Charlie Morton Injury: Updates on Phillies SP’s Hamstring and Recovery

Philadelphia Phillies right-hander Charlie Morton will miss the remainder of the season after suffering a hamstring injury on April 23.   

Continue for updates.

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Morton Out for 6-8 Months

Wednesday, April 27

The Phillies announced that Morton’s MRI revealed a torn left hamstring that will keep him out for six to eight months. 

MLB.com provided video of Morton’s injury, which occurred after he laid down a sacrifice bunt in the top of the second inning against the Milwaukee Brewers:

The loss of Morton is a huge blow to the Phillies, who are rebuilding and have a collection of starting pitchers trying to rebuild their value (Jeremy Hellickson) or establish themselves in the big leagues (Aaron Nola and Vincent Velasquez).

Morton was in the former category, coming off a bad 2015 in which he posted a 4.81 ERA in 23 starts with the Pittsburgh Pirates. He could have been a potential trade chip for the Phillies this summer as a back-end starter who is only making $8 million with a mutual option for 2017.

Even with lowered expectations in Philadelphia as the team starts to build for its future, Morton’s injury will alter plans for the Phillies this year. 

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Phillies’ Dominant Young Rotation Could Be Catalyst for Surprise Year

Watch your backs, opposing hitters. There’s a gang of gunslingers in the National League East, and they’ve got their sights aimed at you.

We’re not talking about the New York Mets, though their starting rotation is indeed sterling despite some early hiccups.

No, we’re going to sing the praises of the Philadelphia Phillies.

Perhaps you’re wiping coffee off your screen after a cinematic spit take. These are the Phillies, after all, the club that lost 99 games last season. The former juggernaut that collapsed under the weight of its expensive, fading veterans and appeared destined for a painful, protracted rebuild.

It’s early. No one is anointing the Phils as NL favorites. But, largely on the strength of its arms, Philadelphia could exceed expectations and give a hope-starved fanbase something besides cheese steaks to chew on. 

It begins with Vincent Velasquez, acquired this winter in the trade that sent closer Ken Giles to the Houston Astros. 

Even after taking the loss in the Mets’ 11-1 drubbing of the Phillies on Tuesday, the 23-year-old right-hander owns a minuscule 0.93 ERA. Overall, he’s surrendered 11 hits and two earned runs over 19.1 innings with 29 strikeouts.

He made franchise history in his second start of the season, a complete-game shutout against the San Diego Padres, per ESPN Stats & Info:

“It looks like we made a pretty good trade,” Phillies manager Pete Mackanin said after that game, per MLB.com’s Todd Zolecki and AJ Cassavell.

Speaking of trade acquisitions, Jerad Eickhoff—acquired from the Texas Rangers in the Cole Hamels deal—has posted a 1.89 ERA with 21 strikeouts in 19 innings. 

Eickhoff doesn’t overpower with high-90s heat, but he throws a plus curveball that catcher Cameron Rupp said the 25-year-old right-hander will “live and die on,” per Matt Breen of the Philadelphia Inquirer. 

Then there’s 22-year-old Aaron Nola, a first-round pick by the Phils in 2014. Nola has given up 12 earned runs in 19 innings and owns a 0-2 record, but he’s also compiled an impressive 23 strikeouts. 

Add 29-year-old Jeremy Hellickson, who’s struck out 14 in 14.2 innings over three starts, and you’ve got the makings of a special group.

In 2011, the Phillies featured a vaunted super-rotation that included Roy Halladay, Cliff Lee, Roy Oswalt and Hamels. That team, not coincidentally, won 102 games.

The 2016 starting five is a long, long way from matching that rotation’s track record. We’re still squarely in small-sample territory.

Last season, though, everyone assumed the Washington Nationals would run away with the NL East. Then the Mets crashed the party, largely on the strength of their burgeoning arms. 

Plus, 2015 witnessed two other youthful squads—the Astros and Chicago Cubs—arrive ahead of schedule. 

There’s no guarantee the Phillies will follow suit. They’re 6-9 entering play Wednesday, after all.

But marry that promising pitching to an offense led by third baseman and emerging star Maikel Franco, and suddenly it’s plausible to picture the Phils as something other than division doormats.

Sure, you can inject a dose of pessimism.

That same offense entered Wednesday second-to-last in baseball with a .211 average. 

It’s entirely possible these young pitchers could slip—like so many others have—as the league inevitably adjusts. Eickhoff and Hellickson, in particular, lack the pedigree to stand credibly in the can’t-miss category.

Then again, Phils starters have opened 2016 with a head-turning output, as NJ Advance Media’s Joe Giglio explained:

Heading into play on April 15, the Phillies rotation owned the following numbers: 10.71 SO/9, 1.71 BB/9 and a 2.14 ERA.

Here’s some perspective on just how ridiculous those numbers are. In the entire history of baseball, only 12 individual seasons have ever happened where a starter had at least 10 SO/9, 2-or-less BB/9 and an ERA under 3.00. Martinez (1999, 2000 and 2002) and ex-Phillies great Curt Schilling (2001, 2002, 2003) are the only pitchers to do it three separate times.

Schilling’s name has been evoked, which means we’re getting serious.

Possibly, we’re getting too serious too soon. The list of pitchers who have wowed for a few starts and then fizzled is too extensive to repeat here.

The Phillies, though, have a good thing going. The potential is palpable. Their gunslingers are lined up.

Now, it’s time to see how hard—and fast—they can squeeze the trigger.

 

All statistics current as of April 19 and courtesy of MLB.com unless otherwise noted.

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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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Phillies Rule 5 LHP Daniel Stumpf Suspended 80 Games for Positive Test

Philadelphia Phillies relief pitcher Daniel Stumpf was suspended 80 games Thursday for his first violation of Major League Baseball’s policy against performance-enhancing drugs.

The Phillies released a statement following the suspension and made a corresponding roster move:

According to ESPN’s Jayson Stark, Stumpf tested positive for the anabolic steroid dehydrochlormethyltestosterone.

The 25-year-old lefty was a Rule 5 draft pick of the Phils from the Kansas City Royals, which means he must remain on Philadelphia’s 25-man roster for the entire season or else the Royals will have the opportunity to reclaim his rights.

Stumpf has allowed three earned runs over 0.2 innings in three appearances so far this season for an ERA of 40.50.

The Humble, Texas, native is a former ninth-round pick of the Royals, and he was among the Phillies’ only left-handed options in the bullpen.

While the Phillies are off to a surprisingly decent start at 4-5, they are expected to be among the league’s worst teams in 2016, which somewhat softens the blow of losing a player of Stumpf’s ilk.

Even if Philadelphia manages to exceed expectations and remain in the race, though, Stumpf isn’t a significant piece of the puzzle to lose for 80 games.

He is extremely inexperienced at the major league level, and while he has just three appearances to his credit, he has been battered by opposing hitters thus far.

Most importantly, Stumpf’s suspension could put his spot on the Phillies’ roster in jeopardy, as there is no guarantee the Phils will have a place for him when he returns to action in a few months.

 

Follow @MikeChiari on Twitter.

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Will Venable to Phillies: Latest Contract Details, Comments and Reaction

Will Venable didn’t have to wait long to find a new team. One day after the Cleveland Indians announced they released the 33-year-old outfielder, he reportedly agreed to a minor league deal with the Philadelphia Phillies on Monday, per MLB.com’s Todd Zolecki and CSNPhilly.com’s Jim Salisbury.  

The Phillies confirmed the deal on Twitter.

In 135 games with the San Diego Padres and Texas Rangers in 2015, Venable hit .244 with six home runs, 33 runs batted in and 16 stolen bases.

The Philadelphia Inquirer‘s Matt Gelb posited Venable could be a good platoon option in right field with right-handed bat Tyler Goeddel. Historically, Venable is a much better hitter against right-handed pitching than he is against lefties, per Baseball-Reference.com:

Despite his struggles over the past two seasons, Venable can still be a valuable member of an MLB outfield, especially if he’s splitting time and not playing every day.

He ranked 25th in FanGraphs’ baserunning metric among hitters with at least 350 plate appearances in 2015. Not only is Venable a threat to steal, he can also advance an extra base on base hits on occasion. In addition, he will help Philadelphia defensively, especially given his ability to play all three outfield positions.

The Phillies almost certainly aren’t going to be a playoff contender in 2016. PECOTA projects them to win an MLB-worst 66 games, per Baseball Prospectus. Adding Venable won’t make them contenders overnight, but he’ll add depth to the outfield and provide security in the event Goeddel struggles in the majors.

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Pete Mackanin, Phillies Agree to New Contract: Latest Details and Reaction

The Philadelphia Phillies announced on Friday they have signed manager Pete Mackanin to a new two-year contract for the 2016 and 2017 seasons. 

The deal also includes a club option for the 2018 season and replaces the contract Mackanin signed back in September 2015, per the team. 

Mackanin, who was originally the team’s third-base coach, took over the Phillies manager job in the final 88 games of the 2015 season after Ryne Sandberg resigned in June. 

He went 37-51 with a young, inexperienced team that began the year 26-48 and were already 15.5 games behind the first-place Washington Nationals at the time of Sandberg’s resignation. 

The small improvement in winning percentage didn’t do much for the Phillies, who ended the season with a league-worst 63-99 record. 

His side was made up of either inexperienced youngsters or veterans on their last legs. Five of Philadelphia’s starters in the field were 25 or younger, while the likes of 37-year-old Carlos Ruiz and 36-year-old Ryan Howard didn’t hit over .229. 

The Phillies’ pitching staff didn’t help, either, with a team ERA of 4.69. Only the Colorado Rockies had a worse mark than that. 

Mackanin will once again have to deal with a team that is trying to rebuild with young talent, such as third baseman Maikel Franco and starting pitcher Aaron Nola, in a National League East that looks to be dominated by the New York Mets and Nationals. 

With expectations low around Philadelphia for the 2016 season, Mackanin will have an opportunity to surprise some people in baseball if he manages his Phillies to some success. 

 

Stats courtesy of Baseball-Reference.com.

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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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Mark Appel Finally at Peace with No. 1 Pick Burden, Fighting for MLB Future

CLEARWATER, Fla. — Mark Appel knows all too well the answer to this baseball brainteaser: “Who was the lone player taken before 2015 National League Rookie of the Year Kris Bryant in the 2013 MLB draft?”

Appel was that No. 1 overall pick, chosen by his hometown Houston Astros out of Stanford. Thirty-three months after being selected ahead of Bryant and everyone else in that draft, he has yet to throw a major league pitch.

His stat page on Baseball-Reference.com reads like an atlas of minor league flyover country—Tri-City, Lancaster, Quad Cities, Salt River, Corpus Christi and Fresno.  

He has a 5.12 ERA in 253 minor league innings across four time zones.

All of it—the status and hype given to a top pick, the $6.35 million signing bonus, the pressure of being taken by the team you supported as a kid, the assumption of surefire stardom—has been equally a “blessing and a burden” for Appel. 

“Not many people can identify with you, especially when things don’t go well. It’s hard to describe what that feeling is like. You have these ridiculous expectations. And I don’t want my expectations dependent on what some team paid for me,” Appel told Bleacher Report.

“I look back and think, That was a dream. That didn‘t happen. It’s difficult to believe sometimes. You see how far you had to come just to get to that point, especially in times of struggle, and it shows how hard you can still go knowing you can accomplish your goals and dreams with hard work and effort.”

Appel was traded with four other pitchers (including Vincent Velasquez and Brett Oberholtzer) from Houston to Philadelphia for closer Ken Giles and shortstop Jonathan Arauz on December 12.

General manager Jeff Luhnow once called drafting and signing Appel “the most significant investment the Astros have made in their history in an amateur player” and added “we believe it’s going to be a long-term relationship.” 

Fast-forward to this offseason, and Luhnow was explaining his rationale in dealing Appel to the Houston Chronicle’s Evan Drellich. “When you draft a player high in the draft, you expect him to contribute in the big leagues, and he hasn’t done that yet because he hasn’t had a chance … There’s no question that he has value, otherwise we wouldn’t be acquiring Ken Giles in return for him.”

Any dream of Appel playing for his hometown team as its premier prospect had been—somewhat mercifully—extinguished with that deal. 

“It hurt being traded, for sure,” he said. “It felt like I let the Astros down and myself down. I had made so many friendships there, too. It was sad leaving some of those guys.”

It was the latest starting point in a pro baseball career that has been marked by anything but consistency. 

“I’ve experienced the highest of highs and the lowest of lows,” he said. “Are you kidding me? If you told me just a year after being the No. 1 pick overall, I’d be sitting in High-A in the California League with a 10.80 ERA halfway through the season, I wouldn’t have believed it.”

Appel‘s voice and demeanor lack any trace of anger. He is relaxed and resolute when discussing his past and future.

His selection came just one year after the Indianapolis Colts used the No. 1 overall NFL pick on fellow Stanford Cardinal Andrew Luck in 2012.

Appel shared a few physics classes with Luck on Stanford’s campus. They both get paid to throw objects right-handed to a teammate with accuracy.

That’s where their professional similarities end. Luck is already a star. Appel just wants to earn his shot.

He begins 2016 with Triple-A Lehigh Valley. At 6’5″ and 220 pounds, he has the physical tools to be fiercely dominant. His fastball tops out in the upper 90s, and he flashes a plus slider and a changeup. 

Dan Farnsworth of FanGraphs recently wrote of Appel: “The problem is a general lack of feel, consistency and true command that makes his fastball too straight and hittable, the shape and location of his slider too unreliable and his changeup too straight.”

In his first spring camp, Appel was recovering from an appendectomy. He threw just one inning. Last year, he was able to pitch routinely but was limited in building a pitch count. 

Since he arrived at Philadelphia Phillies camp six weeks ago, his focus has been on physical conditioning, pitching stamina, baseball intelligence and emotional calm.

His goal is to build up to “more of a normal pitch count” of at least 90 to 100. When he’s not pitching and working out, he’s at home playing the guitar (Christian and country music), or rewatching the entire series run of the The Office on Netflix.

“I feel really good this spring. I got good work in at the big league camp. Hopefully, I showed them a little of what’s to come,” Appel said.

While that may sound neither glamorous nor encouraging to Phillies fans, he finds a reliable pattern is what he’s always craved. Even when he didn’t realize it.

“It’s all about building that routine. We want to be able to take a running start when the season starts.”

Appel threw four innings with the big-league Phillies this spring (1 ER, 4 BBs, 3 Ks) before officially being designated to the minor league camp. An unsteady performance against the New York Yankees was countered with a solid outing in Fort Myers against the Minnesota Twins.

What is to come of Appel remains merely an educated guess, but the Phillies are in no hurry to find out.

Philadelphia pitching coach Bob McClure is a former major leaguer who played parts of 19 seasons with seven different teams. “The way he throws, it kind of reminds me of [Mark] Prior. I’m talking about the shape of his pitches. He’s a big kid. He’s a horse,” McClure said.

McClure doesn’t want Appel to be the next Mark Prior. He wants him to be the first Mark Appel.

“We want him to be himself. You’re a No. 1 pick out of Stanford. Just have fun and be you. There’s no rules,” McClure said. “When you try and put [pitchers] in a box, you stop creativity and stop growth. There are certain things pitchers get boxed up in. Finding who you are shouldn’t be one of them.”

With Houston, Appel said he found himself expending time and effort working on certain pitches and situations, rather than being allowed to improve his overall performance.

“For example, you might spend an entire bullpen session working on a changeup, or a situational pitch, or a certain grip, instead of just throwing a regular bullpen,” Appel said.

Finding a nuanced spot for Appel won’t be a problem with the Phillies. They lost 99 games last season and are a consensus pick to finish far behind the New York Mets and Washington Nationals in the NL East.

Where Appel may have once been hurried to reach the majors in Houston, the clock has slowed significantly in Philadelphia. He also no longer carries the burden of being his hometown team’s No. 1 overall pick.

“I saw some No. 1s in the minor leagues when I was in Kansas City. I’ve seen other teams with them. It’s a hard burden,” McClure said. “Not everyone can live with it and perform up to the expectations of everyone else. Now, I’ve never been a No. 1 pick, but the hardest part [for any pitcher] is trying not to live up to what everyone else thinks you should be. Forget what everyone else expects. It doesn’t matter. What do you see your progression being?”

The tumultuous nature of Appel’s journey to the majors has reinforced his Christian faith, which he shares openly whenever the opportunity arises, including daily on his Twitter feed.

“Christianity is my identity. I have learned the secret of being content in all situations. It’s not all about throwing strikes, or throwing 100 miles per hour, or hitting 500-foot home runs. It’s about being content in any and every circumstance,” he said.

“I learned through the lowest of lows that I wasn’t content. I don’t need a 2.00 ERA, and a 4-1 strikeout-to-walk ratio. And I don’t need to be in the big leagues at 22 in order to be content.  As much as I love it, as much as I work hard at it, as much as I want to be successful at it, baseball is not my identity. I don’t ever want it to be my identity. There are too many highs and too many lows and it will tear me up.”

Appel knows that expressing his faith, especially on social media, leaves himself open to criticism and cynicism. He has also found it offers support to many. 

“A lot of people have a misconception of faith for a Christian athlete. Fans look at athletes who have been gifted by God, or worked very hard, guys like Mike Trout and Bryce Harper. People think their sole purpose is to play baseball, and everything they do should be focused on baseball, or that their religion and faith should become a means for being better at baseball. That’s not right,” he said. 

The limits of Appel’s faith, patience and maturity reached zero hour on July 16, 2014. It was one day after his 23rd birthday. 

After being hammered for seven runs in less than two innings for Single-A Lancaster (Calif.), just a month-and-a-half after yielding 10 runs in 1.1 innings, Appel stormed into his team’s clubhouse.

Through tears of sadness and anger, he fired more than 50 baseballs into a three-quarter-inch particleboard wall next to his locker.

All the baseball doubts one could imagine flowed through him in a rage.

The wall was decimated. The experience was “therapeutic.”

If there would ever be a “bottom” in terms of his baseball career, he decided at that moment this would be it.

Appel faced a $500 fine, but he chose to repair the wall himself—with the caveat he would indeed pay the fine if the repair work wasn’t sufficient. The next day, after a couple of trips to Home Depot, he worked on the repair for about four hours.

He matched up the grains in the new high-grade oak plywood with those in the remaining walls and stained it all to near-perfection.

He likens the repaired wall to a healed soul.

“That was one moment that was so profound. It taught me a lot about my life. It was a turning point,” he said, of both the incident and sharing it on his blog. “I’m glad I did it. Players who are experiencing struggle tell me that they’ve read the blog and found it encouraging.”

McClure believes the final, finished version of Appel has yet to be created. “He’s got a lot of competitiveness in him that hasn’t gotten out yet because he was trying to please. He’ll evolve into whatever pitcher he can be. We just have to allow him to do it. We have to allow him room for failure, or to go backwards if necessary.”

And nearly three years after being drafted, he is finally at peace. 

“The Bible talks about working with all your heart for the Lord and not for men. If you’re working for the Lord every time you step on the field … I think the fans and the Phillies will be OK with the effort you give.”

Appel needed a fresh start. He can still become the star everyone thought he’d be. 

The only pitcher ever taken No. 1 overall not to make the big leagues was Yankees 1991 pick Brien Taylor, whose rotator cuff was destroyed in a barroom fight.

The Phillies hope to stop him from being the second.

 

All quotes were obtained firsthand by Bleacher Report, unless otherwise specified. 

Bill Speros is an award-winning journalist. He can be reached at bsperos1@gmail.com. He tweets at @RealOBF and @BillSperos 

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Phillies Broadcaster Narrowly Escapes Oncoming Liner During Live Coverage

Gregg Murphy will want to give extra thanks to his reflexes tonight.

If not for them, the CSN Philly reporter likely would have been the unlucky recipient of a line drive to the head.

Despite Murphy’s position beyond the Bright House Field foul pole, outfielder Nolan Reimold of the Baltimore Orioles sent him ducking and scurrying—during live coverage, no less!

Fortunately, Murphy emerged unscathed (although a tad winded).

Next time, however, the Philadelphia Phillies broadcaster may want to take preventative precautions. A helmet, perhaps?

[CSN, h/t Yahoo Sports]

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Phillies Rebuild Finally Transitioning from Lost Cause to Genuine Hope

Being blinded by the captivating sunset and completely overlooking the edge of the oncoming cliff leads to an obvious outcome. 

That is what happened to the Philadelphia Phillies over the last four seasons. Their front office, led by former general manager Ruben Amaro Jr. and his mission to make his faulty plan look like a genuinely wise one, found itself at a peak and believed it to be a plateau rather than the top of a steep drop. Winning 102 games in a season can do that, but it was the job of Amaro‘s construction team to project the future and see the fall coming.

He—and, in turn, the Phillies—did not. So rather than selling high and getting optimum returns on players who still had some value, the Phillies plummeted to the tune of 358 losses over the last four seasons. The reality of the situation smashed the organization in the face, as many of its former stars lost that value and aged rapidly, and Amaro‘s tenure came to a deserved end in September.

By that time, though, the Phillies had recognized the fault in their ways. Ace Cole Hamels had been traded, as had closer Jonathan Papelbon along with others. And this offseason, with new GM Matt Klentak running things, the Phillies, in a shift from the previous regime, actually sold early on a player, dealing back-end reliever Ken Giles to the Houston Astros.

Now, finally, the Phillies are fully rebuilding. No more foolishly patching holes. No more clinging to the dream that aging players will suddenly resurrect their careers. Now, there is again hope in Philadelphia.

The Phillies traded Byrd, Rollins, Papelbon, Hamels, Revere, Utley & Giles for 16 prospects. Ten are ranked as team’s top 16 prospects.

— Matt Breen (@matt_breen) December 10, 2015

The Phillies started this only a couple of seasons too late, as it is difficult to sell a plan that includes trading away stars months after the team wins 102 games in 2011. Still, after a .500 finish in 2012, the writing on the wall was clear and legible.

Taking so long to move veterans Hamels, Papelbon, Chase Utley and Jimmy Rollins was a bad look. It was equally as bad, if not worse, for the club to not rid itself of veterans like Carlos Ruiz or Cliff Lee when they still had value and the losses were already stacking.

Alas, the mistakes were made. What the Phillies have done since, including with Amaro still as an employee, has been impressive.

Sure, maybe they could have gotten a much bigger haul for Hamels had they dealt him sooner (the same could certainly be said for Utley). But what they did end up getting back for Hamels before last season’s nonwaiver trade deadline was a solid haul.

The team was wisely willing to pay down some of Hamels’ contract in return for a better package of prospects because in the end, they have the money. They needed the players.

Preseason Baseball America rankings: RHP Jake Thompson No. 2 #Rangers prospect, C Jorge Alfaro No. 3, OF Nick Williams No. 5. All to PHI.

— Ken Rosenthal (@Ken_Rosenthal) July 30, 2015

Continuing: Asher No. 13 #Rangers prospect. That’s four of top 13 for #Phillies. They included cash to get what they wanted most: Talent.

— Ken Rosenthal (@Ken_Rosenthal) July 30, 2015

Earlier this month, Klentak struck another big trade. He moved Giles to the Astros, a club with a win-now window. Giles had a 1.56 ERA over the last two seasons, but a team challenging to lose enough games to get the top overall pick in the 2017 draft has no need for such a bullpen weapon. So Klentak traded him for a load of pitching promise.

Mark Appel, the No. 1 overall pick in 2013, could eventually be the prize of the group. He had not lived up to expectations in the Astros organization, but he is only 24 years old and still possesses a live arm and plus stuff.

“We talked in the last two months about the importance of augmenting our pitching and maintaining balance in everything that we do,” Klentak told reporters. “And with these trades…we feel like we made our club better, both in the short and the long term. It improves our pitching up and down the system.”

The Phillies have more talent in their system now than they did since Utley/rollins/Burrell were there. And it’s close to MLB ready.

— John Stolnis (@FelskeFiles) December 23, 2015

The Phillies had the seventh overall pick in the 2014 draft, and that selection, right-hander Aaron Nola, has already debuted for the big league club. They had the 10th overall pick in the 2015 draft, will have the first pick next June and are the front-runners to have the top overall pick in the 2017 draft.

You see how the Phillies are stockpiling young talent to go with players like Nola, Maikel Franco, Odubel Herrera and Cesar Hernandez. You see they are positioned to get impact players in the coming drafts. And finally, you should see that the team’s television contract is worth more than $2.5 billion, giving it the financial flexibility to push its payroll beyond $200 million soon enough.

And just in time for a free-agent class after the 2018 season that could potentially include Bryce Harper, Jose Fernandez, Matt Harvey, Manny Machado, Dallas Keuchel, Andrew McCutchen, Josh Donaldson, Jason Heyward, David Price and Clayton Kershaw.

The Phillies have $0 on the books for 2019. They are in an incredible position going into what should be the best free agent class ever.

— Jeff Passan (@JeffPassan) December 12, 2015

No longer are there cries about the Phillies’ failing rebuild. Amaro is gone, and the false hope he saddled the organization with for too long is gone, too.

Philadelphia baseball has a new wave of hope. The rebuild is underway, finally. And the promise is blinding in a way that nobody has to worry about falling off a cliff anytime soon.

 

All quotes, unless otherwise specified, have been acquired first-hand by Anthony Witrado. Follow Anthony on Twitter @awitrado and talk baseball here.

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