Philadelphia Phillies: Three players that need to disappear

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As the Philadelphia Phillies try to figure out what they need to do to move on from a disappointing 2019 campaign, three familiar names need to disappear.

Following a season that resulted in their manager, hitting coach, and pitching coach all being shown the door, the Philadelphia Phillies need to seriously consider excising several players from their roster.

One of the following will likely have to be traded, and two will probably be released, but managing partner John Middleton did not commit nearly half a billion dollars to several players last winter to see his team go 81-81 or worse two years in a row. And whoever is hired to be the field manager could not guarantee that wouldn’t happen again without the following players being removed in favor of improved starting pitching.

Odubel Herrera

To paraphrase Oscar Hammerstein about the Phillies alleged center fielder, “How do you solve a problem like Odubel?” Perhaps, however, the very next line of the song applies better: “How do you catch a cloud and pin it down?” This is because no one can deny Herrera’s soaring ability, his athleticism. Although named an All-Star in 2016, however, the player’s batting average has gone almost straight downhill from his rookie season’s .280 (2015), bottoming out at .222 for a partial year in ’19, and his OBP, peaking at .361 in ’16, was .288 this past summer.

And none of this is to mention Odubel Herrera’s arrest on domestic violence charges this spring (the charges were dropped) and his suspension for the remainder of the season. If there was ever a player whose uniform should read “CHANGE OF SCENERY,” it is Odubel. For more than two years, he has seemed, at best, distracted, and at worst, uninterested.

Here’s the problem: Herrera is under contract through 2021, and will make between $17 and $18 million in those two years. Additionally, club options for the following two years seriously suggest he will be difficult to move, but if the team can minimize how much of this contract they’ll have to eat, the money saved could be used, again, for pitching. In Herrera’s case, a low-level minor leaguer with promise should be considered if the team he comes from is willing to take, say, two-thirds of the outfielder’s contract.

So, Herrera is number one with a bullet, as the phrase goes, to be sent a Philadelphia Phillies farewell card. Club officials went on the record in July saying they didn’t expect him to return to the club in 2020, but then issued a statement a couple of days later indicating what is commonly called a “walk back.” The Phillies should not be wishy-washy about this, however. They have Adam Haseley ready to take over center field.

Three Philadelphia Phillies Players That Need to Disappear

Nick Pivetta

It might initially seem a difficult task to decide whether starter-reliever Nick Pivetta or starter-reliever-starter Vince Velasquez should be jettisoned first. Both have left 26 years of age in the rearview mirror, both have lifetime losing records, and neither has a lifetime nor yearly WHIP below 1.300 in the last three years.

Both pitchers suffer from pitch location issues. For those watching every day, it seems as though this translates often to Velasquez throwing too many pitches, but “surviving,” whereas Pivetta’s mistakes seem to end up in the seats. With a similar number of career innings thrown, allowing for the minor difference in MLB career length to date, the number that may well be a scale-tipper is home runs surrendered. Pivetta is giving up 23 per season, Velasquez 16.6 (in 166 and 161 innings on average, respectively).

Both pitchers throw peak fastballs over 96 mph, but another deciding factor may be that Velasquez shows flashes of what might be called ultra-brilliance. Early in his career he struck out 16 Padres in a game, and in June of 2018, he held the potent Rockies hitless for 6.1 innings.

If the “CHANGE OF SCENERY” jersey goes to Herrera, the one Pivetta truly seems to need should read “NEW PITCHING COACH.” Now, of course, it could be argued that the right-hander will be getting that in Philadelphia, but can that new Philadelphia Phillies hire guarantee he will teach Pivetta location focus?

In other words, when Pivetta misses, he misses by more than Velasquez does. In the modern game, “right down the middle” translates to a 19-degree launch angle and 430 feet.

Pivetta isn’t arbitration-eligible until 2021 but is not yet signed for 2020. Replace him with a left-handed pitcher, either a starter or reliever.

Three Philadelphia Phillies Players That Need to Disappear

Maikel Franco

At one time (June 22, 2015), Maikel Franco was the sort of promising young player who could make the Yankees regret, in their own house, walking the batter in front of him to face him instead. The young third baseman slammed an early pitch in that situation into the right-field seats. He later homered again in the Philadelphia Phillies11-8 win, driving in five altogether.

Back then, Franco was not yet 23 years old and seemed to have power to all fields as well as a potential Gold Glove in his locker. He was quick and picked up a rolling ball on the third baseline bare-handed as well as anyone ever had, then threw people out off his back foot.

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After six years with the Phillies, however, there has been no Gold Glove, and the Dominican native has barely cracked 100 career home runs. His fielding average is .002 below the league average although he is still able to make absolutely spectacular plays, bouncing off his left foot in foul territory to throw runners out at first.

He has never hit over .280 and never driven in more than 88 runs. He has also not benefited from the Phillies shift to an analytical approach in coaching, famously struggling with departed hitting coach John Mallee’s attempt to increase his launch angle in 2018. Franco finished that year with his career’s second-best OBP, but that figure was a fairly ho-hum .314.

In 2019 he was benched in favor of emerging super-utilityman Scott Kingery for the better part of August, and a fair amount of September.

He is currently arbitration-eligible but is widely thought to be done with the Phillies, having almost doubled his salary between ‘18 and ’19, then dropping 36 points in batting average, while hitting five fewer homers and driving in 12 fewer runs.

Next. LAA: What Maddon hiring means for other vacancies. dark

Next Spring

It is quite possible that all three of these players are invited to spring training next February, but it would be quite a surprise if all three would be, then, so impressive in Clearwater they would all make the roster. Pivetta, to pick one of them, already used up his false spring this year.

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