Matt Winkelman

Matt is originally from New Jersey, but after a 4 year side track to Cleveland for college he now resides in Madison, WI. His work has appeared on Baseball Prospectus, Crashburn Alley, Phuture Phillies, The Good Phight, and TheDynastyGuru.

Trading Cole Hamels: Pt 2 – Valuing Prospects

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To read part 1 on Surplus Value go here

Based on the set up of this site and everything I have written before, you can tell I like prospects, and at times I have immersed myself too much into prospects.  However, the access to minor league information and the number of people and sites covering it has led us to have a very twisted view of the world of prospects.  We now have entered a world where we simultaneously over and under value prospects based entirely on hype that we generate and demand.  We expect great things immediately from prospects because we have been spoiled by recent successes, and we call players busts well before they have had time to adjust to the majors.

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Trading Cole Hamels: Pt 1 – Surplus Value

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Until he is traded the speculation around Phillies ace LHP  Cole Hamels will never end.  What has played out over the past 3 months has been a battle at the core of WAR and prospects and how we value players in trades.  In many ways the debate as left me questioning the models we use for WAR and whether we are truly advancing the game forward with how we use statistics in analysis.  I got into writing because of statistics, I majored in Physics because of my love of numbers, but I have learned something through the process, if you live in a world purely of numbers and idealized scenarios you lose your grasp on reality.  In an ideal world we marry numbers and observation to further what questions we can ask about the game and create a more vibrant discussion.  Over the next few days I am going to break through some parts of the Hamels trade speculation and what kind of return the Phillies feel like they should get vs what the media and fan are saying they should review

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The 2017 Timeline

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Today Pat Gillick made public what a lot of us have been saying and thinking for over a year now, the Phillies next window opens in 2017 and, if you want to hedge, 2018.  This is mixed news, the negative being that 2017 feels like an eon away, the positive is that the Phillies have admitted that there is a light at the end of the tunnel.  We don’t know how much this is the org as a whole,we don’t know how much this is Gillick stepping up, and we might never know.  But this revelation does fit into the timeline that has become increasingly clear.

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Draft Retrospective: Scouting is Really Hard

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Scouting and developing is one of the hardest things to do in sports, regardless of the game being played.  Much like everything else in baseball the normal outcome is failure.  So here are some failures and successes in their original scouting reports by Baseball America*.  Their names and other relevant information has been removed to surround them with more mystery.  The list of players used is at the very bottom, some of them may be very obvious, others not so much (answers will be up in a couple of days).  Either way, enjoy the limitless potential while it is still in front of you.

*Baseball America has been covering the draft longer than any other publication out there, much like scouts they have their own hits and misses, but for the most part they are reporting what they are hearing from talent evaluators who are watching the players

Player A:

Player A is the spitting image of Angels second baseman Adam Kennedy, a lefthanded-hitting middle infielder who was a first-round pick out of Cal State Northridge in 1997. Kennedy was a hitting machine in college, twice leading the nation in hits. Player A, a .394-18-61 hitter, has similar hitting skills, though his tendency to be pull-conscious has resulted in teams effectively using a Ted Williams shift on him a number of times this spring. He has excellent hands to hit, enabling him to wait on balls until the last moment to make adjustments. Like Kennedy, Player A lacks a true position. He was drafted in the second round out of high school as a shortstop, but he lacks the range, hands and ability to read hops to be a true middle infielder–even as he switched to second base.

Player B:

Player B has been a known commodity nationally for most of his high school career, and scouts have compare him to a young Kerry Wood. He has No. 1 starter stuff and command of three pitches. His fastball sits at 91-94 mph and has touched 97 this spring. His power curve is the equal of almost any pitcher in the amateur ranks. His arm action is clean and effective. At 6-foot-5 and 200 pounds, his body is long and lanky–ideal for a pitcher. If anything, he has gotten stronger this year in the lower half of his body. The intangibles are all there as well. Player B has excellent makeup and is focused in his approach to pitching. High school arms are normally the riskiest commodity in the draft, but scouts say Player B is as safe as a high school pitcher can be.

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Phillies SP Depth Still Half a Season Away

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Yesterday the Phillies signed Jerome Williams, which was a great signing, but still made us all very sad.  Williams just underlines how thin starting pitching is across baseball as a whole, and just how important it is to develop starting pitching depth as an organization.  In a healthy organization this spot is filled internally by a league minimum salaried 22 year old, but that is not where the Phillies are right now.  Right now the Phillies need innings from their starting rotation, and on the open market those innings aren’t cheap.  But that era is starting to end, the Phillies have pitching depth on the way, the problem is that Spring Training is just too early for them.  That means the Phillies have to fill the gap in the mean time until that depth is there.

When we think about the Phillies starting pitching depth going forward we can think of it in three categories.  In the first you have guys you expect to count on in the rotation going forward.  They may not be front of the rotation arms, but you expect them to be part of the future going forward.  Then you have your rotation filler, the Phillies had a surprise in this category last year when David Buchanan stepped into the rotation from AAA.  The problem with these pitchers is that you are waiting for them to turn back into pumpkins.  Some will continue to build and improve, others just don’t have the stuff to compete in the majors.  Lastly you have your fliers, players that you cannot reasonably expect anything from, but could be impactful if things work out.  The biggest reason pitchers are fliers is injuries, it is just hard to count on players coming back healthy and with their stuff intact.

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Rule 5 and 40 man Roster Preview

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We are about a month out from the deadline for the Phillies to add players to the 40 man roster to protect them from the Rule 5 draft.  The promotions of Maikel Franco and Ken Giles during the season eliminated two of the most interesting names needing protection, but there are still plenty of decisions that need to be made.  Currently the Phillies roster is at 39 players, some will move on as free agents, others will be cut, and a small group might even get traded.

Roster Locks (21): David Buchanan, A.J. Burnett, Justin De Fratus, Jake Diekman, Ken Giles, Miguel Alfredo Gonzalez, Cole Hamels, Mario Hollands, Cliff Lee, Ethan Martin, Jonathan Pettibone, Carlos Ruiz, Cody Asche, Maikel Franco, Jimmy Rollins, Chase Utley, Aaron Altherr, Marlon Byrd, Kelly Dugan, Ben Revere, Domonic Brown

I think there is a good chance that any of Burnett, Hamels, Byrd, and Brown aren’t back next year.  This is more showing that if they are moved it will be a player outside of the org sliding right into that 40 man spot.  In other words they aren’t going to free up space.

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Phillies Release 9 Minor Leaguers

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According to Baseball America’s Transaction Report the Phillies have released nine minor leaguers.  They are RHP Mark Meadors, RHP Gregorio Santos, RHP Jeb Stefan, LHP Francibel Alejo, 2B Olvy Marte, 2B Robinson Torres, 3B Trey Williams, SS Anthony Phillips, and OF Nick Ferdinand.  We don’t know if all of these were involuntary (sometimes a player … Read more

The Past Week 10-17-2014

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The Past Week:

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Baseball America Phillies Draft Report Card

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Contrary to the name the BA draft Report Cards contain no grades, no comparisons, and to someone familiar with the Phillies system it is not going to add a lot to your knowledge.  But the report cards are always fun little snapshots looking back at this past June.  So here are some of the superlatives … Read more

Ranking Retrospective: The Evolution of the Top 10

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The most scrutinized part of any prospect ranking is the Top 10 and then the last 1-2 spots on the list.  The latter is because we want to argue for someone who missed the list, but the former is what I am interested in.  Everyone ranks at least a Top 10, and this makes the easiest to compare one list against another.  In this case we are going to compare three lists, all by the same writer.  I have been ranking Phillies prospects since after the 2012 season, so here is my 2012 and 2013 published Top 10s and the first draft of the 2014 Top 10 (which is subject to lots of change over the 4+ months until I release it).

2012 2013 2014
Jesse Biddle Maikel Franco J.P. Crawford
Adam Morgan Jesse Biddle Aaron Nola
Roman Quinn J.P. Crawford Maikel Franco
Tommy Joseph Carlos Tocci Roman Quinn
Ethan Martin Kelly Dugan Jesse Biddle
Maikel Franco Aaron Altherr Kelly Dugan
Cody Asche Roman Quinn Deivi Grullon
Carlos Tocci Deivi Grullon Yoel Mecias
Jonathan Pettibone Ethan Martin Carlos Tocci
Shane Watson Cord Sandberg Matt Imhof

Lets take a look at this spot by spot and see how it compares over the years:

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