Phillies Trade Double A RHP Franklyn Kilomé for Asdrubal Cabrera

[phillychuck]

"that won't be much consolation when Hoskins can't get to a tough fly with men on base in a deciding playoff game."

Yeah, but it will be fine when he homers twice later in the game to win it.

[zambonir]

Working so far!

[Austinfan]

Actually, Hoskins has improved as a LF, nice catch the other night.

His problem is more inexperience than lack of athleticism, he's certainly got better speed than the Bull, and probably Burrell, and we lived with those two in LF.

[harrisburghusker]

Kilome is flaming out, ala Brody Colvin in Reading. He has been a huge disappointment to me this yr.

that said, the Mets are giving everyone else away, this is a decent to good return for them

[allentown]

Kilome decent at Reading, but too many walks. He has a decent chance to be an MLB SP, but I think he's a 4/5 ceiling -- not a huge K guy and not good enough control, but still 23 gives him time. I agree, he's been surpassed on the farm. I remember not that long ago Pinto was among our best SP prospect, now gone. The attrition rate is high.

[LoneStarPhan]

One additional advantage to trading Kilome is that he was on the 40 man roster, so his trade opens up a roster spot on the 40 man roster. Kilome is also a player who might have come into discussion in October as the 40 man roster was purged to create room for the addition of prospects who need to be protected prior to the rule 5 draft. While there will be several players who will come off the 40 man roster after the season, the Phillies likely face a crunch for space as they have to protect a new bunch of prospects and have space for signing some free agents. Kilome might just have been one caught in this crunch. Better to trade him now than have to move him off the 40 man roster in the off season and face the chance of losing him for nothing.

[andyb]

Actually, Hoskins has improved as a LF, nice catch the other night.

Not a whole lot of evidence for that. Stats are among the worst in the league (and are the worst on the team relative to any position).

[LoneStarPhan]

I did not realize that the Phillies traded a top 5 prospect in this deal.

Updated Mets MLBPipeline Prospect Rankings for NY Mets:

5: Franklyn Kilome

http://m.mlb.com/prospects/2018?list=nym

[phillychuck]

Our #10, and falling. Met's #5 in a much weaker system.

[zambonir]

I was just being funny about Hoskins, no need to single him out. It's just true that on any given night our GM and manager are happy to put the weakest possible fielder out there at LF, RF, 3B and SS (and Santana has not been anything special). It's great the bats are justifying it and Cabrera certainly will more than Kingery. But it's still true they have the worst defense in the league by most public measures. I find it fascinating more than concerning. It's also interesting to me that someone's defense can fall off a cliff at 32 but he can still hit (possibly true of Santana as well as Cabrera).

[andyb]

I have been asking this question too. I think Klentak consciously does not care much about defense compared to his peers. This is a choice. Maybe an efficiency since good defensive players and valuation around WAR has driven player evaluation recently. I think he believes that defensive side of WAR is overvalued, perhaps because fewer balls are put in play and shifts eliminate some of the advantage individual defensive ability gave a good defensive player.

The question is whether he is right. There are definitely some synergistic effects of a good, deep lineup that takes lots of pitches (i.e. the Santana question and having both him and Hoskins in the same lineup) that are not captured in WAR. But we as a team are also terrible at defense and any eye test focused on Hoskins or Knapp or Williams or Franco or anyone at SS shows them not making plays that a good defensive player would make.

I suspect we will never get a definitive answer to this. We are a good team first and foremost because of starting pitching. It helps that we K a lot of opposing hitters, but all this masks a bad defense. No idea if Klentak and Kapler are right here, but there is sure a lot of evidence that they think defense is less important than other clubs.

[Austinfan]

Not sure they devalue defense that much, rather, you have to accept that every player comes with a set of tradeoffs.

Until Crawford is healthy and acclimated to ML play, there is no plus SS option, Franco's upside is average, Williams is average, Hoskin is average, but all three are works in progress.
Altherr and Quinn could give you plus OF defense, but right now they can't hit enough to make that valuable.
Kingery is a minus SS who is improving but a plus 2B.
Cabrera is a minus SS, average 3B, below average 2B, at SS and 3B he's not going to be significantly different than what they already have (and Machado is probably as bad at SS)..

Galvis wasn't traded because they didn't value defense (they were considering bringing him back) but because they had to make room for Crawford, and Galvis didn't have the skill set of a bench player.

Kilome wasn't a big price to pay, I soured on him last year, he's flatlined and looks like another guy with velocity but no command who bounce around, and I'm not sure he fits the RP mold. He has time to turn it around at 23, but not sure there was room. De Los Santos, Romero, Medina, S Sanchez are ahead of him, and Suarez might be as well. And they have a lot of solid A ball SPs who may have pushed him next season.

[andyb]

Franco's upside is average, Williams is average, Hoskin is average, but all three are works in progress

But they are NOT average. Hoskins is among the worst in the league. Williams has better tools but takes awful routes. His upside is bad, just not awful. Franco has limited range and will always score poorly because he is a mediocre athlete. He is quick, but will never be better than below average most likely.

Agree that there are tradeoffs. But the evidence is pretty overwhelming that they don't value defense that much. Not complaining about the price with Kilome even though he has upside (though it was a larger price than was paid in some other deals where it was more non-top 30 prospects that changed hands). We have depth. That is why you accumulate depth.

But Klentak sure does not value defense that much. He just doesn't.

[harrisburghusker]

I'm not sure why there's a perception that Franco is a poor defender

[zambonir]

Why would one perceive him as a good one? Yeah, he looks okay out there, and I know defensive stats are imperfect, but he consistently has rated poorly, whatever you use. He can look okay to us and still not be as good as 12 other 3B in the league.

[harrisburghusker]

He passes the eyeball test. I dont value DRS or DWAR either since they both have Odubel negatively rated.

Jason Heyward got a monster contract based on his WAR which is almost all driven by defense.

I am with Klentak on this subject

[andyb]

Fielders with poor range can often look good to the "eye test". Individual defensive stats are pretty subjective and imperfect. Though over time they tend to tell us more things as with any stat the sample size gets bigger.

Team defensive stats are less subjective though. This is where the Phillies rank poorly. We simply turn fewer batted balls into outs than other teams. Part of it may be that we are experimenting on shifts and grading poorly on those results. A larger part though is that we simply don't have good defensive players and we often play them in positions where we should not. This means we turn fewer batted balls into outs. Are there offensive benefits to this choice? Sure. But that does not mean we do not acknowledge the other side.

I am guessing Klentak thinks that a pitching staff with fewer walks and more strikeouts than average does not need as much defense. So that is why we put the priority into other places.

[zambonir]

Wasn't Odubel rated among the best in the league last year though?

I would think there really aren't enough defensive chances per player for any one season to be a good sample.

Klentak's philosophy, if it is one, is well-supported for now. Though six weeks ago Franco was on his way out because his offense didn't justify the defense, he'd lost his job to Crawford. Now things have changed.

They obviously believe the flexibility thing also trumps consistent defense. But in the long run, I think they will eventually have good defense at every position up the middle, and won't care as much about the corners.

[California_Dreamin]

I think andyb is on to something...Klentak and Kapler don' value defense as much as perhaps other teams do. However, I also believe that they feel they can minimize defensive deficiency with lots of strikeouts, thus their continued support of Pivetta. Kapler waxed poetic last night about Piveta's swing and miss ratio and mentioned that if he can simply continue this and alleviate many of the "mistake" pitches, Pivetta will become a "stud pitcher."

I also think this is why they seem to value the power pitching relievers, again lots of strikeouts and less pressure on the defense.

This philosophy also speaks to why we have mentioned that the Phils seem to play worse defensively when Arrieta pitches. He is a pitch to contact, groundball pitcher, the exact kind of hurler who would suffer the most with a team that plays poor defensively...aka, the 2018 Philadelphia Phillied.

[Austinfan]

The lack of defense is also temporary:

Crawford at SS, Kingery at 2B should be plus fielders at those spots in a year or two.
Herrera is a plus CF overall, he's having an off season.
Altherr should be a plus corner OF, Hernandez is AA has a great arm in RF, Quinn, Moniak, Haseley should be plus OFs.
Alfaro has the potential to be a plus C, so does Grullon and Bossart who are in Reading.

So the weak spots going forward are Franco/Bohm at 3B, Hoskins at 1B (in LF, I think he'll improve with experience, right now he just lacks instincts, he has average to above average speed) and Williams in LF if he keeps an OF job.

This season the tradeoffs are different, Kingery v Cabrera at SS, Cabrera v Franco at 3B, until Crawford is healthy and provides a defensive option. Altherr hit (or failed to hit) his way out of a viable platoon and late inning defensive replacement.