2018-19 Phillies Off-Season News/Notes/Discussion

[allentown]

Patience shouldn't rob good hitters of aggressiveness, it's a matter of learning how to work an AB to get a pitch you can handle - and then ATTACK that pitch.

It depends exactly how the team approaches the issue. The old management saw is that you will get whatever you measure and reward -- whether that ends up being good or bad for your organization, because the employees' focus will be the metric by which they are evaluated, not your overarching goal. So, if the Phillies focus on average pitches/AB as their metric, then they are discouraging swinging at the first pitch, even if it is the fattest pitch the pitchers throws in the AB. I often saw our minor league hitters take two fat pitches and then swing at crap in the Reading and Allentown games I attended this past season.

[andyb]

MLB Trade Rumors arbitration projections:

Cesar Hernandez – $8.9MM
Aaron Nola – $6.6MM
Justin Bour – $5.2MM
Maikel Franco – $5.1MM
Luis Avilan – $3.1MM
Vince Velasquez – $2.6MM
Hector Neris – $2.0MM
Luis Garcia – $1.7MM
Jerad Eickhoff – $1.7MM
Aaron Altherr – $1.6MM
Adam Morgan – $1.1MM
Pedro Florimon Jr. – $800K

Bour is almost certainly a non-tender or will be traded. Florimon will depend on how they value the 40-man spot. Maybe Avilan also. Garcia seems to be in trouble because of lack of options.

Projected Arbitration Salaries For 2019

[Philsmania]

Seeing how the pharm isn't all that it was cracked up to be at the beginning of the season, maybe we won't have a forty man roster crunch.

[Austinfan]

I wonder if that explains the purge of hitting coaches - old guard trying to sabotage, or at least not enthusiastically buying into the new approach, by doing a bad job of teaching/explaining.

[David_Criss]

Cesar Hernandez – $8.9MM
Aaron Nola – $6.6MM
Justin Bour – $5.2MM
Maikel Franco – $5.1MM
Luis Avilan – $3.1MM
Vince Velasquez – $2.6MM
Hector Neris – $2.0MM
Luis Garcia – $1.7MM
Jerad Eickhoff – $1.7MM
Aaron Altherr – $1.6MM
Adam Morgan – $1.1MM
Pedro Florimon Jr. – $800K

I can't see them keeping Hernandez, Bour, Franco, Garcia, Eickhoff, Altherr or even Florimon at those prices. Are any of them tradeable?

[bigegypt0417]

Franco at 5.1 million is not bad if you have no other options.

[Philsmania]

Coaching change for players who must have had success in the past or they wouldn't be on a major league roster is a difficult thing. While you can teach a new approach you really cannot predict how it will change a player. The key seems to me to be able to have a player try things but not get totally messed up if the new approach doesn't take with them. I know there are successes but it seems like the failures stand out more.

There was some conversation in that regard last offseason after Matt Stairs left (he was a coaching free agent who went to San Diego before the Phillies hired Kapler and might have had the chance to recruit him on to his staff). Stairs might helped some guys (Hernandez, Williams, Altherr, Knapp) but not others (Franco, whom many had high hopes Stairs might find a way to fix). With regard to the former, all of them regressed this season under the hew hitting coaches except for Williams.

Speaking of Stairs, the Padres fired him yesterday after they had the worst offense in the NL this past season.

[andyb]

I can't see them keeping Hernandez, Bour, Franco, Garcia, Eickhoff, Altherr or even Florimon at those prices. Are any of them tradeable?

They are actually all worth it (remember WAR is worth close to $10 million these days). And since the Phillies are not cash limited they do not have to make payroll cuts. It is much more about the 40-man roster spot to them.

Bour is potentially tradeable. I wonder if they sign him and then trade him to an AL team picking up half the salary. Would be the equivalent of buying a prospect if they did that. Sign Bour for $5.5. million. Trade him to another team picking up $2.5 million of that. The type of move that is a blatant talent acquisition strategy but Bour if healthy is theoretically good enough to get a prospect in somebody's top 10 if they tried hard enough. In 2017 he was a 2.3 WAR player and that is with negative defense which would not apply if he were traded to an AL team to DH. A team should give a decent prospect for a DH that might give you an 850+ OPS for $3 million a year.

[tom81]

I can't see them keeping Hernandez, Bour, Franco, Garcia, Eickhoff, Altherr or even Florimon at those prices. Are any of them tradeable?

$8.9MM for Hernandez is chump change to this franchise that is so far from the tax threshold. It is also a bargain price for a player who just put up 1.4 bWAR / 2.2 fWAR in an injury impacted down year. He is a bargain at this price and of value to this team and maybe others.

[zambonir]

Yeah that is nothing for Hernandez even in a down season and paying him $12-13 million in 2020 is also fine. But that assumes you intend to keep him in general.

Eickhoff is probably sticking, money also not the issue there. Florimon, if they want him, can probably just do what he did last year, it's not like any other team is going to offer him a guaranteed deal especially with his injury history.

Altherr is still cheap too. It's possible he won't make the team, but you can afford to find out (and isn't there also that point in spring training when you can still be free of most of the salary?)

Garcia is probably done because of his lack of options is all. One assumes they will sign another reliever who doesn't have any, and Morgan doesn't either (he's no sure thing himself obviously).

[nycphils]

Now is the time to sign Nola to a big deal and buy out a couple FA years...$15-$20m year over 5/6 years can easily fit into today’s budget and save later and keep Nola from testing FA...brings money forward into the next couple years when we can afford it

[bigegypt0417]

I think you have to decide what role you're bringing him back for?

If it's to start then it seems like he's going to block the development of someone.

[tom81]

You would bring back Hernandez to start at 2B and he won't block the development of Kingery who is has the super sub role that all modern teams value.

[zambonir]

Clearly Hernandez is either the starter or he's gone. If they'd wanted to see him on the other side of the IF at any point it would have happened already. But this is not a decision that they have to make before the tender deadline. And it depends who they have in mind at shortstop too.

Beyond that it's a question of Hernandez's trade value. You've got three more chances to trade him. He's probably not a QO player. If you think he's your 2B for 2019 and 2020 may as well try to sign him through 2021, get some cost control and keep him tradeable. But they probably don't think that.

[tom81]

I think Kapler etc really value Hernandez far more than any on this board do. They value high OBA and pitches seen per plate appearance more than most other stats. Hernandez was 39th in on OBA and 10th in pitches per plate appearance last year.

2018 Major League Baseball Pitches Batting | Baseball-Reference.com

2018 Major League Baseball Standard Batting | Baseball-Reference.com

He is a leader on the team, especially to the LA players.

Too many of us judge him by the “ not Chase Utley standard.”

[Austinfan]

I value WAR at $7.5-8M, "winner's curse" valuations should be discounted, you want to be smarter than the dumbest teams.

Even then, there is no one who isn't worth resigning except Garcia, because he's not worth the 40 man spot, and maybe Florimon, because I think he's regressed back to the replacement player he was before his few good seasons.

Altherr, for example, is probably worth it just as a fifth OF, PH, and defensive replacement.

[zambonir]

It will be very interesting to see. For sure his OBP is terrific but he's not that fast and seems to be declining (yes, he was hurt, but also on defense). Early this season he looked like he might be a legit .800 OPS player (he came close last year) but he failed big-time at that, so can he get back to being at least a .750-.760 OPS player like two years ago?

And I have no idea if he's a leader or not. Quiet guy. It was said they brought in Santana for that reason which also suggests Cesar wasn't in that role (which was previously filled by Galvis). Besides, if they move on from Hernandez, Franco and Herrera (still seems unlikely to me but not impossible) they won't have many Central or South American position players left. Even Machado's not one.

Last year Cesar was clearly worth more to the Phillies than he was to other teams in trade. That might still be the case this year but we won't know for sure until other pieces are in place. But at some point Cesar, Crawford and Kingery can't all be on the same team and the latter two players have a lot more years left in them, if less production at the moment.

[flyers19rw]

Kingery has not shown himself to be a better player than Cesar. Second base has to be Hernandez's job until someone plays him off of it. Based off of this season's performances, it might be best for Kingery to start '19 in LV until he shows that he's ready to play here.

[el-pietro]

Bob Nightengale (BNightengale)

Apologies if this has already been discussed elsewhere and I have no idea how reliable this guy is but what about:

Greinke and Yasmani Tomas for a single A pitcher or two at the back end of the top 30.

You'd be taking on ~50m in 2019, 52m in 2020 and 35m in 2021.

If you could get Greinke and either Harper or Machado (which adds probably at least another 30m) you could potentially kick start this team. However thats a lot of money wrapped up into 3 players.
The positive is that the Greinke contract is only for 3 years and Tomas would be a free agent after 2 so you still have the ability to pay Nola/Hoskins down the road.

Its easy for me to say I'd do it as its not my money but it seems like an interesting way to use cap space, get a quality starting pitcher and not sell the farm.

[Philsmania]

Maybe Greinke would finally sign an autograph for Neshek.