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Andrew McCutchen Suffers Knee Sprain

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JUNE 4: McCutchen suffered a sprain and will undergo an MRI on Tuesday, according to manager Gabe Kapler (via Salisbury). He was on crutches after the game, Gelb tweets.

JUNE 3: Outfielder Andrew McCutchen departed after suffering an apparent left knee injury in the first inning of the Phillies’ game against the Padres on Monday, per reports from Todd Zolecki of MLB.com, Matt Gelb of The Athletic and Jim Salisbury of NBC Sports Philadelphia. McCutchen needed assistance getting off the field.

The Phillies replaced McCutchen with fellow veteran outfielder Jay Bruce, whom they acquired from the Mariners on Sunday. Philadelphia’s plan when it landed Bruce was to add some left-handed pop to its bench, but if McCutchen’s injury is serious, the former could take on a greater role than expected with his new team. Along with putting Bruce in the game in the wake of McCutchen’s exit, the Phillies shifted utilityman Sean Rodriguez from left to center.

Bruce, Rodriguez, Bryce Harper, Scott Kingery and Phil Gosselin represent the Phillies’ healthy outfield options currently in the majors, though they do have the experienced Nick Williams at the Triple-A level. Aside from Harper, however, the 32-year-old McCutchen is easily the Phillies’ most productive choice in the outfield.

After signing a three-year, $50MM contract with the Phillies during the offseason, McCutchen – a five-time All-Star – has gotten off to a .256/.378/.457 (124 wRC+) start with 10 home runs and 43 walks against 55 strikeouts with his new club. As one of the Phillies’ premier offensive players, he’s not someone the first-place team can afford to lose. Philly entered play Monday holding a one-game lead over Atlanta in the NL East.

Phillies Option Nick Williams, Activate Jay Bruce

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If you weren’t watching the wire this weekend, the Phillies swung an early deal to add a lefty power bat. Today, the club announced that outfielder Nick Williams was optioned out to make way for veteran slugger Jay Bruce, who’s active for the team’s game this evening.

In another move, the Phils have optioned down lefty Cole Irvin. He’ll be replaced on the active roster by fellow southpaw Austin Davis, who’ll slip into the bullpen.

The 25-year-old Williams was already optioned out after receiving few opportunities during a rough start to the season. He came back onto the active roster following the arrest of outfielder Odubel Herrera, but has since struck out six times in eight plate appearances.

For the time being, Williams will get to work on finding his bat at Triple-A. The former top prospect will serve as a near-term depth piece for the Phils, who’ll also hope he can reclaim some of his former promise. It’s certainly possible to imagine the team exploring trade options involving Williams this summer or in the coming offseason.

Klentak On Bruce Trade

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  • This weekend’s Jay Bruce trade is the first of what figure to be multiple deals made by the Phillies between now and July 31, general manager Matt Klentak implied following the completion of the swap (link via Todd Zolecki of MLB.com). Philadelphia’s outfield depth has compromised early in the year, but Bruce will give them some coverage at either corner spot and can be a backup option for Rhys Hoskins (or a replacement in the event of an injury). “He’s excited to come to a contending team and understands that for the next year and a half there may be times when he’s playing regularly and there may be times when he’s playing off the bench,” said Klentak of Bruce. The Phillies, per Zolecki, are paying only $2.75MM of what remains on Bruce’s contract between now and the end of the 2020 season.

Phillies Acquire Jay Bruce

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3:33pm: The trade is now official, per a Phillies announcement, with The Athletic’s Matt Gelb tweeting additional details on the deal: the Mariners will acquire minor league infielder Jake Scheiner from Philadelphia, while the Phillies will receive about $18MM from Seattle to cover the majority of Bruce’s remaining salary.

9:31am: The Phillies and Mariners were rumored to be very close yesterday on a deal that would send first baseman/outfielder Jay Bruce to Philadelphia, and Jim Salisbury of NBC Sports Philadelphia (Twitter link) is reporting that the trade has been completed.  Bruce could potentially join his new club as early as today — the Phillies are in Los Angeles completing a series with the Dodgers, while the Mariners are at home this weekend against the Angels.

The exact return headed back to Seattle isn’t yet known, though The Athletic’s Ken Rosenthal reported yesterday that the Mariners would receive a minor leaguer and some money back from Philadelphia to cover the roughly $21.6MM owed on Bruce’s contract through the end of the 2020 season.  As per USA Today’s Bob Nightengale, the Phillies will take on “the bulk” of Bruce’s remaining salary, so it’s safe to assume that the M’s will only be getting a minor prospect in return for getting so much cash off their books.

Bruce is no stranger to the trade market, as the 32-year-old has now been dealt four times in less than three years’ time.  Bruce most recently went to the Mariners as part of the blockbuster trade that sent Robinson Cano and Edwin Diaz to Mets, with Bruce included in the deal largely as a way of partially offsetting Cano’s large contract.  In his brief time as a Mariner, Bruce showed plenty of pop, cracking 14 homers and posting a whopping .533 slugging percentage over 184 plate appearances.  While Bruce’s average (.212) and OBP (.283) have a lot of room for improvement, it seems as if Bruce has rebounded from a down year in 2018 that was marred by hip problems.

While Bruce has actually been a reverse-splits hitter in the small sample size of his 2019 numbers, the Phillies are counting on his left-handed bat to help their mediocre numbers (91 wRC+) against right-handed pitching.  The Phils were known to be looking to add left-handed balance to a lineup almost entirely full of righty bats, aside from Bryce Harper and switch-hitting Cesar Hernandez.

With Harper and Rhys Hoskins respectively locked into the right field and first base jobs in Philadelphia, Bruce looks to be slated for left field when he is in the starting lineup.  Andrew McCutchen has been moved over to center field in the wake of Odubel Herrera being placed on administrative leave earlier this week, and it remains to be seen if more outfield moves could be made given that there isn’t any timeline for Herrera’s return.  It has been some time since McCutchen was a defensively-viable center fielder, and Bruce’s metrics as a corner outfielder have also been below average for several seasons.  It stands to reason that the Phillies could still pursue a center field option in order to give them the flexibility of moving McCutchen back to left field, where he has displayed some solid glovework.

Moreover, the deal is notable in that a trade of this variety is relatively rare in the first days of June. Yes, the playoff race has begun to take shape, but the trade market is not a robust one and plenty of teams have not firmly taken a stance towards buying or selling. For that reason, interest in Bruce may have been limited compared to where it might have been in July, especially if Bruce’s power keeps up. The deal may perhaps be compared to the Braves’ 2017 acquisition of Matt Adams, which occurred on May 20, with Adams stepping in as a stopgap for Freddie Freeman, who suffered a wrist injury that would keep him out for about six weeks. Analogously, Herrera’s stay on the administrative leave has no timetable, leaving the Phils in search of a short-term replacement.

For the Mariners, this could be the first of many trades coming over the next two months, as the team is reportedly open to moving several veteran players.  Since GM Jerry Dipoto announced his intentions to “re-imagine” the roster last November, the M’s have parted ways with Cano, Diaz, Jean Segura, James Paxton, Mike Zunino, Alex Colome, and a host of other players, significantly cutting payroll and adding young talent to both the farm system and the MLB roster.  Getting the Phillies to take the majority of Bruce’s salary already counts as a win for Dipoto, as Bruce’s contract was looking like something of an albatross in the wake of his disappointing 2018 season.

Photo courtesy of USA Today Sports Images

Phillies Close To Acquiring Jay Bruce

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TODAY: The Phillies will cover “the bulk” of Bruce’s remaining salary obligations once the deal is official, USA Today’s Bob Nightengale tweets.  While the exact dollar figures aren’t yet known, the Phillies were willing to take on more of Bruce’s contract than any other team the Mariners were in talks with about the veteran slugger, Nightengale notes.

SATURDAY, 10:46pm: A deal’s close to the finish line, “pending a review of Bruce’s medicals and other final details,” Ken Rosenthal of The Athletic tweets. The Mariners will receive cash savings and a minor leaguer in return, Rosenthal adds.

12:57pm: Passan has amended his earlier report to state that a deal between the two sides is “not imminent.”

12:45pm: The Phillies are “nearing a deal” to acquire Jay Bruce, tweets ESPN’s Jeff Passan, who notes that the deal’s expected to be completed within the next 24 hours.

Bruce, 32, has rebounded in ’19 for the Mariners after a poor showing in 2018 with the Mets. In 184 plate appearances for Seattle, the three-time all-star’s posted a solid .212/.283/.533 line (114 wRC+) on the back of a career-best .321 ISO.  His hard-hit rate has jumped to near career-best levels, though his average exit velocity (via Statcast) still doesn’t register among the game’s top 100 qualified hitters.

Armed with a no-trade clause and a hefty $22.5 MM remaining on the three-year deal he signed with New York prior to the 2018 season, Bruce didn’t seem a likely candidate to move so soon, especially to a club which already featured Bryce Harper and an aging Andrew McCutchen at the corner-outfield spots. McCutchen, though, has more often been deployed in his traditional center-field post (despite frightening advanced metrics at the position in his last two prolonged attempts) in the absence of Odubel Herrera, who’s been placed on administrative leave after his arrest for a domestic violence charge.

Bruce, then, could fill Nick Williams’ current role as the strong side of a left-field platoon, or perhaps simply as a bench option (MLB Network’s Jon Heyman tweets that the Phils are looking to upgrade the unit) and DH in AL parks. The longtime Red’s always been a bit of a liability against southpaws, and his defense, like McCutchen’s, has declined rapidly in recent seasons.

Trigger-happy Mariners GM Jerry DiPoto again seems to be on the prowl for Seattle, this time in perhaps the more thorough iteration of a multi-stage teardown that began in earnest last November. There’ll be no shortage of candidates with which to shuffle, though many of the choicest names have been injured (Kyle Seager) or seen their performance slide to immovable levels (Dee Gordon, Mike Leake).

Victor Arano Out For 10 To 12 Weeks After Surgery

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Phillies reliever Victor Arano may not be able to make it back this year, though the club isn’t yet ruling out that possibility. Skipper Gabe Kapler told reporters, including Matt Gelb of The Athletic (via Twitter), that Arano’s rehab will require a layoff of at least ten to twelve weeks after his recent elbow surgery.

That timeline leaves only the narrowest of openings for a 2019 return for the 24-year-old right-hander. The most optimistic scenario would see Arano cleared to pick up a baseball in mid-August. He’d still need to begin a throwing program and build up his arm strength thereafter, all without experiencing any setbacks.

Though the Phils can still hope for the best, they’ll ultimately need to approach the summer trade period on the assumption that Arano is not going to make it back this year. While it was known already that he’d miss some time, the extent of the damage wasn’t clear.

Arano may not be a household name, but he’s a quality reliever who delivered big value on a league-minimum salary. Through 74 2/3 MLB frames, he carries a 2.65 ERA with 9.6 K/9 and 2.8 BB/9. He sits at a sturdy but unexceptional 94 mph but carries a smooth 16.6% swinging-strike rate owing to an excellent and oft-utilized slider.

Today’s news is only the latest blow to an increasingly battered and bruised Phillies bullpen. Rare is the contender that doesn’t consider mid-season relief upgrades, but this club seems in particular need of some pen acquisitions. It has been a middle-of-the-road unit to this point of the season, with a nice showing from Hector Neris in the closer’s role and mostly passable efforts otherwise, but there’s ample uncertainty with regard to some of the key veterans and more promising young arms.

Phillies Place Zach Eflin On 10-Day IL

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The Phillies have placed starter Zach Eflin on the 10-day injured list, per a club announcement. He’s said to be dealing with mid-back tightness.

Lefty Cole Irvin has been called up to replace Eflin on the active roster. He’s capable of working in the rotation or giving innings in a relief capacity. The club could reinstall Vince Velasquez in the rotation instead of Irvin, or the two could be utilized in tandem.

There’s no indication as of yet as to how long Eflin will be sidelined. His IL placement was backdated to May 28th, so he’ll be eligible to return as soon as June 7th.

The 25-year-old Eflin doesn’t sport dominating peripherals. He’s generating 7.0 K/9 against 1.9 BB/9 while allowing 1.37 homers per nine and a 43.2% groundball rate. Apart from the stingy walk rate, those are all underwhelming figures. That hasn’t stopped Eflin from turning in excellent results. He has contributed 65 2/3 innings of 3.02 ERA pitching in 11 starts.

Poll: Choose Your Franchise Catcher

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Although potential Hall of Famers Buster Posey and Yadier Molina are among the most decorated catchers in baseball history, it appears the two 30-somethings have given way to a new guard at the position. J.T. Realmuto, Gary Sanchez and Willson Contreras stand out as the most valuable behind-the-plate building blocks in today’s game, owing to performance, age and affordable control. The Brewers’ Yasmani Grandal also belongs in the current class of elite backstops, but the fact that he’s 30 years old, expensive and only signed through this season works against him in comparison to Realmuto, Contreras and Sanchez.

Among those three, the longest big league track record belongs to the Phillies’ Realmuto, who’s in his age-28 season. The athletic Realmuto broke out with the Marlins in 2016 and proceeded to rack up 11.3 fWAR through last year, trailing only Posey and Grandal at his position. He’s fresh off back-to-back 4.0-fWAR seasons and is on a similar pace in his first year as a Phillie.

So far in his new digs, Realmuto has accounted for 2.0 fWAR through 208 plate appearances. While Realmuto’s offensive production has dropped from where it was over the previous three seasons (115 wRC+), his 102 wRC+ remains far above average for his position (89). He’s also an all-world defensive player who possesses far more speed than you’d expect a catcher to have. If there’s one check against Realmuto, it’s that he’s only under control for another season after this one, in which he’s earning $5.9MM.

No full-time catcher has fared better at the plate this season than the hard-hitting Sanchez, whose 154 wRC+ ranks 18th among all players with at least 100 PA. The 26-year-old has mashed 17 home runs, good for a fifth-place tie, to put an uninspiring 2018 behind him. Sanchez combined for 7.5 fWAR from 2016-17, his first two seasons, but fell to 1.7 in ’18 and sits well behind Realmuto this season (1.2). Although Sanchez has a big arm, he’s not in Realmuto’s stratosphere as an overall defender. However, Sanchez is making barely over the league minimum this year and comes with three more seasons of control via arbitration.

Contreras, who turned 27 on May 13, has been a revelation at the plate since he debuted in 2016. Dating back to then, Contreras’ 119 wRC+ ranks second among backstops (only Sanchez’s 128 has been better), while his 7.5 fWAR is eighth. He’s at 152 and 1.7 in those categories this year, having swatted 12 homers and gotten on base at a 40 percent clip. Although Contreras has not gotten rave reviews behind the plate this season or for most of his career, his offense, age and affordability are all huge pluses. Like Sanchez, he’s in his final pre-arb season and controllable through 2022.

Considering all of the above factors, which of these three catchers would you want to build a team around?

(poll link for app users)

The Importance Of Scott Kingery

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In a spirited attempt to repair their position player group and snap a seven-year playoff drought, the Phillies added four new regulars to their lineup during the offseason. The big-ticket acquisitions of Bryce Harper, J.T. Realmuto, Andrew McCutchen and Jean Segura left the club with just four holdovers. Of the returning quartet, only first baseman Rhys Hoskins and second baseman Cesar Hernandez have produced in 2019. On the other hand, this has been a horrid year for third baseman Maikel Franco and Odubel Herrera, who didn’t exactly comprise a confidence-inspiring pair entering the campaign.

The 26-year-old Franco broke into the league in earnest in 2015, when he looked like a long-term core piece in the making during an 80-game, 335-plate appearance debut. Since then, though, success has been hard to come by for Franco. He turned in an 0-for-4 performance in a loss to the Cardinals on Thursday, dropping his batting line to an inept .215/.281/.393 through 210 tries this year. Franco’s 63 wRC+ ranks as the majors’ eighth-worst mark among 167 qualifying hitters.

While 2019 has gone poorly for Franco, it has been even worse for Herrera. Not only has Herrera failed on the field, where he has hit .222/.268/.341 (67 wRC+) in 139 trips to the plate, but he’s amid a troubling situation off it. The league placed Herrera on administrative leave Tuesday after he was arrested Monday on a charge of simple assault relating to a domestic violence incident.

It’s too early to jump to conclusions on Herrera’s arrest at this point, but we can judge him on what he has done between the lines. The fact is the 27-year-old’s production has been a letdown since 2018. Before then, he was a quality player who earned a five-year, $30.5MM extension from the franchise in 2016.

The Phillies have given Franco and Herrera plenty of rope so far in their careers, but they’re looking less and less like answers at their respective positions. And Philadelphia is no longer a rebuilding team – it’s in first place in the NL East, which figures to be a multi-team dogfight through September – meaning it must consider making moves to improve at third and in center. Luckily for the club, it may have an in-house solution for one of those spots in utility player Scott Kingery.

The 25-year-old Kingery opened the season as a reserve, but he has taken on a prominent role rotating between the hot corner and center since he returned from a month-long stay on the injured list. Going back to his May 19 activation, Kingery has started nine of the Phillies’ 11 games. Now, if he proves capable of performing like a legit full-timer, he’d take some of the pressure off executives Matt Klentak and Andy MacPhail heading into the July 31 trade deadline.

Philadelphia believes in Kingery, evidenced by the six-year, $24MM guarantee it gave him in March 2018. Kingery was a top 100 prospect at that point, but he had never even taken a major league at-bat. That inexperience was on display during a rough rookie season for Kingery, who struggled to a .226/.267/.338 line (62 wRC+) with 126 strikeouts against 24 walks in 484 tries.

So far, the sophomore version of Kingery is trumping his Year 1 numbers through 72 PA. However, his .328/.375/.567 slash (148 wRC+) looks as if it’s built on a house of cards. Having drawn a meager three walks against 20 strikeouts, Kingery is getting by on a sure-to-plummet .432 batting average on balls in play and a power surge that also looks unlikely to last. With three homers, Kingery’s fly balls are leaving the yard at an 18.8 percent rate – a figure he only approached once in the minors (in 2017). As a Double-A player that season, Kingery recorded a .295 ISO. Coming into this year, that was the only time Kingery had even neared a .200 ISO, let alone blown by it. With that in mind, don’t bet on Kingery maintaining his current ISO (.239).

Although there are reasons for pessimism regarding Kingery’s hot start, that’s not to say he can’t be a valuable regular for the Phillies now or in the future. It would be a colossal boon for the club if it happened immediately, considering its remade offense has been closer to middle of the pack than great this season. That’s largely because of Franco, Herrera and corner outfielder Nick Williams, who have combined for minus-1.1 fWAR in 414 PA. The Phillies can’t count on those three – nor can they expect a breakthrough from unproven outfielder Roman Quinn, 26, or McCutchen to man his old stomping grounds in center consistently – leaving the onus on Kingery to assert himself in a full-time role. If Kingery falls on his face, the Phillies may have to deal with the burden of finding two new regulars leading up to the deadline.

Photo courtesy of USA Today Sports Images.

Injuries Mounting In Phillies’ Bullpen

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By most measures, the 2019 campaign has been a very good one for the Phillies so far. The team is out to a 33-22 start, giving them a 3.5-game lead over the Braves in the National League East. Neither their lineup nor their pitching staff has been dominant, but the Phils’ +35 run differential is easily the best in their division. They’ve been a solid team — albeit in a division that’s been less competitive than many pundits anticipated prior to the season thanks to an awful start by the Nationals and a lackluster start from the Mets.

But the Phillies also entered the final week of May with a long list of injuries in the bullpen, and it’s only gotten worse over the past 24 hours. Right-hander Victor Arano, who has been out since mid April due to inflammation in his right elbow, underwent arthroscopic surgery yesterday, as NBC Sports Philadelphia’s Jim Salisbury tweeted. Meanwhile, the team announced that lefty Adam Morgan, who is in the midst of the best season of his career, has been placed on the 10-day injured list due to a forearm strain.

There’s no clear timeline for the return of either hurler, though the Phillies should issue an update on Arano’s status in the near future. He’s not a household name by any means, but the 24-year-old has looked every bit the part of a big league reliever since breaking into the Majors in 2017. Through his first 74 2/3 innings, Arano owns a 2.65 ERA with 9.6 K/9 against 2.8 BB/9. He’s allowed just seven homers in that time while posting gaudy swinging-strike and opponents’ chase rates (16.6 percent and 36.1 percent, respectively).

Morgan, meanwhile, sports a 1.96 ERA through 18 1/3 innings in 2019. The 29-year-old former starter has an 18-to-5 K/BB ratio in that time and has held lefties to a .154/.313/.231 average while limiting righties to an even more putrid .114/.162/.301 slash.

That pair of injury updates comes in addition to ongoing absences for David Robertson (flexor strain), Pat Neshek (shoulder strain), Edubray Ramos (biceps tendinitis) and Tommy Hunter (flexor strain). Philadelphia has nearly an entire MLB-caliber bullpen on the injured list at present, and none of the bunch is even out on a minor league rehab assignment.

Unsurprisingly, The Athletic’s Jayson Stark tweets that the Phillies are likely to “aggressively” pursue bullpen upgrades following next week’s MLB draft. But while that might stoke some renewed speculation about a possible match with Craig Kimbrel, Stark also downplayed that possibility. Similarly, MLB.com’s Todd Zolecki suggests that a match between the Phillies and Kimbrel is still unlikely if Kimbrel is hoping to secure a multi-year deal. By all accounts, that’s the free-agent closer’s goal once he’s shed the burden of draft-pick compensation, so it doesn’t seem wise to pencil Kimbrel into the back of Gabe Kapler’s bullpen anytime soon.

Early June will still be too soon for some clubs to determine whether they’re full-on sellers, but there will be several clubs that have already accepted that fate — many of whom have some intriguing bullpen options to market. The Giants (Will Smith, Sam Dyson, Tony Watson), Tigers (Shane Greene) and Blue Jays (old friend Ken Giles?) are among the likely sellers of some high-end bullpen options, and none from that bunch has any designs on contending in their respective divisions at this juncture of the season. Specific targets will likely emerge as the Phils (and other teams) shift their focus beyond the draft, but they stand out as an obvious candidate to be among the game’s early buyers this year.

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