The Phillies entered the offseason with some very obvious holes (CF, LF, SS, RP), but also a real lack of depth. Not every move they made this offseason needed to fix the big issues, some of the little issues needed to be addressed and some of the basic housekeeping had to be handled. Yesterday the Phillies dealt with the add depth and housekeeping portions.
First the housekeeping, the Phillies had 2 players that were near locks to be added to the 40 man roster, and a 3rd that they needed to add if they thought at least 1 team was interested. In adding Luis Garcia, James McArthur, and Jhailyn Ortiz they handled those issues, but also did not overextend themselves. Garcia is one of the Phillies better prospects, Ortiz is their best power prospect and has shown real signs of growth, and McArthur was a very obvious bullpen addition for the Phillies or another team.
They then claimed LHP Kent Emanuel off of waivers from the Astros. Emanuel is a 3 pitch reliever with a low 90s fastball, sweeping slider, and a changeup. He might not make it to opening day, but he has a minor league option remaining so he gives the Phillies a legitimate option as a reliver call up. In general, in the offseason if you have an open 40 man spot and their is a pre-arb reliever with options available on the waiver wire, you should probably claim them. Much like the Ryan Sheriff waiver claim, not a real needle mover, but one the Phillies of the last few years did not make. If they want to find cheap (both acquisition cost and salary cost) depth the Phillies are going to need to continue to churn the bottom of the 40 man roster.
The first trade the Phillies made was a bit more of the same in terms of building depth. Nick Nelson has good fastball velocity, but his control has been a problem and in the majors that has translated to a lot of hard contact. He will only be 26 on opening day and has minor league options remaining. The upside is they fix up his flaws and he is a 7th-8th inning bullpen option, but the downside here is that he is a better version of Enyel De Los Santos or J.D. Hammer or the other bullpen call up churn. Coming over with Nelson is Donny Sands, a 25 year old catching prospect. Sands had a breakout year for the Yankees forcing them to add him to 40 man roster to avoid losing him in minor league free agency. He doesn’t project as an everyday catcher, but more of an offensive minded backup. The Phillies entered the week with upper level catching depth that consisted of J.T. Realmuto, Rafael Marchan, and Logan O’Hoppe and then some org guys like Nick Matera, Jack Conley, and Colby Fitch. Even if they wanted to trade Marchan or O’Hoppe they couldn’t because they just would have nothing to play in the majors either to back J.T. up or if he was injured. In adding Sands they created competition for the backup catcher spot and guaranteed that they can at least plant Marchan and O’Hoppe in AAA and AA to just develop this season (assuming neither is traded).
The cost for this depth was 1B T.J. Rumfield and LHP Joel Valdez. Valdez was a September 2018 International signee by the Phillies pitching both 2019 and 2021 in the DSL. He has good size (6’4″) and is reportedly sits in the low 90s, touching a bit higher. He had very good stats this year, but he is also entering his age 22 season next year. Rumfield was the Phillies 12th round pick in the 2021 draft. He is a lanky corner infielder who exclusively played first in pro ball. He posted good exit velocity numbers (86.8 mph) which was on par with players like Kendall Simmons, Jamari Baylor, and Ethan Wilson. Unlike the rest of them he was much more of groundball/line drive hitter, and had just 1 extra base hit in 101 plate appearances. His walk rate (20.8%) and strikeout rate (10.9%) hint at some good plate discipline. He is only 21 (he is actually younger than Valdez) and the combination of size, hard hit ability, and plate discipline give foundational things to work with, but he is very much a work in progress.
The last move of the day for the Phillies was more about the majors than the minors. The Phillies need a backup catcher and they need that player to be cheap and willing to not play very often because Realmuto is going to start a lot of games. The free agent catching market is brutal, with the Braves already swooping in to give 34 year old Manny Piña and his career OPS+ of 91 (and 2021 season of hitting .189/.293/.439) 2 years at $4 million a piece. The Phillies looked at this and acquired Garrett Stubbs from the Astros. Stubbs is the odd man out in Houston with Martin Maldonado and Jason Castro locked in. Stubbs has a reputation as a good defender and is athletic enough he has seen some time at second base and left field. At the plate, he has good plate discipline, decent contact abilities and poor power. Overall he projects to be of similar offensive impact to Andrew Knapp, but with better defense. His positional flexibility is more of a nice thing on the end of a bench, but less important with the DH likely coming to the NL. He still has a minor league option remaining so them Phillies are not locked in to him in the majors, but at this point he has the inside track at the job.
To acquire Stubbs the Phillies sent out center field prospect Logan Cerny. Cerny was the Phillies 10th round pick in the 2021 draft, and a pick they were widely praised for. Cerny put up big power and speed numbers in college and plays a good center field. The fact that he fell to the 10th round and signed for slot points to the big problem here, his hit tool. Cerny stuck out at 28.5% rate at a smaller school and doesn’t have a great track record of contact. He has the raw tools to come back and haunt the Phillies, but he did not light up pro-ball and the history of college players with hit tool questions is not great (see the Phillies own Casey Martin). Additionally, with the minor league compression Cerny was competing against Wilson, Johan Rojas, Jared Carr, Baron Radcliff, Yhoswar Garcia, Felix Reyes, Jadiel Sanchez, Marcus Lee Sang, Gavin Tonkel, and Jordan Viars for a limited amount of playing time on the two A-ball teams and Cerny might be behind most of them.
The Phillies are not dramatically better today than the start of yesterday, but it is good process to continue to add depth where it is needed. They still need to do the heavy lifting, but there is nothing wrong with little moves along the way.