phorever wrote:

Uncle Milty wrote:

phorever wrote:serious question: is there any successful 2019-20 phillies offseason that doesn't include signing gerrit cole?

Sure, but the aggregate of moves need to about equal signing him. Plenty of opportunity to do that since we can pencil in only 3 or 4 above average contributors right now.

the problem is that there were only about 30 position players worth 4.5 or more wins in 2019, very few of which are free-agents, and if you want 7 wins from replacing 1.5 - 2.5 win players (segura, kingery, hoskins, hernandez, haseley+bruce) with anyone other than rendon, you most likely are going to need to make 3 such moves. and the phils would need to add the equivalent of the full value of g.cole and rendon combined to be real contenders in 2020.
since the phils had two rotation spots worth under 1.0 fwar in 2019, the best alternative to signing cole is signing two (or three?) of the next tier of fa pitchers: ryu, odorizzi, wheeler, madbum, ... however, all of those have much worse risk/reward ratios than cole, and all of them would leave the phils relying on nola to rebound so that he can fill the role of a true ace that is pretty much a prerequisite for perennial contention.

i've got to say, i'm completely in favor of middleton reminding his management team that the phils aren't a small market team and shouldn't be afraid to blow by the luxury tax limit for one season in order to complement recent and future farm system successes (nola, realmuto via sixto, bohm and s.howard, maybe kingery and hasely and some of the pen guys) with premium fa's. moving on from a first-time manager still experiencing growing pains to a top-shelf manager like girardi to make those premium fa's more comfortable isn't a bad idea. nor is sticking with a gm who landed realmuto and cutch (and segura, whom i think most here are underrating based on an off-year) and several surprisingly effective midseason emergency replacements while staying out of last year's suspect fa pitching market in favor of a much better selection this offseason. middleton's current approach seems exactly right for an organization that still tends to default to thinking like a small-market team.

(sorry for the rant... but the new "meddleton" label is starting to annoy me. i had far too many decades of suffering under financially conservative ownership and analytics luddites throughout the management to put up with people slamming the guy whose "meddling" resulted in what is looking more and more like a win of the harper-manny stare-down last year, and who assembled a front office that finally brought the phils out of dark ages w.r.t. analytics and has at least as many big successes as big failures in its track record)

And then there were three. The Phillies’ search to replace manager Gabe Kapler has reached its final stages, as the team will hold follow-up interviews over the next few days with Dusty Baker, Joe Girardi, and Buck Showalter after meeting with all three managers this week.

Those three — all with established track records — are believed to be the only three candidates for the job. A decision is expected to be finalized next week. Girardi and Showalter are considered the favorites. General manager Matt Klentak and assistant general manager Ned Rice are leading the search, but managing partner John Middleton and team president Andy MacPhail will have a say.

CFP wrote:LOL if those are the 3 candidates Klentak is not leading the search

Harper’s 5.54 Win Probability Added ranked fifth among hitters, trailing only Christian Yelich, Cody Bellinger, Mike Trout and Rendon. Harper’s clutch metric, via FanGraphs, ranked him tied for sixth, and he was one of the best at doing damage with runners in scoring position: 1.140 OPS (third), 177 wRC+ (sixth), .459 on-base percentage (sixth), .357 average (seventh) and 75 RBIs (tied for seventh).

MoBettle wrote:Defensively maybe but he needs to hit a lot better especially if they’re not upgrading multiple infield spots.

SixerLed3 wrote:

And then there were three. The Phillies’ search to replace manager Gabe Kapler has reached its final stages, as the team will hold follow-up interviews over the next few days with Dusty Baker, Joe Girardi, and Buck Showalter after meeting with all three managers this week.

Those three — all with established track records — are believed to be the only three candidates for the job. A decision is expected to be finalized next week. Girardi and Showalter are considered the favorites. General manager Matt Klentak and assistant general manager Ned Rice are leading the search, but managing partner John Middleton and team president Andy MacPhail will have a say.

https://www.inquirer.com/newsletters/ph ... er+Account

SixerLed3 wrote:

And then there were three. The Phillies’ search to replace manager Gabe Kapler has reached its final stages, as the team will hold follow-up interviews over the next few days with Dusty Baker, Joe Girardi, and Buck Showalter after meeting with all three managers this week.

Those three — all with established track records — are believed to be the only three candidates for the job. A decision is expected to be finalized next week. Girardi and Showalter are considered the favorites. General manager Matt Klentak and assistant general manager Ned Rice are leading the search, but managing partner John Middleton and team president Andy MacPhail will have a say.

https://www.inquirer.com/newsletters/ph ... er+Account

CFP wrote:My favorite thing about the PC was MacPhail going over the "if we don't, we don't" quote, saying he wasn't going to do anything like that ever again, then putting his foot in his mouth a minute later with the prospects comment.

Uncle Milty wrote:

CFP wrote:My favorite thing about the PC was MacPhail going over the "if we don't, we don't" quote, saying he wasn't going to do anything like that ever again, then putting his foot in his mouth a minute later with the prospects comment.

Think he meant that they see some guys in the system as significant future contributors even though they're not in others top 100.

CFP wrote:LOL if those are the 3 candidates Klentak is not leading the search