Phillies Foul Balls

The roster revolving door continues. The unsurprising move is Chris Snelling heading to the DL. Snelling’s entire career history is that he’s a good player when he’s healthy, but he’s very rarely healthy. Unfortunate but not unexpected. As a result TJ Bohn gets to sit on the bench and maybe get a couple pinch hitting appearances until Victorino is ready to come off the DL in a week.

The move getting more attention is Rollins finally going onto the DL. Much of the commentary is centered around the fact that after about 10 days of “he’s day-to-day” this is rather a big change. I’ve got a theory about what the real change is though, namely the upcoming schedule. I don’t think it’s too much to say that Rollins is really strongly invested in the rivalry with the Mets. If he had gone on the DL when he was first injured that would have automatically meant that he would miss this series against the Mets. Once it became clear he wasn’t going to be healthy enough to play in the series, he changed his tune and started saying it might make more sense to go on the DL.

Maybe I’m wrong about this, but the timing sure looks suspicious. I can’t say I’m entirely surprised though. I was expected something along this lines for a while, given the Phillies’ history with injury management.

Meanwhile it’s something of a sad reflection on the state of the upper level of the Phillies farm system that they brought up Brad Harmon to replace Rollins. Harmon may be a decent player eventually but there’s no way he’s ready for the big leagues now. I’m guessing he’s up solely because he’s already on the 40-man roster so this move isn’t going to cause them to burn any options. If they had called up Jason Donald they would have had to burn an option when they sent him back down when Rollins is back. Meanwhile the Iron Pigs have no one, which somewhat explains their record.

According to the reports that are floating around, the Phillies are about to sign Pedro Feliz to a two year contract. It’s tempting to leave the analysis at pointing out the fact that Baseball Prospectus’ list of comparable players to Feliz has late career Charlie Hayes right at the top. Really, it’s hard to top that for pithy indictments.

However perhaps some detail. The plus side to all of this is that the pitching staff should be happy. Feliz is unquestionably a good defender slightly better than Abraham Nunez was and worlds better than Wes Helms and Greg Dobbs have been. Right now the Phillies have an outstanding defensive infield or at least three-quarters of an infield. (Subway commercial aside, Howard’s defense is, uh, not good.) In fact the only weak defensive spots are going to be left and first so they are in good shape there.

Offensively, well, yeah, there’s the rub. While I’m usually a huge proponent of on-base percentage, I will admit that in certain circumstances a low OBP, high slugging guy can be useful in a lineup, in particular if he’s hitting behind a bunch of high OBP guys. My usual example is that in 1993 Pete Incaviglia was a useful player because he was behind Kruk, Hollins, and Daulton who were always on base. When he came back in 1996, he was a waste of a spot because they didn’t have those guys getting on base. Feliz might actually be closer to the first case here. If he’s hitting behind Utley, Howard, Burrell, and Werth that’s a lot of OBP ahead of him, so if he can pop 20 to 25 homers, he’s going to knock in a lot of runs.

That being said, my thinking for a useful low OBP high power guy is someone with an OBP around .310 to .320, not someone in the .280 to .290 range like Feliz is. That’s just really awful. Even Nunez managed higher than that last year. That being said, neither Helms nor Nunez came close to the power Feliz showed, so the only one of the three they had at third who I’d say definitely hit better than Feliz was Dobbs, and I can’t shake the feeling that last year was a career year for him.

Putting all that together, I’m not really sure this is going to hurt the Phillies all that much, if at all. Feliz is not a good overall player, but they were so unbelievably weak at the position last year, there’s really nowhere to go but up. If Feliz keeps up the defense and the power, the overall production from third might go up a little bit. Just not very much.

The wire service story on the trade seems to answer one of the questions, namely Lidge is going to be the closer and Myers is moving back to the rotation. The trade’s now looking even better. I also have to laugh at Ed Wade once again talking up having picked up a veteran reliever.

This one snuck up on everyone I think. The Phils get Brad Lidge and Eric Bruntlett in exchange for Michael Bourn, Geoff Geary, and Mike Constanzo. (I think Ed Wade is eager to regain some of the players he drafted.)
I love the Lidge pickup; I know he’s been regarded as being down over the past couple of years after the homer to Pujols in the NLCS, but I really think way too much has been made of it. He’s still a strikeout machine and that’s what you want in a reliever, especially in a bandbox like CBP. Bruntlett is a very generic utility infielder, but I guess we know who replaces Abraham Nunez in that role.

They also didn’t give up all that much. Bourn is an excellent defensive player, but I’m really not convinced that he’s ever going to hit enough to be an everyday player. However I wouldn’t be surprised to see him enjoy a solid career as a fourth outfielder/part-time starter. Geary is about to hit arbitration and get expensive, which in turn reduces his value. As a cheap fungible reliever he’s got value, but if his salary starts going up via arbitration, he’s a lot less useful. Constanzo is looking more and more like a bust with his struggles at Reading this year and a dreadful performance in the Arizona Fall League. All told that’s not a huge package to be giving up.

The trade does raise some interesting other questions though. Does Lidge move into the closer role or does he become a setup guy. I’m happy to have him in either role, but of course if he does become the closer, that means Myers is likely headed back to the rotation. This may depend on whether or not the Phillies can land a starter somewhere else. Another issue is what this means for the outfield. If they resign Rowand they’re still in pretty good shape with only a fifth outfielder needed and that’s a spot that could definitely be filled via a non-tendered free agent similar to how they landed Jason Werth last year. However if Rowand walks or if they get stupid and actually trade Burrell, they’re suddenly very thin. I’m comfortable with a starting outfield of Burrell, Victorino, and Werth, but there’s nothing on the horizon for reserves/injury insurance. While Chris Roberson is still on the roster I’m convinced that he’s effectively done with the Phillies and I see no reason to be optimistic about T.J. Bohn. There definitely seems to be some work still to do there.

All told it’s a good first move of the off-season, but there should be move to come. It’ll be interesting to see what happens next.

Looks like I was off on one point, namely they went with all 15 eligible position players instead of 14. Given that the series is going to include two off days and also comes after two days off, that’s probably reasonable. It also indicates fairly clearly to me that they are very worried about Carlos Ruiz.

Even with only 6 relievers, there’s room for quibbling. The top four (Myers, Gordon, Romero, and Condrey) aren’t a surprise and probably weren’t that hard to pick. It’s the last two, Alfonseca and Mesa, where I’ve got some issues. Apparently Geary is fighting elbow problems which explains why he isn’t there and why Alfonseca is there. Alfonseca has at least been occasionally useful this year and has had enough rest that they might sneak a decent outing out of him. But Mesa? Why? I’m not that impressed with most of the other relievers but I still take virtually any of them over Mesa.

Also of concern is that only Condrey has done anything in terms of long-work out of the pen, so they could get caught short. On the other hand Manuel is apparently planning to keep Lohse in the bullpen for the first two games, the same way he was used the last week or so. I have to say I really like that approach. It’s certainly not conventional, but under the circumstances I think it’s likely to be the best use of the available resources. If they need him for an inning or two on Thursday they can move Moyer to start Saturday and Lohse should be ready to go Sunday if needed. I’ve criticized Manuel for going too much by the book in the past, but this is a welcome change from that.

One other interesting fact is that with the first two games starting at 3, shadows on the field are going to be a real issue and the starting pitchers may fare much better than would be expected from these particular offenses.

Man, we’ve been waiting 14 years for this and it’s finally about here. Let’s go Phils!

Well, if I’m really back at it, might as well dive right into the news today, but a large part of the news connects to what had me so frustrated in the first place. With today being September 1st, everyone is expanding their rosters and the Phillies’ big additions are… Rod Barajas and Francisco Rosario. Ugh.

Looking at the 40-man roster it a rather frustrating exercise at the moment. Of the 43 people on the 40-man roster page (numeracy? what’s that?) there are 27 players on the active roster. Of the remaining 16, half of them are on the disabled list, including several on the 60-day DL, which is of course why the 43 names are there. That could actually go one higher since Matt Smith has had Tommy John surgery and is gone until the middle of next season.

Of the 8 disabled, most are not going to be any help. Garcia, Lieber, and Zagurski are all definitely gone for the year. From the news about his setback yesterday, I suspect Mathieson is just going to be shut down, and from the what little I’ve heard Yoel Hernandez is probably done for the year as well. The other three might be back and that’s good because they’re probably the most likely to be any good. Getting Hamels back would of course be the biggest plus but after his setback I’m not counting on much. Maybe a start or two the last week, but still. Getting Bourn back would certainly help the bench, but you have to wonder if the lingering effects of the ankle injury (which was absolutely horrific to watch) will rob him of his speed, and thus of a lot of his value. Madson is an interesting wild card. Until he got hurt he seemed to be returning to his 2004-2005 form as a quietly effective reliever. You think we could use that?

Of the remaining 7 players, I expect Fabio Castro, Geoff Geary, and Chris Roberson will all be back once Ottawa’s season limps to a close on Monday. If they actually use Castro he could be an interesting wild card down the stretch. The others, well, meh. I doubt we’ll see Joe Bisenius or J.A. Happ since they’re both headed to the Arizona Fall League. Personally I’d rather they got rid of Julio Mateo rather than bring him up. One wife-beating SOB on the club is more than enough. That leaves Anderson Garcia, who I suppose could be up. The over/under on number of times he’d be used if called up would probably be set around 3…

In other words, there’s not much there. The upper levels of the farm system are painfully dry. I suppose they could try calling up Mike Costanzo, but from what I saw earlier in the year he’s just not ready to help them.

So here we are, having to try and limp through with what’s currently there, hoping it’s enough. There’s no real plan B, just try what you’ve got and hope for the best. It’s an all too familiar story for this franchise.

Ok, maybe I really shouldn’t have gone into that right before game time because now I’m depressed and for all their flaws, this team has been very non-depressing this week. With Byung-Hyun Kim on the mound, this could be another offensive special today which would be fun.

I’m really not sure about signing Jamie Moyer for two more years. If you look over Moyer’s record for the past 10 years it’s been either very good or very bad. The reason for that is because he relies entirely on pinpoint control and if he doesn’t have it, he’s in big trouble. He was very effective the last six weeks of the season, but his walk rate during that stretch was better than it has been over any full season in his career, so hoping for a repeat of that seems like a real stretch. Plus he’s a strong flyball pitcher, and even with the fences back some, CBP is still a homer friendly ballpark. That doesn’t seem like a good combination.
On top of that, it seems nuts to give a 43 year old pitcher a multiyear contract. On the other hand, Moyer is so far removed from a normal major league pitcher that we can ignore that. I mean if he loses a couple miles per hour off his fast ball is anyone going to notice? Moyer is similar in a lot of ways to knuckleball pitchers and they’ve tended to last longer than power pitchers do. So maybe the age isn’t an issue.

At this point the rotation is actually looking fairly set for next year. Cole Hamels and Brett Myers are clearly the class of the rotation and could very well form one of the better one-two combinations in the league. Of the other three, the one I most wanted to see back is the one whose future is still uncertain. I think Randy Wolf is quite capable of running off a couple of very good years in the next few. Most pitchers back from Tommy John surgery take about half a season to really get their control back. Wolf had bursts of effective pitching this year, but his control was an issue. If he regains the control he could easily be a very solid mid-rotation pitcher. Given the free agent market this year I don’t see a better option out there since I don’t think Barry Zito would come to Philadelphia.

Only this time it’s not in the bullpen, it’s on the coaching staff. I’m astonished by the addition of Art Howe, Jimy Williams, and Davey Lopes to the coaching staff. It’s almost like the Phillies decided that since they had the reputation of being one of the worst organizations in the majors in terms of the good ol’ boy network, they might as well live up to it.

What strikes me in particular is that Howe and Williams have a bit of a reputation (perhaps unfair) of having their teams underperform when they were managers. Given this team’s history, that’s a bit of red flag to me. On the other hand, I suppose it could be argued that they were good coaches before, but the step up to manager took them beyond what they were good at, so they’re back to their strength.

Still all in all, not what I wanted to see. This is what I was afraid of when Gillick was named GM, that he was too set in his ways and wouldn’t go looking for fresh blood and fresh ideas.

The changes in the coaching staff announced this afternoon seem to convey an unspoken message. The three who were let go, Bombard, Varsho, and Dancy, are the three who I would think of as being the most involved in the in-game tactical decisions. The ones who were renewed, particularly Thompson and Dubee, are ones who are more involved with long-term skill building of the players. (Although Dubee is probably in both camps.)

Given the coaching changes were announced by Manuel, it’s probably safe to say he’s going to be back next year. However I think it’s also the case that there was unhappiness expressed at how games were run and the only way Manuel was going to stay was if he got a new cast of advisors. Personally I think Bombard got a raw deal, but if some other organization snaps him up and makes him their AAA manager, they’ll get a great deal.

I see the Phillies have called up Michael Bourn again. Presumably this means he’ll be in Scranton in time for game 3 of their playoff series tomorrow night.

Snide comments aside, this means they’ve got 34 players on their active roster. Three of the other six players on the 40-man are hurt. The remaining three are pitchers. Zack Segovia and Gavin Floyd are going to the Arizona Fall League which means they likely won’t be up. I wouldn’t be surprised to see Justin Germano show up once Scranton is done. Hopefully they’ll also find a way of getting Brian Mazone up there after the rainout this week robbed him of his chance.

Calling up Ruiz a day early was a bit of a surprise, although it’s obvious why the move was done, namely to have an extra bat on the bench if the Phils make the post-season. Really what made the move quite possible however was the combination of Tom Gordon’s being almost but not quite ready to come off the DL and Cole Hamels’ strong outing last night.

Because Hamels went 8 innings yesterday, it’s pretty clear that barring either a spectacular flameout from Wolf (which at this point is not going to happen since he’s about through the 3rd) or a really long extra-inning game, they really shouldn’t need more than a 6-man bullpen tonight. Whether they ever need more than 6 is another debate for another time.

With Flash presumably coming back tomorrow once the rosters expand, it’s only for one day that they’re at 6. If they make the playoffs they will presumably go with a 4 man rotation so they wanted to have another bat available off the bench and this gives them that option. They could get another in there by exploiting a loophole with Aaron Rowand, but this is more within the spirit of the rules.

Meanwhile no word yet on who else is coming up, but more moves are obviously coming. With Sandoval and Smith being sent to teams that aren’t going to be in the postseason, it’s clear that they’re ticketed to return as soon as they can which is after Reading and Clearwater play out the string this weekend, instead of having to wait the usual 10 days. With the doubleheader on Saturday they’re going to need at least another starter, and since that’s Scott Mathieson’s day to pitch, that seems like a natural. It’ll be interesting to see if they pull up a reliever as well. If they do, they’ll make themselves even more unpopular than they already are in Scranton since the Red Barons are in a decent position to make a run at the Governor’s Cup.

Apparently the PTBNL for Conine in Angel Chavez. Since I was saying about a week ago that he might be a candidate for being released in the off season I really can’t complain about the price. So what they’ve used to acquire players this month has been money and roster filler. Sounds about right for the circumstances.

I can’t say as how I’m that impressed with the latest Phillies pickup. The comments about “Boy he’s always killed us” are showing up from lots of people on the team, and while it’s accurate, I can’t help thinking that has placed a role in the decision to acquire him. The problem is that Conine won’t be facing the Phillies, he’ll be facing everyone else in the league. And he just hasn’t been that good the past couple of years.

Still, it’s not like the Phils had a particularly strong bench and even with his slide, I think Conine is probably a better option of the bench than Sandoval. Whether or not this is a sane trade is going to wind up depending on who the PTBNL turns out to be.

Ok, so all the roster moves didn’t wait until September 1st. I don’t think any of the moves are really that big a deal overall, but at this point even a minor improvement could be the difference.

Given the cost (i.e. money only) it’s hard to argue with the Jose Hernandez deal. If they use him sensibly, i.e. in platoon type roles he may offer a small improvement. The potential downside is in the opportunity costs, if they pass on getting someone else since they have Hernandez. Given that they’re still talking, I’m not sure that’s going to be an issue.

I feel extremely sorry for Michael Bourn though. Getting sent back to the minors before you even can make it to where the big league team is playing has to be rough. On the other hand he gets some service time and is paid at the major league level of his contract for more than just the one day, so it’s not a complete wash for him. Plus I’ll be stunned if he’s not back in the majors when Scranton’s season ends if not exactly on September 1st.
Finally there’s today’s addition of Matt Smith. We’ll see what he’s actually capable of doing, but between the innings he pitched for the Yankees and what he’s done in AAA, he’s earned a shot. While 4 lefties in the bullpen seems a little overkill, none of them seem to the classic LOOGY type, although Fultz is close. (I can’t believe I actually found that on Wikipedia.)

On the face of it, picking up Jamie Moyer is a defensible move. Some points in favor of the move

1. Scott Mathieson definitely has potential, but he’s just not ready. His ineffectiveness with his off-speed pitches shows that he still has much he can learn in the minors. I like the idea of sending him down to Scranton to get a bunch of starts and help them chase the Governor’s Cup, then coming back up to work in long relief down the stretch. I think that’s a combination that will work well for his development.
2. Moyer is not a great pitcher at this point, but what he will do is give you 6 or 7 innings while allowing 3 or 4 runs. With a league-leading offense there’s some real value in that. He’s not going to win 1-0 games, but he’s not likely to be on the wrong end of 9-5 games either. We’ll just quietly ignore the fact that the Phils had a pitcher like that until they gave him away for squid scraps last month.
3. It’s not like they gave up a lot to get Moyer. The two pitchers they gave up look like they’re organization guys who may get a few cups of coffee in the majors, but I really don’t see them as much more than a last guy on the staff type pitcher. Given how many of those pitchers they acquired last month, they can afford to give some up.

All that being said, this is a disastrous move. Unless something changes quickly, they are now doomed! Why? Because they have invoked the dreaded Ex-Cub factor. They were just barely safe before, with only two Ex-Cubs, Jon Lieber and Tom Gordon. But now they had to get clever and add a third in Moyer. Will they never learn.

Ok, the juggling of the last bench spot the past couple of days is downright weird. I said before that I was surprised to see Bourn instead of Roberson, and within 24 hours that swap happened. Somewhere, I don’t remember where, I saw something indicating that it was due to roster movement rules. That seemed sensible on the face of it, but then I looked and Roberson last went down on the 14th, so he was eligible to come back up when all this started. I’m guessing that there were other potential trades in the pipeline and the Phils were waiting to bring Roberson up until things settled down because they didn’t want to be in the position of having to send him right back down.

In any case, we’re now into the waiver wire dealing part of the season and I’m assuming large numbers of Phillies players have been dumped on the wire. If anyone is foolish enough to put in a claim on Jon Lieber, the Phils really should just let him go. The trades are likely to be salary dumps anyway so really this wouldn’t be any different. Of course I suspect Lieber may be hurt which is a large part of the problem anyway.