Sorry for the length, apologize in advance.
It has been a fascinating summer watching this team. I’ve been amazed at their ability to be in the position they are currently in. After watching them absolutely stink for the month of March, I had them for 71-73 wins. Their pitching was bad, their pen was a disaster, and they could not hit. A review of the scored spring games also illustrated an alarming number of dropped third strikes with 1-3 scoring for strikeouts.
My observations -
First the positive which has been starting pitching. Nola has emerged as a top of the rotation stopper, ace, whatever you want to call him. Pivetta, Vince, and Eflin have all had nice extended runs which give great hope if they continue to build and get better. Jake is not the Jake of Cy Young vintage but has been solid. The pen has got its footing and has a lot of live arms but in today’s game, every pen arm throws 95 plus. Dominguez, Arano, Ramos, Garcia might be a start to a nice pen going forward. But without Seranthony coming out of nowhere, it would have been a disaster. They also have nice pitching depth in the minors so that is a positive as well going forward.
Now for the painful parts.
This team has got to this point on the back of its pitching, you don’t have to be Einstein to know this. But look at their run differential. It’s amazing given their record. Hard to think that holds up. They have won a disproportionate amount of 1 run games which is a tough way to play and that evens out. If the starting pitching is not way above average, this team is in for some hurt. Take out the blowout wins and their run differential might actually be close to zero or negative. That’s amazing for a team 10-15 games over .500. Just look at Cubs run differential.
Their hitting IMO is pretty easy to digest. The organization stresses the notion of grinding out AB’s and getting to the opposing pen. That’s fine on it’s face. But the hardest thing to do in sports is to hit a baseball and that task is next to impossible for many with 2 strikes in the count with guys who throw 98 with secondary pitches. They have a youngish lineup and they are asking kids without a lot of background to take pitches and hit with deep counts. That’s REALLY hard. They have two players with some ability to do that - Cesar and Santana. Hoskins comments coming out after the break were interesting - the desire to be more aggressive. Rhys has the ability to hit deeper into the count but I was really interested by his statement. Does that mean being aggressive earlier? You then have a ton of younger players who just aren’t accomplished. Kingery for example has been disappointing and I put that as being buried in the count too often. You want a metric to illustrate this. Look at the metric of soft contact. The Phillies are near the top of that category. Too much simply protecting and trying to make contact when deep in the count. I understand what they are doing but I simply question if these guys are ready for the approach preached. Soft contact and a ton of K’s are an interesting byproduct of the approach the organization stresses. The one guy who seems to buck that trend is Nick. Nick traditionally let’s it fly early and his recent results suggest being aggressive early ain’t such a bad idea. Their offense also has difficulty bunching hits together. Is this ability, approach, or a combo? Their approach is to equate a walk with a hit at times to create leverage on their opponent. I get it but that is still tough trying to beat out walks when pitches you can maybe drive and start big innings are simply hitting the catchers mitt. Their inability to manufacture runs, run in general, bunt, and hit and run is a combo of where the game is as well as approach. Cesar is lightning fast, Odubel can run, Kingery can run, etc. The modern game does not want to give up outs, I get it. But you have to scratch a run out when needed. They can’t do it. Especially in post season when you will face better arms, it’s critical to be able to score in as many ways as possible. Very alarming. People will focus on Santana and rightfully so but if it went the other way out of the gate, they would have a glaring hole in the outfield right now if Hoskins was at first and no Santana. So I think it’s a push but an expensive push currently with Santana’s lack of average hitting. The money down the drain doesn’t mean anything for this team now.
The biggest failure which is really concerning is their fielding. They have been horrendous. Those dropped third strikes out at first records in the spring scorebook were not just getting the rust off. I’ve always looked up the middle. Catcher, Second, Short, CF. Passable at second, the rest not so good. Nick is athletic so he covers up a bit, Rhys flat out scares me in left and I worry for his injury risk at times, and Franco does not have the explosion to his left that the good/Great ones have. Defensively they are passable at second and maybe third. That’s about it. That will kill them post season where games are tight.
Lastly, their base running needs improvement. Some of that is instinct but that is one area that can be coached up. Not sure they have that in place. I can’t say anyone has impressed me with their baserunning the entire season.
I give them props for their resilience and effort. They might be on to something but I think they are a year early to the party. Hopefully, this is not a one year flash for their starters but indicative of where they are and are going. They will get a big producer in the middle of their lineup in the offseason. Hopefully, that makes everyone better next year in the lineup. I’d like to see them be a bit more aggressive but it’s hard to argue with the results so far.
