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By charliewilmoth | at
Email a copy of 'Phillies Notes: Payroll, Prospects, Bullpen' to a friend
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Ed Charles
Not promoting prospects because you’re afraid they’d have to be sent back down is a** backward way of thinking. This team isn’t expected to do much, and you’re relying on a few young players this year that will backfire. I havent seen anything major from Altherr that shows me he’s going to be a success in the bigs. Not a bad player but he hit below .250 in 140 ab’s last year,
herecomethephillies2018
Two points: one, if you’re basing Altherr’s MLB success on batting average then you’re missing the picture on the kid. His average left something to be desired sure, but his line drive rate has risen dramatically over the past two years along with his walk rate, and his strikeout rate has dropped along with his groundball rate, meaning he is not only seeing the ball better, but he’s also squaring up on the ball better. Even with his .250 BA, his OPS was north of .800 because he has the ever-popular gap-power. Also of note is how he is finally filling out his lanky 6′ 4″ frame. He’s definitely not a guaranteed success at the MLB level, but he’s trending in the right direction.
My second point is your criticism of their approach with not wanting to demote their top minor leaguers once the call them up this year. I think what Klentak is saying that it won’t do any good to call these guys up prematurely, this stunting their development and starting their service clocks. It’d be a lose-lose situation. If Crawford (and whoever else) show that they’re ready for MLB action then I think they’ll call them up (after June 1 that is) but they’re not in a rush to call these guys up when they know the team isn’t going to compete this year. I hate to call it tanking, but if you’re going to rebuild, go all out with it (like the Astros did several years ago.)
Philliesfan4life
In 2018 the phillies payroll will be at 0 and they will spend again