Phillies daily links: 11/21/18

It’s the day before Thanksgiving, where college kids come home, head out with their friends and pretend that their tolerance for alcohol has increased somehow. It’s also a time when no one is doing anything transaction related other than yesterday’s push to finalize 40 man rosters. It lead to some interesting decisions from teams that are crying poor, as well as a healthy dose of rumors that have been working their way through the mill. On to the links!

Here at The Good Phight:

• The Phillies finalized their own 40 man roster and John Stolnis has your analysis here. Nothing really all that surprising as someone like Adonis Medina would have been snatched up quickly by a prospect light team at the beginning of the Rule V draft.
• Justin Klugh and Trevor Strunk have a new episode of the Dirty Inning that has a Thanksgiving theme to it. And of course, when you think of Thanksgiving, you think of....that’s right, racism! Sadly, this was not the meat sniffing episode Justin promised us all. I know what my review on iTunes will be.
• The Smarty Jones introduces his new Ruben Tuesdays series, where he hearkens back to the days of yore, when men were men and trades were made without all of this analytics nonsense polluting the conversation. Actually, I really hope the horse remembers all of the good Amaro did as a general manager because there was a lot of it.

Other Phillies news:

• The Athletic’s Meghan Montemurro looks at Vince Velasquez ($) and the numbers that made him what he was in 2018. In my eyes, the biggest number for Velasquez was 146. That’s the number of innings he pitched last year and it showed that he can be a starter in this league. Does he have things to work on? Sure, but it was nice to see him take the ball often during the season.
• Also at The Athletic, Matt Gelb looks at how the internal machinations of the Phillies will help determine the course of the season.
• Our heroes are going to be sent off properly by the Phillies. The dates for the ceremonies honoring Jimmy Rollins, Chase Utley and Ryan Howard have been set, and you can purchase your tickets now.
• And of course, what would a day in Phillies writing be without someone talking about how the Phillies should be mindful of that big fish in California when they go to spend money. Seriously, this writer, with a straight face presumably, suggests not spending and securing two potential Hall of Famers RIGHT NOW, but to instead hope that another one will want to come home when his time is right. It’s getting to the point where we can put the “L word” on these types of columns.

MLB esoterica:

• In a move to accommodate the 40 man roster, the Marlins released Derek Dietrich. Now, Dietrich has had a decent career in Miami, putting an OPS+ greater than 100 up the last four seasons. He’s able to play five different positions on the diamond. Why wouldn’t anyone want to empl......oh wait, he’s due to make $5 million next season. Gotcha. Now I know why the miserly Marlins don’t want to keep him around.
• Also in a cost cutting measure, the Rays are waving goodbye to C.J. Cron. Why, you ask, would a team want to part with someone who had a 122 OPS+ in 2018? I’ll give you 5.2 million reasons why.
• The Padres and Mariners are talking about a significant trade according to Ken Rosenthal. I’m not sure why the Padres would want to add a shortstop when they have Fernando Tatis, Jr. coming up, but hey what do I know.

Special note - there will not be a daily links post until Monday as I enjoy the holiday with my family. I also have a birthday party for my twins so my time is gone. Happy Thanksgiving and until next time...