Today's ballgame inspired me to finally write what's been brewing in my head all season about your 2013 Philadelphia Phillies. Little mini rants would come into my head with every awful loss but they'd salvage some of my optimism with some good games here and there. Before it sounds like I'm going to fly off the wall here, I'll state that I have always watched the Phillies and I've watched teams that were much worse than this one. I think.
What we're seeing on the field right now is not good. As a matter of fact, it's quite terrible. The worst part is that a lot of these moves were made to put a team that faltered last season back into the race. If anything it'll set this team further out of it than last season.We're seeing bad at bats, bad fielding, bad pitching, and bad gametime strategy. The management has been pretty brutal. Yet what is worse is what we aren't seeing. The people who are assigned to evaluate the talent cannot be for real. They live in an age of going with your gut and not going with the facts.
The harsh reality is this. The Phillies are the only team lacking an analytics department. Now I know numbers only get you so far. Even if we scrap the analytics, what is even more disappointing is the scouting in general. Ask yourself this. All the big trades the Phillies made in the past few years. Who panned out? Larry Greene who was the number one pick in the 2011 Draft who was seen as a power threat is currently hitting .202 in Lakewood and has two professional career home runs both coming from last year in Williamsport.
And let's go to this season with some of this season's acquisitions from Ben Revere to Michael Young to Delmon Young. Michael Young, the best of the batch is consistantly average. Delmon Young runs into one here and there but has no business being in the outfield everyday. Ben Revere has been a complete all out bust. Even their best signing of the off season in Mike Adams seems a huge red flag as a far as health in concerned.
You can only play the low risk/high reward game so much. You look like a genious for every Jayson Werth you land but eventually it goes beyond just luck. You have to have a better understanding of the talent you're fielding and clearly this organization lacks that. The end result of what we have with the Phillies is based off of hunches, bad scouting, and a dark ages mentality. It's much deeper than what we see on the field.
It leaves one to wonder, where do we go from here? It wouldn't surprise me to learn that Ruben Amaro Jr. is quietly open for business. I think the idea of buying at the deadline absurd. If they go fire sale though, the big question that looms right now is do they have the right eyes out there? Are they doing enough homework on the talent they seek? Can they oversee a successful aquisition of prospects? If the answer to any of those questions is no, then things are going to get worse before they get better.
If they do however deal with clubs with good farm systems then there is hope. One thing is for certain though, it is a dangerous thought proccess to act like the team we are watching is a legit contender. It's a healthy thought proccess to act like there are moves to be made and different approaches to evaluating talent that could prove successful and make this team a winner again by the time Jesse Biddle is ready for the bigs and before Cole Hamels' contract is up.
