ReadingPhilly wrote:they look like a .500 team. that'd be like the 10th best season in franchise history.

Would actually be their 55th season without a losing record.

WhiteyFan wrote:

ek20 wrote:Its a conundrum. First of all, its at a premium position IMO. Not many teams have a catcher like him. Also you lose him, its gonna upset your franchise player. While he will get over it I'm sure, its not good optics. But that money can also be used for upgrading other more important areas. But you are asking klentak to do that

It's also a very injury-prone position and JTR will be on the wrong side of 30. Very real chance his decline begins as soon as we sign him. At the very least, it's pretty unrealistic to expect this type of production throughout the length of the contract.

It's also a position many (or at least some) believe will be de-valued as soon as robo-umps are instituted for balls and strikes.

I believe signing him would be very good short term and very bad long term, but I can see an argument both ways.

Don’t forget the DH, though. Can preserve his body much more easily over that period.

Maybe I'm just all pissed off and negative, and this is totally a dumb eyeball thing, but it seems to me that Bryce Harper isn't getting to as many balls as he could out there in right field.

PSUsarge wrote:

WhiteyFan wrote:

ek20 wrote:Its a conundrum. First of all, its at a premium position IMO. Not many teams have a catcher like him. Also you lose him, its gonna upset your franchise player. While he will get over it I'm sure, its not good optics. But that money can also be used for upgrading other more important areas. But you are asking klentak to do that

It's also a very injury-prone position and JTR will be on the wrong side of 30. Very real chance his decline begins as soon as we sign him. At the very least, it's pretty unrealistic to expect this type of production throughout the length of the contract.

It's also a position many (or at least some) believe will be de-valued as soon as robo-umps are instituted for balls and strikes.

I believe signing him would be very good short term and very bad long term, but I can see an argument both ways.

Don’t forget the DH, though. Can preserve his body much more easily over that period.

If we're paying him to play catcher, we're losing money each time he plays DH.

PSUsarge wrote:

They have inherited the worst trait of the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim, Klentak’s former employer, from the past decade. Oh sure, they have a few shiny fancy things that distract from the fact that they are the ultimate definition of mediocre. Until this organization ends up producing consistent major league quality players from its own ranks, it is doomed to failure.

https://www.phillyvoice.com/phillies-ma ... s-nl-east/

Ha! This is what I said about him at the time. What did he do to deserve the job, sleep on someone's couch? I said either he had nothing to do with the Angels' moves over the years and is therefore completely inexperienced OR he was involved in their decisions and shouldn't get the job because of all the poor decisions the Angels made during that time.

Anyone can look at the best players and throw money at them. The farm system is worse, not better, and it's not because we made a bunch of huge trades. It's frustrating to see almost every other team produce players from the farm who can hit and we can't seem to develop anyone at all. We can't even fill in a bullpen with guys who have the stuff to compete at the ML level. And forget about starters from the minors. Eflin, Pivetta, and VV were all received in trades at the periphery. Nola was a nice signing, but that's it.

WhiteyFan wrote:

PSUsarge wrote:

WhiteyFan wrote:

ek20 wrote:Its a conundrum. First of all, its at a premium position IMO. Not many teams have a catcher like him. Also you lose him, its gonna upset your franchise player. While he will get over it I'm sure, its not good optics. But that money can also be used for upgrading other more important areas. But you are asking klentak to do that

It's also a very injury-prone position and JTR will be on the wrong side of 30. Very real chance his decline begins as soon as we sign him. At the very least, it's pretty unrealistic to expect this type of production throughout the length of the contract.

It's also a position many (or at least some) believe will be de-valued as soon as robo-umps are instituted for balls and strikes.

I believe signing him would be very good short term and very bad long term, but I can see an argument both ways.

Don’t forget the DH, though. Can preserve his body much more easily over that period.

If we're paying him to play catcher, we're losing money each time he plays DH.

yeah, probably getting back .75 on a dollar.

risky contract without a doubt, i'd feel much more comfortable and confident giving him a big deal if klentak/phillies were good at being cheap in other areas. it would be nice if they had a good farm system to count on, they could dumpster dive for relievers or find a reclamation project for the starting lineup or rotation. they haven't shown me any of that. looks like they will have to spend money and at market rate/premium to compete. that's not a situation where you want to take a big gamble on.

If you look at JT’s comps they all started to crap out at after age 30 season or age 32 at the latest. Among catchers the only really good ones I can find who seemed to defy the odds were Berra, Fisk, Posada and, to a lesser extent, Piazza. Pudge and Bench fell off sharply and Posey seems to be following that route, too.

JT is a great athlete and I’d guess he’s probably got another 2, maybe 3 really good seasons. After that, is he another Berra, Fisk or Posada? He’s probably got as good a chance as anyone but, even then, it’s probably not a good chance. Anything more than a 3-year deal would be very risky. You might do 4 if you had to to get it done, knowing that the 4th year would probably be wasted money.

All of the above comes down to a simple question, though - does this team seriously intend to compete in the next 3-5 years?

Your other crown jewels - Harper, Nola, and Wheeler (and mayyybe Hoskins) - will be in their respective primes, with Kingery, Haseley, Howard and Bohm hopefully entering theirs sometime in that window as well.

You've already given up your 2018 starting C and top prospect to bring JT in, and you've signed Harper and Wheeler with the idea of winning now. There really isn't any way not signing him aligns with how you've constructed the roster.

This core will not win the way the 2008 core won - much more likely to be something like the '83 team. You have to take risks to get there to compensate for failure to develop in-house.

Former Reading Phillies bullpen catcher Scot Teller posted video on Facebook of Vance Worley hitting 98 and raving about his cutter. He’s trying to get the Phillies’ attention to sign him for the bullpen.

Post is public but not shareable, so that’s not gonna work.

Klentak get the Worley bird on then horn!

Hey, why the heck not? Unless it’s 89, not 98. But even then...

JFLNYC wrote:If you look at JT’s comps they all started to crap out at after age 30 season or age 32 at the latest. Among catchers the only really good ones I can find who seemed to defy the odds were Berra, Fisk, Posada and, to a lesser extent, Piazza. Pudge and Bench fell off sharply and Posey seems to be following that route, too.

JT is a great athlete and I’d guess he’s probably got another 2, maybe 3 really good seasons. After that, is he another Berra, Fisk or Posada? He’s probably got as good a chance as anyone but, even then, it’s probably not a good chance. Anything more than a 3-year deal would be very risky. You might do 4 if you had to to get it done, knowing that the 4th year would probably be wasted money.

I think giving him 4-5 would be fine if we plan to stay near the cap and develop decent cheap talent from the farm. A top financial team can always afford one or two contracts that are a bit over value if they are also developing cheap talent. We aren't developing much top cheap talent and then we give someone like Kingery, who had lots of red flags, an extension that will pull money that could have been used to pay that overpay on Realmuto.

And I hate to break it to people, but Harper probably isn't going to be worth his contract at the end, either. It's the nature of the beast. And it's a fine approach, even preferable (because you get Harper/Realmuto in their prime), if you back it up by developing the cheap talent to make it work.

This problem starts and stops with our player development.

Holding to four years because he is a catcher misses the fact that he could move out from behind the plate in the future. He could easily play at the corner of the infield and his bat would play well at those positions.

When are they dropping Rhys in the lineup?

When are they dropping klentak from the GM role?

What is MacPhail’s job exactly?

Is he a number cruncher? A talent evaluator? A figurehead? A baseball ambassador? A high paid executive with a corner office?

Wheels Tupay wrote:When are they dropping klentak from the GM role?

They might have done it already and nobody would even know.

PSUsarge wrote:All of the above comes down to a simple question, though - does this team seriously intend to compete in the next 3-5 years?

Your other crown jewels - Harper, Nola, and Wheeler (and mayyybe Hoskins) - will be in their respective primes, with Kingery, Haseley, Howard and Bohm hopefully entering theirs sometime in that window as well.

You've already given up your 2018 starting C and top prospect to bring JT in, and you've signed Harper and Wheeler with the idea of winning now. There really isn't any way not signing him aligns with how you've constructed the roster.

This core will not win the way the 2008 core won - much more likely to be something like the '83 team. You have to take risks to get there to compensate for failure to develop in-house.

Based on the decrepit state of the minors and their recent big acquisitions they have to be win now and spend whatever it takes. If they don’t resign JT they are either incompetent or think the fans are morons

Stay_Disappointed wrote:What is MacPhail’s job exactly?

Is he a number cruncher? A talent evaluator? A figurehead? A baseball ambassador? A high paid executive with a corner office?

D. First question he asked Middleton after he got the WFH order was who was going to feed his fish once a week.

JD Hammer added to the LV player pool