GM Matt Klentak says the Phillies plan to do plenty of spending “under the hood” this winter, Matt Gelb of Philly.com writes. By “under the hood,” Klentak means spending that isn’t necessarily entirely public, like on analytics, scouting, player development and infrastructure. (The Phillies currently have about $77MM committed to ten big-league players and figure to come in significantly below their usual Opening Day payroll figure of $160MM or so.) Klentak also notes that the Phillies have the first pick in the June draft and have the largest bonus pool (about $5.6MM) with which to sign international amateur talent. They are not expected to incur penalties by significantly exceeding that bonus pool amount, Gelb writes; that likely makes sense, given that the Phillies figure to have a large pool next year as well and there is skepticism about the possibility of MLB establishing an international draft by then. Here’s more out of Philadelphia.
- Phillies president Andy MacPhail says the organization will learn plenty this season about how quickly it can return to being competitive, Todd Zolecki of MLB.com writes. “What we’re going to find out this year more than anything is what kind of track we’re on,” says MacPhail. “That’s going to be determined by the 25 we break with. It’s also going to be determined by how some of those next-level guys progress and how many of them demonstrated they’re ready to come to the big leagues.” MacPhail adds that the team will be careful with the promotions of top prospects (like J.P. Crawford, Nick Williams, Jake Thompson, Mark Appel, Jorge Alfaro and Roman Quinn) — the Phillies don’t want to have to demote their top youngsters after they’ve been promoted for the first time, so they want to make sure they’re sure they ready before they call them up.
- After sending Ken Giles to the Astros, the Phillies have plenty of space in their bullpen, Zolecki notes. They added David Hernandez on a big-league deal this offseason and hope to use one or perhaps more of four minor league signees — Andrew Bailey, Ernesto Frieri, Edward Mujica or James Russell — as late-inning options. Of course, Bailey pitched sparingly in 2015 and the other three had rough seasons, but all except the lefty Russell have closing experience, and the Phillies aren’t counting on all four to be successful. “I can’t say they’re all going to be as impressive,” says manager Pete Mackanin. “I’d like to believe that more than a couple guys are going to make our job difficult.”
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,
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.)
In 2018 the phillies payroll will be at 0 and they will spend again