potential Hall of Fame Phillies separate from one another feels like it should be part of that minimum.
Now, when we had a Machado and a Mercado, and people confused that...yeah, that's understandable. And combining them into a Merchado... well, he was almost as outstanding as Kevin Oudeis.
Phils' commitment to players - once you get it, the Phils are behind you until you absolutely force them to think again. Cave, for example.
There's talk here that ST stats are meaningless, but that's what's available to measure performance. Cave is hitting. He's always looked like he can hit. Balanced at the plate. Seems to have a good eye as he decides when to swing. Knows what it's like to be a hitter from his experience at AAA. The Phils have been committed to him. He looks like he's ready to reward that commitment. IT COULD HAPPEN!
Would be a nice change to have somebody on the Phils' bench that can hit.
Going back to the early '80s, the debate about the meaning of minor league stats has progressed significantly. Bill James' first article on this was called the Ken Phelps all-stars, where he looked at AAA players and said that a certain number of them, headlined by Phelps, had shown by their statistical production in the minors (mostly AAA), that they could be above-average players in the big leagues. This is from his original essay, I think in 1982 or so:
"See, on the one hand you’ve got the Henry Cottos, and on the other hand, you’ve got your Ken Phelpses. If Henry Cotto is a major league ballplayer, I’m an airplane. Cotto is one of those guys who runs well and throws pretty decent, and one year he hit .270-something (in less than 150 at-bats, in Wrigley Field, with a secondary average of .164), so you get guys like Don Zimmer who will rave about this great young prospect and keep trading for him, so he’ll get about eight chances to play in the major leagues before they figure out he can’t hit. At first when he doesn’t hit they’ll say he just needs more playing time, and then they’ll say he needs to stop wiggling his elbows while the pitcher is in motion, and then they’ll say he needs to point his lead foot and learn to keep his weight back, and then they’ll say he needs to be more aggressive at the plate, and then they’ll say he needs to go back to wiggling his elbows. They always figure that if you can run and throw they’ll teach you to hit. Of course they can’t teach anybody to hit, but they always think they can, so they keep trying.
Then on the other hand you’ve got your Ken Phelpses. Ken Phelps has been a major league ballplayer since at least 1980, when he hit .294 with 128 walks and a slugging percentage close to .600 at AAA Omaha, a tough park for a hitter. Through 1985 he had 567 at-bats in the major leagues—one season’s worth—with 40 home runs and 92 RBI. The Mariners still didn’t want to let him play. See, the problem was that Chuck Cottier, in his day, was a Henry Cotto, a guy who could run and throw, but couldn’t play baseball. Most major league managers were those kind of guys. Ken Phelps, on the other hand, can’t run particularly well (though he isn’t exceptionally slow, either) and doesn’t throw well, and if you’re that kind of player and want to play major league ball you’d better go 7-for-20 in your first week in the majors, or they’ll decide it’s time to take another look at Henry Cotto. Ken Phelps in his first two shots at major league pitching went 3-for-26. Despite his limitations, the man is a major league player. He’s a major league player because he plays good defense at first base and has a secondary average over .500, so that he can both drive in and score runs."
Phelps stats? 1,854 at-bats, 123 homers and 313 RBIs. He produced 10 WAR over seven semi-regular seasons, and would probably have doubled his number if he had been given more chances, especially early on. His wRC+ for four of his late-20s early 30s seasons was 143, 148, 148, 160. Seattle still did not give him ABs, and barely played him the year after his 143 wRC+ season.
The point I'm trying to make is that the argument that 'AAA stats (when adjusted for level and context) don't project to the major leagues just as well as MLB stats' is over. Several papers have been written showing the deviation is equal, on average, to performance predicted by MLB stats. That what the good projection models like ZIPS and Steamer have shown repeatedly. Cave and Clemens, IF GIVEN THE OPPORTUNITY, are projected by ZIPS to be about 1-1.5 WAR players in about 200-300 ABs. Dahl projects to 0 WAR, and Luplow to about 0.5 WAR.
The Phils see these players about the same way analytics sees them. I would rather have a Nick Maton or Matt Vierling type who might have an upside, but we are fresh out of those guys, barring a trade.
The reality is we chose to spend money on other things including Merrifield (who I might not love at this stage in his career but admit the chance of him hitting more than Cave is pretty good). We hoped Rojas would be ready and still hope that. If Rojas is ready there simply are not a lot of pinch hit ABs on this team and Merrifield would take most of the extra OF playing time. The only time we would pinch hit for Rojas would be in the bottom of the 9th when future defense is less important.
Cave does have an upside. His ZIPS projection of a 740 OPS would be just fine for a AAAA spare part. If he makes the team I hope he delivers that.
It's okay if it's Luis Garcia.
Honestly I just thought it was funny AF somehow came up with Luplaw when I think it's been more common to call him "Ludlow." But I also realize most of these things are typos on phone keyboards or autocorrects.
(Also I wasn't just referring to you, as PC has been known to actually go into my posts and correct a typo. You only do it when I type "Rule V.")
I think everyone would like both of those things just fine. But Cave had 203 PAs last year and put up a .620 OPS and -0.4 WAR. That was plenty of opportunity. Clemens had 148 PAs, .644 OPS and 0.0 WAR (I actually did think he deserved another look over Cave instead of having Cave play 1B for the first time ever).
BBRef (which uses Tom Tango's system of the past three years of data, no minor leagues, with more weight on most recent and more negative weight for age) projects Cave for .655 this year. Clemens, .674 (there's the age factor).
They're all perfectly fine tbh. People are applying the criteria of, "do I want to see this guy at the plate PHing in the NLCS" to, "can this guy not be an overall detriment to the team in a limited role during the first three months of the season?"
The David Peralta of 2022 and 2023 (to name one guy who might be gettable this week) isn't better either.
Frankly if the priority is outfield defense then they probably hang onto Pache anyway. Then the Cave/Clemens/Dahl spot is only available if Rojas is in AAA. Pache does have value. As Keith Law pointed out in his semi breakout piece, the power improvement is probably real even if he'll never have a high OBP. Maybe his future is a 290 OBP guy that plays good defense and could hit 20 HR in 400-500 AB.
Yeah, well, I just can't really come to grips with the idea that you're a refugee from the Roman Empire! Well, that, and I have a binder next to my desk - 2019 version - that has sixty Major League Rules; and Roman numerals... well, there's a reason the Romans didn't develop higher math.
Misspellings happen, especially with newer players. Abbreviations are fine with me too as long as they are for a reason (long name or hard to spell hyphenated name).
What I dislike are intentional misspellings. Those should be disallowed if the intent is not positive (i.e. many are degrading). I also hate repeat misspellings on names that are easy to spell. It can happen every now and then (and autocorrect probably creates some unintentionally), but some are out there all the time and are annoying to me at least.
What gets me is when a poster quotes something that spells a player's name correctly - often multiple times - and then the poster's reply to the quote misspells the name. This just cries out that the poster isn't looking at what he's writing.
But Phelps produced in his ML stints, the problem with Cave is he's failed to produce in four ML stints that were substantial - 123, 178, 177, 203 PA - at that point you start thinking his AAA performance is just fool's gold. And his very high ML K rates, 33.0%, 31.1%, 35.8%, 34.8%, 27.7%, 27.1% - if you're going to be a three outcome hitter, you need to walk a lot more than he does and hit more HRs!
Coste was a guy who hit at AAA and didn't get a shot for years, but when he got a chance, jumped all over it.
Merrifield is different, they're betting that his falloff last season was due to overuse at his age, in a part-time role that he'll sustain the .750 OPS he had for the first few months, and if so, is worth the money.
Phelps never really got a chance till he was 29. Now he would not be discriminated against for the same reason he was then as the 3-outcome hitter is now much more accepted. The main point though is that AAA is just a level below the majors and stats there can be analyzed relative to age and park effects like any other set of statistics.
Cave is a very good AAA player and that translates to being a below average major leaguer. Given that Merrifield is older there is probably a stronger chance of regression too (stop with the wore out logic for a player mediocre for 3 years in a row). Cave also hits left-handed so he really is not competing with Merrifield who does have more speed and defensive versatility. Coste got buried too but for different reasons (Indy ball mainly and lack of belief in his defense). But Coste did not hit anywhere near as much as Cave.
Sounds like your arguments on Phelps and Coste really make the case to keep Cave for that last roster spot.
After reading all the comments here on Marifield, I am amazed at how all the out of town announcers praise him up and down. Today it was the Yankee’s turn to do so.
Merrifield is a 35-year old three-time all-star. Of course the announcers praise him up and down. Plus he has an 1100 OPS in Spring Training. I don't think talking up aging former stars is restricted to Merrifield. Let's hope he has one more year of playing good ball in him.
Or let's hope some of those announcers are in charge of making trade offers for him...
