Discussion

LoneStarPhan 2018-10-06 03:16:15 UTC #181

I am really mixed on how to react to this past season. For about 70% of the season, they were greatly exceeding my expectations going into the season. Then they turned info one of the 2 or 3 worst teams in MLB for the last part of the season. So where do they stand? I think they made a nice step forward but I cannot help but feel that maybe they are not as good as I think they are.

It seems to me that every game I would see a ball come off the bat and think "routine ground ball out" or DP if there was a runner on first, only to see the shot change to show the ball going through to the outfield with no fielder close to making a play. Of course, we tend to remember those situations and not the ones where the shift resulted in an out. I trust they are analyzing all the data and will refine the shift in 2019 based on their data. It seems to me that they may have over used shifts this season. Some hitters seemed to have the ability to hit the opposite way and take the easy hit. Others cannot or will not try to go the other way. I would like to see some of our hitters take easy hits against the shift if they have that ability. I know some will say that it will cost them home runs if they do this, but it seems to me that a couple opposite field singles or even doubles against the shift will tend to make teams not shift as drastically or as often and if so, it will open up the normal pull side of the field to hits in the future.

Regardless, I am ready for the off season. I remain optimistic for improvement in the record again next season. I am hoping to again be able to watch the Phillies in action in October as soon as this time next year.

zambonir 2018-10-06 04:56:25 UTC #182

I'm inclined to place some of the blame on the previous administration and the learning curve for the shift issues too. It's not like this front office invented new ways to shifts. The spray charts are what they are. The coaches may not be perfect but they were all qualified and came from organizations who knew what they were doing (Tampa, Houston, Yankees). Having pitchers who were used to having the shift behind them (and believed in it) and fielders who could execute from the unfamiliar positions had to be a big part of it, and the answer there is not to stop doing it but to either get the players used to it or get different players. Had the team been trying to win this year you might have had to slam the brakes and do what worked better in the short-term. But they weren't.

It's also possible they had a lot of bad luck, just as they had a lot of good luck in other areas (for a while). You shift based on where a ball is most likely to go, but sometimes it still goes elsewhere. But you also shift because you are actually willing to give up a single, so those "routine ground ball" non-outs were examples of the shift working, because it wasn't an extra-base hit or HR.

EDmuch 2018-10-06 13:17:20 UTC #183

I am more and more convinced that the problem is not analytics, it is the LOFT factor in the lineup. Lack Of Friggin Talent.

andyb 2018-10-06 13:17:44 UTC #184

There are probably a few more expectations though when you hire a GM with significant front office experience. Kapler had much less relative experience of course, though even he hired some very experienced coaches.

Learning curves do exist. But when teams hire GMs and managers they are theoretically hiring the best person for the job. I do not want my GM failing for 5 years before he figures things out. He was supposed to learn as his qualifications for that job.

julio 2018-10-06 14:00:33 UTC #185

Fair point, andyb. That said, though, I think when you hire somebody who was an assistant somewhere else (as opposed to an actual GM somewhere else), you inevitably get a package - the new hire has knowledge of what worked (and did not work) at his old shop, but he likely also has his own ideas about what he could do "better" than his old boss - and he's going to want to try those things, to put his own stamp on the process, even if the process he inherited from his old boss worked well.

Riker didn't seem to want to get out from under Picard and do it his own way - but he's a real outlier, I think!

zambonir 2018-10-06 17:57:46 UTC #186

Since the Phillies are fond of comparing themselves to Chicago and Houston, I would say the difference is that they didn't hire an existing GM (a la the Cubs, and the Dodgers for that matter), and they also didn't hire an assistant from a top-notch, progressive organization who'd pioneered analytics (as Luhnow had in St. Louis) or experienced a lot of success. Klentak's mentor was McPhail in Baltimore (where they certainly didn't do analytics or win), and he experienced very little success in Anaheim (likely through no fault of his own, or DiPoto's, but they were obviously a mess). He came in and mostly kept everyone, and didn't bring anyone with him (his only hire, Ned Rice, came from Baltimore, and then Minnitti from Arizona a year later). Again, very different from Epstein and Luhnow who brought a top assistant and their own system/data (famously so in Houston's case) with them.

Given the state the Phillies franchise was in, someobody a little more "plug-and-play" might have been called for. But I think they set this timetable -both on and off the field - the day Klentak was hired and it remains somewhat on schedule.

And Ed is right about talent. We all expected Crawford, Williams and even Franco to be cornerstone players (or at least hot rookies) in 2017 and instead there are legit questions about all three in 2019. Ditto Kingery and Altherr. That doesn't mean they aren't talented but they haven't arrived yet (and Altherr may be done). Add in disappointing seasons by the two most established players (Herrera and Hernandez) and you don't have much of a team regardless of managerial style or analytics. Klentak inherited everyone in the starting 8 except for Hoskins and Hoskins is supposedly the only definite keeper (though I'd certainly include Alfaro).

allentown 2018-10-07 13:54:33 UTC #187

I think this is correct. Looking at this and the many prior comments, what stands out to me: he didn't bring any of his people with him and he took forever, observing and studying the system, before starting to act. For a team which is short of talent and has messed up so many first round picks, it seems gross mismanagement to sit with what you've got for 3 years and then redo the development team after year 3. With no more primo first rounders, at best a hole at the upper levels of the farm and in reality a mediocre farm, how far away does that put meaningful home-grown help? It seems honest to say that his inertia was a combination of learning on the job, rather than observing/evaluating/making changes from a position of knowledge and deliberately postponing the start of the clock leading up to his own pass/fail evaluation. He was inert and kept a padlock on the team's purse at a time when action was needed. Then he switched to frenetic change. No middle ground. MacPhail is experienced, but from the outside, has pretty much just been there, not a doer.

The Phillies 'plan' seemed to come down to the rich FA class this winter; now MacPhail is hedging -- noq, maybe the 2019 class is the one.

julio 2018-10-07 13:58:38 UTC #188

That about covers it.

phillychuck 2018-10-07 14:05:13 UTC #189

We need to keep in mind another way to build, which has not been discussed much, is through trading and signing a couple of mid-level free agents rather than those in the top tier. Eduardo Escobar, Leonys Martin, Jason Heyward, AJ Pollack, and even Andrew McCutcheon are decent offensive options. And our view of our trade assets might not coincide with the view of another team with different needs. And I'd try to keep Ramos on a medium-sized short contract. This would take a very clever, active GM.

There are mid-range veteran FA pitching options available as well.

My preference is to sign Machado and do some of the above moves, too, but lacking a Machado signing I still want to significantly re-make the roster for next season.

EDmuch 2018-10-07 14:55:57 UTC #190

The mid-range UFA pitchers are not a very impressive lot. I do like the idea of a short deal to AJ Pollock.

Jeff05 2018-10-07 15:04:10 UTC #191

noq - not out of the question (?)

phillychuck 2018-10-07 15:39:32 UTC #192

Not operationally qualified?

zambonir 2018-10-07 18:45:24 UTC #193

I don't think he's really hedging. For one thing it is strategic, how would it be good for agents to think it is this class or bust. And he said it would be dumb to max out your payroll in one season when there are also appealing players available next season. But mostly he was just downplaying the hype saying the Phillies were going to sign both Machado and Harper. That doesn't mean they might not sign a pitcher or a closer or even another position player. But trades are an option too.

If they don't get one of the top two guys or make a very creative acquisition, they will have failed but I don't think it will be because they got cold feet or Middleton suddenly wanted to save $, and it doesn't matter what they say in October, just what they do in December.

Of course it would be perfectly sensible to decide a $400 million deal for Machado or a $300 million deal for Harper is bad long-term team-building - but that's not what their strategy suggests they thought to this point.

allentown 2018-10-08 00:23:21 UTC #194

No, Julio is just mocking a typo -- noq instead of now. He tends to do that sort of crap when somebody makes a post he objects to. When a promising season turns into a cow patty, everyone gets a little angry. Some of us question Phillies management, others who can't conceive of Phillies management doing anything wrong mock posters who criticize management. it's a tired old dynamic.
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julio 2018-10-08 01:32:38 UTC #195

Yep, it is. But I'd make that point about the...dare I say it, constant criticism of management. I don't think I'd characterize myself as "can't conceive of Phillies management doing anything wrong." I do find the argument that "nothing has changed," with references to mistakes made by Bill Giles, David Montgomery, etc., tiring - because I think it's specious. I find the moaning about "not spending enough" to be off the mark, as well - because spending more doesn't equal doing better (see Baltimore). And yeah, I'm tired of seeing the same arguments posted over and over and over and over again.

I also don't much like what seems to me to be a sense of aggrievedness, driven by what appears to be unsatisfied entitlement, that I perceive (rightly or wrongly) in a lot of posts here. Yeah, the club fell apart in the last several weeks of the season. I don't find that all that surprising, given the talent level.

I would have thought that lifetime Phillies fans would have developed some sense of patience, of understanding of the long-term nature of the development process. But if everything doesn't go according to plan, if there are ever setbacks, fans turn on management. Other fans moan if the club doesn't mortgage its future for a "quick fix" - which tends to be defined as acquiring some past-prime player with a well-known name, who was in fact very good... a few years ago.

For what it's worth, I didn't find the MacPhail interview to be absent content. Most particularly, he made it clear that he doesn't believe you build a roster - a core - by signing free agents. You pursue free agents to fill gaps, to address a few weaknesses, when you're basically already there - when you're already a contender, with a core basically in place. In this, I think that he's exactly right. So if the Phillies have questions in the outfield, at 3B, at SS, and about pitchers, jumping into the free agent market isn't magically going to put us into the post-season. That's not wrong, and it's not blowing smoke.

EDmuch 2018-10-08 01:49:07 UTC #196

Well for those of us who are not so morally pure, the plan to "build from within" by drafting marginal MLB players like Moniak in the first round has perhaps tried some of our patience. It is not a sense of "entitlement", It is a sense of disgust at failing to produce a single MLB position player from five years (I include Crawford in this) of high draft picks without a single potential star. For the non-morally pure that is simply a loss of patience with an organization that has thrown away opportunities to "grow from within".

allentown 2018-10-08 02:05:06 UTC #197

Well, if you think that justifies rude sniping over typos, then bully for you. You aren't the thought police.

I also prefer to build from within. Unfortunately, we don't have the farm system to pull that off any time soon and we have neither the draft position nor international allocation to surge ahead. A number of teams, with better farms than ours, are well ahead of us. We may well develop enough pitching, but we acquire position players in FA, because we aren't growing them internally. It's not a matter of rebuilding takes time. It's a matter of our rebuild is stalling out. We've passed through our period of primo first rounders and don't appear to have found a lineup star in those top pics. We got Nola, but then as you like to say, that was the old administration and we haven't spent a first rounder on a pitcher since then.

If you think replacing our farm director and most of our hitting coaches in the minors, this far into a rebuild and 3 years into the new GM makes sense and you're content with that, then you are a very patient man. A new GM has to implement a plan faster than that.

You don't like spending money on FA. Well, what exactly is your alternative plan?

It's fine to comment that FA won't fill all the holes. But what will. Where are the difference making position players on the farm?

This team last had a winning record in 2011. That's not good enough.

And snide carping at typos is for losers without an argument to make. As a moderator, you're supposed to enforce civility, not uncivilly try to snark people to get in lockstep with your point of view. That sort of argument style doesn't work. It only fosters resentment.

julio 2018-10-08 02:42:06 UTC #198

Absolutely not. But I'm more and more inclined to just say what I think; that should not be seen as stating "board policy," unless we collectively say that. But I come here all the time, and more and more of what I read is just kvetching, or rehashing arguments that were made and rebutted... years ago.

In fairness, I haven't contributed much new content myself - but I just don't find what are for all practical purposes reposts of things I read years ago very enlightening. Which is not so say y'all shouldn't post them; it's just that if I see the umpteenth version of the same argument between the same two or three posters popping up in the umpteenth thread for the umpteenth time... I'm liable to comment on that.

allentown 2018-10-08 03:55:21 UTC #199

It seems a contradiction to complain that you read the same complaints from years ago coupled with your assertion that we have a new owner and management and that things have changed. These are complaints of the new TPTB and they are actually new complaints. I don't recall seeing complaints that the past administrations rammed untested innovations through the system without enough planning. Nor do I recall complaints that the old administration was to quick to churn baseball management/instructional staff up and down the org too rapidly. There also was a time when we didn't complain about inability to develop position players, because the team actually signed enough amateur primo talent to build the strong core for the 2008 team. I've listed that core. There isn't a comparable core today, either at the MLB level or reasonably projecting minor league talent to MLB over the next 2-3 years. If we had the core we had going into 2008, then we wouldn't need primo FA to boost the lineup and defense. But, unless we are willing to go through another losing tank period to acquire a few more primo first round picks, and choose and develop more wisely this time around, I just can't squint hard enough to see where that home-grown position player core comes from. Yes, Machado will be very ex pensive. Yes, I doubt we can get him. But at this point, he is our last, best hope apart from restarting the rebuild, because we are now locked into the old Sixers situation of a not-good-enough pro team and no primo draft picks in sight to give a high probability shot at drafting a star. The league office has put us in the big revenue group, meaning we are in the lowest third of international allocations, and won't get any of the charity draft picks, like the Cardinals do. Our only advantage is our $. We need to use that advantage. As I stated, we've been penalized for having that advantage, so we are actually operating at a disadvantage if we don't utilize it. If we want to go to the WS, we need to pass the Braves and Dodgers. Both have stronger teams and a stronger farm. The Dodgers are well ahead of us in utilizing analytics. That isn't an advantage for us.

It is fine to say what you think, but the board rule has been to stick to presenting ideas and criticizing the ideas of others. Ad hominems have always been discouraged. Picking on typing errors has always been an especially prissy sort of ad hominem. It doesn't do you credit. As you can see from the responses to your comment, it also sows confusion and communicates nothing. I hadn't a clue what the heck you were saying, until I saw somebody else's repost of part of my post and saw that I had a typing error. So no, that wasn't speaking your mind.

EDmuch 2018-10-08 13:08:08 UTC #200

When what you think are essentially ad hominem's, you should not say them. Having rude thoughts is not justification for letting those thoughts lose as rude comments.