If we are going to pay all his contract, we should get something in return. Otherwise, just keep him and hope someone has an opening for him during the season. And then have the balls to platoon him or whatever. I think we need to move on from him, but why pay out all that money for nothing?

JFLNYC wrote:Asche has a career 94 OPS+ and is a below-average defender. How about a guy who has a career 121 OPS+ is a slightly above-average corner INF defender, is controllable for as long as Asche and has just entered his prime years? Also bear in mind that Byrd led the team with a 110 OPS+ in 2014, so the latter candidate arguably becomes your most productive hitter by 10%.

prime starts at 25 or 26. ruf is already nearly halfway through his.
ruf is a net sub-average 1b defender so far in his major league career. non-abysmal 3b defenders tend to be above average at 1b, especially if throwing is their problem, as opposed to instincts, hands, and mobility.
fwiw steamer projections put asche ahead of ruf on pure offense in 2015.

i would like to keep them both, and have them see roughly equal time, 300-400 pa's each, asche split evenly between 3b and 1b. ruf only at 1b (no outfield, please!).

Put simply, to win championships a team needs to be above average. To be above average as a team, you need above average players. The more playing time you give to below average players, the greater the possibility your team will be below average.

Asche is a below average hitter, fielder and baserunner. So, if you've been following along, that means he's hurting the team's chances of winning. He may get better, but he may also get worse or stay about the same. But the chances are his ceiling is mediocrity. The fact that he's white, bats LH and plays the INF for the Phillies doesn't mean he's Chase Utley.

You can surround him with above average players to help compensate for his below averageness. But the better plan would be to acquire those above average players AND get an above-average 3B.

By the way, the only thing worse than playing a below-average hitting 3B at 3B is playing him at 1B, where his hitting will be even further below average, therefore hurting the team's chances of winning even more.

Again, if you're basically giving up on Asche, that's a different story. But to me the potential benefit of giving him another half season outweighs any detriment to Franco starting in AAA or -- if all three guys are playing well -- Ruf playing some OF. Hopefully we're in a position to compete in 2016, and slot them into fixed positions then

If Franco looks ready in ST, I give him the job, even expecting that he'll likely struggle for awhile. At the very least, by all accounts he's better defensively than Asche. If Franco's not ready and someone like Asche has to fill in for a couple of months, so be it. I'm looking to the future and, if I'm the Phillies, the future has Franco at the 3B and does not include Asche at 1B.

I've said before and will say it again: I haven't "given up" on Asche. He has a role, but it's not as a regular 3B or 1B. It's as a supersub.

JFLNYC wrote:Put simply, to win championships a team needs to be above average.

Asche is a below average hitter, fielder and baserunner.

put simply, i agree with you on the above average strategy, but i believe that a combination of 1b and 3b players that includes asche getting 300+ pa's is reasonably likely (better than 1/3 chance) to produce above average production at both positions, and currently is the phillies best option for getting above average production at those positions over the next three season. why, because asche is 24 and thus due for 0.5 to 1.0 win of improvement over the next year or two, and, when i look carefully at his 2014 game lots i see a guy who actually already is at or above average on offense and defense at 3b. he was (statistically, at least) at or above average on defense after his 3 error disaster in early may. that's a convenient cutoff, of course, but it is pretty normal for a young guy to improve on defense after his first few months of pro ball. also, he was at or above average on offense outside of his first two weeks back from his injury. he had .545 ops in 55 pa's in that stretch, .722 ops in 279 pa's outside that stretch, compared to a major league average of .715 for 3b (sorry, don't know how to get ops+ or wrc+ for game ranges). i don't think removing the two weeks following a dl-stint is something unreasonable when assessing a young player.

phorever wrote:i believe that a combination of 1b and 3b players that includes asche getting 300+ pa's is reasonably likely (better than 1/3 chance) to produce above average production at both positions, and currently is the phillies best option for getting above average production at those positions over the next three season. why, because asche is 24 and thus due for 0.5 to 1.0 win of improvement over the next year or two

But all the facts point to Ruf being more productive than Asche:

. Ruf's career OPS is 90 points higher than Asche's against RHP (and by 110 points overall).
. Asche's career splits against RHP are actually slightly worse than his splits against LHP.
. Ruf's career fielding numbers at 1B are right about average. Asche's at 3B are below average.
. Even a 0.5 to 1.0 improvement from Asche only brings him to around league average. Ruf's career OPS+ is already 20% above league average with league average fielding.
. Ruf's next three seasons begin at age 27, 28 and 29, respectively. Right in his prime.

In any event, I give up. There's not a single factual argument for playing Asche over Ruf. If you, Grote or anyone else wants to hope or believe Asche will be better than league average and is a better alternative than Ruf over the next 3 seasons, you're entitled to your own opinion, but not your own facts. "Hope" and "belief" aren't facts.

Hope is a strategy though and that's all Rube's got. Outside of, you know, learning how to GM

JFLNYC wrote:If you, Grote or anyone else wants to hope or believe Asche will be better than league average and is a better alternative than Ruf over the next 3 seasons, you're entitled to your own opinion, but not your own facts. "Hope" and "belief" aren't facts.

That's a silly reduction of my point

I'm all for trading anyone with a pulse, but Yimmy a dirty Met? Not sure I could have lived with that one.

Grotewold wrote:

JFLNYC wrote:If you, Grote or anyone else wants to hope or believe Asche will be better than league average and is a better alternative than Ruf over the next 3 seasons, you're entitled to your own opinion, but not your own facts. "Hope" and "belief" aren't facts.

That's a silly reduction of my point

Man. Your not kidding. If someone has all the "facts" regarding how all big leaguers will perform over the next three years, please let me know. We could make some serious dough.

JFLNYC wrote:
In any event, I give up. There's not a single factual argument for playing Asche over Ruf. If you, Grote or anyone else wants to hope or believe Asche will be better than league average and is a better alternative than Ruf over the next 3 seasons, you're entitled to your own opinion, but not your own facts. "Hope" and "belief" aren't facts.

it may be true that the majority of statistical evidence supports your position more than mine. please don't insult me with the claim that there is NO evidence in support of my position. divide ruf's 2014 bwar by appearances and do the same for asche and it is clear that asche delivered value at a greater rate according to that statistic. ditto for the pure offensive value (rbat+rbaser+rdp). even more so for the positionally adjusted offensive value. if i hadn't seen those things and thought you could see them too, i wouldn't be bothering to pursue this argument. please do me the favor of giving me a little credit for having respect for fact-based arguments.
i've only been posting things along those lines for 15 years on these forums.

ESPN NY reports the Phils and Mets discussed a Rollins trade, which Jimmy squashed

Could you imagine

Don't care. Trade him to the Mets if they will give the best deal and Jimmy will go (yes, I know he has said he won't so far).

I was a big fan of McNabb's and the trade to Washington was brilliant nonetheless. Sentiment has been the problem over the last 5 years.

smitty wrote:

Grotewold wrote:

JFLNYC wrote:If you, Grote or anyone else wants to hope or believe Asche will be better than league average and is a better alternative than Ruf over the next 3 seasons, you're entitled to your own opinion, but not your own facts. "Hope" and "belief" aren't facts.

That's a silly reduction of my point

Man. Your not kidding. If someone has all the "facts" regarding how all big leaguers will perform over the next three years, please let me know. We could make some serious dough.

Stop responding to an argument I didn't make, please. The only projection I made is that Ruf's next 3 seasons will start at ages 27, 28 and 29 and I'm pretty sure that projection is going to turn out to be correct. There are no "facts" in projections. The facts I referred to are their respective career numbers, every one of which favors Ruf as a hitter (and defensively for Ruf as a 1B only).

The "the majority of statistical evidence" does not suppurt Ruf over Asche. ALL of it does when you compare their respective complete bodies of work. Ruf has 447 career plate appearances, Asche 613. Ruf leads in BB%, ISO, AVG, OBP, SLG wOBA, wRC+ and oWAR -- even though Ruf has 27% fewer career PA than Asche (as I'm sure everyone knows, WAR is a counting stat). Even Ruf's minor league stats were better than Asche's.

phorever, I'll give you credit when it's due. But parsing the stats to include only 2014 when Asche had 434 PA and Ruf only 117 injury-filled PA is, once again, creating your own facts and not worthy of respect.

For all I know Asche will end up having a better career than Ruf. But, I will say again that, based on their career numbers (and not some artificially smaller sample size) there is no fact-based argument that supports Asche's career performance thus far over Ruf's. Any attempt to argue otherwise is disingenuous.

ruf turns 29 next july, though

td11 wrote:ruf turns 29 next july, though

You're right and I apologize for being wrong. So it's 28, 29 & 30.

i like ruf

Ruf was released by his Dominican league team (that's a new one) and Biddle has left to have sore elbow looked at by Phils doctors. Awesome.

Whether you agree or disagree, this is actually one of the more coherent arguments that Amaro has made in a while:

The general manager later talked extensively about how Domonic Brown, the man who started 117 games in left field for the Phillies last season, needs a longer look.

"We know he has the ability to do it," Amaro said. "It's just a matter of him being able to make the adjustments. Sometimes you have to be patient with guys. Some guys don't get there all the time, but he has a chance to be very good. He has proven it. He has done it at the major-league level. Has he done it for a sustained period of time? No. And is it a slam dunk that he will? Absolutely not. But I think when you have a guy with that kind of talent you have to be somewhat patient with him."

Read more at http://www.philly.com/philly/sports/phi ... DIXMoiR.99