Discussion

Philsmania 2018-09-27 01:27:25 UTC #101

Instead of hiring dweebs from Google who need to be taught what a baseball is, why don't we hire people away from other organizations?

Austinfan 2018-09-27 02:16:58 UTC #102

We won 66 games the year before.
A number of players simply weren't ready or were injured, Kingery, Crawford, Quinn, Franco showed promise and got injured, Hernandez was injured. Wiliams and Alfaro made progress and have upside left.

Now some are probably finished, Altherr is too erratic, Herrera has outlived his welcome, Cozens doesn't look like a ML hitter.

But I don't think it has to be blown up.

phillychuck 2018-09-27 02:34:37 UTC #103

No evidence the people they're hiring are dweebs. That's a completely ad hominem attack, and borderline offensive.

zambonir 2018-09-27 02:36:16 UTC #104

They have hired close to a dozen data people, maybe more. Some have baseball experience. Some don't.

Philsmania 2018-09-27 03:23:48 UTC #105

We won 66 last season but the pythagorean says we should have won 72. Currently, the pythagorean says we should be 75-82 and that will change after tonight's blowout. If there is any pythagorean improvement, it will only be marginal. Aside from the starting pitching, this was a failed lost season on every level.

zambonir 2018-09-27 07:49:57 UTC #106

Well, if you're gonna look at it that way, that just goes to show you how bad the talent Klentak inherited was. Bad team last year bad team this year. If not for the Klentak free agents it would have been even worse (just look at their WAR). Santana is the only member of the starting 8 (pre-Cabrera) this GM acquired and Hoskins and Kingery may end up being the only keepers he inherited (though I hope Crawford and Quinn work out. Dubie too for that matter).

Philsmania 2018-09-27 12:23:38 UTC #107

And/or just how bad the pharm that he is supposed to be rebuilding is.

phillychuck 2018-09-27 13:09:39 UTC #108

Someone not having baseball experience doesn't make them a dweeb, though. I've done a lot of hiring in my career, and I prefer to vary the experience of the people who populate a department--sometimes really good ideas come from folks who have a background that is different from what one normally expects. For example, a lot of the early SABR guys had no baseball background other than being interested in it as a fertile field for research.

EDmuch 2018-09-27 13:14:33 UTC #109

I was just reading the Athletic story evaluating Tampa's team and prospects for next year and they are loaded !!!! Then I look at us and really feel sad. You just can't throw away 4 or 5 first round picks and expect to have a strong system.

EDmuch 2018-09-27 13:34:44 UTC #110

Between Marcus Hayes and some others there appears to be a real movement going to trade Herrera. Good. Also seems very likely that Hernandez is gone and 2b is handed to Kingery for better or worse.

DurhamBull 2018-09-27 13:50:16 UTC #111

Regardless of whether or not one likes Herrera, his value is very low at the moment and if the Phils don't get much back for him, it will be a loss for the Phils.

Philsmania 2018-09-27 15:13:55 UTC #112

I was thinking about this last night. I could see them moving Herrera and, freed from Kapler's reign of error and the Phillies' culture of incompetence, blossoms into one of the game's elite players.

fish 2018-09-27 15:38:51 UTC #113

I think they move on from Altherr too- and in the right situation, he could blossom into a real Khris Davis-type dude too. Matt Stairs did a great job with him- he looked like he reverted to the guy he was pre-2017 this year.

David_Criss 2018-09-27 15:38:56 UTC #114

Herrera has steadily been declining and somewhat inconsistent before Kapler's arrival.

rookie BA. .297 OBP..344 SB=16 HR= 8 3.0 of war 1.4 def war
AS BA. 286 OBP. .361 SB=25 HR = 15 3.6 .9
2017 BA. .281 OBP. .325 SB=8 HR=14 1.9 .7
2018 BA .256 OBP. .313 SB=5 HR=22 1.5 -1.1

BA has gone down every year
OBP fell in 2017 and 2018
SB don't even happen anymore - not sure why he and Hernandez don't have 25 SBs
HR all of a sudden he is looking like a power hitter
Defense has looked worse and worse every year

Can he right the ship by clearing his head this off season? Does he want to be a power hitter? Can he get back to getting on base and stealing more bases?

His contract is pretty team friendly this year. If they can give Franco another year to try and show he belongs in the starting lineup then I think Herrera should be given another 1/2 season at the least. You aren't going to get much now in a trade for him and if he continues down this path, you get the same return next year, too.

fish 2018-09-27 15:41:15 UTC #115

Herrera has a hitting style unlike none I've ever seen. Like a pitcher's windup at the plate- it allows him to generate incredible bat-speed and power, and while he has great-hand eye skills, its not hard to see how an approach like that could get out of whack and send him into regular funks.

andyb 2018-09-27 15:57:39 UTC #116

Looking at Herrera one might wonder whether he bulked up a bit and tried to remake himself as more of a power hitter at the expense of the rest of his game.

allentown 2018-09-27 17:00:02 UTC #117

But last year's team ended on a very positive note and didn't look like a bad team. The first 50+% of the season wasn't good, but there seemed to be a big turnaround. That turnaround persisted into over the first half of this season. Did anyone think that the Phillies were a bad team on 1 July 2018? I know I didn't. I felt very positive about this year and this team at the MLB level. There were disappointments, but on the net it was positive.

andyb 2018-09-27 17:10:07 UTC #118

The collapse this year really seems to feel like shattered confidence. I wonder if the managing especially in the post-September expanded roster period made everybody think that they would be pulled in the second inning for the slightest mistake. Obviously this is all speculation, but there is a real case made for overmanaging here and that Kapler hopefully learns to pull back on the moves a bit.

There are long term consequences to micromanaging. Reliever workload was one concern early in the year. That was alleviated somewhat by shuttling 5 extra relievers to the roster throughout the season. But now it is almost like the position players can't get comfortable in their roles too, as those roles change by the minute. We must have set an MLB record for number of different players who bat 3rd in a year.

nycphils 2018-09-27 18:53:58 UTC #119

I continue to believe that there is mostly post hoc analysis going on - a situation searching for an explanation. Most likely there isn’t a single cause and a decent amount of small sample size situations going on here at the end of the year.

Seems to me this year has told us:

Nola is a Top 5-7 MLB pitcher

Hoskins is a very good (but not great) hitter and a very bad LF

Caesar is what he is - solid 2B with good OBP and mediocre power

Santana is who he has always been - low average, medium power, high OBP...a complementary player

Nick Williams is an ascending hitter, but doesn’t have the instincts in the field to be a likely high WAR star

Pivetta and Eflin and VV can be very good pitchers, but not yet clear if they are just too inconsistent to be anything but 5th starters or relievers or if they will go the Carlos Carrasco just need patience route

Arrieta is in significant decline

Quinn could be a huge piece of a contending team IF he could stay healthy, but he simply cannot enough to be counted on

Alfaro still is ascending...certainly was not totally abominable at the plate for a catcher, needs more work on D; pairing him with Ramos or equivalent would be plenty sufficient for a contending team at C

We have enoug to work with in the bullpen to contend.

That’s a productive season right there, to make clear that info...add Harper or Machado and the picture will look much brighter. The remaining questions are at SS, 2B and CF. I do not believe We will have all that much trouble building a championship caliber rotation over the next two or three years.

Austinfan 2018-09-27 19:04:15 UTC #120

Agree with NYCphils and stick to my 2020 expected date of contention.
The mistake this year was to confuse a better team with a good team, and I think they folded under pressure.
Which is how you learn.

Next year there should be less pressure to win, and more leeway to play young players and let them fail on the job. By the end of next year it's more likely we'll know who is part of the core going forward.
For one thing, I doubt Kingery is as bad as he looked, and Crawford never was healthy.