Are the Phillies Really 2016 Contenders or Just Ahead of Schedule in Rebuild?

The Philadelphia Phillies were supposed to be easy to ignore in 2016. They were supposed to be bad, and that was supposed to be that.

But instead, here we are in the middle of May, wondering if they’re actually this good.

Following a 99-loss season that saw them jettison almost all the stars left over from their 2007-2011 glory days, the 2016 Phillies are off to a 20-15 start. Only three teams in the National League have a better record. If the Phillies hadn’t begun the year with a four-game losing streak, that list might be smaller.

At the least, this is a sign the Phillies are ahead of schedule with their rebuild. When Pat Gillick took over as the club’s interim CEO in 2014, he set 2017 as the earliest target for a return to contention. But rather than a team that’s ahead of schedule, Phillies manager Pete Mackanin sees a team that’s for real.

“Every time we play somebody, I get the same question, but it’s a good question because of course we [are],” the skipper said earlier this month, via Joe Harris of MLB.com.

Mackanin also pointed out that he and his club have “held our own against contenders.” The Phillies are indeed 13-9 against winning clubs, which suggests they’re not getting by on good fortune.

Or are they?

Because we’re in the year 2016, we must make a fuss over the Phillies’ run differential. It stands at minus-27, by far the worst among Major League Baseball’s early winners. If the Chicago Cubs are a winner that deserves better based on their plus-99 run differential, the Phillies are their antithesis.

And it’s not like they’ve drastically turned things around after starting the year 0-4. Their 20-11 record since then comes with a minus-13 run differential.

It’s easy to narrow down why the Phillies are succeeding despite this. They’ve crushed it in one-run games, posting a 12-3 record. And to their credit, this hasn’t happened by accident.

There’s one measure that rates the Phillies pitching staff as one of the 10 best in baseball. Their rotation is led by some awesome arms belonging to Aaron Nola, Vince Velasquez and Jerad Eickhoff. Their bullpen features a trio in Jeanmar Gomez, David Hernandez and Hector Neris that’s combined for a 29.3 strikeout percentage and a 2.29 ERA.

For the sake of competing in as many games as possible, good pitching is a key thing to have. And as the leverage—that’s baseballese for “pressure”—has gotten higher, Fielding Independent Pitching (FIP) and OPS show that both Phillies pitchers and hitters have been at their best:

Note: These stats are current through play on Wednesday, May 11.

This brings the 2014 San Francisco Giants to mind. As Blake Murphy of FanGraphs highlighted at the time, they got out to a 38-21 start by owning pressure situations. The Phillies are doing the same thing.

But this cool tidbit is also a cautionary tale. Even that Giants team, which went on to win the World Series, was forced back down to earth over the long haul in the regular season. A team with more talent than it could avoid a similar fate. The Phillies are not that team.

As good as the Phillies pitching has been, there are faults to find. Nola, Velasquez and Eickhoff have done a fine job of carrying a rotation that’s thin outside of them, but it’s unfair to expect that to continue all season. Hitters have already adjusted to Eickhoff, who has a 6.65 ERA in his last four starts. And none of the three has pitched a full season before.

The Phillies bullpen doesn’t have many cracks, but it does have a singular big one. In light of its considerable problem with the long ball, all that high-leverage dominance may not have a long shelf life.

If the team’s pitching wavers, the Phillies will need their offense to pick up more slack. At that, all anyone can say is “good luck.”

Said offense has been one of the worst at scoring runs. Outside of budding superstar Odubel Herrera, one of the NL’s best players, the only other regular with any real promise is Maikel Franco. As such, the high-leverage dominance of the Phillies offense is probably on even thinner ice than the pitching staff’s high-leverage dominance.

If the season ended today, the Phillies would be in the playoffs as a wild card. But in the long run, probably not. They began Thursday with a 5.9 percent chance of making the postseason at Baseball Prospectus. At FanGraphs, their odds were just 0.1 percent.

Still, the Phillies don’t need to make the playoffs for 2016 to count as a success. As a stepping stone toward what they hope will be many years of contention, it’s a damn enticing proof of concept.

The Phillies have every reason to be excited about how Nola, Velasquez and Eickhoff are establishing themselves as rotation cornerstones. With good stuff and control, they’ve been instrumental in giving Phillies starters virtually the same strikeout percentage as the Nationals‘ star-studded rotation.

And as a whole, the Phillies rotation may be on to something with its love for the curveball. It’s throwing more curveballs than any starting staff in recorded history, and FanGraphs‘ August Fagerstrom can tell you all about how awesome these curveballs are.

There’s not as much long-term brightness in Philly’s bullpen, but Neris looks like a keeper. In carving out a 1.64 ERA in 20 appearances, the 26-year-old right-hander has showed off a splitter that shouldn’t even be legal. He looks like a future shutdown closer.

And even if it never improves as much as it needs to this season, the Phillies offense could at least get a glimpse of its future beyond this season. From a farm system that Baseball America ranked at No. 8 coming into the season could come shortstop J.P. Crawford, outfielder Nick Williams and catcher Jorge Alfaro before the season is over.

The Phillies farm system could also have some gifts for the pitching staff. Right-handers Jake Thompson and Mark Appel, the former No. 1 pick of the Houston Astros, haven’t been great for Triple-A Lehigh Valley, but that may not get in the way of them getting called up.

There’s always the chance that every prospect the Phillies call up this summer will hit the ground running and help propel the team forward. It’s more fair, however, to expect them to gain the experience that will help them be of use in 2017 and beyond.

That means Gillick‘s target date for contention is looking pretty good. And based on the preview, the show itself should be a good time.

 

Stats courtesy of Baseball-Reference.com and FanGraphs unless otherwise noted/linked.

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Vince Velasquez’s 16-K Shutout Has Phillies Celebrating Ken Giles Trade Steal

Per the early results, the recent trade between the Houston Astros and Philadelphia Phillies should be referred to not as “the Ken Giles trade,” but as “the Vince Velasquez trade.”

At least on a knee-jerk level, that’s just sound logic. While Giles sits there with an ERA over 12.00 through four appearances out of Houston’s bullpen, Velasquez looks like a man on a mission in the Phillies rotation.

His latest target: the San Diego Padres. They had no answer for Velasquez in a 3-0 loss at Citizens Bank Park on Thursday afternoon, as the 23-year-old used blistering fastballs and biting hooks to strike out 16 while allowing three hits and no walks in a complete-game shutout.

This is one of those tidbit starts. Joel Sherman of the New York Post notes that Velasquez is the youngest pitcher to strike out 16 batters since Mark Prior in 2003. And as Jayson Stark of ESPN.com notes, the only other active pitcher with a 16-strikeout, zero-walk game to his name is Max Scherzer. And so on.

Velasquez’s shutout is coming on the heels of a 2016 debut that was also eye-opening. He shut out the New York Mets for six innings last Saturday, striking out nine and allowing three hits and three walks.

All told, the right-hander’s numbers through his first two starts boggle the mind. He has yet to allow a run in 15 innings, allowing only six hits and three walks. He’s struck out 25 of the 54 batters he’s faced.

The only nit to pick is with his competition. The Padres definitely aren’t a good offensive team, as they’ve already been shut out five times in 10 games. The Mets should be a lot better, but their slow start put them at last in the National League in runs and OPS at the start of play on Thursday.

Even still, there’s no harm in wondering if the Phillies have something special in Velasquez. Because it sure seems like they do.

When the Phillies landed Velasquez from the Astros last December, he arguably wasn’t the centerpiece of the trade.

He was coming to Philadelphia alongside four other players, including former No. 1 overall pick Mark Appel. Velasquez was also coming off an unspectacular breakthrough with the Astros in 2014, in which he posted a 4.37 ERA in seven starts and 12 relief appearances. Before that, he had a minor league track record that was largely marred by a Tommy John operation in 2010 and a significant groin injury in 2014.

However, there was no denying Velasquez’s appeal as a building block for the Phillies’ rebuild. At a sturdy 6’3″ and armed with a mid-to-upper-90s fastball, Christopher Crawford of Baseball Prospectus wrote that Velasquez could either step into Giles’ shoes or fit into Philly’s rotation in the long run: “At worst Velasquez marks a strong central piece as a potential high-leverage reliever in his own right, and the potential to groom him into a long-term rotation staple remains alive and well if the Phillies choose to do so.”

In spring training, Velasquez made no secret about which he preferred.

“I’d like to help the team out in the rotation,” he told Jim Salisbury of CSN Philly. “That’s where I want to be. I’m not really favoring that relieving half, to be honest with you.”

Velasquez got his wish, as Phillies manager Pete Mackanin named him the club’s No. 5 starter in late March. And in two starts since then, he’s shown just what he’s capable of as a starter.

Notably, he’s shown he can maintain his fastball deep into games. Per Brooks Baseball, he was actually throwing harder in the sixth inning than he was in the first inning of his debut. And against the Padres, Velasquez was still touching 98 even after he crossed the 100-pitch threshold.

To boot, Velasquez’s fastball is one of those where velocity doesn’t tell the whole story.

It also has tremendous life on it, which helps explain how he could pull off the baffling feat of getting 20 swings and misses on the 76 fastballs he threw against the Padres. According to Mike Petriello of MLB.com, the only guy who’s done that in recent history is, once again, Scherzer.

If Velasquez’s arsenal had a weakness in his prospect days, it was his lack of a consistent breaking ball. As Nick J. Faleris wrote at Baseball Prospectus in 2015, it could “come soft, lacking bite.”

It looked pretty good against the Padres, though. Velasquez threw 30 curveballs, collecting five whiffs and giving up one hit. Courtesy of The Pitcher List, at least one was a knee-buckler:

What Velasquez hasn’t shown as much in his 2016 workload, such as it is, is a changeup. But he does have one, and a good one at that. Both Faleris and Jonathan Mayo of MLB.com considered it to be a second above-average pitch alongside his curveball when Velasquez was still a prospect.

Even if Velasquez doesn’t break out his changeup more often, his fastball-curveball combination and his ability to throw strikes (146 out of 212 pitches) could be good enough to keep his breakout going. If such an approach worked for Shelby Miller in 2013, it can work for Velasquez in 2016.

That would continue the narrative that getting Velasquez alone is enough to make the Giles trade (excuse me, the Velasquez trade) lopsided in their favor. Just don’t ask Velasquez himself about it, as he’ll swear that he’s not succeeding because of a chip on his shoulder.

“I’m beyond that. I don’t even think of that,” he told Ryan Lawrence of the Philly Voice. “My job is to pitch for the Phillies and the Phillies only. [The Astros] traded me, so my job is here. This is home for me, this is my home.”

The Phillies should have no problem with an attitude like that. Especially not when it’s coming from a guy who’s turning into a steal.

 

Stats courtesy of Baseball-Reference.com and FanGraphs unless otherwise noted/linked.

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Maikel Franco’s Monstrous Spring Signals MLB’s Next Big Hitting Star Has Arrived

Maikel Franco has apparently decided on the Kris Bryant route to stardom: hit a whole bunch of dingers in spring training, and then keep right on slugging in the regular season.

A fine choice, indeed. And one that could pay off just as well for Franco as it did for Bryant.

The Philadelphia Phillies‘ young third baseman has the first part down for now. Fresh off a rookie season that featured 14 home runs in only 80 games, Franco has slugged seven home runs in 17 games this spring. That’s the most of any other player this spring, and just two fewer than Bryant hit in his Rookie of the Year preamble last spring.

All rise for a moving-pictures demonstration of Franco’s power display:

Franco, 23, isn’t skimping on other numbers either. He’s also racked up a .300/.340/.720 slash line. And next to a slugging percentage that high, that Franco has only struck out nine times in 50 at-bats comes dangerously close to being an earth-shattering paradox.

Now, this is where we’re obligated to mention this is only spring training. Weird things happen in spring training. Weird. Things. Because of that, the spring exhibition season isn’t quite the equal of Nostradamus, or even Paul the Octopus, when it comes to predictive powers.

However, there are cases when spring training isn’t completely useless. As Neil Paine wrote at FiveThirtyEight in 2014, spring numbers should affect our outlook on a player so long as they’re “particularly strong or weak.” Franco’s certainly qualify as the former.

And it’s not like they’ve come out of nowhere. Franco was considered one of the game’s top young players going into the 2015 season, as he was ranked as a top-100 prospect by Baseball America, Baseball Prospectus and others.

The general agreement was that Franco’s bat was his primary calling card. He made good on that by putting up an .840 OPS to go with his 14 dingers, and those numbers pass the smell test.

Craig Edwards of FanGraphs saw an offensive profile similar to that of Adrian Beltre, in that Franco was an aggressive swinger but in enough control to make plenty of contact. His power was also legit, as Mike Petriello of MLB.com notes that Franco was among baseball’s best at hitting the ball hard when he got it airborne. It’s no wonder he didn’t need to rely on Citizens Bank Park to boost his power.

Had Franco not been sidelined by a broken wrist, he might have made a run at 25 or even 30 home runs. As such, good health was arguably the only thing he needed to emerge as a top power hitter in 2016.

But apart from good health, Franco has offered a couple of explanations for what’s different this spring. One is that, as he told Rob Maaddi of the Associated Press (via the Washington Times), he’s simply “more comfortable” knowing that he’s going to come to the ballpark and see his name in Pete Mackanin’s lineup every day.

As for why this comfort has translated to so much power, well, that’s supposedly the whole idea. As he told Todd Zolecki of MLB.com, hitting for more power is “what I’ve been working on.”

Franco didn’t elaborate exactly what he’s been working on, but there’s nothing that can’t be solved with a Sherlock Holmes mindset and a willingness to scour the Internet for clues.

To that end, it’s not surprising that a good but not quite elite prospect like Franco entered the big leagues with some notable weaknesses. One that Baseball America pointed out was that Franco’s swing “can get long” and leave him “vulnerable to velocity on his hands.”

Courtesy of Brooks Baseball, this leads us to a plot of Franco’s power production in 2015:

The catch is that 80 games isn’t a huge sample size, but it makes sense that Franco tended to drive pitches out over the plate. As a guy with a long swing, he would drive the ball best when he could get his arms extended. And when the focus is narrowed to fastballs only, the effect is even more pronounced.

But if you watched the above video closely, you might have noticed the location of the two Jordan Zimmermann fastballs that Franco sent into orbit. The first was here:

And the second was here:

Though neither fastball was quite in Franco’s kitchen, both appear to be on the inner half of the plate. The same goes for his second home run of the spring and—though the camera angles are less than ideal—seemingly his first, fifth and sixth home runs as well.

Admittedly, it’s hard to tell the exact location of each of the pitches Franco took for a ride without the help of PITCHf/x. But to the naked eye, it sure seems like he’s upped his power potential against inside pitches from “very little” to “a whole lot.”

And our eyes may not be deceiving us. August Fagerstrom of FanGraphs took a closer look at one of Franco’s dingers off Zimmermann and noticed a slight difference in his swing. Relative to a swing at a similar pitch in 2015, Franco did a better job of keeping his hands tucked to his body, effectively shortening his swing.

That is, Franco may now be doing a thing that will help him do a thing that he wasn’t so good at before. This is what us baseball folk call an “adjustment,” and they sometimes lead to greatness.

Just what kind of greatness could we see from Franco in 2016? Let’s allow Jayson Stark of ESPN.com to give us an idea.

“I had a scout predict to me that if he plays 130 games this year, he will hit 35 home runs,” Stark said on a recent podcast (via Joe Giglio of NJ Advance Media).

That would be a case of Franco drastically outplaying his projections for 2016. At FanGraphs, neither Steamer nor ZiPS sees more than 25 home runs in Franco’s immediate future. At Baseball Prospectus, PECOTA thinks the same.

But the scout who Stark spoke to isn’t off his rocker. Franco teased 25-30 home run potential in 2015 even despite the sizable hole in his power stroke. If he has indeed closed that hole, an extra five to 10 home runs sound about right.

And if Franco can manage that, we’re going to be looking at quite the hitter.

There aren’t many hitters who can regularly put the ball in play and whack the daylights out of the ball. The members of that club are hitters like Edwin Encarnacion, Jose Bautista, David Ortiz, Nolan Arenado, Anthony Rizzo and Albert Pujols. Franco appears to have what he needs to gain entry in 2016.

When it happens, we won’t be able to say we didn’t see it coming. When a guy is having the kind of spring Franco is having, it’s hard to miss.

 

Regular-season stats courtesy of Baseball-Reference.com and FanGraphs unless otherwise noted/linked. Spring training stats courtesy of MLB.com.

 

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Planning the Perfect Philadelphia Phillies Rebuild After July Sell-Off

OK, now the Philadelphia Phillies can get serious about rebuilding.

When they finally set their minds on doing so last winter, they were making a decision that was long overdue. Old, expensive players bogged down their roster, and their farm system was widely considered to be one of baseball’s worst. Clearly, it was going to take time to get the club’s rebuild on the right track.

Or not, as it turns out.

Over the winter, the Phillies bolstered their farm system by trading Antonio Bastardo, Jimmy Rollins and Marlon Byrd. During this year’s trade-deadline swap meet, they further bolstered their farm by dealing Cole Hamels, Jonathan Papelbon and Ben Revere.

So, that old, expensive roster? It’s not so old and expensive anymore. And that fledgling farm system? MLB.com’s Todd Zolecki notes that it’s looking pretty good:

Including the prospects the Phillies received in December…they have added 12 Minor League players to the organization in the past seven months, including 10 that rank among the Top 24 in their system and three in the Top 69 in baseball, according to MLBPipeline.com.

As general manager Ruben Amaro Jr. said: “You’ve got to give quality to get quality. We think we did that.”

He’s not wrong, you know. And now that Amaro has what he needs to proceed, he could end the Phillies’ rebuild in short order.

But rather than wait to see how that pans out, let’s use our imagination and chart what would be the perfect rebuilding course going forward.

To do so, we’ll imagine when the Phillies’ best young talent will arrive in the majors. We’ll also imagine which players the Phillies could bring in from outside the organization. And we’ll assume there’s a sense of urgency at play, with a goal in mind to put a legit contender on the field by 2018.

Mind you, for brevity’s sake, we’ll have to paint with broad strokes. And in the interest of full disclosure, your humble narrator admits that he is not Nostradamus. Odds are, what the Phillies end up trotting out in 2018 will look decidedly different from what’s about to be dreamed up in this space.

But if you’re in the mood for a fantasy with at least a hint of plausibility, read on.

 

2015 Winter and 2016 Season

One thing the Phillies can look forward to this winter is a whole bunch of money coming off the books. In Cliff Lee and Chase Utley alone, $40 million is about to vanish from Philly’s payroll.

But though Philadelphia could use this as an excuse to go wild in free agency, it shouldn’t. With multiyear free-agent contracts, you can really only count on getting good value in the short term. The Phillies won’t be ready to take such risks just yet.

Instead, they should take a page out of the textbook for Rebuilding 101 and stockpile cheap veterans looking for an opportunity to turn their careers around, with the idea being to hope they can do just that before they’re flipped for young talent in midseason trades.

On this front, a top pursuit could be current Washington Nationals shortstop Ian Desmond, who could be open to spending his age-30 season rebuilding his value at a hitter-friendly home like Citizens Bank Park. Elsewhere, players such as Matt Joyce, Steve Pearce, Bobby Parnell and Bud Norris could also be open to rebuilding their value in Philly.

As the 2016 campaign goes along, whether these players can attract the attention of other clubs during trade season will be one of the top storylines in Philadelphia. The honor of the top storyline, however, will belong to the club’s growing youth movement.

In 22-year-old third baseman Maikel Franco, 23-year-old center fielder Odubel Herrera, 22-year-old right-hander Aaron Nola and 24-year-old right-hander Ken Giles, the Phillies are poised to move into 2016 with four quality young building blocks. By the end of the year, they could add five more to the big league club.

Those would be all-around shortstop J.P. Crawford, multitalented left fielder Nick Williams, slugging catcher Jorge Alfaro, power right-hander Jake Thompson and ground-ball-magnet right-hander Zach Eflin. MLB.com pegs them as five of the Phillies’ top 10 prospects, and Crawford (No. 6), Thompson (No. 60), Williams (No. 64) and Alfaro (No. 69) are also considered to be four of the best prospects in all of baseball. And of those five names, four are virtual locks to debut in the majors before the end of 2016.

The one wild card is Alfaro, as he’ll be ready next season only if his defense catches up with his offense. What the Phillies could and should do, however, is shorten Alfaro‘s path to the majors by converting him into a right fielder. It’s a position that would take it easier on his surgically repaired left ankle and would be a better fit for his bat, his plus arm strength and his strong overall athleticism

If all goes well—and remember, you’re playing along here—the 2016 season will see the Phillies establish an impressive core of young players while also replenishing their farm system’s ranks by making more trades. Throw in a bottom-10 record that would ensure top-draft-pick protection, and the Phillies’ 2016 season will have been successful without being too successful.

After all, the real work would still only be getting started.

 

2016 Winter and 2017 Season

After waving goodbye to a chunk of payroll following the 2015 campaign, the Phillies are due to watch even more money come off the books after 2016 with Ryan Howard and Carlos Ruiz’s contracts likely ending (both have team options).

Once they’re gone, the Phillies will be in a very strong position to advance their rebuild. They’ll have a solid core of young players in place, tons of payroll flexibility and a gigantic $2.5 billion TV contract with which to make the most of that flexibility.

Time to go to town in free agency? To the extent that a seemingly weak free-agent class will allow, yes.

A top priority should be signing an impact bat to go with the club’s gaggle of young position players. To this end, Philly should target the speed, power and defense of center fielder Carlos Gomez. It’ll take a lot of money to sign him, but that won’t be a problem. And as Business Insider can show, the relatively small amount of fair territory for Gomez to cover at CBP could be a deal-maker for both sides.

As a bonus, signing Gomez could be a way to kill two birds with one stone. The Phillies could use his acquisition as an excuse to move Herrera from center field back to second base, which could be quite the defensive upgrade. Whereas Herrera is nothing special in center field, Baseball America notes that he was named the best defensive second baseman in the Texas League in 2014.

After Gomez, the Phillies could move on an impact starter to flesh out their rotation. But since they should want nothing to do with the flimsy health and inconsistent production of Stephen Strasburg or Andrew Cashner, they should instead settle for upgrading their bullpen with one of the market’s elite closers. That list is set to include Aroldis Chapman, Greg Holland, Drew Storen and Kenley Jansen.

Of those options, Jansen would be a good choice for a multiyear contract. Whereas the others could see their success fade as their velocity does, Jansen’s Mariano Rivera-esque cutter is his ticket to age like, well, Mariano Rivera.

After adding Gomez and Jansen, the Phillies should next look to add a replacement catcher for Ruiz. Signing Jason Castro for his elite framing skills and ability to handle pitchers would be the easy option. But he’ll be on the wrong side of 30 and with an iffy injury history.

If the Phillies are going to think defense first for Ruiz’s replacement, they’d be better off targeting somebody younger in a trade. With this in mind, here’s a name: 23-year-old Christian Vazquez.

Though he only played in 55 games with the Boston Red Sox as a rookie in 2014, that was all Vazquez needed to establish himself as an other-worldly pitch-framer and running-game manager. Tommy John surgery has put his career on hold, but 2016 should see him re-establish himself as a valuable asset.

But he’s also likely to be an expendable asset, as Blake Swihart is widely considered Boston’s catcher of the future. If that future materializes more solidly in 2016 than it has in 2015, the Red Sox are likely to be open to shopping Vazquez. With what should still be a good farm system, the Phillies will have the pieces to deal if it comes to that.

With Gomez, Jansen and Vazquez joining the budding young core the Phillies established in 2016, the 2017 season would figure to be their first big step back toward relevance. 

And the following winter, it would be time to close the gap.

 

2017 Winter and 2018 Season

Though the Phillies will have spent big on free agents in the winter of 2016, they should still have plenty of payroll flexibility and revenue for another splurge after 2017.

This is good, because that winter’s free-agent class is shaping up to be a doozy that could help the Phillies fill their remaining needs.

One of those would be at first base, where the Phillies would still need an heir for Howard. Fortunately for them, their options on the open market are due to include Eric Hosmer, Brandon Belt and Lucas Duda. Between the three, Hosmer makes the most sense. Beyond his being the most likely of the three to actually hit free agency, he’s also the youngest (currently 25) and arguably the most well-rounded of the three.

Securing Hosmer would just leave the Phillies the need to round out their pitching staff, and the open market could help them there, too.

Among the starters poised to hit free agency after 2017 are Lance Lynn, Tyson Ross, Michael Pineda, Chris Tillman and Henderson Alvarez. Of those five, Ross would stand out due to his light workload history and how his heavy emphasis on ground balls and strikeouts would play at CBP.

After Ross, another welcome addition would be a power left-hander to pair with Jansen and Giles in the bullpen. As it happens, Jake McGee and his power fastball are set to hit the market that winter. He’d be a perfect option to round out the back end of the Phillies bullpen.

With Hosmer, Ross and McGee aboard, the Phillies would need just one more thing: a tried-and-true ace to join Ross, Nola, Thompson and Eflin in their rotation. And since we’re imagining the Phillies’ “perfect” rebuild, let’s talk about Sonny Gray.

Oakland A’s assistant general manager David Forst recently said (h/t Joe Stiglich of CSN Bay Area) that Gray is the closest thing the A’s have to an “untouchable” player. But that could change once he starts getting expensive, and that’s going to happen very soon. Gray will be eligible for arbitration for the first time after 2016 and for a second time after 2017.

By then, he could be due for too big a raise for Oakland’s pocketbooks, forcing the A’s to do their usual thing by dangling Gray on the trade market. Due to past trades and high draft picks in 2016 and 2017, the Phillies should still have enough young talent to strike a deal and bring Gray to Philadelphia.

If so, the Phillies would head into 2018 with the following roster:

After brushing up against it in 2017, the Phillies could easily take a roster like that and bring about a decisive end to their rebuild. And with it, the beginning of a new Phillies dynasty would arrive.

Or so we can imagine, anyway.

As easy as it is to picture everything falling neatly into place for them, odds are the Phillies will have to contend with numerous bumps in the road over the next couple of years. These will make putting an end to their rebuild that much tougher.

For now, though, there’s comfort to be taken in the list of possibilities for the Phillies. With their rebuild finally on the right track, it’s a long list.

 

Stats courtesy of Baseball-Reference.com and FanGraphs unless otherwise noted/linked.

If you want to talk baseball, hit me up on Twitter.

 

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Cole Hamels Struts His Stuff as List of Suitors Grows

Every start Cole Hamels makes is an audition. And with each performance, his audience appears to be growing.

If that is indeed the case, they must be liking what they’re seeing.

Hamels made his fifth start of 2015 Monday night, and it was a good one. The ace left-hander led the Philadelphia Phillies to a 4-1 victory over the St. Louis Cardinals with seven innings of one-run ball. He did allow four walks, but he also permitted just four hits and struck out nine.

That makes it three starts out of four that Hamels has pitched at least six innings while allowing no more than one earned run. His overall ERA is 3.19, which looks an awful lot like his career 3.27 ERA. If one didn’t know any better, one would say he’s still one of the best pitchers in the National League.

So, that sound you’re hearing is Phillies general manager Ruben Amaro Jr. rubbing his hands together with excitement. He has a pretty massive rebuilding job on his hands, and the guy who was supposed to be his best trade chip isn’t letting him down.

That alone would be good enough for Hamels’ trade value. But as you might have noticed, what’s helping it even further is that his list of possible suitors is growing by the day.

And at the top of the list might be the team Hamels just beat.

The Cardinals confirmed Monday that staff ace Adam Wainwright has been lost for the season with a torn Achilles. He’s a guy few pitchers are capable of replacing, and the club’s in-house options certainly fall well short in that regard. 

Because it’s still only April, the Cardinals understandably aren’t rushing to make a trade. But GM John Mozeliak did tell Rick Hummel of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch that he “might have to look outside” eventually, and it’s a good bet Hamels will be at the top of his wish list if and when that time comes.

It was reported during the winter that the Cardinals were interested in trading for Hamels, with the idea being to add a left-handed ace to their rotation. The 31-year-old’s production obviously still fits the bill, and so does his stuff. FanGraphs can vouch that Hamels’ velocity is still in the low-90s, and that his trademark changeup is once again contributing to an outstanding swinging-strike rate.

There is one complication, though. The Cardinals might be able to afford to take on the bulk of Hamels’ remaining contract—four years and at least $100 million—but Bob Nightengale of USA Today says they “don’t quite have the pieces” to satisfy the rebuilding Phillies in trade talks.

Part of that has to do with how there are at least two other major suitors whose need for Hamels has only gotten larger.

One is the Los Angeles Dodgers. They were also connected to Hamels over the winter, and they too have an injured starter that needs replacing. The club announced Monday that veteran right-hander Brandon McCarthy needs Tommy John surgery, and is done for the year.

Because the Dodgers are even shorter on in-house options than the Cardinals, what Bill Plunkett of the Orange County Register says here makes perfect sense:

The Dodgers are indeed a legit threat to land Hamels. This is yet another championship-or-bust season for them, and they have more than enough money to afford him. According to Baseball America, they also have the No. 3 farm system in the league to entice the Phillies with.

But the Boston Red Sox might be able to beat the Dodgers to the punch if they deem their need for Hamels strong enough. And the way things are going, it’s trending in that direction.

The Red Sox don’t have any major injury problems in their starting rotation. Their problem is more that the rotation itself is a problem, as the 5.84 ERA owned by Boston starters is by far the worst in baseball. They’re obliging the many skeptics who claimed the Red Sox rotation was lacking a truly reliable starter.

If the Red Sox decide Hamels can be that guy, they definitely have the means to go get him. They also have a lot of money to throw around, as well as Baseball America’s No. 2-ranked farm system. It’s been reported that the Red Sox won’t part with Mookie Betts or Blake Swihart to land Hamels, but they have plenty of other goodies they can pony up to get him.

The Cardinals, Dodgers and Red Sox were already lurking on the Hamels market before the season even began. Now it’s probably fair to say the three of them are front and center, and that any of the three could decide in the near future that having Hamels is a necessity rather than a luxury.

But they may not be alone there.

The Chicago Cubs were another team linked to Hamels over the winter, and they could still move on him with 2015 shaping up to be a return to form for the franchise. Like the Red Sox, the Baltimore Orioles, Toronto Blue Jays and Chicago White Sox are would-be contenders in need of starting pitching. Justin Verlander fell from grace in 2014 and is now dealing with a nagging arm injury, so don’t rule out the Detroit Tigers as a mystery team in the Hamels sweepstakes.

This is all music to the ears of Amaro. He was criticized during the winter for putting too high a price on Hamels, and warned by some know-it-alls that waiting to deal him during the summer was an unnecessary roll of the dice. But the way things are shaping up, it now looks like there’s a real chance his gamble will pay off.

For now, it’s unlikely anything is imminent. Prospective Hamels suitors and all other teams are still in the beta testing phases of their seasons, so it’s a bit soon for such a massive trade to go down. The Hamels waiting game will probably be resolved in weeks, not days.

But a blockbuster trade should happen eventually. With needs for Hamels’ services arising left and right and in all the right places, this is a scenario that’s seemingly been upgraded from an “if” to a “when.”

Assuming, of course, that Hamels can keep nailing his auditions.

 

Note: Stats courtesy of Baseball-Reference unless otherwise noted/linked.

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Are the Phillies Being Foolish in Stalling Cole Hamels Trade?

You might have noticed that the Cole Hamels Trade Countdown is stuck. It seemed to be steadily ticking down for a while there, but the Philadelphia Phillies have pushed the pause button.

And not by accident. They appear to have a plan. It’s whether they have a good plan that’s the question.

Though Jim Salisbury of CSNPhilly.com reported two weeks ago that the Phillies were in “staredowns” with four teams in trade talks for Hamels, general manager Ruben Amaro Jr. told Jake Kaplan of The Philadelphia Inquirer last week that he expects the ace left-hander “to be in our uniform, frankly.”

As for why Amaro doesn’t foresee a trade, he didn’t bother arguing that Hamels can help the Phillies win in 2015. Evidently, he understands the Phillies are a bad team that is now undergoing an overdue rebuild.

Rather, here’s the real deal: “That said, he’s one of the best pitchers in baseball. And so, if we were to move him, we’re going to have to get some of the best prospects in baseball back.”

So it goes. Amaro‘s asking price has been rumored to be super-high from the start, and there are reports out from Rob Bradford of WEEI.com and Ken Rosenthal of Fox Sports that say rival executives perceive Amaro‘s asking price to be too high.

Which is a fair gripe. Though Hamels has been one of the National League‘s best pitchers in recent seasons, he’s also 31 and is still owed somewhere between $100 and $120 million over the next four to five years. I figure he’s worth only one top prospect on top of his remaining contract, which clearly isn’t the deal Amaro has in mind.

You can call it stubbornness, but here’s guessing “patience” is the word Amaro prefers. He’s apparently decided that he’s better off waiting for teams to come to him rather than stooping to go to them.

And in fairness, one need not be Spock to see the logic in that idea.

For Amaro to get the offer he wants for Hamels, he needs leverage. To get leverage, he needs more desperate buyers.

That nobody seems desperate now has much to do with timing. The winter has reached the point where rosters are largely set, and teams are more or less ready for the season. A sellers’ market, this is not.

But it may not be long before Amaro has a desperate team or two knocking on his door. It’s generally accepted that spring training is meaningless, but take it from Amaro‘s boss that it has been known to change teams’ minds.

“It’s funny. In this game, things change,” Phillies President and CEO Pat Gillick told MLB.com’s Todd Zolecki. “People are not in the mood to do something, then they go to Spring Training and all of a sudden…they realize they want to be competitive and want to do something. A lot of this maybe will shake out in Spring Training. I’d look for probably more interest in a lot of our players come Spring Training.”

It’s not unthinkable that a team will get midway through spring training, suddenly have second thoughts about its rotation and decide to get serious about Hamels. The injury bug could also steer teams toward him, just as it steered the Atlanta Braves toward Ervin Santana last spring.

And if the demand for Hamels doesn’t heat up this spring, it could always heat up during the season.

As FanGraphs‘ Jeff Sullivan explained at Fox Sports:

The big upside is this: during the year, wins are valued more highly than they are during the offseason. … During the year, teams know more about their quality and place in the standings than they know in December or January. Also, there are just fewer pieces available, especially in this era with additional wild cards, where it’s easier than ever to believe your team’s in contention. The trade deadline makes for a good seller’s market.

If their plan is to open the season with Hamels, these things bode well for the Phillies.

Also, Hamels is only going to get cheaper. More and more money will be chipped off his $23.5 million salary for 2015 as the season moves along. And if he’s still available next winter, prospective buyers would be looking at a $76.5-94.5 million pitcher rather than a $100-120 million pitcher. 

Basically, Amaro is going by the book. He’s put a big price on Hamels’ ace status and is now playing the waiting game to hopefully strike when the iron is hot later rather than striking while the iron is cold now.

Again, you can see the logic. Just as easy to see, however, are the potential pitfalls of this plan.

For starters, there’s no guarantee that demand for Hamels will increase in spring training.

Teams may have second thoughts about their rotations or experience injuries, but expendable assets don’t conveniently increase as needs appear. And with six full months of real baseball directly ahead, it’s not the best time for teams to get desperate enough to sacrifice what assets they do have.

In theory, the Phillies stand a better chance of moving Hamels during the season, when teams know what they need and the trade market favors sellers. But in reality, 2015 is a year when the Phillies could be out of luck.

Teams are undoubtedly going to need pitching help when the trade deadline rolls around, but the point about assets not conveniently increasing when needs appear still stands. Teams are always looking to be cost conscious, which is why you hear so much about cheap rental players around the trade deadline.

And looking ahead, this summer could be teeming with rental pitchers. The list of free-agent-to-be pitchers includes: Mark Buehrle, A.J. Burnett, Bartolo Colon, Johnny Cueto, Doug Fister, Yovani Gallardo, Hisashi Iwakuma, Scott Kazmir, Ian Kennedy, John Lackey, Mat Latos, Kyle Lohse, Rick Porcello, David Price, Jeff Samardzija and Jordan Zimmermann.

Not all of those names are going to find their way to the trade block. But some of them will, and their modest prices could absolutely make it difficult for the Phillies to peddle Hamels at their price. 

And that’s a problem that could extend into the winter. It’s probable that all of those pitchers will be looking for work on the open market. In that case, the pitching supply would easily outweigh the demand and, in turn, make a huge asking price for Hamels look decidedly laughable.

All of this is to say nothing of the other issue with holding on to Hamels. Though the passing of time will indeed make his contract more affordable, it will also shorten his controllability. If teams are unwilling to meet Philadelphia’s asking price for Hamels’ four remaining years, they may be even less willing to meet a similar asking price for three and a half or three remaining years.

Then there’s the outlook of Hamels himself. He may hold ace status now, but injuries and/or a good old-fashioned decline could easily take it from him.

And with Hamels, these are real concerns.

He’s less than a year removed from arm trouble that delayed the start of his 2014 season. He also has elbow and shoulder injuries on his medical track record and probably isn’t getting any more durable now that his 31-year-old arm has over 1,800 innings on it.

If Hamels does remain healthy, the career-best 2.46 ERA he authored in 2014 strongly suggests his performance isn’t due for a step back. There are metrics that strongly suggest otherwise, however.

Per FanGraphs, Hamels had one of the largest differences between his ERA and his FIP (Fielding Independent Pitching) of any pitcher last season. Two other metrics (xFIP and SIERA) liked him even less than FIP did. Because these metrics are more useful with predicting future performance than ERA, this doesn’t bode well.

So, in a nutshell: Hamels is both an injury and a regression risk, and his trade market is poised to be clouded by a wealth of alternative options and his own ever-descending controllability.

The potential reward of holding on to Hamels is definitely there. But this is where we say that the risk appears to be stronger than the reward. And in this case, that’s our cue to say the Phillies are better off making a safe trade now than holding out for an ideal trade later.

Don’t expect the Phillies to change course, though. Amaro‘s calling the shots, and the Rosenthal report cited way back when included a note from a rival executive that Amaro might need a “perfect” trade to save his job. If true, he has nothing to gain from moving quickly and everything to gain from waiting.

What’s best for Amaro, however, may not be what’s best for the Phillies. They already have a long rebuild ahead of them, and not trading Hamels now could well make it even longer.

 

Note: Stats courtesy of Baseball-Reference.com unless otherwise noted/linked.  

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What Is Fair Trade Value for Phillies Ace Cole Hamels?

Of the attractive trade chips in the Philadelphia Phillies‘ collection, Cole Hamels is the Action Comics No. 1 of the bunch. He’s the prized possession, and the one available for the highest price. 

Or so they think. But in reality, his trade value is…well, complicated.

Granted, we don’t actually know what Phillies general manager Ruben Amaro Jr. is demanding for Hamels. But some hints have appeared on the rumor mill, with two reports in particular standing out.

In early November, Jim Salisbury of CSNPhilly.com reported that the Phillies want “at least three top prospects” for their ace left-hander. More recently, Ryan Lawrence of the Philadelphia Daily News wrote that the team had discussed a deal with the San Diego Padres centered on 2013 American League Rookie of the Year Wil Myers.

Again, these are just rumors. But they do fit with the team’s new rebuilding direction, as well as with recent remarks from manager Ryne Sandberg.

“There’s no way that Ruben’s going to just give away a player,” he said at the winter meetings, via Alex Speier of WEEI.com. “I mean, we’d have to be wowed to give up a guy like Cole Hamels, which would be a wow that would help us with the process and go in the direction that we want to go.”

Getting three top prospects for Hamels? Yeah, that would qualify as a “wow” trade. So would acquiring a guy with Myers’ talent and controllability. (He’s a free agent after 2019.) 

But regarding what Hamels is actually worth, we have to start with the elephant in the room: his contract.

The six-year, $144 million extension Hamels signed in 2012 has four years remaining on it at $23.5 million per year, plus a $6 million buyout on a $20 million option for 2019. As such, he’s owed between $100 million over four years and $114 million over five years.

For the Phillies, the ideal scenario involves moving all of that money and getting the young pieces they desire. But because young players are probably more valuable now than ever before, the Phillies’ best hope of pulling that off lies in convincing buyers that Hamels’ remaining contract is a bargain.

To this end, there’s an obvious target Amaro can point at to sell teams on the idea: Jon Lester.

A couple weeks ago, Lester signed with the Chicago Cubs for six years and $155 million. Amaro can point to that as the going rate for ace left-handers on Lester’s level.

And you know who matches that description as well as anyone? Yup. Hamels.

That Hamels and Lester were born barely a week apart 30 years ago (Lester turns 31 on January 7) helps the comparison, but it goes further. Courtesy of Baseball–Reference.com and FanGraphs, check out how Hamels and Lester stack up throughout their careers and in more recent history:

If you don’t know ERA+, that’s a version of ERA that’s adjusted for ballparks and leagues and placed on a scale of 100. Anything over 100 is above average.

So, in a nutshell: Hamels has been a slightly better pitcher throughout his career and was more or less on par with Lester in 2014. Plain old ERA says he was exactly on par, in fact, as the two southpaws pitched to 2.46 ERAs in 2014.

If you’re Amaro, this is an excuse to point out that Hamels at $23-25 million per year over the next four or five years doesn’t look so bad compared to Lester at around $26 million over the next six years. The money on Hamels’ contract represents a slight discount, with the years representing less overall risk.

However, there’s a problem. While Lester’s contract may be there as an excuse for Amaro to push for what he wants, it’s not hard for prospective buyers to push back. 

Maybe you’ve already spotted one issue with the idea of Hamels’ remaining contract being a discount next to Lester’s deal. But even if it is a discount, it’s not a very big one.

Another way to frame the conversation would be to look at the surplus value Hamels should offer over what he’s due to be paid. FanGraphs’ Jeff Sullivan did that recently, concluding that he projects to offer $23.5 million at most in surplus value. More realistically, his surplus value is in the $10-20 million range.

That’s not a lot of surplus value. Certainly not enough for three top prospects. Maybe not enough for just Myers either. Remember, these are guys who, hypothetically, are going to be really good and really cheap for several years.

So that’s one way we can knock the Hamels-Lester comparison down a peg. We can take things even further by gazing into what the future may hold.

If the Phillies do trade Hamels, his future will more than likely contain different competition. That wouldn’t necessarily be a good thing.

We once again turn to Sullivan, who looped Hamels in with Lester, Max Scherzer and James Shields and found he’s faced by far the weakest hitting opposition since 2012:

On average, since 2012, Cole Hamels has faced a bunch of Everth Cabreras. James Shields has faced a bunch of Eric Hosmers. There’s little difference between the AL guys, but Hamels is far removed. You have to assume this has worked to Hamels’ benefit.

Knowing this, the money remaining on Hamels’ contract suddenly looks like less of a bargain.

Beyond that, there’s also the matter of how Hamels is going to age. That’s where Lester once again works as a helpful comparison point, though not in a flattering way.

Though Hamels has pitched more career innings than Lester, more innings mean more mileage. Also, Baseball Prospectus’ injury records can show that Hamels has more of a history of arm and shoulder trouble than Lester. Pitchers are largely known for being injury risks, but Hamels appears to be more of one than Lester.

As for Hamels’ stuff, the above MLB Network segment trumpets his recent velocity increase in recent years as a good sign going forward. But it’s really as much of a curse as it is a blessing.

We have plenty of history that says velocity becomes harder to muster as pitchers age. Hamels’ new-found velocity should follow the trend eventually. And though he’ll still have his all-world changeup, solid curveball and cutter, he’ll have to alter his pitching style to accommodate his lost velocity.

Lester has already done that.

Whereas Hamels enjoyed a superb season with career-best velocity in 2014, Lester enjoyed his own superb season with his worst velocity since 2007. Grantland’s Shane Ryan did a fine job of breaking down how Lester did that with sudden mastery of location, movement and sequencing. 

All these things are bearing in my mind if I’m a GM eyeing Hamels. While the best-case scenario for the Phillies involves selling him as something of a Lester clone, it’s too easy to debunk the idea.

Now, one thing that could lead prospective buyers to match the Phillies’ lofty demands is leverage.

Amaro seems to think he has a lot of that. He told Bob Nightengale of USA Today in November that he feels “no pressure” and “no necessity” to move Hamels, and he’s right to a certain extent. 

Hamels is under contract for several more years, and the Phillies have more than enough funds to afford his contract. If they can’t get what they want for him this winter, they can tell teams to try again over the summer or next winter.

And yet there is risk involved with the idea of holding on to Hamels.

Beyond the usual risk of his value being hurt by an injury and/or a poor performance in 2015, there’s the specter of how many options there are going to be outside of Hamels next winter. Jordan Zimmermann, Johnny Cueto, David Price, Doug Fister and assorted others are set to be free agents. 

In the meantime, clubs in need of an ace this winter have the option of spending money on Scherzer or Shields rather than giving the Phillies money and talent for Hamels. To boot, the list of teams with the money and young talent required to be in the mix for Hamels is pretty short.

To make a long story short: the idea of Hamels being worth a big haul of young talent on top of his remaining contract is a stretch, and the Phillies lack the leverage to make teams meet their price. If they mean to move his entire contract and get talent back, one top prospect is a more realistic price than three top prospects or an established youngster like Myers.

Mind you, this doesn’t mean the Phillies flat-out can’t get what they want for Hamels this winter.

Because the Phillies do indeed have a lot of money, they can make like the Los Angeles Dodgers did with Matt Kemp and eat a chunk of money to enhance their return for Hamels. If they were to cover, say, $30-40 million of his remaining contract, it’s not hard to imagine them getting what they want.

We’ll see if the Phillies are willing to do that. If they are, we’ll be talking about a fair deal all around.

 

Note: Stats courtesy of Baseball-Reference.com unless otherwise noted/linked.  

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MLB Team Needs 2014: Philadelphia Phillies

You can take a look at every team in Major League Baseball right now and say, “Well, if A, B and C go right, they’re going to have a shot.”

The Philadelphia Phillies are no different…except to the extent that their list of must-go-right things doesn’t stop at just A, B and C. The list of question marks facing them heading into 2014 isn’t nearly that short.

MLB Lead Writer Zachary D. Rymer is here to talk about the big items on that list.

The production the Phillies stand to get out of two older veterans—hint: at shortstop and first base—looms particularly large, but they’re also going to need to get their starting rotation depth squared away and, perhaps most importantly, get a boost from what young talent they do have.

Leave your comments and questions below if you have any, and you’re also welcome to follow Zachary on Twitter.

 

Follow Zachary @zachrymer

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Shoulder Surgery Could Be Just What the Doctor Ordered for Roy Halladay

Baseball has finally done it. It’s finally broken Roy Halladay.

And that may not be such a bad thing, for now he can be put back together again rather than merely patched up.

If you haven’t heard the latest news, yes, Doc Halladay is indeed broken. According to the team’s official site, the Philadelphia Phillies right-hander will be going in for surgery on his right shoulder.

The bad news? Halladay, who has an 8.65 ERA in seven starts this season, is going to be out a while.

The not-so-bad news? The surgery may not be major, and the man himself thinks he has a shot to pitch again this season.

Ryan Lawrence of the Philadelphia Daily News was on the scene to collect some quotes from Halladay, who says the surgery is going to “clean up” his labrum and rotator cuff. The bigger issue is a bone spur in his shoulder that’s been causing trouble.

“They said the bone spur, the rotator cuff kept rubbing over it,” said Halladay. “And over time it gradually created more and more of a tear. They want to get that cleaned up and get that out of there.”

And now for the ideal scenario: 

And from what I understand, if they go in and see during surgery what they saw on the exams I have a chance to come back and pitch this year. I have a good chance to come back and pitch this year and hopefully be a lot more effective. They said that my range of motion will be better, my location will be better and hopefully the velocity will be better.

So it’s not a given that his shoulder surgery will be a mere clean-up. But if it is, Halladay could find himself feeling healthy again for the first time in a long time.

In essence: “[The doctor] said he thought they could turn back the clock two or three years for me.”

All bets are off as to exactly how Halladay is going to actually recover from this, mind you. But while I’m not a doctor or Will Carroll, B/R’s resident injury guru, I’m willing to believe that this surgery could indeed result in a reborn Halladay.

For one, it feels long overdue. Per FanGraphs, nobody compiled more innings than Halladay between 2006 and 2011, and he also pitched almost 20 more complete games than the next guy on the list (CC Sabathia). That’s a lot of work for a guy who went from age 29 in 2006 to age 34 in 2011.

Halladay also indicated that the docs are going in to fix some issues that have been there for a while now. He said his labrum and rotator cuff were damaged last season, in which he was on the disabled list for six weeks with shoulder issues. The only thing that might be new is the bone spur, though Halladay wasn’t certain whether or not it was also there last year.

If it was, then Halladay has basically been pitching all this time with a ticking time bomb of a shoulder. It’s certainly been volatile in the meantime, and it finally went off this month.

As Halladay noted, surgery could conceivably result in some added velocity. He could definitely use some, as I’m sure you’ve heard that his average fastball velocity is on the decline.

Here are the numbers from Baseball Info Solutions (via FanGraphs):

• 2011: 92.0 MPH
• 2012: 90.6 MPH
• 2013: 89.6 MPH

Pretty alarming stuff for a guy who threw in the 92-93 range like clockwork between 2008 and 2011.

Just as important, if not more important, is the range of motion that could be gained from surgery. That’s something that could help rescue Halladay’s arm slot, which is very much in need of rescuing. It’s quite literally going down.

The best place to get a glimpse at how much Halladay’s arm slot has dropped is over at BrooksBaseball.net. I’m not supposed to post any of their graphs here, but do yourself a favor and check out the release point plots from three separate starts.

The first: Halladay’s outing against the St. Louis Cardinals in the 2011 NLDS.

The second: Halladay’s outing against the Atlanta Braves last Sept. 22.

The third: Halladay’s most recent outing against the Miami Marlins on May 5.

It’s important to note that all three of these starts were at Citizens Bank Park, meaning we’re talking about the same mound being in play. 

Now, line up the release point plots for those outings up in three separate tabs and scroll through them real quick. What you’ll see is a noticeable drop. Halladay has drifted from an over-the-top release to more of a three-quarter release.

Want actual visuals? Very well.

Here’s a screenshot from Halladay’s start against the Cardinals in 2011:

And here’s one from his start against the Marlins a couple days ago:

See the difference?

No? Alright then, here’s a look at these two images crudely mashed together:

I lined these up as best I could. It’s obviously not a 100 percent accurate overlay, but you can see that the pitching rubber and Halladay’s legs are about in the same spot while his arm is way off. That gives you an idea of how much his release point has dropped in a period of less than two years.

What sort of effect has Halladay’s lowered arm slot had on his pitching?

The biggest would probably be on his control. Halladay’s Zone%—the percentage of pitches he’s thrown inside the strike zone as calculated by Baseball Info Solutions—has gone like so since 2011:

• 2011: 46.7
• 2012: 42.3
• 2013: 43.5

Better this year, but still pretty far off from where Halladay was in 2011, a year in which he had a 2.35 ERA over 233.2 innings.

Not surprisingly, Halladay’s overall strike percentage has gone down as well. Courtesy of Baseball-Reference.com:

• 2011: 69
• 2012: 67
• 2013: 59

Halladay has gone from being one of the best strike-throwers in the business to being, well, not one of the best strike-throwers in the business. It’s fair to blame his declining arm slot for that.

Again, it must be understood that Halladay’s shoulder surgery may not be so minor. That depends on what the docs see when they actually go in with their tools and whatnot. And even if the surgery is minor, it shouldn’t be taken for granted that Halladay is going to enjoy the benefits he’s been told he could enjoy.

But if things go according to plan, then Halladay will be a good pitcher again. He won’t automatically return to being one of the game’s elite hurlers, but there’s not a pitcher in baseball who can’t at least be effective with good velocity and good location.

Here’s hoping. I know he’s not going to be able to pitch forever, but I don’t believe I’ve had my fill of good Halladay pitching just yet.

 

If you want to talk baseball, hit me up on Twitter. 

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Would Dodger-Like TV Megadeal Save the Phillies, Restore Juggernaut Status?

The Philadelphia Phillies are a dying powerhouse, but they could soon find themselves celebrating a major victory off the field that could, in turn, make them winners on the field again.

You can count on the major victory part happening, but the whole “make them winners on the field again” part is another story.

According to Jeff Passan of Yahoo! Sports, there’s some buzz going on about the Phillies’ next local television contract. Their current deal with Comcast expires at the end of 2015, meaning they’re very much in line for a new deal very soon.

Given their status as one of baseball’s premier franchises, the Phillies’ next deal is sure to be a big one, perhaps so big as to put them in Los Angeles Dodgers territory.

Meaning billions. Not one. Not two. But several billions.

What’s more, Fox Sports is out there waiting to give Comcast a run for their money. There could be a bidding war for the rights to show Phillies games on the tube.

“And they want Philadelphia,” a source told Passan of Fox. “They got the Yankees [by buying a share of the YES Network], which helps. They’re not going to have the Red Sox. They’re not going to have the Mets. They want another East Coast team.”

So…How much money are we talking here?

Matt Gelb of the Philadelphia Inquirer wrote about the situation last year and threw a number out there: $5 billion. But this was before the Dodgers arranged their $7 billion TV contract, as well as before News Corp struck a deal with the YES Network. 

So $5 billion now sounds a bit conservative. A $6 billion TV deal is more like it. A $7 billion TV deal to match the Dodgers should not be counted out.

Exactly how much TV money the Phillies are raking in per year now isn’t clear, but Wendy Thurm of FanGraphs put it at $35 million per year last November. That’s nothing compared to the potential hundreds of millions the Phillies could be raking in per year in a few seasons.

This amount of money would more than make up for any attendance revenue on which the Phillies may be missing out, which is a legit issue these days. Attendance at Citizens Bank Park is way down in 2013, and Matt Gelb crunched the numbers and determined the Phillies could be missing out on $25 million just in ticket revenue.

Beyond that, so much TV money would allow the Phillies to maintain a high payroll. That’s important seeing as how, you know, it’s hard to imagine the team without one.

Per Cot’s Baseball Contracts, the Phillies have had an Opening Day payroll north of $110 million every year since 2009. They’ve been north of $150 million the last three years, and could surely go north of $200 million once they get their new TV deal squared away.

For all the money the Phillies have spent since 2009, however, they’ve only gotten one trip to the World Series out of it. For all the money they could spend in the future, they first have to decide what sort of direction they want to go in.

As to that…well, shoot. Place your bets.

Not even general manager Ruben Amaro Jr. knows where the Phillies are headed. In a talk with Jon Morosi of FoxSports.com last week, Amaro admitted that he’s not sure what’s going to happen over the next four months, much less next year. He knows his club is headed towards a crossroads.

“We’re going to have to turn left or right. We have to decide,” said Amaro.

One direction means staying the course, which means not selling veterans like Roy Halladay, Chase Utley, Michael Young and Carlos Ruiz at the trade deadline and then going from there when the offseason arrives. The other direction means blowing it all up and going young.

Which, of course, is the non-euphemistic way of saying “rebuilding.”

The Phillies are knocking on that door. According to Baseball-Reference.com, their offense is the third-oldest in baseball. Their pitching staff is also the third-oldest in baseball. Thus far, their aging roster has compiled a 12-15 record that puts them well behind the youthful Atlanta Braves and slightly behind a youthful Washington Nationals team that is much better than it’s shown.

Halladay, Utley, Young and Ruiz will be free agents at the end of the season. Charlie Manuel’s contract is also running out. Cliff Lee, Cole Hamels and Ryan Howard will be sticking around, but only the first two are still stars. If the Phillies do end up falling out of the race, it’s not hard to imagine Lee and his contract finding their way to the block.

So yeah, this is certainly a team ripe for a roster blowup and subsequent reboot. It just seems to be a matter of when, not if Amaro is going to give the go-ahead to make it happen.

A quick rebuild could happen Red Sox-style, a notion proposed by Morosi that seemed to intrigue Amaro. 

The Red Sox cleared a bunch of payroll with last August’s trade with the Dodgers. The Phillies could do that by dealing their veterans at the deadline, or they could just hang onto them and hope to make a few qualifying offers at the end of the season. Then they would just have to use their newfound payroll space wisely.

The Red Sox did that by collecting short-term contracts that won’t bog them down several years from now. By the time these contracts are over, the Red Sox will have graduated some talented players from the minors. They could then augment their young core by spending big again. Badda-bing, badda-boom.

This is where things get tricky for the Phillies, however. They can manage the short-term contracts part, but making like the Red Sox would require a commitment to rebuilding their farm system over the next few years. 

The Phillies are not without talented youngsters, but their system as a whole is lacking. Heading into the season, Baseball America ranked Philly’s farm system 24th in MLB. ESPN’s Keith Law (Insider post) put it at No. 27.

The Phillies are going to have to make a commitment to rebuilding up their farm system to what it was a few years back. Let’s not forget that the system gave the big club three superstars in Howard, Utley and Hamels and provided the trade chips that brought guys like Halladay and Hunter Pence to Philly.

If the farm system continues to be neglected, the Phillies will be forced to rely on their money to keep the wins coming. Even with an influx of new TV revenue, that’s not going to be an easy thing to do. 

Buying up free agents is going to be an option, but there are only going to be so many good ones available. In this age of long-term extensions, fewer and fewer stars are going to hit free agency in their primes.

We’ve also seen that even the ones who do hit free agency in their primes are likely to provide only a couple of good years before fading. Trying to build a long-term contender strictly with free agents is a fool’s errand.

The Phillies’ TV riches could also be used to orchestrate trades with teams looking to dump high-priced players they no longer want, like the Dodgers did with the Red Sox last year and the Toronto Blue Jays did with the Miami Marlins over the winter. That would be one way for them to land slightly younger star players, which would be nice.

What’s easy to overlook about those deals, however, is that the Dodgers and Blue Jays had to surrender some quality young players. Taking on money wasn’t enough. For the Phillies to pull off deals like that, they’re going to need a strong reservoir of young players from which to draw, which of course leads back to the farm-system conundrum.

Money is good. Money can cure many ills in baseball, and it’s certainly better to have it than to not have it. But it only translates into wins if the baseball people are making good decisions, and the size of the accompanying check is not the measure of a “good” baseball decision.

So I’m not about to draw a straight line between the Phillies signing a massive TV contract and them returning to juggernaut/perennial World Series-contender status. To borrow from South Park, the progression here is more like:

• Phase 1: Sign TV contract
• Phase 2: ?
• Phase 3: Win World Series

With or without the hundreds of millions in TV money, Phase 2 is going to be a doozy. 

 

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