Last Man for the Phillies' Bench?
by dajafi on Jan 30, 2011 12:45 PM EST
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PrintAs we get to the end of January, most of the more intriguing options noted here a couple weeks back to fill out what's likely to be a six-man bench for the Phillies are off the board: Marcus Thames to the Dodgers, Jerry Hairston Jr. to the Nationals. Meanwhile, the team's situation in right field remains fluid, with Ben Francisco, Domonic Brown and potentially Ross Gload and John Mayberry Jr. in the mix. While the best-case scenario remains Brown blowing the doors off spring training and winning the job outright, there's a strong case to be made that if he isn't to be the everyday guy, the next best option would be for him to go back to triple-A, consolidate his gains and take the job either sometime during the season or at the start of 2012, when the Phils are likely to have two corner outfield spots open after Raul Ibanez departs.
So there's opportunity to be had. And there's a player of unquestioned talent but in desperate need of both structure and opportunity still looking for work as the days dwindle before training camp opens: Lastings Milledge.
Five years ago, most baseball people would have laughed at the notion that Milledge would be looking for a job in baseball as his 26th birthday approached. He was the Mets' top prospect, a 20 year old phenom with tools off the charts who'd rocketed through the high minors before he could legally buy a beer. Milledge debuted with the Mets in 2006 and put up strong numbers as a 22 year old in 2007, hitting .272/.341/.446. But he proved a bad fit in a dysfunctional clubhouse and was traded to the Nationals before the 2008 season. In Washington that year, he slugged 14 home runs and stole 24 bases, but put up a mildly disappointing .268/.330/.402 line. Traded to the Pirates in 2009, he continued to underwhelm, and Pittsburgh non-tendered him after the 2010 season.
Milledge is far from a sure thing; he's had trouble with injuries as well as off-field incidents that have called his maturity into question. Right now, he seems poised to join a lengthening list of one-time Mets outfield prospects who never translated promise into performance at the big-league level--Alex Escobar and Carlos Gomez, with Fernando Martinez possibly on that track as well. He's moving out of baseball youth with a lot to prove.
For the Phillies, Milledge would represent a low-risk, high-reward flyer. If he's hurt, or acts out, they can turn him loose again with virtually nothing lost. But even if he maintains his recent performance, he adds something: a right-handed hitter, Milledge pasted lefties at a .320/.414/.512 clip in 145 plate appearances in 2010, the second straight year he showed a pronounced platoon split. He's also a solid runner and adequate defender, representing an upgrade on Ibanez in both respects. And within the high-functioning Phillies clubhouse, under the tutelage of hitting guru Charlie Manuel, there could be more to come; as SBN prospect guru John Sickels put it in a piece on Milledge last summer, "Sometimes players like this take an unexpected step forward in their late 20s after everyone gives up." Jayson Werth, anyone?
Finally, you know little would bother Mets fans more than seeing Milledge blossom into big-league stardom, or even adequacy, with their hated rivals down the Jersey Turnpike. Whether such things motivate GM Ruben Amaro Jr., I have no idea, but just in terms of satisfying his audience, it should be a consideration.
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Love the idea and, oh man, this would drive Larry Andersen absolutely CRAZY.
Pessimism of the intellect, optimism of the will.
On the other hand, there would be tons of annoying chatter on the airwaves and such kvetching about whether Milledge might corrupt Domonic Brown and lead him astray with his bad attitude yada yada.
True. Racism is a drag.
Pessimism of the intellect, optimism of the will.
by FuquaManuel on Jan 31, 2011 1:13 AM EST up reply actions 1 recs
SportingFanatcism brought this up earlier and I think it would be a good idea. Milledge has a similar career WAR to Werth at this point (although injuries, etc. hurt Werth, with no such excuse for Milledge). I believe this age is the year Werth took off and Milledge could do the same (although he would not get the starts unless an injury hit).
That said, I think he would be a good option for the team. Sign him.
Right, so I’ll repost my comment from that thread:
Intrigued by his splits, no doubt. The Phillies could use a guy who hits lefties better and has this defensive versatility. He’s a slow starter so I like the idea of a minor league contract. I’m not quite sure why he’s stopped running so much. Also, his defense is disappointingly subpar. Is there any advantage with him over Francisco?
I’d add – as we’re speculating that Francisco could be “the next Werth.” I might grant that Milledge seems to have more upside, but they both seem to suck in comparison to Werth’s defensive chops.
by Wet Luzinski on Jan 30, 2011 1:42 PM EST up reply actions
Yeahn the comparisons to Werth seem to be a bit of a trend. In the interest of fairness if you start comparing stats at this age to player X who went on to be an All Star, you also need to note all of the players with similar stats who went on to wonderful careers as backups or car salesmen. Yes, the chance is there, but the likliehood is stronger that the player doesn’t develop into an All Star.
That said, I’m all for signing Milledge. If he pans out, Left is covered for several more years. If he doesn’t, no real loss.
by Cormican on Jan 30, 2011 9:56 PM EST up reply actions 1 recs
I don’t know if it’s really accurate anyway to say that Werth found himself in his late 20s. To me, his breakout year was really his age-25 season, when he posted a 115 OPS+ in 326 PAs. Then he got frozen in amber for a few years because he broke his wrist in the following spring training, thus making it seem like his breakout came much later than it really did.
Since injuries effect performance, you could still argue the age 29 season his breakout since that is when he reached and maintained his potential performance. Even his age 25 season was as a platoon/4th OF type player where he only got ~200 ABs.
It isn’t really accurate to say he was a 4th OF. First, he had far more than “~200 AB” that year. Second, the reason he didn’t have more AB than he did was that he missed the first 50 G of the season with a muscle strain. He wasn’t an everyday player but he played more frequently than a platoon player and much more frequently than a fourth outfielder.
Injuries affect performance, but in the context of what we’re talking about here, the point is that Werth and Milledge have essentially nothing in common. It’s one thing to say that some players achieve sustained success in their late 20s for one reason or another. It’s another thing altogether to say that players may display major league talent in their late 20s for the first time when they’ve never done it previously.
I believe SportingFanaticism had a fanshot about this as well a few weeks back and I liked the idea then, and still like the idea. Low risk, high reward. I know his fielding isn’t much too talk about, but has anyone seen him throw. Any good in that department? Fangraphs has the Fans Scouting Report which has values for categories like “Arm Strength” and “Arm Accuracy” as well as other on ones for “Hands”, “Release”, “Speed”, “First Step”. The numbers reagarding his arm are 46 (strength) and 37 (accuracy) but, I don’t know what they mean. Does anyone happen to know?
If they are similar to scouting numbers he has a slightly below average arm in strength, but is lucky the ball goes in the right general direction when he throws it (you’d have a tough time finding many minor league players with a scouting score below 40 for outfield throw accuracy). My guess is that’s close to right. His Fangraphs ARM score is -5.7 which is quite abysmal.
It gives me pause that Milledge apparently wasn’t good enough of a risk to stick with the freakin’ Pirates.
But hey, what the heck, we’ve got nothing to lose so why not.
That’s one way to think about it. The other is that the Pirates as an organization haven’t really proven themselves to be the greatest judges of talent…
They had a major change in management a couple of years ago though, so there isn’t all that much organizational continuity with their failures of the past. The current GM is reputed to be pretty sharp, and I think he’s made some pretty decent moves.
Is there any place where you could possibly have lower expectations as a GM than Pittsburgh? Or does their losing streak add more pressure that a mediocre organization would lack?
by philsandthrills on Jan 30, 2011 11:58 PM EST up reply actions
Under normal circumstances I’d say the latter, but in this case Huntington doesn’t have to worry since, to paraphrase Bob Uecker in Major League, nobody’s watching anyway.
Though, last season for them was spectacularly dreadful, so he certainly hasn’t been all that great.
by philsandthrills on Jan 31, 2011 12:15 AM EST up reply actions
Well, it was kind of deliberate. When he took over in ‘08, their minor league system didn’t have much going for it, so there was no way it was ever going to generate a critical mass of real talent until 2012 or so at the earliest. So he basically liquidated every asset he had (Bay, McLouth, Nady, LaRoche, Sanchez, Wilson) for prospects, in the hope that he might be able to assemble a group of talented guys who would all be in their arb or minimum-salary years simultaneously. Sort of a backward-to-go-forward strategy, like NBA teams tanking to get better odds in the draft lottery. It may or may not work out, but I think it was the right strategy under the circumstances.
Here’s Sickels’ report on them:
http://www.minorleagueball.com/2011/1/3/1910902/pittsburgh-pirates-top-20-prospects-for-2011
Ten B- or better prospects (eight pitchers, one outfielder, one catcher).
In the majors, they have McCutchen, Walker, Alvarez, and Tabata.
Plus they have the #1 pick in this year’s draft.
Huntington’s no Andrew Friedman, but he’s doing some good things considering the budget he’s got to work with. They’ll need luck, but it’s conceivable that they’ll contend in, say, 2013. McCutchen will have the most seniority of their core-group players then and he’ll only be in the second of four arb years (I think), so they’d be able to hold onto him at least for a short run.
Was looking at that at the same time you posted. He likes them much more than Law, obviously.
by philsandthrills on Jan 31, 2011 12:39 AM EST up reply actions
I don’t think there’s a huge gap between them, really. All ten of the guys that Sickels has at B- or better are also no higher than B+. Sickels doesn’t do rankings, but if he did, my guess is that he’d have the Pirates right near the middle, while Law has them 5.5 spots lower.
The main thing to remember in evaluating Huntington’s role in all this is where his system was when he took over, which was only three years ago. In short, they were a LOT worse: Sickels’ two-sentence evaluation at the time was “What a horrible system. There isn’t much else to say about it.”
Wow, what a dreadful group of players outside of McCutchen. How could their system possibly have been that bad, given their average draft position and endless trading?
Also, interesting note in the 2010 report:
20) Chase d’Arnaud, SS, Grade C: Double-A season brought mixed results, still has a chance to be more than a utility player.
The d’Arnaud family is doing pretty well in baseball.
by philsandthrills on Jan 31, 2011 12:50 AM EST up reply actions
Actually, I bet spending is pretty much the answer to my question.
by philsandthrills on Jan 31, 2011 12:55 AM EST up reply actions
It was part of it, but not every team with a small draft budget has a bad farm system, and even those that do should still at least do well with their first-round picks. The Pirates, though, had an unbelievable run of drafting college pitchers in the beginning of the first round who would then promptly blow out their arms. They were also just really stupid in general.
John doesn’t, but you may recall a post here a few weeks back linking to dougdirt’s ranking per John’s scores. Pirates were #18.
I should have added that Law ranked them quite low in the organizational rankings. 21st, now that I looked it up. So, even on that front, progress is not great, though I think some of their draft arms from this year are well touted.
by philsandthrills on Jan 31, 2011 12:39 AM EST up reply actions
I’m willing to bet that the Pirates move into the top half of KLaw’s organizational rankings next year. They’ve spent more than any other team in baseball in the draft over the last couple years and signed the top-ranked Latin American pitching prospect last summer. If one or two of those over-slot picks break out and Taillon and Stetson Allie progress the way most analysts expect them to, the Pirates could have a formidable rotation three or four years down the road.
There isn’t a lot of young power in the organization outside of Alvarez, but if Pirates make Anthony Rendon the first overall pick this year they should have a pair of impressive power-hitting corner infielders for years to come. Really, the only incredible weakness in the Pirates future is their lack of a shortstop. Considering the cards they were dealt, I’m not sure anyone can complain about the job Huntington, Coonelly and Nutting have done over the last three years.
Regarding Brown, I actually won’t flip out or anything if he starts the year in a big league platoon, provided that he doesn’t end the year in a big league platoon. Keeping him away from lefties altogether will obviously be counterproductive for his development, but building him up against lefties gradually won’t necessarily be counterproductive.
clarification
I don’t read SportingFanaticism, and hadn’t seen that they wrote about this. If I had, I probably wouldn’t have… though it’s not really like we have a ton to talk about these days, so I’m not sorry I posted this. Still, if someone has the link, I’d like to take a look.
That’s actually not a website, just a poster here.
by philsandthrills on Jan 30, 2011 11:59 PM EST up reply actions
That’s the second time that same writer has ripped us off.
http://www.gcobb.com/2010/12/19/phillies-to-look-in-house-for-relievers/
Basically stole my numbers from my bullpen post last month.
At least this time he had the decency to give us credit.
Pessimism of the intellect, optimism of the will.
2 organizations that could use whatever young talent with upside they could get their hands on have now given up on him in 2 consecutive years. Make it 3 teams in 4 years really.
A team utterly desperate for cheap talent (Pirates) decided to spend for them what is relatively decent money to sign a guy (Diaz) who is more expensive than Milledge and very well might be ready for a notable failoff in production.
There is a reason that Milledge hasn’t been signed yet. He’s a loser. He isn’t nearly productive enough enough to put up with the other nonsense he brings to the table.
Besides the speed and empty high average, he brings little to the table. He is a poor baserunner, has almost no power, is a hacker at the plate who almost never BBs, is a below average defender, and doesn’t do the little things well (e.g., terrible bunter, misses the cutoff man).
The last man on the bench will either be D. Young or Mayberry. Each guy has their respective pluses/minuses too but I would rather see either guy on the bench instead of a guy like Milledge.
The beauty of having such a strong clubhouse is that the Phillies can look at bad apples like Milledge and have a reasonable shot at turning them around, reasonable enough to take a flyer on them. That is something a lot of teams (i.e. Mets) just cant do.
Invite him to spring training and see if you can knock some sense into him. If not, bye bye. But if you CAN, he has better tools than their other options for that last bench spot.
I’ve lived in Pittsburgh going on three years now, so I experienced the thrilling Lastings Milledge era in its entirety. From everything I’ve heard, Milledge has matured a lot since his time with the Mets and Nationals. I haven’t heard anything negative about his clubhouse presence.
His on-field performance, however, is a different story. Defensively he has the speed to be a good outfielder, but he takes the worst routes to a fly ball I’ve ever seen. He reads the ball off the bat about as well as your typical JV high school player. A corner outfielder who had a .332 OBP and .380 SLG last year just doesn’t cut it offensively. His line against lefties last year was impressive, but his career line against them is ,289/.363/.435—decent but still a significant lack of power. It wouldn’t be the worst move for the Phillies to make, but I’d be just as happy with Francisco and Mayberry backing up the corner spots.
The Giants won the World Series with a corner outfielder batting .242/.311/.366, who went on to bat .167/.231/.167 in the postseason (albeit playing mostly as a defensive replacement for Burrell). Schierholtz is better defensively than Milledge, but his offense is hideous. Their other non-Burrell corner outfielder batted .288/.354/.466 in the regular season in very limited ABs. Yeah, Milledge doesn’t have any real power, but he cuts it offensively about as well as the guys that won the last World Series.
Bob.
Your argument essentially is that since the Giants won the WS last year with an offensive player who is worse than Milledge so the Phils should pick him up?
I think the point is that a bench player who doesn’t really have a complete skill set won’t kill a team; in fact, such players barely exist, as if they were both good at offense and defense they’d be starters (or at least platoon starters).
So if Milledge is terrible at defense but acceptable at offense, he could still be a useful reserve outfielder.
No, I was just countering your point that you need power hitting from the outfield corners. The Giants did get power from Burrell, but not from Schierholtz. I’m iffy on Milledge. I’d prefer to sign him to a minor-league deal and see if he works out within the organization, but I don’t have an issue with a slap-hitter.
Bob.
Defensive outfielder preferred
Overall, I’m pretty “meh” about this….fine if the Phils sign Milledge to a minimum salary or minor-league contract. Fine if they don’t. For all the reasons, pro and con above.
However, the part mattjg posted about his defensive lapses gives me pause. Right now, the Phils do not have any potential backup if Victorino is “slightly” injured (say, pulls a muscle slightly, needs to be out a few days). Mayberry, Francisco, Brown or Gload are your options. Yuck. Maybe Dom would be ok in 2012 or 2013, but not now. Mayberry would be mediocre, Francisco or Gload are frightening.
I think the calls to bring back Rowand are ludicrous, but while overrated, I would not mind if the Phils got someone at least as good as he was defensively.
Set your JVR in 2011.
Merry Cliffmas and Happy Halladays....Phils toys that will be used all year.
finding a backup CF
really should be a must for the Phillies. but they apparently see Francisco (95 innings in CF over 2009–10) and Mayberry (15 games in CF at AAA last year) as plausible centerfielders. I share your lack of confidence in either of those options for more than an inning or two at a time.
by perfectdepth on Jan 31, 2011 4:49 PM EST up reply actions
adding:
Milledge really wouldn’t help that, if the numbers from his 2008 stint in DC are to be believed. Baseball-Ref has him as 10 runs below average as a centerfielder on the season (134 games).
I wouldn’t mind the Phillies taking a flyer (i.e., spring training invite/minor league deal) on Milledge, but he’s clearly a corner OF at best at this point.
by perfectdepth on Jan 31, 2011 4:53 PM EST up reply actions
The starting CF at Lehigh Valley last year was somebody named Rich Thompson. Can he field? Is he even in the system anymore?
Rich Thompson, Willy Taveras, Chris Duffy, Dewayne Wise….eeeeesh.
by perfectdepth on Jan 31, 2011 5:07 PM EST up reply actions
Willy Taveras would actually be a pretty decent option as a fielding and baserunning specialist. I mean, we’re talking deep bench here – it’s not like we’re going to be able to persuade Franklin Gutierrez to be our backup. As Joe Namath once said under different but somewhat analogous circumstances, “It’s three in the morning, and Miss America just ain’t coming in.”
agree that Taveras would be fine as a bench guy
but alas, the Rockies already gave him a minor league contract.
by perfectdepth on Jan 31, 2011 9:01 PM EST up reply actions
Thompson will be 32 in April, and is from Reading. He’s an OK fielder, has 6 MLB games under his belt back in 2004. His one and only plate appearance was a GIDP, although he must have also been used as a pinch runner, since he had a SB and a run scored. If we needed a guy for a game or two, I think we could survive with him. I’d be concerned if Vic went down long-term.
Bob.
The problem actually could be the short run, not the long run. I “assume” someone would be called up – Rich Thompson, come on down? – for a 15 day stint. But since the DL doesn’t work like IR and the roster does in the NHL (are you rusty here?) if Vic is down for 3 or 4 games, they won’t DL him, yet the Phlls now will be going with Ben F, or Mayberry which phinally and I will be shuddering through.
Set your JVR in 2011.
Merry Cliffmas and Happy Halladays....Phils toys that will be used all year.
Yeah, I’m still thinking hockey and basketball, where it’s easier to move people on and off the roster. I didn’t even stop to think about how call-ups work (heck, I still don’t fully understand the system), just blindly assumed we could get him on the roster if needed.
Bob.
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