2017 Season Phillies News/Notes/General Discussion

[allentown]

Arbuckle had his claim to fame in domestic draft. He pretty much left LA program to Sal.

[Patchmk88]

Franco 4-4 tonight with a walk. Could he be turning it around. I'm grasping at straws for something positive

[BostonRoss]

Leaving the game tonight, I heard two Phillies fans discussing Franco. One of them complained that he swings at too many bad pitches. Interesting timing for that comment, after four hits and being robbed of a fifth.

[bigegypt0417]

Another long and largely meaningless list.

Trades. We made none of significance last year. We stood pat and let some assets like Hellickson and Rupp decline in value. We declined to spend an extra $2.8 million internationally. How does that help the team?

AF was the advocate to give them another year to increase their value and now is telling us why it was a bad idea in his own fun way.

[David_Criss]

So now the discussion is do we get to see Kingery? Do we get to see Howard at 2B and Williams/Perkins in left?

[Austinfan]

How much have we lost? Hellickson didn't have much value last year nor did Rupp, we could have gotten a couple 3rd tier, maybe a 2nd tier prospect. So not much lost.

Lively impressed me last night, he struggled for four innings, but hung in there, then finished strong the 3rd/4th time through the lineup.
He throws 91-92, but has a deceptive motion that makes it look faster, good slider, a few decent changeups. Didn't see many curves
Had to be deceptive, because early in the game he was throwing FBs down the middle - as usual, command is the issue with a young pitcher on this team.
When he settled in, he started painting the corners and was dominating. For some reason it's easier to pitch out of 1-2 counts than 3-1 counts.
What I liked was the mental toughness to work out of jams and keep plugging through his struggles, third straight 7+ inning start for him.
He's also a good reason I hate to pigeonhole young pitchers, his eventual status will depend on how well he masters his repertoire, and that will take a few years to know.

I think Franco has turned the corner, last couple weeks he was making good contact, but last few games he's really focused on laying off bad pitches.
It'll be interesting to see the young hitters under Stairs' tutulege, if he can get Franco to be more selective and hit to all fields like he did last night, the sky's the limit.
Joseph is the other guy who has to learn to lay off high fastballs and low sliders.
Herrera knows this, he swung at a couple balls out of the K-zone, then slapped the side of his batting helmet with both hands as to emphasize to himself "fool, you know better."

[allentown]

I really don't think we will or should see Kingery in Philly. He should be in Allentown, getting experience playing beside Crawford. At this point in time it has gone beyond questionable to downright pointless to have him still playing in Reading. Despite this year's power outburst, which I see as largely a 'Reading effect', I don't think he is a power hitter and fear he will ingrain bad habits trying to club a lot of Reading/EL homeruns, which he won't be able to replicate in AAA and the majors. Better to have him hitting in a more neutral park/league, facing more challenging pitchers, and getting familiarity with Crawford's defensive style.

[Austinfan]

Actually, Kingery's output isn't a Reading effect, neither is Pullin.
Kingery, .620 SA at home, .603 SA on the road
Pullin, .431 SA at home, .732 SA on the road

Kingery should be in Allentown, and I expect him there within a week or two after the draft.
Pullin should also be there, but that may require calling up Perkins or Williams.

[andyb]

Even if a player has no home/road split in Reading it does not mean their Reading stats were not helped by the Reading park. All of this is ridiculously small sample size and we know the Reading park helps home run hitters (especially guys like Kingery and Pullin who have average power at best). These guys are just playing a little better on the road in the early going. They are still helped by the park though.

[allentown]

And we know Reading is not the only smallish park in the EL.

[BostonRoss]

And we know Reading is not the only smallish park in the EL.

I wonder whether the park in New Hampshire favors hitters. I think I've seen quite a bit of offense there over the years. Kingery did hit two homers there although not at the game I was at.

[zambonir]

I am no longer wondering why we don't talk about the games. Eight straight losses.

This is a fun read, below. He's defensive, and too pleased with himself about the acquisitions he left the team with (given they aren't looking quite so great lately), but he's definitely right about one thing, if the 2011 team had done anything, he (and the lean years since) would be remembered differently.

For Ruben Amaro Jr., a low-key return to Phils ballpark

Oops I was actually referencing the article that ran before tonight's game

Ruben Amaro Jr. returns to Philly: 'I wish them well'

[allentown]

But they are not well. They are not at all well. They've moved another step backward at the MLB level, despite spending over $60 million on interim stopgaps. Some of it is definitely the doing of the baseball people: after drafting the polished, superlative command Nola, they decided to remake his delivery after he reached the majors -- the result was an injury, loss of command, and reduced performance. Their other top prospects, those they spent the primo money on -- with the notable exception of Kingery and to a lesser extent Moniak, are not thriving, although Randolph has shown recent signs of adjusting to a higher level and stepping his hitting up a notch. The young pitchers we have been so high on, the guys -- largely from trades -- in the upper levels of the farm and the majors, have largely taken their lumps this season, looking like they took a step back from last season. It is a very difficult and precarious position that the team finds itself in. Given where they are, it remains very strange to me that they decided not to spend 150% of allocation in LA or go after some of the Cubans and other over-23 talents. The just completed draft was... different, maybe it will turn out to be inspired genius, maybe a subpar effort. Looked at today, the rebuild looks less bright than I, and I think most of us and the Phillies themselves, expected at this time last season. I have to wonder if the quality of our coaching and instruction isn't all that it should be. Perhaps it has to do with mental and physical conditioning or in-season adaptation, as their is a fairly long list of top prospects who started the season with a bang and whose stats have been on a slide since then. I think it fairly obvious that the minor leaguers at the upper levels of the farm do not bunt or run the bases well. The latest Quinn injury sounds like it was caused by an improper, too hard, late slide.

[Philsmania]

What's up with Hellickson? He's gone from a Cy Young April to possibly careening towards his worst season in the majors. To those who keep track of these things, has there been any change in his command and/or velocity? One has to wonder if he's hurt and not telling anyone since he's dropped off a cliff so badly. Or did McClure pull off another one of his brilliant mechanical tweaks?

[nycphils]

Seems to me that McClure and the AAA pitching coach should be changed out - look how many pitchers have regressed in their time at both levels:

Jake Thompson
Eickoff
Nola
Appel
Vasquez
Eflin
Etc.

Maybe it isn't their fault, maybe it is - but it is demonstrable that neither is the solution.

[LoneStarPhan]

Prolonged failure in baseball often leads to changes in manager and/or coaches whether or not the failure is their fault.

For the Phillies, it's about time for a change!

[Soloman_grundy]

Exactly. ..

[Austinfan]

The failure of the ML team is primarily driven by three players Buckholtz, Hellickson and Saunders, not exactly the cornerstone of the future. The two veteran pitchers were to buy time for the kid pitchers to develop at Lehigh.
The only young players struggling is Franco (Herrera is back to his bat flipping crazy inconsistency, Mendoza one week, Musial the next), and looks like he's turning the corner, and Rupp.
The young pitchers are, well, young pitchers, Nola's early success, along with Hamels tends to make us forget how Gio Gonzalez was traded.
But for every Thompson and Appel trying to figure out what went wrong, there's Lively overperforming.
With Watson and Pinto moved to the pen, they're building a stable of young fireballers in AA and AAA ball, so the struggles of Benoit and Garcia only impact the trade deadline, not the future.

Meanwhile, Lehigh is blowing through the International league despite Crawford doing his best Steve Jeltz imitation, and with half the pitching staff in Philly.
The other three teams are above .500 with only a couple "ringers" (Tomascha, not much else in terms of overage players).
A lot of talent in XST due to a conservative organizational philosophy, a lot of players signed in LA (we'll see how quanity plays against "quality" in a couple years).
Overall, I expect the minor league organization will rank in the top 5 this winter.

And patience is always counseled, in April Drew Anderson looked lost, now hitters are lost. There's a reason they call it "player development."

[allentown]

a lot of players signed in LA (we'll see how quanity plays against "quality" in a couple years).

I am trying to understand why you keep saying this. I don't think our quantity of LA signings is notably high compared to that of the vast majority of MLB teams, which operate either two international teams or a 3rd rookie team. Do you have any data to show that we actually do sign significantly more LA players each year?

[Austinfan]

Can't compare to other teams, but we signed more than I can remember, and we've been spreading bonus money around, we had 4 of the top 50.
Looking at past LA ranking lists, outside of the top handful, there isn't much difference in actual talent, it's pretty random among the top 20 players and I suspect that goes a lot deeper.
Which isn't surprising, outside of a few uber athletes, the difference among 16 year olds is likely to be due to self-selection from early maturation, which evens out by age 19-20.
So I think it's a good strategy to either sign an uber athlete for big money or spread the money around as much as possible and collect lottery tickets.
SD had the right idea, if you're going to break the rules, smash the rules.