A 7 game improvement over last season. As far as wins and losses, the Phillies are slightly 10% better then they were last season but let’s not kid ourselves, this Phillies team is significantly flawed and I was not satisfied with the overall progress this year. Yes, it’s been hammered into our minds this team has a great farm system, yadda, yadda, yadda. However, my expectation was that after this season The Phillies would need just a few spare parts to compete in 2017. Maybe my hopes were too high but this teams progress was very disappointing (particularly in the area of pitching) and had it not been for an amazing managerial performance, this could have easily been a 60-win team. Let’s dive into each position and discover where we went wrong and or occasionally, we went right this season.
OUTFIELD
The Phillies struck gold last season with Odubel Herrera.
This guy is a 5-tool player who we picked up in a Rule 5 Draft. Yes, he had his
brain-freeze moments but overall, he was our best overall player and a deserving
all-star this season. The outlook for next year is he may play a corner
outfield position. I’m ok with this. He is a bonifide solid everyday MLB
outfielder who will bat .290, steal 25 plus bases, slap 15 homeruns and play
solid defense for the next 8-10 years.
Other then Herrera, next year’s outfield is a complete mess.
The hope coming into the season was that Aaron Altheer would be the guy. He
looks from the outside like a nice athletic guy who can hit for average and
power and play above average defense. There is no other way to spin this, he
stinks. Yes, I know he only played 1/3 of this season because of an injury but
he stunk last year too and he was equally bad this year. He is at best a 5th
outfielder on an average MLB team.
The other OF position was vacated this season by Peter Bourjos,
an MLB veteran with limited power and a mediocre batting average. He was a placeholder
for future minor league superstar, Nick Williams. However, Williams never
emerged this season. Williams showed flashes of brilliance but also got benched
for lackadaisical running efforts and poor work ethic. He finished this season
in the minor leagues with no late-season call up. This forced the Phillies to
trot out the forgettable Bourjos and his thrilling .240 average. Yes, Nick
Williams still has time to emerge in 2017 but 2016 is a setback, which forces
the Phillies to wait longer for his arrival and ultimately forcing them to go
out and get another Bourjos type player.
As for the other corner outfield position. The Cody Asche
experiment has now come to a screeching halt. Like Altheer it is evident that
Asche, despite seeming like a good dude, is a career 5th outfielder
on an average MLB baseball team. The Phillies tried to strike gold with another
Rule 5 guy, Tyler Goeddel. He did have a hell of a month in May but eventually
his talent caught up with him. I can’t fault the Phillies on this one. They
have generally been successful lately in nabbing under the radar Rule 5
guys….Tyler Goeddel is not one of them.
That leaves us with Roman Quinn. I give Roman an incomplete
grade. He did not play enough for me to gauge a strong opinion. I will say, I feel
more optimistic than pessimistic about him but an overall evaluation of this
year’s outfield leads me to believe me that we have 1 solid guy for next year
in Herrera. We got 1 maybe in Quinn, 1 prayer in Nick Williams. Phillies will
need to pay for a big bat in the other corner OF position until we can see if Dylan
Cozins or Phillies teaches Rhys Hoskins to play RF.
Yes, Cozins and Hoskins (moving him from 1) each deserve to
be looked at with their epic years in the minors but I need to see them each go
up one level before anointing them the next great saviors.
INFIELD
I was pretty satisfied with our infield this season. It’s
something to be encouraged about. Despite a few small injuries and a few bad
0-fers this season, Franco is a terrific 3B. He demonstrated he can be a solid
.250 hitter who can drive the ball to all sides of the park and hit with
consistent power. I’d like to see his average go to .280 and be more selective
at the plate but overall I was somewhat encouraged by his first full season. It
should also be noted that he is an amazing defender and will be fun to watch
for years to come.
I am NOT a Freddy Galvis fan. I think his 20+ homers was
more an aberration rather then something we will see consistently. However, I
can’t deny his productive season. We do seem to have short-term memories and
forget he was demoted briefly when he was batting under .100 for a large chunk
of last season. With that being said, I tip my hat to the guy. He is possibly
the best fielding SS in the league and if he can somehow replicate his power
numbers next year then I can live with his .241 batting average. I do think the
Phillies think more highly of him than Cesar Hernandez. I think they are vastly
two different players. Hernandez is a more consistent hitter but Galvis is a
better fielder. I feel like the Phillies will try to trade Hernandez this off
season because he is cheap, has good value and they need a spot for top
prospect JP Crawford to play in the middle infield (Not sure if Crawford will
be at 2B and Galvis at SS or its more plausible that Crawford goes to SS and
Galvis moves to 2B.) Regardless, I would keep both Galvis and Hernandez until
Crawford can prove he is proven big leaguer.
The reason I’d keep both of these guys is because I am not
confident in JP Crawford. Hence my theme: Is Help on the Way? For the last 3-4
years, I have been stroked and eased to think JP Crawford is the next coming of
Jesus. Instead, he appears to be the next coming of Dom Brown. He hit his way
into another .250 season of AAA and the fact that he was NOT called up late in
the season is a reason to be concerned.
The most optimistic thing to come out of 2016 is the
maturation of Tommy Joseph. This is Ryan Howards last year as a Phillie. You
don’t need Scooby Doo to solve that mystery. The bigger mystery coming into
2016 was who would take his place in 2017? The Darrin Ruf experience came to a
roaring end but finally having Tommy Joseph healthy and productive is the best
news to come out of this season. You can book him as a 30-35 homerun threat at
1B each season and that’s all we need at a 1B.
Catching is an interesting and incomplete story yet to be
written. What we learned is that Cameron Rupp is a really solid pro. He is
better defensive catcher then most give him credit for. I am NOT yet sold on
him as an everyday guy. This role will be hopefully filled by Alfaro (another
highly touted prospect). It’s unfair to judge him on a small sampling size but
I hope he shows more promise next season. The backup situation here is Andrew
Knapp. I’m fairly confident that either Alfaro or Knapp will emerge as a solid
catching guy but if not, I’m ok with Rupp playing lots of games one more season
till we figure it out. The bottom-line is we have options and I feel good about
that.
PITCHING
We must separate this into two very defined evaluations
here:
STARTERS and RELIEVERS
Let’s begin with Starters:
I see Matt Klentaks strategy here. He came in with 2 decent/
cheap/ stop-gap veterans (Hellickson and Morton). Each knew their role was to
come in for a year and pack for the next city. This would leave 3 spots in the
rotation to watch our baby aces. As it turns out Hellickson pitched
beautifully. I wish him luck next year as he has earned his raise. Morton got
hurt early on. Thus we got heavy doses of:
NOLA- He pitched well early on then looked bad then got
injured, which is probably why he looked bad. I give him the benefit of the
doubt because he looked solid in 2015. I think it’s very reasonable to expect
him to come back in 2017 and be a solid #2 guy in the rotation. He can be a guy
who pitches next season to a healthy 3.30 – 3.50 ERA.
EICKOFF- Not much to add except that he was by far our best
pitcher this year and 2nd best player on the team behind Odubel. You
can plug him in next year as a solid #3 guy with a projected ERA in the 3.6 –
3.8 range.
Valasquez – Vinny from South Philly is quite an arm. When
not getting injured, you can find him striking out tons of batters. The issue
is he throws a lot of pitches and does not go deep into games. I do feel
comfortable plugging him in as a #5 starter who will float in the 4.00- 4.20
ERA range next season. I am quite comfortable with that. What I’m not
comfortable with is getting him for a huge bullpen piece like Ken Giles. Most
will say, closers are easiest to replace. I will prove to you that IT IS NOT
TRUE. I will also say that #5 starters can be picked off the scrapheap. You
don’t need to trade a premium bullpen arm. With that being said, the Phillies
move into 2017 with guys I feel will make up 3/5 of the starters. The other
encouraging news is they are all young. So we have them for a while.
Let’s explore what else we learned.
Jake Thompson: He was brutal in his first few starts. He
started to come around near the end of the season. Being as that he had limited
starts but was really solid in AAA most of this year, I will give him the
benefit of the doubt and plug him in as #4 guy next year.
Zach Eflin: Like Thompson he started awful and then started
to pick things up. Then he got hurt again and pitched like crap. Truth is I
don’t know what we can expect of him. On paper, he looks solid but we had a lot
of young prospects look good on paper (Remember Brandon Duckworth?)
Alec Asher is intriguing. He was a toss in player in the
Hamels trade. In his limited time this year, he looked really solid. At the
very least, he deserves to come in and compete for a starter position next
season.
Adam Morgan is trash and won’t be on the big league squad
next year.
The outlook for next year’s starters is slightly optimistic.
Because of uncertainty with health and inexperience, the Phillies will need to
find another stop-gap guy to fill the pseudo #1 role. It will likely be a guy
who is solid #2 somewhere else right now. This may sound like an out of box
idea but the best thing the Phillies can do is move Vinny Vasquez as a number 5
starter to the closer role. I know this sounds insane but the Phillies will
strangely have some depth at starting pitching next season. Because of how hard
he throws and the limitations of pitch count it seems as though he would be a
far more productive contributor to this team as a closer.
RELIEF PITCHING
Let me just come out and say this. I predicted at the
beginning of the season that this is THE WORST part of the team. I don’t take
pride in being right but it was easy to see. When you are taking 6th
inning mop up guys and making him the 4th option as a closer, you
knew it was doomed to fail. To Gomez credit, he stayed solid for 90% of the
season and then opponents caught up with his low velocity fastball. I’m
frustrated and angry about the lack of effort and thought given to the bullpen.
I am not exaggerating when I say that it’s not only the worse Phillies bullpen
I’ve seen in my lifetime but by far the worst in MLB this season. You had 1
reliable guy, Hector Neris. You had no viable closer, no situational lefty or
even a solid veteran to get you key outs. The only free agent signing last
off-season for the Phillies was David Hernandez. I agree with Klentak on
signing a veteran bullpen guy, I would have not wasted my time with Hernandez
who floated around with a 4.00 ERA most season.
Besides Neris, there is a chance Ramos can be possible 7th
inning option in 2017. Other then that, there is literally no other guy I would
have back on this team. I am not only frustrated but genuinely offended that
they trot out guys like Frank Herman, Colton Murray, Marriot Hotels (hek give
me Paris Hilton). Shuster? Who the hell
are these guys? The Phillies taut they have this amazing farm system with top
class arms. I know it’s not sexy to pitch in the bullpen but what good is it
having s solid starter when your bullpen can’t hold the lead?
The good news is the Phillies would easily have 10 more wins
this season with a reliable bullpen. The bad news is we need 5 new guys to go
with Ramos and Neris next season. If I were Klentak, I would literally find the
best 4 free agent bullpen guys (I’m guessing they all earn 1-2 million dollars)
and sign them. I would toss in Neris and Ramos. Then I’d plug in Vinny from
South Philly as the loser.
MANAGER
With this lackluster roster and 71 wins, I would give Mackanin
an A+ this season. He was forthright, stern and pushed the right buttons most
of the time. He was way better then I expected and he deserves a chance to
manage with better players. Not much more can be said. I don’t have a strong
opinion about the other coaches but I would consider bringing most of them all
back. The 71-wins are less a reflection on the major league managers and more
of a reflection of the GM and minor league instructors preparing the prospects.
I give Klentak a mulligan. The good news is we won more
games then in 2015 so that’s a nugget to leave with. He deserves a chance to
see this process through but I’m slowly seeing that a 2017 will at best be an
80 win team as opposed to a 90 win team that I was hoping for.
My Wish list for 2017
Power-Hitting Corner Outfielder
Viable and Versatile Bench players (like Blanco but younger)
4 veteran reputable relievers (preferably a
lefty-specialist)
