I kind of enjoyed the Phillies series

[Frobby]

Three taut, low scoring games, 2-0, 3-2 (in 10 innings), 4-3.    All three came down to the last at bat.   Obviously I enjoyed the first game better than the next two, and the bullpen frustrated me no end in the latter two games.   But still it was pretty refreshing to play three consecutive games like that where we were never out of it and the pitching for the most part was solid. 

[RZNJ]

Are the Philles that bad?   That was my thought during the series.   They can't be that good.   That lineup, outside of Harper and Realmuto, doesn't inspire fear.

[Can_of_corn]

Just now, RZNJ said:

Are the Philles that bad?   That was my thought during the series.   They can't be that good.   That lineup, outside of Harper and Realmuto, doesn't inspire fear.

Sometimes your burn it to the ground rebuild gives you the Astros, sometimes you get the Phillies.

[RZNJ]

7 minutes ago, Can_of_corn said:

Sometimes your burn it to the ground rebuild gives you the Astros, sometimes you get the Phillies.

2015 (1:10) Cornelius Randolph

2016 (1:1) Mickey Moniak

2017 (1:8) Adam Hasely

2018 (1:3) Alex Bohm

2019 (1:14) Bryson Stott

2020 (1:15) Mick Abel

 

One thing seems apparent.   They didn't draft any game changers during this period.   They also didn't suck as bad as the Astros and Orioles.  Only two top 5 picks but it looks like they didn't strike gold with either.

[Can_of_corn]

1 minute ago, RZNJ said:

2015 (1:10) Cornelius Randolph

2016 (1:1) Mickey Moniak

2017 (1:8) Adam Hasely

2018 (1:3) Alex Bohm

2019 (1:14) Bryson Stott

2020 (1:15) Mick Abel

 

One thing seems apparent.   They didn't draft any game changers during this period.   They also didn't suck as bad as the Astros and Orioles.  Only two top 5 picks but it looks like they didn't strike gold with either.

Thank you.

I knew someone was going to point out that they didn't suck as bad.

 

[RZNJ]

Just now, Can_of_corn said:

Thank you.

I knew someone was going to point out that they didn't suck as bad.

 

Just pointing out a fact.   They also didn't draft well which is probably the bigger issue.

[glenn__davis]

Prior to the Phillies series the Orioles had played 18 of their previous 22 games against the AL East.

As bad as they've been this year, the schedule certainly doesn't help.

EDIT - Actually 19 out of 23, I missed the DH against the Blue Jays.

[Sports Guy]

Phil’s also signed Kingery to a long term deal and that didn’t work out.  Lots of bad luck and poor decision making by them the last 5ish years.

[waroriole]

48 minutes ago, RZNJ said:

2015 (1:10) Cornelius Randolph

2016 (1:1) Mickey Moniak

2017 (1:8) Adam Hasely

2018 (1:3) Alex Bohm

2019 (1:14) Bryson Stott

2020 (1:15) Mick Abel

 

One thing seems apparent.   They didn't draft any game changers during this period.   They also didn't suck as bad as the Astros and Orioles.  Only two top 5 picks but it looks like they didn't strike gold with either.

Oof. They’re three great players and not much else. 

[Can_of_corn]

13 minutes ago, Sports Guy said:

Phil’s also signed Kingery to a long term deal and that didn’t work out.  Lots of bad luck and poor decision making by them the last 5ish years.

It hurts that he hasn't panned out but that deal hasn't kept them from making any other moves.

[Moose Milligan]

21 minutes ago, Sports Guy said:

Phil’s also signed Kingery to a long term deal and that didn’t work out.  Lots of bad luck and poor decision making by them the last 5ish years.

Yep, a lot of this rebuild stuff is luck.  I don't think people here are going to understand that if/when our rebuild falls on its face.

Of course you try to mitigate the luck factors as much as you can but really..at the end of this day a lot of this stuff is out of the control of what the owners/managers/GMs are trying to do.

[RZNJ]

2 minutes ago, Moose Milligan said:

Yep, a lot of this rebuild stuff is luck.  I don't think people here are going to understand that if/when our rebuild falls on its face.

Of course you try to mitigate the luck factors as much as you can but really..at the end of this day a lot of this stuff is out of the control of what the owners/managers/GMs are trying to do.

Luck is the residue of design.   The more good decisions you make, the luckier you tend to get.

[Ruzious]

Not to mention, Philly is starting a SS we got rid of - at 3B.  And they have a poor bullpen themselves.  

[SteveA]

1 minute ago, Moose Milligan said:

Yep, a lot of this rebuild stuff is luck.  I don't think people here are going to understand that if/when our rebuild falls on its face.

Of course you try to mitigate the luck factors as much as you can but really..at the end of this day a lot of this stuff is out of the control of what the owners/managers/GMs are trying to do.

The success of any individual player certainly has a ton of luck involved.

But if you improve the processes -- scouting, data analysis helping decide which players to acquire and how to get the most out of the ones you have, player development, teaching, analytics helping you make game/lineup decisions, etc., then the outcomes you get should trend upwards, as opposed to if you didn't make those improvements.

That was the promise that the Elias/Mejdal team had for me.  They would improve all those processes and we'd draft a guy who had a 30% chance of success over a guy with a 20% chance of success that we might have taken in the past, and then superior development and analytics would help the guy reach his potential 40% of the time instead of 30% of the time.   Repeat that over dozens of players and we'd have better players.

And starting to see poor results from mid level pitching prospects on the third year in is a huge disappointment and red flag as far as I am concerned.   Maybe I can't see the forest for the trees.   Maybe Akin will become a decent #5 starter, and Zimmermann will get healthy and also be a back end starter, and Kremer will recover from a lost year for whatever reason and become a usable major leaguer.  Then suddenly this year wasn't as much of a failure as it appears in the short term view.   And obviously the deliberate use of over a dozen non-prospect pitchers to eat almost 400 innings (Harvey 127.2 Plutko 56.1 Watkins 51.1 Valdez 46 Eshelman 24 Ellis 22.1 Greene 20 Anderson 10 Wade 8.2 Knight 8.2 LeBlanc 6.2 Hanhold 6.1 Jannis 3.1 Barreda 2.2 Fla 1.1 Burdi 1 Waddell 1 Kriske 0.1) = over 30% of our innings this year ... that makes the pitching look worse than it was because none of those guys will be around.

But right now, the state of pitching in our system is a concern.   

[SteveA]

4 minutes ago, Ruzious said:

Not to mention, Philly is starting a SS we got rid of - at 3B.  And they have a poor bullpen themselves.  

The amazing thing is, as bad as their bullpen is, it's still a big improvement over last year's dumpster fire Philly bullpen, which approached historic levels of badditude.