The Phillies have a decent looking offensive team now

[Cedrique]

But I'm kind of worried that they have a lot of "good" players and not enough great players to be a real contending team. Aside from pitching, where should they try to upgrade?

 

[Cedrique]

One question is who do you keep between Crawford, Hail Cesar, Fraudco and Freddie? I'm giving first base to Hoskins so at the most you only need 3 of those guys for the other 3 positions.

 

[Omar 382]

Obviously, Galvis is a terrible offensive player, even by shortstop standards. A lot of people say that his defense makes up for his lack of offense, but I disagree. Even with his defense, he has a 1.3 WAR, which is 15th out of 22 qualified shortstops in the bigs in WAR. He will likely never be a good hitter, so really his worth is as a stop-gap between winning era's. If and when we're ready to compete, I hope he's not around.

Franco just isn't a good player. I don't know what else to say. When you have 571 PA and a 75 wRC+, you suck as a hitter. And his defense isn't good either (not that that would justify keeping him anyway). No way we should keep him.

Cesar is a nice player. He's by no means a Chase Utley, but he could potentially be a part of a winning team. He's increased his power this year (.132 ISO this year vs. a 0.099 ISO last year) without sacrificing much in the more important OBP department (only an 11 point drop to a very respectable .360 OBP). Statistically, his defense isn't as good as last year, but still above average. I'm not saying we absolutely have to make sure this guy sticks around, but I wouldn't want him traded for nothing either.

J.P. Crawford definitely had a better year in AAA this year, but for some reason (and I've been saying this for a while), he doesn't wow me. Not at all, really. I hope I'm wrong, but I honestly see him as a Freddy Galvis type player with good defense and bad offense (I hope his offense is better than Galvis'). Obviously, I'd rather player Crawford at SS next year than Galvis, just to see what we have.

I honestly still think we're two years away from competing, at least. This is assuming that Klentak makes the right moves in contracts/trades (which he won't). I'm not at all optimistic about next year's team.

 

[Cedrique]

Yeah, that's a pretty good analysis. I disagree with Crawford being similar to Galvis though. Crawford has better plate discipline even now than Galvis ever had. If he gains a little power, which some players do when they mature I think Crawford will be good.

 

[Omar 382]

On an aside, I hate how every year the FO, coaches, and media believes that the team will be decent/good. Mackanin said in Spring Training that he believes the Phillies can .500 ball, and that that is his goal.

Ricky Bottalico said they will play .500 ball.

I'm pretty sure Klentak talked about being competitive before the season starts.

I know that they can't exactly admit that they suck, but .500 ball is a joke. And it's frustrating to wonder whether or not they're so incompetent at their jobs that they don't realize how wrong they are.

 

[Cedrique]

On an aside, I hate how every year the FO, coaches, and media believes that the team will be decent/good. Mackanin said in Spring Training that he believes the Phillies can .500 ball, and that that is his goal.

Ricky Bottalico said they will play .500 ball.

I'm pretty sure Klentak talked about being competitive before the season starts.

I know that they can't exactly admit that they suck, but .500 ball is a joke. And it's frustrating to wonder whether or not they're so incompetent at their jobs that they don't realize how wrong they are.

Yeah, playing .500 ball this year was a stretch. Maybe they bought into the VV hype , oh yeah and they also though Mark Appel was going to win 15 games.

 

[Cedrique]

WTF Nola

 

[Cedrique]

The outfield is looking good. They really just need a Mike Schmidt type at third base to fill out the team. How hard is that to find?

 

[Cedrique]

Wait a minute. I forgot about Kingery. This team is loaded!
Crawford
Hail Cesar
Hoskins
Kingery
Herrera
Altherr
Williams
Alfaro


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