MoBettle wrote:https://www.inquirer.com/sports/phillies-kris-bryant-scott-boras-zack-wheeler-spencer-howard-bullpen-mlb-winter-meetings-20191212.html

Kris Bryant trade rumors won’t fade.
Now that Rendon is an Angel, Josh Donaldson will soon sign with the Nationals ... or the Braves ... or the Rangers. Regardless, there’s about to be a loser in the game of musical third basemen.

That's where Bryant comes in.

The Cubs want to clear payroll space and appear unlikely to agree on an extension with the 2016 NL MVP. They surely will want a haul of prospects and big leaguers, and a ruling on whether Bryant is eligible for free agency after 2020 or the following year isn’t expected for weeks.

The Phillies have run from trade talks involving third-base prospect Alec Bohm. Getting Bryant also would push them into luxury-tax territory. But Middleton loves superstars, and Bryant is pals with Harper. So, until he’s dealt to another third base-needy team, Phillies fans might as well stay tuned.

Seems like mostly wishful thinking.

Athletic thinks that the musical chair is working Bohm in when Segura or DiDi explode.

Phillies are signing 30-year old OF Matt Szczur to a minor-league contract.

SixerLed3 wrote:Phillies are signing 30-year old OF Matt Szczur to a minor-league contract.

Meanwhile Rosenthal said he thinks it’s between Atlanta and Washington for Donaldson.

SixerLed3 wrote:Phillies are signing 30-year old OF Matt Szczur to a minor-league contract.

Welcome home. His artwork is pretty dope. https://mattszczurart.com/

SixerLed3 wrote:Phillies are signing 30-year old OF Matt Szczur to a minor-league contract.

SWEET! Now I can still use my "Render unto Szczur" line, just with a different wrong spelling.

Monkeyboy wrote:Making up as many games as we need to make up, and with 3 teams ahead of us, is also a lot of wishful thinking. Nearly everything would have to go well and the other teams would need to have their luck drop. It's hard to make up that many games.

I'm not saying we weren't unlucky, we certainly were, but that bad luck carries into this year to a certain extent because those injured players have to come back healthy. The two years are not completely independent events. It's not like rolling the dice two separate times.

Plus, maybe some of what appeared to be bad luck was actually bad design. I would guess that's almost certainly the case.

I'm going to go out on a limb and say that the collection we have at 3B, SS, and 2B, as a unit, is going to be one of the worst in the league this year offensively. And we have no idea what we'll get out of Haseley in CF or if Cutch will come back at full strength. That's a lot of ifs on a team that needs to make up a lot of ground. And that's before we even start to talk about the pitching.

Add to that, the Braves core should be getting better, not worse. They were lucky with injuries last year, but any drop off in that department should be offset by the core developing.

Looks to me like we are taking a longshot flier to sneak into a WC spot. That rarely turns out well.

I disagree with most of this...

While they aren't independent events, the league is full of guys who get hurt one year, and not the next, and vice versa. It's not like we're banking on a series of guys who are frequently hurt, and can expect more of the same this year. We had young guys, old guys, guys who'd almost never been hurt... all of them down last year. And we shed many of them, so this group's health this year is fairly independent of last year's group's health last year.

As far as bad design, we were unlucky, not poorly designed. We lost 8 of 9 relievers. David Robertson was an absolute iron man - 60 to 70 games, 60 to 70 innings, 9 straight years. We get 6 innings. Hunter, similar. Seranthony was a godsend in 2018 - no reason to expect him to go down. Neshek was a gamble, but you make some bets. It was trash luck, pure and simple, unless our trainers were doing some bizarre experiments that ruined everyone's arm all at once.

As far as the 2B/SS/3B group, we got about .740 OPS out of that group last year, which was below average, but not far below (about 25 points). The worst offender, Franco, is gone, and Cesar was dead-on average for the group. Segura had his worst year in 4 years, was better than the other 2, and remains. Gregorius has a .778 OPS over the last 4 years, including last year's post-injury .718. Assuming Kingery is the last of the group, I don't see how we're not better offensively this year than last, which would put us at least league average. A little rebound from both Segura and Gregorius, and a little development from Kingery, and they could be top 10 or 12 in the majors, offensively, at those positions.

Atlanta's best hitter was Freddie Freeman, who's 30 - he's not improving. 2nd best was Josh Donaldson, who's 33, and a free agent. Their best player is Acuna, who is amazing and only 22, but I don't think he's a normal career arc kind of guy - he's not going to decisively improve through his age 27 season... he'll tighten up his weaknesses (strikeouts), probably walk more, but he's already a star, as is Albies. Dansby Swanson and the rest of their lineup are scrubs. Soroka's another one who experienced great success at an early age, but I don't think he has much, if any, improvement in him. They do have a ton of arms in their system, so that's a huge problem. But they're a very good team, not a great team, and I don't think they're "developing" at all. I'd expect fewer wins from them in 2020, assuming they don't land Bryant.

I don't think our plan is "take a longshot flier to sneak into a WC spot". Our plan, to me, is to realistically evaluate what we have on the field over the first 50-80 games, and then decide whether to make a splash and go for it, or to wait until 2021 to go for it. Given a new manager, a new pitching coach, a big FA pitcher, a mostly new infield, the return of several injured guys - the plan makes sense. Let Girardi have input as to the club's makeup, see who's performing and who isn't, and who's available to fix things. If we're 5 games out of 1st, but Arrieta is 2-8 with a 6 ERA, go get Kluber/Ray/whatever because you can realistically expect to make a difference there. If one of the IF isn't working out, and Lindor/Bryant/Arenado are on the market, go for it.

Shooting your shot now, with this team, isn't the brightest idea. Wait, despite the WIP agony it will bring.

Preach on

Feel like there’s a lot less depth in the bullpen this year. Neshak Hunter and Robertson all won’t be pitching and we didn’t really replace them. So yeah there won’t be that many injuries but there will probably be some and we’ll feel the heat earlier.

Plus as it stands right now we have either VVor Pivetta in the rotation and we’re one injury from both.

The silly 3 batter rule should reduce the number of relievers needed

MoBettle wrote:Feel like there’s a lot less depth in the bullpen this year.

Well, on paper. But barring another joy ride on Little lake Nellie, there's no way we end up with functionally less depth.

Shore wrote:

Monkeyboy wrote:Making up as many games as we need to make up, and with 3 teams ahead of us, is also a lot of wishful thinking. Nearly everything would have to go well and the other teams would need to have their luck drop. It's hard to make up that many games.

I'm not saying we weren't unlucky, we certainly were, but that bad luck carries into this year to a certain extent because those injured players have to come back healthy. The two years are not completely independent events. It's not like rolling the dice two separate times.

Plus, maybe some of what appeared to be bad luck was actually bad design. I would guess that's almost certainly the case.

I'm going to go out on a limb and say that the collection we have at 3B, SS, and 2B, as a unit, is going to be one of the worst in the league this year offensively. And we have no idea what we'll get out of Haseley in CF or if Cutch will come back at full strength. That's a lot of ifs on a team that needs to make up a lot of ground. And that's before we even start to talk about the pitching.

Add to that, the Braves core should be getting better, not worse. They were lucky with injuries last year, but any drop off in that department should be offset by the core developing.

Looks to me like we are taking a longshot flier to sneak into a WC spot. That rarely turns out well.

I disagree with most of this...

While they aren't independent events, the league is full of guys who get hurt one year, and not the next, and vice versa. It's not like we're banking on a series of guys who are frequently hurt, and can expect more of the same this year. We had young guys, old guys, guys who'd almost never been hurt... all of them down last year. And we shed many of them, so this group's health this year is fairly independent of last year's group's health last year.

As far as bad design, we were unlucky, not poorly designed. We lost 8 of 9 relievers. David Robertson was an absolute iron man - 60 to 70 games, 60 to 70 innings, 9 straight years. We get 6 innings. Hunter, similar. Seranthony was a godsend in 2018 - no reason to expect him to go down. Neshek was a gamble, but you make some bets. It was trash luck, pure and simple, unless our trainers were doing some bizarre experiments that ruined everyone's arm all at once.

As far as the 2B/SS/3B group, we got about .740 OPS out of that group last year, which was below average, but not far below (about 25 points). The worst offender, Franco, is gone, and Cesar was dead-on average for the group. Segura had his worst year in 4 years, was better than the other 2, and remains. Gregorius has a .778 OPS over the last 4 years, including last year's post-injury .718. Assuming Kingery is the last of the group, I don't see how we're not better offensively this year than last, which would put us at least league average. A little rebound from both Segura and Gregorius, and a little development from Kingery, and they could be top 10 or 12 in the majors, offensively, at those positions.

Atlanta's best hitter was Freddie Freeman, who's 30 - he's not improving. 2nd best was Josh Donaldson, who's 33, and a free agent. Their best player is Acuna, who is amazing and only 22, but I don't think he's a normal career arc kind of guy - he's not going to decisively improve through his age 27 season... he'll tighten up his weaknesses (strikeouts), probably walk more, but he's already a star, as is Albies. Dansby Swanson and the rest of their lineup are scrubs. Soroka's another one who experienced great success at an early age, but I don't think he has much, if any, improvement in him. They do have a ton of arms in their system, so that's a huge problem. But they're a very good team, not a great team, and I don't think they're "developing" at all. I'd expect fewer wins from them in 2020, assuming they don't land Bryant.

I don't think our plan is "take a longshot flier to sneak into a WC spot". Our plan, to me, is to realistically evaluate what we have on the field over the first 50-80 games, and then decide whether to make a splash and go for it, or to wait until 2021 to go for it. Given a new manager, a new pitching coach, a big FA pitcher, a mostly new infield, the return of several injured guys - the plan makes sense. Let Girardi have input as to the club's makeup, see who's performing and who isn't, and who's available to fix things. If we're 5 games out of 1st, but Arrieta is 2-8 with a 6 ERA, go get Kluber/Ray/whatever because you can realistically expect to make a difference there. If one of the IF isn't working out, and Lindor/Bryant/Arenado are on the market, go for it.

Shooting your shot now, with this team, isn't the brightest idea. Wait, despite the WIP agony it will bring.

When you have guys coming off TJ surgery and other elbow injuries, there is a fair likelihood that some of them will not perform to expectations or will have setbacks from their surgeries. Some of them will get injured again, almost certainly. If you are saying that relief pitcher performance tends to fluctuate from year to year, then I agree with you. But the roster as currently contructed is banking on a lot of guys to come back and be at the top of their games. Maybe we have the numbers to overcome that, I don't know. Cutch is another guy who has to come back healthy and I wasn't just talking about the relief pitchers. Given his age, it's possible he will not be himself coming back from surgery. He had a major injury and it's hard to tel what will happen. I'm optimistic, but we also need some realism in there, too. Taken together, we are hoping for a lot of our top guys to come back from major injuries (Cutch, seranthony, Roberts) and perform at the level that they were before injury. Chances are some of those long list of injured will have continuing problems. Some will not. I'm concerned we seem to be counting on them. Two causes for optimism is that Cutch's game depends more on OBP and power, which may not be affected much by any lingering issues. And relief pitching is probably the easiest commodity to find during the season, either from within or outside the organization.

You don't know it wasn't bad design. You are blowing smoke and completely relying on your own analysis. We were relying on several pitchers who never pitched at a high level at ML level to do just that. Pivetta, VZ, Eflin... we were relying on not just one of them to pitch well, but pretty much all of them to pitch well. We were also relying on Kingery, who was terrible the year before and pretty bad after the all star break last year, to suddenly put it together. We were relying on Franco to put it together, finally. We needed most of those things to happen to catch a young brave team and somehow also catch the Nats. That sounds like bad design to me. We did ALSO get unlucky with injuries, but we were hoping for a lot of good things to happen. Too much hoping, IMO, just like this year appears to be.

Plus, this is what I said. I acknowledged the bad luck, but said there was most likely some bad design as well. Given what I posted in the previous paragraph of this post, I stand by that.

"Plus, maybe some of what appeared to be bad luck was actually bad design. I would guess that's almost certainly the case."

Yeh, I stand by that. Lots of bad luck with injuries, plus some bad design. I think that's a fair assessment.

So we were below average last year and replaced Franco with Gregorius, who wasn't really better than Franco last year. And we replaced Hernandez, who was average, with Kingery, who was below average. But we are going to be better this year, and maybe a good bit better if everything falls right. Got it. Wishcasting.

For the record, I really like Gregorius as a SS. I think it's a very good signing. Move Segura to 2B and leave Kingery as the UTIL. If Kingery's 1st half from last year becomes the norm, then let him play CF. Go get a 3B. I don't see how the IF isn't the same or worse unless we get fairly lucky with Gregorius or we get a 3B. I think we REALLY need a 3B.

Atlanta is a very young team with an excellent farm and everyone they bring up seems to produce. freeman is older and they MAY have lost Dolaldson, but I don't see how you can say they are not a developing team. They have arms out the ears and their core is at the age that tends to improve. Some won't, but the arc of a player's career tends to improve until the mid to late 20s, which you acknowledge.

If the plan is to make a splash later in the summer if they are in the race, maybe that will work. But I'm pretty sure the games early in the year count the same as the games after the AS break. If you sacrifice games now, you are less likely to make the playoffs. That's pretty simple. They are hoping to see if everything goes well and then go for it later if things do go well. That seems like we're taking a longshot flier, imo. Maybe you disagree. But what you describe sounds like a longshot to me.

Plus, segrura and Harper will be another year older and Realmuto may or may not be here after this year. And I don't exactly see a cavalry coming over the hill.

MoBettle wrote:Feel like there’s a lot less depth in the bullpen this year. Neshak Hunter and Robertson all won’t be pitching and we didn’t really replace them. So yeah there won’t be that many injuries but there will probably be some and we’ll feel the heat earlier.

Plus as it stands right now we have either VVor Pivetta in the rotation and we’re one injury from both.

Its sucks to spend a buncha cash on nothing.

Werthless wrote:Preach on

The cult of Shore.

Monkeyboy wrote:

Werthless wrote:Preach on

The cult of Shore.

Yes, I'm quite popular

MoBettle wrote:Feel like there’s a lot less depth in the bullpen this year. Neshak Hunter and Robertson all won’t be pitching and we didn’t really replace them. So yeah there won’t be that many injuries but there will probably be some and we’ll feel the heat earlier.

Plus as it stands right now we have either VVor Pivetta in the rotation and we’re one injury from both.

Don't worry, it was all bad luck. Everyone will be healthy and the starters will finally put it together despite their history of failure. Remember those 3 games by Pivetta after the demotion? He's ready, baby.

And the Braves team will all suddenly get worse, even though they are younger. Their farm will suddenly stop producing and we'll forge diamonds in our system out of coal.

History to date has been an aberration, an unhappy and unlucky coincidence. Klentak will make the move to end all moves at the deadline and save the day.

Monkeyboy wrote:

Shore wrote:

Monkeyboy wrote:...

....

...

Cool. Enjoy the season. I wasn't criticizing you, just your post. And I'd do the same to your response. But it's just duck season / wabbit season at this point.

Shore wrote:

Monkeyboy wrote:

Werthless wrote:Preach on

The cult of Shore.

Yes, I'm quite popular

You're slightly more popular than me. And I'm the carp of popularity, feeding at the bottom on whatever morsels might fall

Monkeyboy wrote:

MoBettle wrote:Feel like there’s a lot less depth in the bullpen this year. Neshak Hunter and Robertson all won’t be pitching and we didn’t really replace them. So yeah there won’t be that many injuries but there will probably be some and we’ll feel the heat earlier.

Plus as it stands right now we have either VVor Pivetta in the rotation and we’re one injury from both.

Don't worry, it was all bad luck. Everyone will be healthy and the starters will finally put it together despite their history of failure. Remember those 3 games by Pivetta after the demotion? He's ready, baby.

And the Braves team will all suddenly get worse, even though they are younger. Their farm will suddenly stop producing and we'll forge diamonds in our system out of coal.

History to date has been an aberration, an unhappy and unlucky coincidence. Klentak will make the move to end all moves at the deadline and save the day.

lol.. you're gold.

Your original post makes all sorts of assertions, and you offer no evidence. Now, it's all snarky straw man bullshit. Do some work, don't just be a WIP caller.

Pivetta's not even in the rotation at this point. Their "history of failure" rotation includes Aaron Nola, Zack Wheeler, and Jake Arrieta (who I fucking hate but doesn't have a history of failure any longer than Zack Eflin's history of success. The Phillies lineup, overall, was younger than the Braves (27.6 average per PA vs 28.1), despite your gut. Atlanta won 97 games despite a run differential that supports 91 wins. Their 2 best hitters are over 30, and one may leave. Thus, not developing, and likely to win less. But, hey, Acuna is 22 so he'll get better because development curves apply equally to everyone, like Andruw Jones.

But you're not interested in evidence, you're interested in emotion and gloom, and making it personal. So enjoy.

Shore wrote:

Monkeyboy wrote:

Shore wrote:

Monkeyboy wrote:...

....

...

Cool. Enjoy the season. I wasn't criticizing you, just your post. And I'd do the same to your response. But it's just duck season / wabbit season at this point.

There are days when I feel more like your post and days when I feel more like mine. I just feel like we have too many low percentage things, and when you multiply them out, it's just a low percentage play overall. But options are limited with the payroll at this point. I was hoping we might go over this year and then back under next year, but I'm not sure that's even possible. You enjoy the season, too.

MoBettle wrote:Feel like there’s a lot less depth in the bullpen this year. Neshak Hunter and Robertson all won’t be pitching and we didn’t really replace them. So yeah there won’t be that many injuries but there will probably be some and we’ll feel the heat earlier.

Plus as it stands right now we have either VVor Pivetta in the rotation and we’re one injury from both.

Or Howard.

I like getting Seranthony back. And Morgan. And I like Stock's arm. Neris, Arano, Alvarez, and Suarez have all pitched well. They have the makings of a solid pen, without the name closer.