FanPost

A Pragmatic Reflection to an Unusual Offseason

I have been somewhat vocal in my disappointment to the approach to the Phillies offseason. I felt they should have made a trade for Kiermaier and Chapman and they should have been looking to make some marginal upgrades with defensive minded players with positional flexibility since they have such a ground ball heavy staff. My initial reaction to Schwarber signing was "eh, not unexpected." I was satisfied with the move and though it would be good if they paired him with a strong glove and RH bat. Then the Castellanos signing happened and my thought was "what in the hell are they doing?" This isn’t beer league softball. You need guys to play defense. And then I took as step back and took a more pragmatic approach instead of just a reactionary approach.

1) The move makes the most sense in terms of the OF.

I have been beating the let’s get Kiermaier drum pretty loudly for the entirety of the lockout. I still think he would have been a great asset to the locker room and a significant defensive presence. I also thought he was worth the 12.5M it would cost this year with an 8.9M Lux tax hit, but with the new rules, his hit would have jumped to 14M with his option/buyout. Under the old rules, the team acquiring the player would take on the player’s AAV. The AAV is adjusted, so a front-loaded contract is not more desirable and back-loaded less desirable. The difference is 5M in lux tax dollars. This might not seem like much, but in terms of roster construction is very significant. Add in the fact that the Rays reconsidered trading him; it really eliminated him from the picture.

The other option was to jump the gun and sign Starling Marte. Marte is a CF, it is a position of need, and he led the MLB in SB (amazingly was 5th in the NL and 6th in the AL in his split time with Oak and Mia), but he is 33 years old and getting incrementally slower. It’s essentially the same contract, so who would you rather have a 33, 34, 35, and 36 yr old Marte or a 29, 30, 31, 32 yr old Schwarber? I trust Schwarber to be more productive at 32 than Marte at 36. Plus, Marte is at CF now, but he’s already just an average defender. He will have to move to a corner over the life of his contract. You are looking at a slower contact hitter playing an adequate COF without much power. Between Schwarber and Marte, I think Schwarber is the better value.

Other moves made were Winker and Suarez, Jackie Bradly Jr., and Renfroe. The Mariners had to give up a top pitching prospect in the Winker trade. Is giving up Painter and absorbing the Suarez contract (who has 3 yrs left and hit as well as Didi last year) worth obtaining Winker, who has big time splits? I doubt it. Does JBJ or Renfroe "move the needle," as people have asked? I don’t think it does.

Lastly, I don’t even feel a need to discuss Bryant. He was an excellent fit on this team, but I’m pretty sure everyone on day 1 can see what a bad contract the Rockies gave out. Even though he could help in LF, CF, 3rd and in other spots, he’s not worth that deal.

I’m not going to claim I was all for the team’s OF moves. I did not like the Herrera move; I found the Castellanos move after the Schwarber move very puzzling. But they do make sense after I took time to look back at other moves this offseason. Without committing to the platoon in CF, they don’t get both bats, and it opens the door for one of the prospects to take over mid-year or next season

2) LF last year was already bad.

Using Outs Above Average as the metric, LF was already among the worst in MLB with Andrew McCutchen. He was 36th out of 42 qualifiers, while Schwarber was 38th. It is a marginal downgrade, but with a massive upgrade offensively. Schwarber’s slash line in 2022 was .266/.374/.554 vs Cutch who has .222/334/.444, and remember most of Cutch’s damage was vs LHP. Cutch destroyed LHP to a slash line better than our MVP’s season and batted like Aaron Nola vs RHP.

But let’s take this a step further. Nick Castellanos was the 39th rated OF in OOA out of 40 RF. However, the RFs are much better defensively than LF. The bottom of the RFs in OOA in 2021 were

  • 35. Harper

  • 36. Soler

  • 37. Haniger

  • 38. Dozier

  • 39. Castellanos

  • 40 Blackmon

Not defensive wizards, but not guys (outside of maybe Solar) that I think DH only guys. Especially when you compare it to the bottom of the LF rankings.

Dom Smith, Lourdes Gurriel Jr., Jesse Winker, Yadiel Hernandez, Kyle Schwarber, Justin Upton, Cutch.

Those are DHs outside of Yadiel Hernandez (who I do not remember).

I think it is fair to assume that a shift from RF to LF could potentially improve the overall positions.

3) The concern is infield D; why be concerned about LF D.

I have been a big proponent of addressing the team’s defensive deficiencies during the offseason. Didi has been a butcher at SS; Bohm and Hoskins should make donations to a cow farm because those animals died for no reason. However, none of those players play in the OF. I want the organization to address the D because the pitchers on this team are ground ball pitchers. Using my own argument against me, what difference does it make who is in LF? Honestly, it doesn’t. An OF of Schwarber/Castellanos, Herrera/Vierling, and Harper will be just as good defensively as Cutch, Herrera/ Jankowski, and Harper and 10 times better offensively.

So then, what is the drawback? There are a couple.

1) It takes up the DH spot.

The DH spot was supposedly going to be used to cycle through players to keep them fresh. In some scenarios, this may work. Schwarber did have some time at 1st. It is possible that he plays 1st and lets Hoskins DH. Castellanos did play RF so he could play RF, and Schwarber LF and Harper could DH. However, they can’t use the DH to keep JT’s bat in the lineup, I don’t foresee Didi getting reps at DH, and Bohm will have to just take the off day as well.

However, is that a bad thing? The Designated HITTER is being used by a better hitter. As much as I love JT, Schwarber, Castellanos, and Harper are better hitters than he is. Before this signing, I was intrigued by how KC used Perez. He caught 124 games and DH for 40. I figured that was the plan for JT with the DH. Schwarber and Hoskins getting about 50 games each at DH and JT getting 40 would leave 22 other games to sprinkle in rest for some guys. I assume that they will primarily split time at LF and DH with the current configuration. Schwarber and Castellanos get about 70 games at DH and 22 games for Hoskins, Harper, JT, and others to get a break from the field.

2) It does impact the infield defense.

Ultimately the signing does influence the defensive configurations. As I pointed out, Castellanos might have a higher defensive value moving from RF to LF; I think Bohm could also benefit from moving. But the Phillies would need the DH spot open for that to happen. Just using in-house players, I think the Phillies could improve their defense by simply shuffling the deck. 3rd Segura, SS Maton (then Stott), 2nd Didi, 1st Bohm should be a stronger defensive unit than 3rd Bohm, SS Didi (then Stott), 2nd Segura, 1st Hoskins. I would have preferred an outside move (trade or signing), but I don’t see that happening unless they move Segura or Hoskins.

Speaking of moving guys, there is one other big positive to these off-season moves. None of these contracts are albatross contracts. No one will take on the Seager, Bryant, or Semian contacts. However, the one-year RP deals, the MIF on the last year of their deals, and the recently signed contracts are all very moveable at the trade deadline if things blow up. And with the expanded playoffs, that will increase the number of buyers and decrease the number of sellers making it even easier to move the contracts if things go wrong. I don’t expect things to go bad, but it is always wise to plan for the worst and hope for the best.