Phillies concerns and questions as spring competition opens
As the Philadelphia Phillies’ first spring training game on Feb. 28 against the Detroit Tigers approaches, the team seems to be better situated than it was as the offseason dawned. Very important players have been re-signed, and last year’s god-awful bullpen appears to have bolstered. A number of predictors of the NL East final standings have put the Fightin’s no better than third after gazing into their crystal balls, but an objective observer should conclude that the team can challenge for the division championship.
However, this doesn’t mean the Phillies don’t have concerns to be overcome and pivotal questions to be answered. They are as follows in a rough order of importance:
The Four-way Race for the Final Starting Slots
While some teams are toying with the notion of six-man rotations, the Phillies are not among them. Manager Joe Girardi has said as much plainly. Three slots are filled with quality starters; the two remaining slots have four runners lining up for a sprint to a pivotal job every fifth day: Spencer Howard, Vince Velasquez, and this winter’s additions, Matt Moore, and Chase Anderson.
Good pitching will always stop good hitting and vice-versa. –Casey Stengel
Moore and Anderson are widely seen as the front runners. Moore is left-handed and would break up an otherwise entirely right-handed rotation. Anderson was actually “recruited” by Phillies catcher J.T. Realmuto.
But what if neither works out that well early on, and what if it doesn’t appear that number three starter Zach Eflin will continue to progress?
And this is to say nothing about concerns about the number one and two starters, Aaron Nola and Zack Wheeler, which we’ll come to after our second concern…
Realmuto’s Broken Thumb
The All-Star catcher recently re-signed by the Phillies has a non-displaced, minor fracture at the base of his right (throwing) thumb, as widely reported. The injury, which is immobilized, still allows him to participate in some early drills. (He catches; somebody else returns the throw.)
This seems to be a matter that could be termed “all well and good,” given the best player on the team is now injured.
Phillies fans go negative before they go anywhere else, so many are surely thinking, “Will this injury in any way cut into Realmuto’s ability to throw out base stealers?” In ’19 the Gold Glove catcher threw out those would-be thieves by a huge margin over the next best MLB catcher.
Phillies fans are, thus, in hope mode.
Wheeler’s Fingernail Problem and a Related Adjustment
Last September, the Phillies best starter in ’20, Zach Wheeler managed to partially rip the fingernail off the middle finger of this pitching hand while struggling to put on tight pants. This led some to figure he was done for the season, which did not turn out to be the case.
The right-hander attempted to tough it out, making an “adjustment” with his pitch mix and, presumably, his grip. (His slider had the problematic pitch; he dug his nail into the ball.) The effort impressed his manager, who recently praised the pitcher.
The results of Wheeler’s toughness were mixed, however. After missing a start, he pitched at least seven innings in two of his three last starts. Unfortunately, he lost one of those games, as well as the game he only lasted 5.2 innings. He dropped from 4-0 on the short season to 4-2, giving up nine of the 23 earned runs he surrendered last summer.
His ERA drifted upwards as well from 2.47 to 2.92.
In the incipient training for the coming season, Wheeler is working on making his slider “more consistent in the zone.” And no, despite two surgeries over his pitching lifetime for his nail problem, he hasn’t abandoned the pitch. It might be inferred he has altered his grip somewhat, but maybe he hasn’t.
Joe Girardi has only been caught admitting, mysteriously, that Wheeler had the “ability to change his repertoire a little bit” last fall.
This matter has the potential to be a big deal, one way or the other.
Aaron Nola, a Phillies Ace except in September
Here’s something like a fact: If Aaron Nola had pitched as well in the past three Septembers as he had in the periods prior to those months, he might already have the Cy Young award he narrowly missed in 2018. At the very least he’d already have a couple of solid seconds to Jacob deGrom. Instead, he has one third and a seventh-place finish.
From April through August for the past three seasons, Nola has been 30-9 with a 2.74 ERA. In September, though, he has fallen to an aggregate 4-9 with an American League-ordinary ERA of 4.44.
And no one knows why. This is not swell, of course.
The temptation is to say the pitcher simply tires, but this is belied by last season’s workload for any starter…unless, somehow, the weirdness of last season effectively sapped Nola’s energy or focus in a way no one has a handle on.
Isn’t this why every team has an analytics department now?
Issues Five through Seven
Somewhat buried in Bill Ladson’s piece on Wheeler and his slider work are a couple of notations that aren’t exactly glossed over, and could be called the Phillies’ fifth and sixth concerns. Both have to do with injuries.
The first is the seemingly minor matter of Bryce Harper having “tweaked” his back late last August. Ladson notes that Harper’s OPS through Aug. 22 last year was 1.192, but thereafter dropped to .827.
This is all in the current context of Harper’s manager praising his work ethic and apparently waving away any concern about his very expensive player, but a question does beg: Could a baseball life of violent swings have made Harper’s back “touchy”?
The player is entering only his third year of a 13-year contract. Supposedly, this will be one of his prime years for production. He will be 28.
Then, there’s Rhys Hoskin’s repaired (non-throwing) arm. If memory serves, his Tommy John surgery resulted from a collision of that arm with a baserunner.
Apparently, this is another matter that’s “all well and good.” Joe Girardi says Hoskins “is going through all his progressions.” Now, if Phillies fans could only be assured that this elbow repair would prevent or at least mitigate Hoskins’ historic streakiness.
And finally, we come to a sort of bottom-line Phillies’ concern, nicely laid out, as might be expected, by J.T. Realmuto and Joe Girardi: Can Philadelphia execute the Earl Weaver Plan? Younger fans may not be aware of what Sabr.org literally called Weaver’s “love-affair with the three-run homer” in a title.
But according to Realmuto and his manager, that’s pretty much the Phillies plan this year – put men on base (the Phillies were third in OPS last year despite missing the playoffs, with a .342 team mark), and let the big boys bring them around the bases, even slowly if need be.
Girardi: “Our game, I really believe, needs more action.” … “Doubles, triples, stolen bases.”
Realmuto: “Up and down the lineup, we have power at every position. We obviously have Bryce and Rhys in the middle, and both those guys can hit 30 or 40 home runs at the drop of a hat if they’re healthy. We have that and we have plenty of other guys in the lineup that can hit 20 to 25 and even the guys at the bottom of the lineup are capable of popping 10 to 15 home runs. When you have that, especially in a park like the one we play in….”
The sentence doesn’t even need an ending. The question is: Can the Phillies execute?
Next. Who starts in center for Phillies?. dark
The other thing to keep in mind is that Weaver’s actual prescription for winning was “pitching and three-run homers.” So, this takes you back to points one, three, and four above.