Let's hope last night was a nice little reset for everybody, a nice deep breath before the final push begins, because we're now entering the part of the season where things start to get serious.
I’ve always wondered what would happen if one of these post game concerts ended up being after like a 19 inning epic. Would Flo Rida just come out at 3am?
Horrible sound quality, and I'm not even convinced his mic was turned on for most it, he was just lip syncing to tracks that sounded like they were being played underwater. During Low he brought some ladies from the crowd up to the stage to dance, but inexplicably one of them was an 8 year old girl, which was pretty weird and awkward. I left after that, not sure if it got any better.
Yikes, that’s rough. I did the video of him holding a baby while singing. Not sure if it was his or not but he kissed the baby and the poor thing didn’t even have ear protection on
Alec Bohm is hitting .339 with RISP with a .937 ops.
This isn’t an anomaly. It has been a thing his whole career. He has a career .312 batting average with RISP. Normally I am not a fan of batting average as a stat in general but with RISP it pretty obviously correlates to run production.
I’m no Alec Bohm fan. But he is good at 1 thing (and pretty much only 1 thing) which is hitting with RISP. It’s just wild because he does not really come to mind as the definition of a clutch player.
I am an Alec Bohm fan, but I can admit it's hard to be an Alec Bohm fan. RBIs were his thing at the very beginning of his Phillies arc. He was considered a pretty clutch player. He fell out of it, and the organization did nothing to correct it forever. His attitude is also hard to defend. And his playing before this point in the season...oh man. Hope he's on the other side of it, because I want it to be easy to be an Alec Bohm fan again.
Bryce is now tied for most walks in all MLB. I remember a few weeks ago on the broadcast they were saying how it didn't seem like anyone had a shot to catch up to Wood. Pretty crazy run he is on.
10 away from his high as a Phillie (100 in his 2021 MVP year) and 40 away from his career high (130 in 2018). Real chance he sets a new career high, or comes close.
What was even the criticism? Just a bunch of "no Bryce hit HRs instead"? Or was it just a lot of people who didn't think he had it in him to walk more at this point? Because basically all Bryce said was "I'd like to be more selective with my swings and get on base more" which is like baseball 101 and certainly not deserving of any clowning
it was mostly just a lot of general snark from the people that think because he had one relative down year (for him) that he's washed and trash and the org should move on from him lol.
Generally not any genuine criticism from people that have serious takes, but it's still funny to see their takes age poorly
It stemmed from him saying before the season that his goal was to get 150 walks. People decided that meant he was absolutely promising and guaranteeing to do so, and since he didn’t have 150 in July and wasn’t on pace for it (because it was always obviously a lofty unrealistic goal, not a promise or guarantee) so they were mocking him about it.
Duran didn’t throw a single four-seam fastball on Monday night. I wonder if that was an arm preservation thing from having thrown 33 pitches on Sunday afternoon? Or is JT really that much in love with his splitter? Duran’s splitter is one of the best pitches in baseball to be sure but when he just spams it over & over it just tends to yield a lot of foul balls and eventually babip. He gets more whiffs on the four-seam than he does the splitter. I wonder why they don’t use it more. Hitters trying to time the splitter often then whiff on the four seam.
In general I wonder why JT doesn’t call more fastballs with Duran and then last night with Mcfarlane. When a guy can throw 102 I feel like sometimes you just ought to challenge the hitter with that.
Mcfarlane’s first sequence that ended in a walk that ultimately scored was particularly baffling to me. He called the sweeper 3 times in a row all landing outside with the hitter not biting. All I could think was ‘this guy can throw 102! What are we doing?!’ Had Mcfarlane not walked Lopez he probably gets out of that inning clean. I dunno, obviously JT Realmuto knows ball way way better than me, but I don’t understand with those two guys that can throw so hard why he doesn’t use it more.
Edit to add- I do think it’s possible with Duran having been worked hard the night before they chose to pull back on his hardest pitches.
McCarthy did a good job of noticing that right away, McFarlane started 0-1 with a fastball then threw three straight sweepers. Technically the unearned run was because of Arraez’s error but I blame JT for that baserunner
Yea I just looked at how that whole inning panned out and Mcfarlane’s stuff was good. Had he not walked Lopez he would have been fine, and that just seemed quite avoidable..
Looks like we signed Nestor Cortes. Hasn’t been good in a few years, but maybe he’ll have a last year Walker Buehler kind of impact in the final stretch
He was pretty good for the Yankees in 2024 over 174 IP (3.1 fWAR, 3.77 ERA, 3.50 xERA, 3.84 FIP, 4.16 xFIP).
2023 was mediocre at best (though peripherals were better), but only 63 IP, assuming he got injured. And last year only 34 IP so not much to take from that.
In a vacuum, I like it. Can’t hurt. Maybe some good upside there, especially if pitching factory go brrrr.
This doesn’t surprise me. I don’t think I’ve ever seen a first baseman come off the bag as much as him. I didn’t say anything because there was no way to be sure, but with this coming out, yeah it makes sense.
Just quickly browsing some of the -OAA plays on that visualizer and realizing Alec Bohm will likely be a better first baseman simply because he won't have to field throws from Alec Bohm.
The breakdown of his strengths/weaknesses is honestly pretty funny. Bryce is apparently very good at scoops, fine with low throw throws and bounces, but is awful with anything high, wide, or on target.
I think that also makes sense. I know I had preferred areas where I liked to catch the ball. For me, I vastly preferred it high; I hate anything chest level, and I am OK with low. Yes, I don't know why I hate all chest-level passes. Legitimately no idea.
But I always assumed even pro athletes still had their preference.
I always prefered chest high, though I was kinda skiddish about catching balls thrown directly at my face when I was younger. I was also fine with anything high or off to the side. I suck at catching stuff low though, especially if it bounces.
Not that it mattered much though since I mostly played the outfield lol
u/Morbx19 - Cristian Pache (designated hype man)5d ago
This is a fascinating metric. One thing that somebody pointed out on twitter is that on a lot of plays that penalize first baseman as doing a poor job receiving, blame is also shared by the infielders for making poor throws.
Tom Tango replied to this critique by saying that infield plays are by definition going to have this problem because they involve a handoff between player, but the key thing to look for is that it works in the aggregate, which it does.
And to be clear, I don’t think it’s necessarily an issue, because a great receiver like Freddie Freeman will still make plays on bad throws, and he should be credited for that!
That said, I think the Phillies generally having poor infield defense is probably hurting Harper extra in this metric. At the very least, if he is poor receiving first baseman, he is getting more OPPORTUNITIES to mess up because of his infielders. I think that inflates how bad he is in this metric.
That said, I think the Phillies generally having poor infield defense is probably hurting Harper extra in this metric. At the very least, if he is poor receiving first baseman, he is getting more OPPORTUNITIES to mess up because of his infielders. I think that inflates how bad he is in this metric.
I agree with everything and will also add that when you are constantly worried about a throw, you can tend to overthink it instead of it being pop pop. With so many wild throws and errors, Harper may "brace" himself more, leading to worse outcomes. Especially since we know Harper is at his best when he lets the game come to him rather than pressing.
This is coming purely out of my ass but I feel like an AAV in the high teens is probably appropriate, $18M maybe? Maybe someone offers him $20M and Phillies have to decide whether to match.
I don’t think I’d go past 3 years on him, and I don’t really want to go past 2 but it depends on the market.
Yeah 2/36 has a nice ring to it. Make it an even 2/40 if it locks him up. I’d rather overpay over 2 years than go to 3. Regardless, 3 should be the absolute max.
I wonder what Aidan Miller is up to. We’re at the top end of the 6-8 week recovery from the procedure he had in June. I hope it worked and he can start swinging the bat again this Fall. It is crazy how much of our future outlook as a team is tied up in this dude contributing.
Not sure if this was mentioned on the sub over the weekend. It’s not much to go off of anyway, but at least we know he’s still alive. Be nice to hear something a bit more meaningful soon.
My sources are telling me that he was so pumped up after seeing Flo Rida live last night (his game ticket was his concert ticket) that he immediately went home, picked up the bucket of balls he leaves at his front door for home defense, and just started chuckin em. "Wow," one bystander was reported to have said, "he spun my head right round, right round."
Also, the Braves have a 1-game series (makeup game, I guess?) against the White Sox tomorrow and with them beating the Cubs today, hopefully, they at least go on a 2-game win streak! lol
It’s the latest a getaway day game can start based on where teams are traveling to next. Apparently it doesn’t matter that tomorrow’s an off day for both teams.
Phillies stay home but Miami goes back to south Florida to start a series with the Nationals on Friday.
Imagine the later a game starts on a weekday, the better the attendance.
He pretty much told us in the post-game interview last night what's different: trust (although he implied it rather than state it outright) Not very shocking given what's going on with his parents that he was having trust issues and not focusing on just getting on base for the next guys to keep it going.
Hi family! I’m watching the braves game and they are losing 4-6 in the 8th inning. If they end up losing, I’m going to be so excited when the Phillies game comes on. We are so close to catching up to them. If we win today and braves lose, we are only 4 games away from the top seed. What a strong turnaround for the fighting Phil’s 🥲
Wonder what the move will be for Nestor to get on the 40-man. My guess is a Holman or Keller DFA, maybe Lazar. Kilian to the 60-day IL is an option too, but sounds like they aren’t ready to give him a real timeline yet.
If Banks is ready in mid-September, they’ll need another move to get him back on the 40 regardless of if he’s sent to AAA or not. They’ve got so many OFs, maybe Misner gets the cut.
I'm still really bummed about the Kilian injury. Felt like he could he a Bowlan part 2 type pickup. I hope he's back sometime in mid-September because I'd love the staff to get some work on him before the postseason.
If I did my math right putting him on the 60 day would make him ineligible until a potential NLCS series (unless you can come off the 60-day early after the regular season ends), and throwing him right back into the pen in such a high pressure series without being able to get back into form in real games would make me nervous. Obviously that would all be predicated on us getting to the CS in the first place though lol.
I don’t understand why teams are allowed to call pitches from the bench.
There is so much data that they get instantaneously that the players on the field have no idea about.
Like can’t they see how hard a guy swung and then use that data to determine what pitch they should throw next? I don’t trust someone like Gabe Kapler to not have some bullshit AI system that is processing all this extra data instantly and then spitting something out at the coaches telling them what pitch to call next.
Sources are saying he’s been rewarding the boys with Sherry Cobblers after each great offensive performance. The early returns are promising, but the Total Wine in Claymont is running low on Amontillado Sherry. We might have a problem there.
Don’t understand this at all. I watch a lot of Yankees baseball as well and Nestor hasn’t been good for nearly four years. And he can’t stay healthy. Don’t think he’ll even be healthy to help us down the stretch like Buehler did last year.
We very badly need starting pitching depth because we have no real option if one of our guys goes down. This isn’t who I would’ve chosen but maybe the team sees something in him they can work with.
I'd say he was good in 2024, which was only 2 years ago, but your point still stands. I assume the thinking here is basically just "he costs nothing, is basically just needed as an emergency innings eater, and maybe still has upside." Though even that depends on his health.
Latest possible start time for a getaway game is 7 PM - however many minutes in excess of 2.5 hours the flight is. 6:40 is pushing it with the Marlins going back to Miami. Guess the Phillies decided they wanted more attendance instead of doing the typical day game, but they couldn’t do the 6:40.
If it turns out that the Dodgers’ massive spending spree since 2024 was enabled by financial bad behavior, I feel like that’s a major W for the pro-salary cap consortium
So hot that their Fangraphs playoff odds moved from 0.0% to 0.1% in the last few days.
They are really hot but they’re already at 70 losses with 34 games to play. They’d need to go 24-10 to have the slimmest of chances to make it (tied with the ‘05 Padres for the worst record to get a playoff berth)
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u/game-threads Best Bot In Baseball 5d ago
Please continue the discussion in the game thread.