8 minutes ago, Blazehound said:

I blame Middleton. He kept Amaro around way too long and is doing the same with Klentak. Between those two decisions, he’s set Phillies baseball back a decade and god knows how much longer. This current state of the Phillies is mid-late 90s Phillies bad. Completely unwatchable. The team and farm system is so devoid of talent, I have little hope moving forward. 

Honestly kind of feels like the Phillies have a great run for 5-6 years then about 12-17 of dreadful baseball with one outlier year. 

The Phillies are paying nearly $40m combined to McCutchen, Kingery and Segura next season. Just let that sink in 🤮

22 minutes ago, Blazehound said:

The Phillies are paying nearly $40m combined to McCutchen, Kingery and Segura next season. Just let that sink in 🤮

Kingery they paid way too soon cause of how he looked last spring training. Mccutchen they were stupid to begin with. They massively overpaid him especially when you consider how much Brantley got and one year less. He’s a better player at this stage then mccutchen. Mccutchen was declining before he got here. And this leadership will help is a joke. I don’t need to overpay for leadership. Nor overpay for a declining mccutchen to come here. 

segura is just a pain in the a** everywhere he goes. They were in a rush to lay kingery meanwhile scraped crawford wayyyy to early. He’s actually playing well for the Mariners. He’s hitting .296 and on base .405 

39 minutes ago, e-a-g-l-e-s eagles! said:

Like it drives me up the wall that the Phillies manage to keep him around. Their farm system sucks. Their player development sucks.  Nearly all of his moves he made for the bullpen over the years have sucked. His greatest accomplishment was getting Bryce harper because John Middleton stepped in and got him because he want a Manny Machado. Like he’s made two good moves in his tenure harper and didi. Realmuto is still a jury is out because if Realmuto leaves at the end of this year then it’s an awful trade for one year and a shortened season year. And didi could also leave. 

Realmuto is actually shaping up to be the greatest failure of all (assuming they do not sign him).  

In MLB, above all other pro sports leagues, you have to stay in your lane.  The big boys trade their undeveloped gems to the smaller organizations who can't re-sign their stars.  And then the middle-ground organizations keep their stars but don't buy them from other teams.  That's the talent cycle.

But for all that is holy, you don't trade your 2 best prospects to one of those small organizations for a star just to let him walk in 2 years.  Know who you are.  Either don't make the trade or sign the guy LAST YEAR.  Both options are perfectly acceptable.  

You can miss on a lot of draft picks, FAs, and trades.  But you don't trade your best talent for someone unless you know you can sign them.  That's just an unacceptable move.

1 minute ago, eagle45 said:

Realmuto is actually shaping up to be the greatest failure of all (assuming they do not sign him).  

In MLB, above all other pro sports leagues, you have to stay in your lane.  The big boys trade their undeveloped gems to the smaller organizations who can't re-sign their stars.  And then the middle-ground organizations keep their stars but don't buy them from other teams.  That's the talent cycle.

But for all that is holy, you don't trade your 2 best prospects to one of those small organizations for a star just to let him walk in 2 years.  Know who you are.  Either don't make the trade or sign the guy LAST YEAR.  Both options are perfectly acceptable.  

You can miss on a lot of draft picks, FAs, and trades.  But you don't trade your best talent for someone unless you know you can sign them.  That's just an unacceptable move.

Like you can see what is coming from a mile away. the Phillies are going to use this whole COVID-19 to be the reason why they couldnt and didn’t want to pay JT Realmuto the money that they should be paying them from the moment they traded for him. They haven’t talk to him since spring training. they’ve had a whole year and a half since they made this trade to get something done and they have Not done it. He is going to walk and go to some team that has a better chance at winning and willing to pay him. the Phillies are going to say well we didn’t think it was wise to go to that price and financially we were hit hard by Covid. This team With it’s below average farm and mediocre MLB roster is destined to be a .500 or below .500 team. 

At least Realmuto knows the fans desperately want him back and love him. 
 

also harper playing like an mvp. .341 avg, .491 obp, .659 slug, 4 homers and 10 RBIs 

I can actually almost understand some of the bullpen woes.  The fact that it is THIS bad is just a careless egregious miscalculation by Klentak.  

But teams typically don't play the long game planning ahead with their bullpen.  Your pitching prospects that can't quite make it more than 2 looks through the lineup (typically the same guys that can't develop a 3rd pitch) typically get transitioned to the pen.  A couple mid-level FAs, some big arms that failed in the rotation, and one high priced closer usually gets you a pretty good pen.  

It doesn't take several years to build a pen...and almost like ST in football, there is going to be faster turnover here.  So if your team isn't quite ready to compete and you are still struggling to build a lineup and rotation, I can actually understand holding back resources from the bullpen until you get the rest of the team in order.  Again, that's not because the bullpen isn't important, it's just because the arms in it can be a little more transient and easier to assemble quickly.

So I do understand heading into the year with bullpen problems.  But this level of incompetence reflects 2 things: 1. Klentak's complete lack of insight into his roster's capability.  2. The horrible lack of talent collection and development in their farm system.  They truly have not been able to find and coach up people capable of pitching in major league baseball.

Everyone relax, Robertson and Suarez will be back soon for the World series run

25 minutes ago, Joe Hunter 73 said:

Everyone relax, Robertson and Suarez will be back soon for the World series run

Don’t forget Dominguez 

1 hour ago, eagle45 said:

I can actually almost understand some of the bullpen woes.  The fact that it is THIS bad is just a careless egregious miscalculation by Klentak.  

But teams typically don't play the long game planning ahead with their bullpen.  Your pitching prospects that can't quite make it more than 2 looks through the lineup (typically the same guys that can't develop a 3rd pitch) typically get transitioned to the pen.  A couple mid-level FAs, some big arms that failed in the rotation, and one high priced closer usually gets you a pretty good pen.  

It doesn't take several years to build a pen...and almost like ST in football, there is going to be faster turnover here.  So if your team isn't quite ready to compete and you are still struggling to build a lineup and rotation, I can actually understand holding back resources from the bullpen until you get the rest of the team in order.  Again, that's not because the bullpen isn't important, it's just because the arms in it can be a little more transient and easier to assemble quickly.

So I do understand heading into the year with bullpen problems.  But this level of incompetence reflects 2 things: 1. Klentak's complete lack of insight into his roster's capability.  2. The horrible lack of talent collection and development in their farm system.  They truly have not been able to find and coach up people capable of pitching in major league baseball.

I think some of the issue with the bullpen is a d***ed around with Dominguez and didn’t make him get the surgery right away. He’d be close to returning about now if he had it right when it happened. Instead they try to make him do rehab that wasn’t gonna work. It’s never works when you try to do that  They always need the surgery. Now he’s out likely all next year too. He also signed Robertson which if you remember correctly last year when they signed him I said that was a bad deal. You don’t pay 34-year-old relievers top money. It is a recipe for disaster. They tend to get hurt and when they get hurt they take longer to come back. And he did sign some guys this off-season but then like with Liriano he just released him to go with younger guys meanwhile we could be using Liriano. 

Besides the bullpen they have an issue where they keep signing players that are old. McCutchen shouldn’t of signed him. he was 32 and declining. All I heard was he never gets hurt and we need to overpay because we needed his leadership. If he’s 32 and he never gets hurt And he plays every single game then eventually the deterioration and wear and tear was gonna hit eventually. And it did. Maybe not as significant as an ACL but at some point it was good to hit. neshek he overpaid and was old. Arrieta was old and overpaid. 

Great start so far

22 minutes ago, Joe Hunter 73 said:

Great start so far

only two starts so far for Howard. Not exactly looking like you’d hope for. I really really pray he’s not an overhyped prospect like we’ve seen from the Phillies in the past 

Bohm looks good though. 

It's nice to have a sense of normal. It's mid-August, and the Phils are playing meaningless baseball. 

Just now, Shocker54 said:

Anything good on TV?

U.S. Amateur Golf? 

Realmuto be like 

1 minute ago, 4for4EaglesNest said:

Amaro Jr’s voice is really bothering me.  It’s distracting.  

Don’t worry the bullpen will clear up that distraction soon enough and make you go into anger 

Bullpen finally got to neris. It’s spreading like covid. 

Harper is the man. Quinn redeemed himself for his ridiculous misplay earlier I guess.

 

if he winds up being decent for the reds it tells you everything you need to know about the Phillies 

1 hour ago, e-a-g-l-e-s eagles! said:

 

if he winds up being decent for the reds it tells you everything you need to know about the Phillies 

Their ability to develop talent is definitely in question.  And by that I mean from drafting a kid to turning him into a decent or better MLB starter.  They did it 15 years ago with Utley, JRoll, Howard, Burrell, Hamels and Chooch, but right now Nola is the only one on the team you can say that about.  So yeah, to see a young player struggle here and then do OK or better somewhere else is frustrating yet almost expected.

 

Always thought Nick Williams should have been given more of an opportunity to play. He looked better to me than that other outfielder they kept putting in the lineup. Can't think of his name. Right handed hitter who wasn't good.

Nola on the mound so Phils have a chance, unless he's pulled early for some inexplicable reason and they turn it over to the monkey house clown car show.  Question, why is Kingery starting in CF over Haseley?  

 

2 minutes ago, Shocker54 said:

Haze is on DL

Thanks.  I missed that.  Then again it's hard to get really invested in this team to keep up with which platoon guys are on the DL.  

1 hour ago, FranklinFldEBUpper said:

Always thought Nick Williams should have been given more of an opportunity to play. He looked better to me than that other outfielder they kept putting in the lineup. Can't think of his name. Right handed hitter who wasn't good.

Probably thinking of altherr who was also garbage and they kept trying to make him into a player