Is the Phillies organization “fixing” Scott Kingery or not?

Remember Scott Kingery? Some readers might answer this question now, “Didn’t he use to play for the Philadelphia Phillies?” A better question might be: Does anybody remember Inquirer.com writer Marcus Hayes’ scathing article in late March that slammed the Phillies for dooming Scott Kingery to failure?”

Let’s clear up a couple of things if Kingery is slipping your mind a bit. The Phillies are still on the hook for millions on the $24 million, six-year contract they gave the infielder before the 2018 season, before he had seen any MLB action, and Hayes’ criticism seemed entirely warranted before Opening Day this year.

Have the Philadelphia Phillies figured out how to fix their misfiring infielder Scott Kingery yet?

Scott Kingery had been one of the best second base prospects in Phillies history, but his organization decided he would make a great “super-utilityman,” and played him almost everywhere. The organization also tried to make the young man embrace the MLB teddy bear known as “launch angle,” and the results of these two big ideas failed miserably.

After consistently shrinking parts of four seasons in MLB, Kingery was sent to the Phillies Triple-A team, Lehigh Valley, at the beginning of June with a dismal slash line for the 2021 Pattison Avenue squad of .053/.053/.053. He had one hit for his MLB season at that point, after 15 game appearances.

Theories about what had gone wrong have been batted around the Delaware Valley for a while now, even beyond the presumed errors of not giving the infielder an appropriate chance at his best position and the launch angle craze.

In ’20, for example, he showed up to play with a lot of new muscle, and then hit .159 in the shortened season. Was that muscle based on an assumption he could master the magical launch angle into immortality, or another big idea altogether? Does it matter?

So, the question here is not whether Kingery has turned things around during his demotion to the Triple-A, but rather whether the Phillies organization is showing any evidence that they realize they have been a serious handicap to this player.

The answer to this seems to be “maybe yes, maybe no.” An examination of Kingery’s game logs for June seems to suggest the team decided (sort of) to play him all over the field for a bit (read, five games from the June 1 to 6), then to give him second base on a continuing basis (sort of) after that (read, for nine of 17 games beginning June 8).

It has been a commonplace suggestion around Philadelphia that Kingery would end up fixing his hitting problem if the Phillies family would just let him play second base.

It’s not clear the organization agrees with the fans and pundits. They may have begrudgingly experimented with allowing the player more time at second in Allentown, but that hasn’t been consistent. And that alone hasn’t “fixed” anything about Kingery’s offensive output.

Neither has any coaching, seemingly. For his MiLB efforts in ’21, Scott Kingery is currently slashing .181/.307/.292 (through June 26, including one game in May). On the IronPigs website he is listed as an outfielder. A caption on a photo for a recent piece about him in the Inquirer.com, however, identifies him as a second baseman.

But that same caption incorrectly asserts that Kingery had a 16-game hitting streak through June 25. This is not the case.  In nine of the 16 games the infielder played for LHV ending that date, he went hitless.

Scott Kingery is still lost in the forest his baseball career has become.