There was a flurry of activity yesterday, the trading deadline for MLB, and the Phillies were caught up in the maelstrom of it all. Bringing in Luis Arraez and Brooks Raley earlier in the day, followed by , there is a new roster in place that will try and get into October and hopefully, further than they have in the past few seasons. With the moves, the roster does have a decidedly new look to it, some for good, some for….well, I’m not sure.
The defense will sure be something
According to most of the
reporting done, anyone talking to the San Francisco Giants about acquiring Luis Arraez was made aware of his desire to stay at second base defensively. That is certainly a choice to be made considering that Arraez did not have a NTC in his contract, nor did he have 10 and 5 rights to his status as a major leaguer. Being able to dictate where you will play to a team interested in acquiring your rights is certainly bold, but the Phillies decided to make the move anyway. Maybe they believe that his defensive improvement under Ron Washington is sticky enough that it was worth investing in, maybe they believe that he will be good enough for the remainder of this season, who knows.
What we do know is that now, with Arraez seemingly implanted at second base, the Phillies are going to be starting three players at a new position they were not playing when they left Baltimore on Sunday. When that game’s lineup card was filled out, Bryson Stott manned the keystone while Alec Bohm was sitting at third base, Bryce Harper a long throw across the diamond at first base. Now, the alignment is going to be Bohm at first, Arraez at second, Trea Turner at shortstop (still), Stott at third and Harper heading back out into right field.
Huh?
The easiest path to making this whole thing work would have been acquiring another outfielder to boost right (or left) field, keeping Harper at first and moving Bohm either out of the organization or to the bench. Heck, they could very well have moved Arraez to first, moved Harper to right field and be done with it. Instead, they have already allowed a player from outside of the locker room dictate where three other players are going to go, all in the name of the defense….staying the same? Getting marginally worse? Getting markedly worse? It’s a strange way to go about getting the desired offensive upgrade that they believe Arraez to be.
There seems to be a large amount of trust that several players are going to be able to make the switch, but I submit the following:
- Stott’s athleticism is such that I’m not sure a move to third is the worst thing for two months. He can clearly move better than Bohm in the field, so maybe the plays Bohm couldn’t make going laterally are going to get made now. He also has better arm strength than Bohm does, making some of those longer throws that a third baseman has to make should be a little better. Stott hasn’t played there in many a moon, so there will be a natural learning curve. That’s also a whole lot of “shoulds”
- Bohm has at least played first base this year and has done so quite often in the past. It’s not a foreign position for him. Also, statistically, Harper hasn’t really been that good this year at first anyway; who’s to say Bohm can’t at least be the same?
- The biggest thing for, at least for me, is putting Harper back out into the outfield. His arm is still quite strong, so making those throws shouldn’t be a problem and he’s far enough away from the elbow surgery he had that we shouldn’t really worry about a repeat. However, that’s not the type of injury I would be most concerned with. He’ll have to do a lot more running than he has, opening himself up to more soft tissue injuries, the ones that cost time to heal. This lineup can ill afford to lose him for any length of time, so one has to really hope he doesn’t get hurt that way.
Again, Arraez is going to be a salve for what ails the lineup. A pure contact hitter that gets on base is something that really doesn’t exist right now. Offensively, the Phillies improved. Yet the questions about the defense will remain until proven to not be an issue.
The bullpen is better….right?
Don Mattingly has been getting (rightfully) destroyed over his usage of the bullpen. There have been moves he has made that have outright cost the Phillies wins that they desperately need to have. Some of the carnage has been wrought by the options Mattingly had at his disposal, some of it has been due to who he has called on to come into the game.
Post deadline, at the very least, those options have gotten better.
Here was the bullpen on Monday morning:
Jhoan Duran
Jonathan Bowlan
Jose Alvarado
Tim Mayza
Orion Kerkering
Kyle Backhus
Seth Johnson
Chase Shugart
That’s one almost automatic in Duran, a pitcher who has taken a tremendous leap forward in Bowlan and a whole lot of question marks. Alvarado has had the typical season where he has shown flashes of being good only to be followed by bouts of “what the heck?” Kerkering has struggled mightily of late while the remaining four have all been given reasons for finding out if the newest true crime documentary on Netflix is any good.
By bringing in Caleb Kilian and Brooks Raley, we can probably safely now see a bullpen that looks like this:
Jhoan Duran
Jonathan Bowlan
Jose Alvarado
Tim Mayza
Orion KerkeringKyle Backhus Brooks RaleySeth Johnson Caleb Kilian
Chase Shugart
Kilian is interesting in a way where he has strike out stuff, but has really only put up ok numbers. He’s also only done it this season, making it feel a bit like “I don’t really believe it” when he’s on the mound. He’s still better than Seth Johnson. Raley is 38 years old and isn’t the lockdown arm he was for a few years, but he’s better at getting out lefties than Backhus while not being someone who is a liability against right handed hitters.
The bullpen is better, just maybe a bit rather than a huge amount.
Still no fifth starter?
The team was pretty outspoken about their desire to see if they could upgrade the fifth starter’s position given they had gotten almost nothing out of that spot in the rotation this season. They had given the spot to Andrew Painter prior to his demotion, then went with Alan Rangel for far too long before trying a few bullpen games on for size. Then Painter was pretty decent the other night and apparently, all is right with the world!
Should it be?
With their not getting another starting pitcher to take that spot, the team is openly saying they believe that whatever was in need of repair with Painter’s game has been fixed and he is the answer they are looking for at the fifth starter’s spot. That feels like a bold statement to make after one game, yet this is where the Phillies are. Probably wisely, they did not go and get someone like Michael Lorenzen or Tomoyuki Sugano or any other pitcher of that ilk to fill the spot. Perhaps you could say that Brady Singer would have been an option to explore, but instead, they are betting that the upside of Painter and what his improved self would provide is better than betting that Singer won’t get rocked each time he toes the slab.
