2017-18 Off-season Trade/Free Agent Speculation

Austinfan 2017-12-12 20:47:38 UTC #643

Also sounds like Klentak is focused on quality rather than another marginal ML ready pitcher.

None of the Angel pitching prospects excite me, not sure Bridwell is better than our ML pitchers, and Barria and Castillo might not crack our top 20 prospect list.
Nor is Skaggs anything special either.

Like we don't have enough young pitchers like Eickhoff, Lively, Thompson with similar stuff?

Slinging_Southpaw 2017-12-12 20:58:25 UTC #644

You can never have enough. "Similar" means nothing.

kmc1019 2017-12-12 21:06:57 UTC #645

Klentak's public statements generally acknowledge that the current stable of starters are not effective after 2 cycles through the opposing lineup, so easiest solution (and without giving up any talent) is to build a talented and large bullpen. Would love to see Reed and a lefty join Neshek and the returning crew.

Austinfan 2017-12-12 21:12:20 UTC #646

Actually, you can have "enough," we have no place to pitch at AAA ball level or marginal ML starters - the inn is full.
So adding another young pitcher who is no better than what we already have doesn't do much for us.
We'd be much better off with A+ ball starters with higher ceilings.

And you can't just assume a starter can be moved to the pen, some pitchers are better candidates, usually those who get a velocity jump pitching in short stints and have one plus secondary pitch.

zambonir 2017-12-12 21:44:44 UTC #647

Klentak doesn't give much away in his public statements. Some of them suggest he won't acquire more than one starter, just go with the kids and the bullpen. But that could just be posturing for the agents, and potential trade partners.

Would be ironic if Arrieta turns out to be the undervalued asset. But it sounds like a lot of teams don't want to give up a pick and would rather trade for the likes of Archer if they could, so at some point, those things might have a higher relative cost, even with the risk of Arrieta's age. But if no one else is offering him a four-year deal the Phillies don't have to either (or that could be what allows them to close it).

The inn is only full until the first injury happens. Last December it seemed insane that they were going to allow Bucholtz to bump Thompson and Eflin back to AAA.

OTOH

I didn't realize this was a Heyman rumor for a Boras client. Those are never anything but strategic leaks.

andyb 2017-12-12 22:13:18 UTC #648

Though Salisbury is pushing Phillies front office rumors in his article so most of this is meaningless. I think the Phillies would easily talk Kingery in a Machado deal. Maybe not Sixto but we actually have a good major league 2B so including either Cesar or Kingery in a deal makes sense.

tom81 2017-12-12 23:53:25 UTC #649

For those of you who don’t subscribe to The Atlantic Meghan Montemurro has a telling quote from Klentak. “I think if we can run out a bullpen of seven or eight guys that are all high leverage-type arms, then we can start matching up in the fifth or sixth inning,” Klentak said. “If there are days when our young starters throw 100 pitches to get us through five or six innings, we shouldn't be in a position where that’s taxing our bullpen because we have the ability to carry an eighth bullpen member next year.“

I think we see 1 or 2 more FA reliever signings this offseason, my hope is the get Reed and McGee. I think they do go with 8 relievers and have their starters go max out for 5-6 innings on most days. I think they go with a quality 4 man bench with the bench guys starting often so everybody gets involved. I don’t think they pick anyone in the rule 5 draft, I don’t think they want to hide anyone on the ML roster for future value.z

tom81 2017-12-12 23:56:43 UTC #650

I agree and then look to buy out a couple of Cesar’s free agent years.

zambonir 2017-12-13 00:31:29 UTC #651

Posted this in the wrong thread before

I missed this earlier. Listen, there's an opportunity to be the new Nationals here, if they wanted to. Get Arrieta now and then Boras delivers you several more clients (he just took on Keuchel and Marwin Gonzalez and of course has Harper) in the future. I don't know that it's a great idea or that they have any interest, but...

Also, Machado wants to play shortstop. So remember that when you dream of him signing an extension. If so do you trade Crawford intsead of Kingery or do you move Crawford to 3B?

schillingfan 2017-12-13 00:56:42 UTC #652

Klentak appears to be making Ed Wade's mistake. Good veteran relievers are either closers or have sore arms due to overuse. This year's good relief pitcher will be on next year's DL (or should be because he hides an arm injury) or is a team's closer. You are paying for the past good year, and a much better choice would be to pick someone who was not good last year and didn't pitch much, but good before he was injured. In other words, relief pitcher performance is really up and down and that's why they are fungible.

Squire 2017-12-13 01:17:44 UTC #653

Apparently we are close to signing Addison Reed for 3 years. Unless we are delaying these at would fill up the 40 man and take us out of the Rule 5 draft.

andyb 2017-12-13 01:24:06 UTC #654

Well Klentak did say he wanted to put together a strong back of the bullpen. It is kind of the trend in the 5-inning starter era.

Squire 2017-12-13 01:41:13 UTC #655

It's not Reed.....Phillies have a deal with RHP Tommy Hunter

arpax 2017-12-13 01:42:43 UTC #656

Just saw that. 2 years for Hunter. What do you guys think of him?

andyb 2017-12-13 01:58:40 UTC #657

Not as good as Reed and a little older. Good year last year though.

zambonir 2017-12-13 02:22:29 UTC #658

Things have changed. While I have agreed with this perspective (and with you specifically, on multiple discussion platforms) for a long time, and you sure do still have to watch out for overused guys, the talent level of relievers is higher than it used to be, the current game is different (all those strikeouts) and data-based decision-making has changed usage of both starters and relievers. That's not to say they can't get it wrong, I still think any reliever can have a bad year, but that's as much about the small sample size (because 40 bad innings is basically 10 bad games). If this front office had data on great bounce-back candidate I'm sure they'd be all over it but they also have to have data on how these guys were used and any potential red flags. Whereas in the old days Wade and Amaro were just winging it, or blindly hoping an older injured guy (like Adams, who truly was a consistently good reliever for a long time) would hold up.

andyb 2017-12-13 02:46:05 UTC #659

What worries me about Hunter is we are taking a chance on a guy who was injured, then has one decent year and then gets paid very well. Teams place too much emphasis sometimes on the most recent sample from a reliever who has only been OK historically. Throws hard but does not miss many bats.

Patchmk88 2017-12-13 03:16:07 UTC #660

I would have much rather had Reed.

EDmuch 2017-12-13 04:37:09 UTC #661

So, is Hunter "instead of" Reed? If so, not a good move.

Austinfan 2017-12-13 04:37:18 UTC #662

Huh, Hunter has actually been pretty consistent since he moved to the bullpen in 2013.
No loss of velocity, has developed a cutter to go with his FBs.
And he's never been overworked, 68 games was his peak bullpen season.

I see him as a 7th innng pitcher to alternate with Neshek, with Garcia 8th and Neris 9th
Morgan, Ramos and Arano fill out the pen.
Milner, Curtis and ??? for the eighth spot, maybe a LOOGY, maybe another signing, maybe a young arm or Leiter.