2017 Season Phillies News/Notes/General Discussion

[allentown]

I wouldn't mind the short-term vets and hope to flip them, if we actually were seizing international opportunities, but not going to 150% of our under-23 allocation and not being a player at all in the unlimited over-23 market suggests to me that ownership has set an overall budget limit and that so much is being spent on one-year, stopgap vets that the team is spending less than it should on young and youngish amateurs, who can actually push the rebuild forward. It shouldn't be either/or, I agree, but seemingly it is.

[BostonRoss]

I guess I look at each decision on its own merits. I agree that I would like to see the Phillies spend more on international free agents, but I don't think they decided not to do that so they could sign veterans. They must have a budget limit, but I think they are well under it. I also think that they sign the vets because they think they will help the major league team win some more games and keep fan interest to some extent. When they signed this off-season's crop of veterans, I think they felt they would be more competitive than they turned out to be.

[julio]

Chris Cotillo (ChrisCotillo)

[LoneStarPhan]

I'm somewhat disappointed that the Phillies didn't cash in on Gomez last July for whatever they could have gotten for him, but then I guess they didn't expect him to fall off a cliff late last season and continue to struggle this season. Even with him pitching well last season past the trade deadline, I doubt they could have gotten all that much for him in a deal.

[mdougherty12]

Relievers who don't strike anyone out just don't have much value these days, even if they run off a decent stretch of performance.

[Austinfan]

It was obvious to us he was doing it with smoke and mirrors, so it was obvious to scouts.
Guys with that kind of stuff have to be perfect to be effective, and that's all downside when they're on a hot streak (i.e. hard to maintain).

[California_Dreamin]

I do hope Klentak has learned his lessons from last years trading deadline inactivity. He had Gomez, Rupp and Hellickson as prime trade bait and all were at the top of their game. Now I am not saying that the offers were there [though we do know there were offers for Hellickson] but a veteran GM can usually find a trading partner.

Now? Gomez has been released, Rupp is a fringe player and Hellickson doesn't have nearly the value he had last July. My point? Nestek and Kendrick have got to be moved for prospects, even if they are B prospects. Arano and Valentin were B prospects and both are now rated higher than that.

This coming July will be a real test for what Klentak has learned in his 1.5 years on the job. I like him and he sounds like he has a feel for the game but the jury is still out on his deal making ability. The Giles deal would look a whole lot better to me had Fisher remained in the trade and Arauz [infielder] had remained with the Phils.

[andyb]

I am less worried about the reworking of the Giles deal. Obviously Fisher instead of Appel would look good now but we have the benefit of an extra year (and we also never had complete confirmation that Fisher was in the deal anyway).

The other point echoes what I have been saying about Klentak. He has been tentative with no major moves and few minor moves since the Giles trade. Hellickson should have been traded. Period. The draft choice was always a less fallback position (as it turned out when he accepted the QO).

With guys like Gomez and Rupp or virtually anyone else on the roster with trade value that you might not see as an ideal long term solution - trades should have been made when they had the highest value. 1-year catcher rentals are easy to acquire. The guy I really wanted to deal last year was Neris as I thought his value was high and he was only good but not great.

I would say they need to deal Neshek now. The trading season does not start a week before the deadline and Neshek should give us a significant prospect back in return. I might wait a little longer on Kendrick but yes, he also needs to be dealt. Hopefully Hellickson can string together a few good starts and build his value up a bit with us paying for most of the contracts.

Will any of these players give us a top 100 guy? Probably not. But top 200 guys should be very possible. Guys on the level of Cozens and Quinn for instance. Or Pivetta who was never a top 100 guy. Just because the prospect return is not a game changer does not mean we should not make the deals. Paying these players was all about using money to buy prospects and only a little about valuable performances. Now that we cannot contend the value of their performances is gone.

It is time for Klentak to get to work and not be a tentative rookie GM.

[California_Dreamin]

I agree. I have never understood this "we have to wait till the July trading deadline" philosophy, it is often harder to make deals when everyone is busy talking to other teams than it is now. And Nestek is NEVER going to be more valuable than he is right now, his numbers at this moment are the best of any reliever in baseball and teams like the Cubs, Nats and Royals are always looking for solid relievers.

As for Fisher, gotta disagree with you about whether or not he was originally involved in the deal. It was reported even by Salisbury I believe that the deal was VV, Fisher, Eshelman and Oberholtzer for Giles. The Phils got some info about VV's arm and got concerned and asked the Stros to redo the deal a bit and probably asked for Appel.

Look, if Appel has turned it around the deal might still be a good one but I always was queasy about bringing in 5 players and not having even one bat in the deal and Fisher is precisely the kind of left handed bat that would fit well in the middle of the Phillies lineup.

You are right about Klentak being tentative so far. Interesting that McPhail always had the same reputation and Gillick for many years was known as Stand Pat Gillick. I hope the Phillie GM gets aggressive very soon, Nestak and Kendrick are probably not going to maintain their numbers for much longer and Kendrick has now had two injuries so far this year [oblique and hamstring.] One more and he will be very tough to move.

[Austinfan]

You have to wait until July because OTHER teams don't want to deal untl then.
GMs want to know they're in contention before they give up assets for one year rentals, trade now and a June swoon makes you look silly, wait until mid-July and you have a better sense of your chances.
Now if a good team has an injury, they might deal early because they know they're contenders and don't want to lose out winning their division.

[California_Dreamin]

AF...this is simply not true. The Marlins are moving their shortstop in the next few days and I have been reading for weeks about how the Nats are looking for relief help. Pennants can be won/lost just as easily in June as they can be in August.

I refuse to believe that if the Phils indicated they were open/prepared to move Nestak now they wouldn't get some bites. I simply refuse to believe it. A team like the Phils [completely rebuilding] simply cannot risk hanging on to trade assets for too long. I wanted Rupp moved last June/July when he was hitting well and hadn't been thrown under the bus by the coaching staff because it was obvious that Knapp/Alfaro were eventually going to take his place and he would become a player without a position.

Now? Rupp is known as a catcher who calls a poor game, is hitting .200 and the Phils won't receive much at all for him, if anything. Rebuilding teams must strike when the iron is hottest, not when its most conveinent for the baseball tradition.

[LoneStarPhan]

It is certainly true that the Phils cannot make a deal unless another team is willing to make the deal. However, our GM should be talking to other clubs NOW and should be working on making deals every day. I totally agree that last season was disappointing in that they failed to trade several players who should have been moved last summer. Rupp and Gomez now have essentially zero value and Hellickson has decreased in value considerably. They cannot let the same happen to the few players they have this year that should have some value and have no future with the Phillies.

[bkeich]

The other problem with waiting until the deadline is the shear number of players we have to move.

Neshek, Kendrick, Nava, Hellickson are all players that should be traded, pretty much for anything we can get. None are important to the future.

If we wait until the deadline frankly we are flooding the market and it is hard to get all these deals done. They need to start taking advantage of injuries throughout the league when they occur and fill the gaps for a competitor.

[California_Dreamin]

bkeich...bingo!!! This is precisely why the Phils need to move those guys now. They have NO value after July 31st, absolutely none and even if the Phils receive B level prospects, they still have more potential value going forward than do any of the 4 you mentioned. Heck, Arano might be the Phils closer by September and he was nothing but an afterthought when the Phils got him.

Its all about assets now. And prospects are always assets for rebuilding teams, the veteran four are merely taking up room on the roster. I am sure I speak for most on this site. Nestek and Kendrick are both injuries waiting to happen and if/when that happens the Phils are stuck with them for the rest of the year. And that is no asset, its a detriment.

[Slinging_Southpaw]

I think we'll find you're both right. There are a lot of teams that have been buried early this year, so I believe you'll see some early dealing, while others hold out until late July. I think selling early will come at a cost in return. If all you're looking for is a few A-ball lottery tickets, you can get that early, taking back pennies on a dollar(which I'm fine with doing that with Hellickson and Benoit.). I'd like to see a return for Kendrick and Neshak, so that may take awhile for a market to develop. That said, it you get an offer you like, JUMP ON IT!!

[julio]

I think what we have to avoid here is assuming that if a deal for Neshek doesn't happen this week, or next week, that's obviously because Klentak isn't interested/trying to move him at this point. That assumption rests on the premise that trading Neshek would be easy, that if Klentak wants to move him, he can - of course! - make that happen more or less instantly. IMHO, that would be magical thinking.

This is kind of like the assumption that Hellickson wasn't traded last July because Klentak didn't want to trade him, or nobody offered what he considered fair value, etc.... when we have credible reporting that Klentak did, in fact, have a deal in place for Hellickson - but that it fell apart at the last minute, as secondary fallout from one of AJ Preller's shady business practices or some such. Given that, complaining that Klentak didn't trade Hellickson last July... well, it's not a very compelling complaint, IMHO.

[allentown]

If we pay the rest of this year's contracts, our guys suddenly become more valuable. A big reason that trades typically didn't occur until just prior to the deadline is because the teams trading the vet players were low-revenue teams who wanted to cut salary as well as gain prospects. With the advent of the current age in which even not very prosperous teams send some money with the vet, while teams like the Phillies can carry the full freight, that has changed.

[Austinfan]

Still takes two to tango, it's easy to give away players, and hard to get value.
Given the injuries we've had this season, Hellickson has value to us just as an innings eater (protecting young arms), we've already had to use Pivetta, Lively and Leiter as starters!
Nava has allowed us to be patient with the young OFs who aren't ready for prime time when Saunders came up lame (head injury, can't see the baseball).
And so on, there is value to keeping veteran players if the offers aren't worthwhile, what's the point of picking up prospects whose ceiling is AAAA player?

[Slinging_Southpaw]

Just that you don't actually know who has a ceiling as a AAAA player.

[andyb]

The biggest reason lots of teams wait till the deadline to deal is that they pick up less salary potentially at that point. That reason does not apply to Phillies trades if we pick up all of the salary involved. If another team has a need for someone like Neshek now they would not hesitate to fill it if money was no object. There might be a few teams still deciding whether to be buyers but the majority of teams know it by now.