2K24: Philadelphia Phillies

[Piney Boy]

Middleton spoke at the press conference, which I believe is the first time he's ever spoken on the record about the team. He made it clear that he wasn't going to hire anyone who wasn't interested in using sabermetrics. MacPhail said he will be bringing aboard people who are good at that.

Officially MacPhail is a special assistant to Gillick until the end of the season, then will take over as president. Gillick and Amaro will handle trades for the rest of the year but MacPhail will have input.

As someone on a Phillies board I visit put it:



And someone else on that board, channeling Hornsby, said:

I see you read Back She Goes also.

[heyelander]

I see you read Back She Goes also.

never heard of that one. I'm usually just goodphight, phuturephillies and philliesminorleaguethoughts

[Piney Boy]

never heard of that one. I'm usually just goodphight, phuturephillies and philliesminorleaguethoughts

From what I remember http://www.backshegoes.com/bsg/ members were part of http://www.philliesphans.com/viewforum.php?f=1. There was a falling out at some point which some left and went to back she goes. I don't remember what it was about. Also I could be remembering it wrong.

Those are the two phillies boards I follow, but not closely.

[Erik]

Yes, there was a schism at philliesphans.com. The people who liked to comment with personality/snark clashed with those who did not, and the personality/snark group broke off to form backshegoes. The final straw was that some folks got banned from philliesphans. I was just a lurker on philliesphans at the time that all of that happened, but ended up on backshegoes because it's less dry and more interesting.

[wannabegriffey]

cole hamels: 9 runs in 3 innings last night...three times in 6 starts he has given up at least 5 runs.

So, are teams are going to give up 3 top 100 prospects plus another 5 top 200 prospects plus give up 2 major leaguers plus pay the entire $120 million salary owing or what ever ridiculous asking price amaro has ?

May be another cliff lee ending coming...

[revo]

Phils will recall top pitching prospect Aaron Nola, who will start on Tuesday.

[Piney Boy]

Phils will recall top pitching prospect Aaron Nola, who will start on Tuesday.

And this is after his worse minor league start yesterday when he pitched 3 innings and gave up 6 runs. Interesting they wait until after this start.

I am still excited to see what he can do.

[madducks]

Another horrible outing for Hamels. At this point he is probably doing more harm than good for the Phillies. It's starting to look like he has simply quit on the team. They need to just get a deal done ASAP.

[Erik]

How lame are the Marlins to get swept by this crew?

[heyelander]

Nola pitched pretty well. 6 innings, 5 hits, 6 Ks 1BB. He gave up a solo shot to the pitcher and had some hard hit balls that were right at people that concerned me a bit, but the control was as advertised and he got a good number of swings and misses. Pretty happy with the first outing.

[Sharky]

Is Cesar Hernandez the real deal? And I don't mean a superstar, but can he hit .280 and keep the job?

[heyelander]

Is Cesar Hernandez the real deal? And I don't mean a superstar, but can he hit .280 and keep the job?

Amaro is saying that the job is hernandez's even when Utley is back. Utley is saying that he's healthy and found a flaw in his swing that was caused by compensating for his injury. Flaw is now fixed and he's ready to go.

I'm not sure how much I believe either of them, but I have a hard time imagining a healthy Utley sitting on the bench. Hernandez was super hot for a while too, hitting .350 over a span. that's not for real and where he's at now is built on that unrealness. There's regression to come. I figure he becomes a super utility guy, playing some second to rest utley, some outfield (they had him in center last year for a while) maybe utley plays first one day a week and they get hernandez at bats that way.

utley has a vesting option for 2016 predicated on ABs from this season too... it would probably be better for the phils if he didn't reach it, but again, I have a hard time imagining a healthy utley not playing.

[Erik]

Is Cesar Hernandez the real deal? And I don't mean a superstar, but can he hit .280 and keep the job?

He's good enough to be on a major league roster. Is he good enough to be an everyday player? Evidence before this year said no. I think the Jury is still out.

Re Utley, there will be ways to play both of them if that's what Mackannin wants, as Utley can also play 1B and Hernandez can also play OF and 3B (and maybe SS, I don't remember.)

[Hornsby]

Looks like the Cubs have dangled Javy Baez and Starlin Castro for Hamels in the latest bid to get him to Chicago. One more piece (Vogelbach?) may just be enough...

[Erik]

The Phillies have won 9 of their last 10 -- and still have the worst record in MLB by 4.5 games.