The composition of the roster…or at least what it has evolved into, is problematic.

1. Schwarber has become their most dangerous hitter. Hes having your typical contract year bump. We know his flaws, know his age…he’s not really someone you want to re-sign. You know that contract is going to have bad money and bad years in it. It’s downhill from here for him. But they have completely failed to replenish the pipeline of bats. They really do not have any power coming up through the system or even young power on the big league club. So what choice do they have?

2. Ignoring position and looking at lineup only, what’s the 2/3/4/5 meat of this order 2 years from now? A 34 year old Harper and 34 year old Schwarber? Are they gonna get Bohm on the juice then? Can they afford to buy a lineup anchoring bat with all the other bad money they are tied to?

3. Are Painter and Abel going to be too good to put money into Ranger and Luzardo? Or are we going to see these prospects at age 26 like the Phillies usually do? We don’t really need all of them, so can DD please find a way to convert some of this starting pitching into either bats or bullpen quality?

6 hours ago, DrPhilly said:

Why did they leave Luzardo in for so long? Can't be good for his psyche.

Bullpen was tapped out with the guys you’d use in a beat down after losing 9-3 and 6-2 back to back game. and they likely didn’t want to use Romano, strahm and kerkering in a blowout due to the doubleheader with the Braves and potentially wanting to use them Sunday if it’s close. Guys had pitched a bunch in 2 days that we’d normally use in this type of situation. I view it like the nola situation in AZ a couple years back.

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

Bullpen was tapped out with the guys you’d use in a beat down after losing 9-3 and 6-2 back to back game. and they likely didn’t want to use Romano, strahm and kerkering in a blowout due to the doubleheader with the Braves and potentially wanting to use them Sunday if it’s close. Guys had pitched a bunch in 2 days that we’d normally use in this type of situation. I view it like the nola situation in AZ a couple years back.

Certainly a less than ideal situation

3 minutes ago, DrPhilly said:

Certainly a less than ideal situation

Yeah frankly we have 3 high leverage guys and none of them are super trustworthy at the moment. The bullpen is frankly not good. It was poorly constructed in the offseason when they just hoped Alvarado would bounce back and Romano would bounce back and that Ross, Ruiz and Hernandez weren’t high leverage guys. So they were always an arm short

Just put him on IL at this point. It’s going to be 6 days on Monday.

I'd rather be waterboarded than listen to Schmidt today and watch them get blown out and swept.

7 hours ago, eagle45 said:

The composition of the roster…or at least what it has evolved into, is problematic.

1. Schwarber has become their most dangerous hitter. Hes having your typical contract year bump. We know his flaws, know his age…he’s not really someone you want to re-sign. You know that contract is going to have bad money and bad years in it. It’s downhill from here for him. But they have completely failed to replenish the pipeline of bats. They really do not have any power coming up through the system or even young power on the big league club. So what choice do they have?

2. Ignoring position and looking at lineup only, what’s the 2/3/4/5 meat of this order 2 years from now? A 34 year old Harper and 34 year old Schwarber? Are they gonna get Bohm on the juice then? Can they afford to buy a lineup anchoring bat with all the other bad money they are tied to?

3. Are Painter and Abel going to be too good to put money into Ranger and Luzardo? Or are we going to see these prospects at age 26 like the Phillies usually do? We don’t really need all of them, so can DD please find a way to convert some of this starting pitching into either bats or bullpen quality?

Nope he can't. He isn't a good GM. Like the Sixers they have no forward thinking and are doomed to have a long rebuild period again because of it. They foolishly think running back what hasn't worked the last few years including the manager would work....with a weaker pen.

With some intelligence and Howie type moves they could speed up the coming rebuild but they will run the car out of gas in the middle of the desert.

Nola needs to be off the books, KS needs to be traded for something because they shouldn’t resign him, and Bohm and Marsh need to go.

2 hours ago, e-a-g-l-e-s eagles! said:

Yeah frankly we have 3 high leverage guys

I assume you are talking about the pen. The starters have been solid minus Nola and a handful of other games like yesterday.

3 minutes ago, Diehardfan said:

Nope he can't. He isn't a good GM. Like the Sixers they have no forward thinking and are doomed to have a long rebuild period again because of it. They foolishly think running back what hasn't worked the last few years including the manager would work....with a weaker pen.

With some intelligence and Howie type moves they could speed up the coming rebuild but they will run the car out of gas in the middle of the desert.

Yep.

I'm really fixated on the starting pitching situation. They've got young guys, they've got old guys, and they've got middle aged guys on expiring deals. But those SP's are the primary assets of this team.

I think the only way to do this right is to lean hard one way or the other. Either go all in now and sell off the young guys for real 2025 playoff run help...or get these young guys up here pitching now instead of 2026-2027 and sell off the older ones for premium minor league position players that can keep this lineup going 2 years from now.

If they do nothing, the rest of the team will decay and our younger pitching prospects will sit around in AAA for too long without bringing value to the big club....or will get kicked around transitioning in and out of the bullpen.

7 minutes ago, eagle45 said:

Yep.

I'm really fixated on the starting pitching situation. They've got young guys, they've got old guys, and they've got middle aged guys on expiring deals. But those SP's are the primary assets of this team.

I think the only way to do this right is to lean hard one way or the other. Either go all in now and sell off the young guys for real 2025 playoff run help...or get these young guys up here pitching now instead of 2026-2027 and sell off the older ones for premium minor league position players that can keep this lineup going 2 years from now.

If they do nothing, the rest of the team will decay and our younger pitching prospects will sit around in AAA for too long without bringing value to the big club....or will get kicked around transitioning in and out of the bullpen.

I guess you are thinking about Wheeler as he'd be the guy who would command the most in return. I'm not so sure I want to see that. Nola and Suarez could be traded for a couple of nice minor league bat prospects and that would allow Abel and Painter to get time as Walker moves to the pen.

Schmidt is terrible.

1 minute ago, DrPhilly said:

I guess you are thinking about Wheeler as he'd be the guy who would command the most in return. I'm not so sure I want to see that. Nola and Suarez could be traded for a couple of nice minor league bat prospects and that would allow Abel and Painter to get time as Walker moves to the pen.

I think Wheeler is too big a fish. A team with a top 2 record can’t trade a Cy Young quality pitcher.

Nola and Suarez may not even be in the October rotation if they don’t get traded. So that feels too obvious to trade them for minor league prospects. I don’t know that they’ll generate anything other than bullpen arms and not-good-enough outfielders if you look for MLB players. But prospects? We could probably get some good ones. 2 years from now, both may be afterthoughts and we could be thanking our lucky stars that trading them generated a cleanup hitting corner outfielder.

5 minutes ago, John Blutarski said:

Schmidt is terrible.

His personality is just dull and he was never loved in a warm personal manner due to that. Of course everyone loved his production and had great respect for him as a player but it wasn't the same love as with many of the other players.

3 minutes ago, eagle45 said:

I think Wheeler is too big a fish. A team with a top 2 record can’t trade a Cy Young quality pitcher.

Nola and Suarez may not even be in the October rotation if they don’t get traded. So that feels too obvious to trade them for minor league prospects. I don’t know that they’ll generate anything other than bullpen arms and not-good-enough outfielders if you look for MLB players. But prospects? We could probably get some good ones. 2 years from now, both may be afterthoughts and we could be thanking our lucky stars that trading them generated a cleanup hitting corner outfielder.

Maybe not but you could certainly try to move those two to a team who thinks they can win this year. Maybe you mean moving on from Schwarber and Turner?

47 minutes ago, DrPhilly said:

I assume you are talking about the pen. The starters have been solid minus Nola and a handful of other games like yesterday.

Yeah just bullpen.

25 minutes ago, eagle45 said:

I think Wheeler is too big a fish. A team with a top 2 record can’t trade a Cy Young quality pitcher.

Nola and Suarez may not even be in the October rotation if they don’t get traded. So that feels too obvious to trade them for minor league prospects. I don’t know that they’ll generate anything other than bullpen arms and not-good-enough outfielders if you look for MLB players. But prospects? We could probably get some good ones. 2 years from now, both may be afterthoughts and we could be thanking our lucky stars that trading them generated a cleanup hitting corner outfielder.

They won’t deal wheeler and i believe he has a NTC. Unless he accepts they can’t or won’t. Nola is the one they should move and just get off the contract and use he money towards luzardo or ranger who are younger and frankly entering their primes.

Ranger can’t strike anyone out is an issue eventually. Gets 2 strikes and then guys just foul things off then put it in play.

100% losing this game cause Wilson is Fing lousy player and they can’t hit worth crap.

Yup that error by Turner pretty much solidifying that they are gonna lose.

Turner has ****s for hands

Romano still sucks in case we thought his 3 week stretch made up for his lousy April

13-15 vs. teams over .500 with a -26 run differential

23-7 vs. teams under .500 with a +51 run differential

Didn’t realize Tampa was over .500 again