Looking Forward to 2008: Philadelphia Phillies (redux)

By Kevin Padraic Donnelly:

Our original Phillies article was admittedly a little heavy on snark and light on analysis.  This is what happens when a couple of Braves fans pick up one of the competitors in the absence of a Phillie-obsessed contributor, I’m afraid.  But rather than let his team be slighted (even slightly), one of our regular commentors (and a big Phillie booster) volunteered to re-write the piece.  We’re more than happy (nay, even ecstatic at times) to have new contributors volunteer to write for the site.  My thanks to Kevin as well as the invaluable contirbutions of Guy Cope (aka Arva) and all of the other volunteers who contributed to this year’s Looking Forwards. —ed

Why 2008 is so important

The 2008 season will likely define the course of the Phillies franchise for years to come.  While the team may seem to be composed of several up and coming players, the core group of Chase Utley (29), Jimmy Rollins (29), Ryan Howard (28) and Pat Burrell (31) are all either at their peaks or on the way down.  And while they can hope for more extended playing time from Utley and Howard (132 and 144 starts, respectively, last year), it is unlikely any of those four players will exceed their production per plate appearance from 2007.  Add to this the departure of Aaron Rowand, who gave the Phillies 684 PA of 123 OPS+ last year in center field, and last year’s National League East crown may end up looking like the peak accomplishment of a talented group rather the start of a long period of success. 

Let’s start with Burrell, who has been the least recognized of the offensive stars.  He is almost certainly gone after this season, and there is no one either within the system or on the FA market (other than his LH clone, Adam Dunn) who can replace his offensive production.  Despite actually making his once-maligned contract look good, it is probably wise not to resign a 32 year-old corner outfielder with limited defensive range (4th worst defensive LF according to Dewan’s plus/minus in 2007) who is also the the slowest non-catcher in the NL.  Additionally, Burrell’s value is limited because he comes out of almost every game the Phillies are leading after the 6th inning, which is how he was only able to score 77 runs last year outside of his HR, despite 598 PA and a .400 OBP.

More surprising is the idea that 2008 might be Howard’s final year in Philadelphia.  Jayson Stark mentioned this in a Rumblings and Grumblings now behind the wall at ESPN, and it makes sense that the Phillies would try to move Howard sooner rather than later.  The only “insight” I have into Howard’s contract demands comes from media reports, but if those reports are accurate (A-Rod money!), then they should seriously consider trading him if they fall out of contention.  It is possible, then, that after this season, the Phillies could lose around 1250 PA of .400 OBP and 950 OBP.  Ouch! 

What is there to replace it?  Nothing.  Absolutely nothing.  The Phillies have one position player under 27 in the entire organization (including the majors!) who is now or projects to be a starter in the show: 20 year old Adrian Cardenas who is currently in A-ball.  With the departure of Bourn and Costanzo (C prospects to begin with) to Houston in the trade to acquire Brad Lidge, the cupboard is officially bare.  Greg Golson is the top OF prospect, but last year walked twice in 193 AA ABs while striking out 49 times.  If you ever see a Phillies poster refer to “Mr. 49:2” at BTF, that’s Golson. 

The coming contract crisis with Howard, and the escalations in the salaries of Brett Myers, Utley and (presumably) Cole Hamels, combined with the lack of cheap alternatives in the minors means that Assistant GM Ruben Amaro Jr. (Pat Gillick’s likely successor in 2009) is going to face a difficult salary crunch next year unless the payroll is increased above the current informal cap of 100M.  This is why 2008 is so important.  If the Phillies can win the division again, and go deep into the playoffs, then it’s possible the salary restraints could be relaxed and Howard and Burrell (or FA equivalents) retained.  But if the Phillies fall out of contention early and see an attractive deadline deal for Howard, it’s not hard to imagine the word “rebuilding” coming from the offices of Broad and Pattison this winter.

Whose fault this is

Unquestionably: Gillick.  Ed Wade of course takes some of the blame for the farm system now (the team had no 1st round pick in 2003 or 2005), but he left more than enough in talent and tradable commodities.  To a casual observer it may appear that Gillick took an underachieving team (the Phillies finished second or third in Wade’s last five years) and fine tuned them into a winner, acquiring key contributors like Jayson Werth, Jamie Moyer, Greg Dobbs and Tad Iguchi to surround the superstar talent.  This couldn’t be further from the truth.

What Gillick actually did was take one of the best (and cheapest) talent cores in the game (Utley, Howard, Rollins, Hamels, Myers) and surround it with expensive (in dollars and prospects) dreck.  The Phillies modest increase in wins last year masks the fact that this core group - entirely inherited from Wade - improved substantially.  When Gillick arrived in 2005, Howard was a raw rookie of the year winner with 107 games played, Utley had only completed his first year as the everyday 2B, Rollins was still a solid if unspectacular SS, and Hamels was more minor league legend than prospect.  Under Gillick, however, this group turned into 3 MVP level players and one Cy Young level pitcher.  This is a massive increase in production from players already on hand, yet the team hardly improved as a whole.  Why?

The answer is a series of bad trades and FA signings that could result in some of the best talent Philadelphia has ever seen being wasted.  Think I am overstating the case?  Consider the following trades and FA signings in Gillick’s first two off-seasons.

Trades:
Vincent Padilla for Ricardo Rodriguez
Bobby Abreu and Corey Lidle for Matt Smith, C.J. Henry, Carlos Monastrios, and Jesus Sanchez
Gavin Floyd and Gio Gonzalez for Freddy Garcia

Free Agent Signings:
Adam Eaton
Tom Gordon
Abraham Nunez
(The Worse) Alex Gonzalez
Rod Barajas
Wes Helms

There have of course been some good trades, most notably getting a solid season out of David Delluci for Robinson Tejeda’s fluke half-season and getting value for Thome when all of baseball knew he had to be traded, but the major deals of the Gillick era (Gordon, Eaton, and Garcia) have been crippling to a franchise on a tight budget.  Last year those three players cost 24.63M (and two good pitching prospects!) and provided either little (Gordon), nothing (Garcia), or worse than nothing (Eaton).  It’s always easy to say in retrospect that a GM should have signed player A instead of player B, but it isn’t often the case where you can say the team would have been better off had the GM simply not been allowed to spend 25M dollars.  I think it’s fair to say that last year’s exciting run to the top of the NL East was in spite of Gillick’s best efforts, and not because of them. 

Reasons for hope

So was anything different this past off-season?  Actually, yes.  Or at least I hope so, because I agreed with almost every decision.  Here they are in order of importance.

1) Mike Costanzo, Michael Bourn and Geoff Geary for Lidge.  This deal had to be made, if only to get Myers back in the rotation.  The Phillies front office correctly identified an overvalued pitching market (well, at least until Kyle Lohse, but we’ll get back to that) and realized the best starter available was sitting in their bullpen.  I actually think Costanzo could have been the long-term solution at 3B, but since my thesis is that the Phils have to go for it now, he was expendable.

2) Letting Rowand go, moving Shane Victorino from RF to CF, and signing Geoff Jenkins to platoon with Werth in RF.  It was also good to see Gillick not overpay for a hitter in CBP having close to a career year.  Hopefully, Amaro recognizes this because the key to any GM’s success in Philly will be understanding that the ballpark is going to inflate a lot of numbers.  I’m not sold on Jenkins, but he was a better option than the next tier of slugging LH like Brad Wilkerson, Trot Nixon or Luis Gonzalez. 

3) Signing Pedro Feliz to play 3B.  The Phillies had a three-headed monster at 3B (Helms, Greg Dobbs, Nunez) last year, which meant that manager Charlie Manuel had to sometimes rotate 3 players at one position.  Manuel has always been loose with his bench, but here his hand was forced because each player had severe limitations: Dobbs couldn’t field or hit LHP, Nunez couldn’t hit, and Helms couldn’t hit or field.  And while it may seem like Dobbs/Helms could have made a cheaper option than paying 5M for Feliz’s 290 OBP, Feliz actually hit better then the Phillies 3B group last year.

Phillies 3B: .255/.321/.368
Feliz: .253/.290/.418

This looks even better if you account for ballpark and if you think Dewan’s plus/minus on Feliz (+64 the last three years) is to be believed. 

Dobbs may be able to hit and play 3B, but it doesn’t look like he can do both, posting a 641 OPS at 3B while he was over 900 at every other position (OF, 1B, PH).  And given Manuel’s propensity to use Nunez last year in Jamie Moyer’s starts and in late innings (amazingly, Nunez actually logged the most innings at 3B last year), one would have to assume that the new futility infielder Eric Bruntlett (acquired in the Lidge deal) would be pushing 300 ABs without signing Feliz.  That would not be a good thing.

4) Sign Kyle Loshe.  This didn’t actually happen, but it could be the difference between the playoffs and losing Ryan Howard.  Don’t think so?  Well, the Phillies in 2008 have 3/5 of the starting rotation as major question marks, with Eaton literally the worst pitcher in MLB last year (according to ERA of qualified pitchers), Moyer at 45, and ZiPS believing Kendrick is another Robinson Tejeda (2008 projection over 5.00 ERA after a solid 10-4, 3.87 last year).  It’s possible that one or even two of these three turn in respectable seasons, but the likelihood of all three being solid is low.  Kris Benson was signed as a project, but he has already experienced setbacks, and none of the Phillies pitching prospects (thankfully a better group then the position players) seem ready.  Right now, the line behind Eaton starts with Chad Durbin. 

With all of the talent on hand, the Phillies 2008 season will depend a lot on whether Eaton, Moyer and Kendrick can reverse some pretty strong trends (suckitude, age, and k-rates, respectively).  Again, maybe one or two can be overcome, but this is a big risk to take when the Lohse insurance package could have been purchased for a mere 4 million.

Aside from Lohse, Gillick has done a fine job identifying the problems with last year’s team.  But unfortunately, identifying and solving the problem are separate skills.  After all, last off-season, Gillick correctly identified starting pitching as his team’s weakness (the 2005 experiment with Floyd and Ryan Madson cost the team the division that year), but then identified Garcia and Eaton as the solutions.  If Jenkins or Feliz don’t perform well, Gillick will likely be excused because of the payroll restraints, but this is question begging.  Gillick’s restraints are largely of his own making, as the long-term deals of the Wade era begin to look fantastic in comparison to those for Eaton and Gordon.  If 2008 is a disappointment, Gillick will have no one but himself to blame. 

What will happen

For one, we know that 2008 will be Gillick’s last year as GM of the Phillies.  The 3-year deal he signed in 2005 was widely reported as a placeholder arrangement, with Gillick providing Amaro (or, less likely, Mike Arbuckle) three more years of training before taking over the top spot.  Because of his reputation prior to coming to Philadelphia and because of last year’s wildly entertaining finish, he will likely leave with a solid reputation as a tinkerer with a group of talented players. 

However, as I hope to have shown here, a poor 2008 year could leave the Gillick era as a giant disappointment.  A scan of the Franchise Encyclopedia at Baseball-Reference leads to the hard-to-believe-Harry proposition that this current team represents the second best run in the Phillies 124 year history (the Schmidt/Carlton teams being obviously the best).  It’s not close really.  Aside from the current team and the great teams of the late 70s/early 80s, the Phillies have had only one other group finish over 500 in five consecutive years (’62-’67), and that team was on the other end of one of the greatest collapses ever.  But maybe it’s not that surprising.  They have some of the best players in the team’s history at 1B, 2B, SS, and LF; they have two top young pitchers in Hamels and Myers; they have cheap, reliable options to start in Carlos Ruiz and Victorino.  But with all this, they are consensus picks by both analysts and computer projection systems to finish behind New York and Atlanta in 2008.  What appears in retrospect to be a perfect storm of young and cheap superstars (not to mention tradable commodities like Thome and Abreu) may end up producing only a single NL East crown.

I can’t hope to give a better prediction of the Phillies for this year than ZiPS, B-Pro, or Keith Law (Olney and Phillips, maybe) but I can give a sense of the importance of this season.  The salary crunch that is coming in 2009 will only be alleviated if the payroll is expanded, and it is hard to see that happening if the Phillies do not win close to 90 games this year.  Whoever the GM is, it would be hard to justify resigning Burrell and continuing to pay Howard’s massive arbitration awards after another 86 win season.  Even if they could do both of those things, the top bullpen arm signed for 2009 is J.C. Romero (there is an option on Gordon) and just the contract increases to Hamels, Myers, Utley, Eaton, Jenkins, and Feliz will take up close to another 15M dollars before the first FA is signed.  Oh, and Victorino, Ruiz (possible super-2), Werth, and Madson will all be arbitration eligible next year.

So far this season, the team has played okay despite a terrible beginning from Howard and injuries to Rollins and Victorino.  With Atlanta’s pitching nightmares and the injury to Pedro Martinez, the East may be more of a possibility then anyone thought.  Eaton, Kendrick and Moyer have all been adequate, and if they continue to post sub 5.00 ERA (as they have as of this writing), the gamble with Lohse may pay off.  Whatever happens, the success of this team will depend more than any other on players Gillick acquired, specifically Gordon, Romero, Lidge, Eaton, Feliz and the Werth/Jenkins platoon.  Aside from Rowand’s monster season last year, the teams of 2006 and 2007 were mostly the result of Ed Wade’s handiwork.  And while that much-maligned GMs legacy will remain with this team as long as Hamels, Utley, Howard, Myers, Burrell and Rollins continue to wear the red and white, 2008 is a chance for Gillick to leave his own mark on the franchise, and, just possibly, determine it’s future course for the better.