Phillies 2018 Season News/Notes/Discussion

[julio]

2 posts were merged into an existing topic: Phillies Acquire 1B Justin Bour from Marlins

[el-pietro]

Baseball isn't fair. You can't have playoffs based on overall record while teams play unbalanced schedules. The Yankees have to play the Red Sox more than anyone outside their division but they also get to play Baltimore to balance that out. If you want to move to a situation where the best teams get in regardless of division then you have to solve the schedule problem first.
The Yankees will get into the playoffs if they have one of the best records due to the wild card

[andyb]

If baseball ever goes to 32 teams I really hope they have 4 8-team divisions as opposed to 8 4-team divisions. With 8 team divisions you could have 2 division winners and then 4 wild cards in each league. Maybe give the 2nd place teams in the division home field in a 3-game series against 2 extra wild cards (or home in the 2-game series above).

The schedule is almost a little too unbalanced now for my tastes. 12 games against teams in a larger division seems better than 19 in a small division.

[philsphan67]

The lower seed having to win two games is Smoltz's idea - not sure he first thought of it, but he has been pushing it. He has also been all over reducing mound visits for the past two years.

Anyway, there is a schedule out there for 32 teams and 156 games. Link below.

I personally think 4 divisions (2 in each league) and 4 wild cards is the way to go. It is really unfair for the weak division winner (Cle this year) to have a bye, while a team in a tough division has to play a "shoot out" game.

Mapping out a 32-team league should MLB pursue expansion

[el-pietro]

JP reinstated according to an alert from the MLB app

[el-pietro]

No one goes down until Bour gets out there.

Matt Gelb (MattGelb)

[andyb]

Some interesting ideas in that proposal but I do think it misses some of the points.

-Full realignment is just not something people wants. Stick to the current leagues maybe move a team or two to reduce travel.
-156 games is an issue. But tell the players to give up 4%-5% of their salary and it is a non-starter. Give the players a greater share of revenue and maybe that is possible. To me though, the number of games is not that important because both the players and the owners don't want to make less money
- 8 team divisions. Good. Fewer weak division champions.
- Revised schedule. 12 in own division. 3 against everyone else. I am fine with the 12 (or 13 if you go back to 162 game) schedule in division. But just play 6 against the other division in your league and then 3 against one of the 8-team divisions in the other league. Never liked the rivalry series (like NY vs NY) because it is unfair to some teams
-Playoffs - Really want more than 1-game wild card series. It is just too random. Again eliminating the play-in day (and maybe all travel if the wild card series is 3 games) is the way to go. 3 game series all at the home park of the higher WC seed.

I'd be shocked if something like this happens though. Just too many conflicting motivations among the parties involved.

[tom81]

I think it’s a good possibility that the Phillies make another trade before August 31. I think they look to a bat bench with pop.

[zambonir]

Gotta be Kingery right? I mean, I know business is business but it would be cold to make JP fly all the way to San Diego and then ship him back. Or will they dump a pitcher until the doubleheader? (At which point they could send down Crawford or Kingery for the spot starter and then swap the spot starter for Ramos.)

[el-pietro]

I assume so, but it wouldn't surprise me if it was Quinn. We have learned that positions mean little to nothing to the organisation, at least in 2018.

[zambonir]

They're so high on Quinn though, I doubt it. He's useful for double-switches and defensive replacing and pinch-running. Kingery less so.

[Austinfan]

Kingery makes sense b/c he could play everyday and try to regain his stroke instead of sitting on the bench.

[el-pietro]

Just looking at the rotation schedule for the rest of the season. They will need a spot starter on the 19th of August versus the Mets or else Velasquez goes on 4 days rest.

If they follow the same order then for the rest of the season the final series against the Braves would be Velsaquez, Eflin and Nola. Arrieta would be ready to go for game one of any playoff series. The last 12 games of the season would all be on regular rest.
They could of course adjust this in September quite easily when rosters expand to make sure they have Nola and Arrieta ready to open a playoff series.

[andyb]

Gotta imagine they would hold Nola for a wild card game if his start did not mean anything for the division. There is enough flexibility in the schedule that they could position Nola for that. I am actually thinking our competition for the division is more likely to be the Nats than the Braves but obviously that is an unknown at the moment.

[zambonir]

We may have the power to put the Nats out of it or keep them in it this month.

[LoneStarPhan]

Phillies fall to second place as the Braves open a half game lead by winning their first game today.

Marlins 1-3-2
Braves 9-11-0

[andyb]

Braves sweep. We are now 1 back.

Guessing we will see Mr. Ramos against Boston (maybe Wednesday) because we are probably going to need to score more runs than we have been scoring lately. Ramos does kill LHP though and that is what we face tomorrow.

[zambonir]

Ok, here's another crude question about defense. If the pitching rotation has a 3.70 ERA and a 3.76 xFIP, where (other than unearned runs) is the poor defense hurting them?

The bullpen also has a 2.73 ERA since July 1, don't know about their FIP or xFIP.

[andyb]

As I understand it, xFIP takes home runs out of the equation as well as defense. The Phillies have given up the 4th fewest home runs in the league. That probably helps their traditional ERA to be lower which might be a reason the difference is small between the 2 stats. We are also pretty high in unearned runs, so clearly we are not good at parts of defense. I just find it hard to believe that our fielders have decent range given the other defensive evidence out there.

We have made the 4th most errors and are tied for 21st out of 30 in team defensive efficiency.

This is not to say that defensive stats are not heavily flawed. Machado with the Dodgers is now grading above average at SS. The Dodgers probably position defenders a bit better than the Orioles but also one must think all these stats are heavily influenced by home parks and teammates (who is playing next to each other) and shifts. There is more evidence we are below average defensively than above average.

[zambonir]

I don't debate that we are below average defensively (and it's a lot worse than that, according to most measures). I just wonder (like you) what's behind the front office's approach. How much of it is not thinking the poor defense actually costs them runs and how much of it is just wanting the offense (not that they are currently getting it) more.