A Critical Look at the Phillies Organization and Minor League Baseball
The word “window” is used in sports to describe a period of time in which a team is competitive, hopefully for a championship. The implication of a window is that it is open and then it closes, and in sports terms that means a rebuild, and restarting the cycle again. In most sports, a window … Read more
In 2020 and 2021 the Phillies tried desperately to avoid the luxury tax. It came with increased penalties on qualifying offer free agents and money out of John Middleton and other owner’s pockets for not much gain. In 2022, that changed with Dave Dombrowski getting Middleton to jump over the tax line and take the … Read more
Buddy Kennedy, Kody Clemens, Rafael Marchan, Kolby Allard, Tyler Gilbert, Cal Stevenson, Freddy Tarnok, Jose Ruiz, Rodolfo Castro, Tyler Phillips, Yunior Marte What those 11 players have in common is that they have no more remaining minor league options and no firm grip on a roster spot. The Phillies currently have 43 players occupying 40 … Read more
After his terrible start on Wednesday afternoon, the calls from fans to release Taijuan Walker have only gotten louder. The Phillies have justifiably dragging their feet up to this point on making the most final of decisions they can make. There are scenarios flying around about how the Phillies could delay that decision. They could … Read more
With his rehab appearance on Sunday, Taijuan Walker is coming back to the majors. The Phillies appear to have been able to negotiate that Walker make another appearance to work up to 100 pitches. It wasn’t pretty or inspiring, but he did accomplish that task. Meanwhile, his replacement, Spencer Turnbull carried a no-hitter into the … Read more
Ranger Suárez has been a mainstay of the Phillies rotation since the middle of the 2021 season. He has pitched like a solid mid rotation starter during the regular season, and an ace in the postseason. For the first time in his career, he showed up ready to go in Spring Training, and he was … Read more
There will always be truths to baseball. One of those will be that players should not swing at bad pitches and should swing at good pitches. There is more nuance to that and I encourage you to read Rob Orr’s piece on that and the metric SEAGER that he created to measure it. It is … Read more
We are currently 6 games into Spring Training, a time when we are still seeing minor league players get into games and the novelty of the return of major league baseball has not worn off. There are very few actual takeaways one can make from 6 games, and especially 6 games where a starting pitcher … Read more
Whit Merrifield used to be a really solid baseball player. He came to the major late as a 9th round pick out of college who spent a bunch of time in the minors. At his peak he was a second baseman who had above average offense due to great contact rates, and great speed (which … Read more
The Major League Baseball offseason has been insanely slow. The Phillies entered the offseason with one big goal and then some modest ones. They needed to bring back Aaron Nola or replace him. They opted to strike early and bring back Nola. They targeted Yoshinobu Yamamoto as a rare young pitcher who could be part … Read more