I basically am on the same page with the Phillies situation. No player who moved, or didn't, at the MLB Winter Meetings would have drastically changed the Phillies 2017 outlook. Even if the Phillies had broke the farm to go after Chris Sale or Andrew McCutchen, or if they had spent big on a player like Jose Bautista, the Phillies would still not be a playoff team on paper. The improvements this team can make are mostly improvements that will be made by young prospects showing they are ready and can live up to expectations. You have to let the prospects have opportunity, and see who rises to the top of the barrel.
The problem with this is that the Phillies can make measured improvements along the way to put a better product on the field now, without sacrificing that future. In fact, pure math dictates that the Phillies must do this. Failure to do so actually could harm the re-build. The Phillies almost have to make another move or two this off-season, or risk stunting the growth of prospects in 2017.
Take the Phillies numbers game with starting pitching. As is, you can lock in Jeremy Hellickson, Jerad Eickhoff, Aaron Nola, and Vince Velasquez as having spots in the 2017 rotation in South Philadelphia. Jake Thompson, Zach Eflin, Adam Morgan, and Alec Asher all had a substantial number of starts for the 2016 club, and would presumably come to Spring Training to compete for one more spot. Ben Lively, Nick Pivetta, and Mark Appel all had substantial time in AAA last year and are on the 40 man roster. Even Phil Klein is still on the roster and made starts at both levels. That would leave the Phillies with 12 pitchers for ten spots in the major league and AAA rotations. Even if you had a six man rotation in AAA, you have one too many starting pitchers, even if you promote no one from AA to AAA this season. How are the Phillies going to get them all their innings of work? After having all of the pitchers mentioned above in the system last year, do the Phillies have no idea which of these guys they like? The depth is causing a back-up in a deep system.
The same could be said of several other positions. The Phillies have a back-up of depth in middle infielders going into the season, especially if J.P. Crawford has a breakout Summer. With Freddy Galvis and Cesar Hernandez here, Jesmuel Valentin now on the 40 man roster and in AAA, Crawford in AAA, ready to pounce, and top prospect second baseman Scott Kingery in AA now, the Phillies will soon have a back-up of players who play middle infield. The same could be said of their catching situation, where prospect catcher Andrew Knapp will now apparently be the primary MLB back-up to starter Cameron Rupp, while prospect Jorge Alfaro plays in AAA. The Phillies have lots of depth at these positions.
This is not to say that the Phillies should have broke the farm to go after a major player, or that they should have traded Cesar Hernandez, Jeanmar Gomez, or Odubel Herrera just for the sake of trading them. The Phillies could pretty easily have made a move to improve the current ball club and relieve some of the over-crowding in the upper minors right now at several positions. It would not have seriously harmed the plan for the club's future in any way. It would not have harmed the plan of developing a core of prospects as the future team, and then diving into the free agent market in 2018 as planned. It would have made things easier now, and helped them put a more competitive product on the field in the meantime.
By doing very little, the Phillies did very little. I can't think of any other benefits. They will simply have to confront these number crunches in Spring Training. Perhaps an injury or two will strike, and they will have room for everybody. Perhaps not though. Then they'll have to move someone at the last minute. For a team with near limitless resources, none of this makes much sense to me.
No comments:
Post a Comment