Shortstop Jean Segura joined the Phillies growing Injury List
A gut-wrenching walkoff defeat on the scoreboard at the hands of the host Colorado Rockies was not the only loss suffered by the Philadelphia Phillies on Friday night.
The club also lost three players to the Injured List: shortstop Jean Segura, his backup in red-hot utility player Scott Kingery, and reliever Victor Arano.
Segura actually strained his left hamstring during Tuesday’s game against the New York Mets. His stint on the IL was made retroactive to Wednesday, and so he will be eligible to come off next weekend.
Kingery injured his right hamstring while running to first on a ground out in the fourth inning during Friday night’s defeat. He was starting for the third straight game at short in place of Segura.
Arano was called up from Triple-A just over a week ago. Per Matt Gelb, the right-hander was warming up to enter Friday night’s game in the 12th inning when he began to have trouble in his right pitching elbow.
Phil Gosselin will be the Phillies’ shortstop for the next week. He’s the only shortstop on the roster. Segura didn’t suffer a setback, but with Kingery down, they decided to be ultra cautious.
This will have to be the arrangement for at least the final two games of this current series against the Colorado Rockies, next week’s big early-season three-game match-up with the division rival New York Mets at Citi Field, and for the first couple games of next weekend’s four-game set with the Miami Marlins at Citizens Bank Park.
Phil Gosselin is in his seventh big-league season, but his first with the Phillies organization. He is local product, born and raised in Bryn Mawr. He attended Malvern Prep High School before moving on to play college ball at the University of Virginia.
Florimon played parts of the last two seasons with the Phillies
The Philadelphia Phillies announced that infielder Pedro Florimon has been outrighted from the 40-man roster. He cleared waivers and has been officially placed for now with the Triple-A Lehigh Valley IronPigs.
Florimon has a little more than two years official MLB service time accrued. However, he has also been waived three prior times in his career. Unless some agreement is struck with the team, the 31-year-old will become a free agent.
A native of the Dominican Republic, Florimon originally signed with the Baltimore Orioles organization in 2004 as a teenager. He got his first big-league cup of coffee with the Orioles in September 2011 but was then placed on waivers and claimed by the Minnesota Twins.
With Minnesota, Florimon appeared in 43 games in the 2012 season. Then in 2013 he became a regular for the lone time in his MLB career, appearing in 133 games as the Twins starting shortstop. He slashed just .221/.281/.330 with 15 stolen bases across 446 plate appearances that season.
Over the next three years, Florimon played as a backup infielder with both Minnesota and the Pittsburgh Pirates. The Phillies then signed him as a free agent in December 2016, and then again last November.
In parts of two seasons with the Phillies, Florimon slashed .274/.320/.444 with two homers and 11 RBI. He also stole one base and scored 19 runs across 125 plate appearances over 65 games.
Florimon appeared in 21 games at shortstop this past season with the Phillies. He also played in four games at second base, one at third base, one in center field, and four games in right field.
On two occasions this year, Gabe Kapler used Florimon on the mound. During a 15-2 rout at the hands of the Braves in Atlanta on March 31, Florimon pitched the bottom of the 8th inning, surrendering a two-run homer to Lane Adams.
During a 12-4 defeat to the Cardinals in Saint Louis on May 18, Florimon retired the side in order in the bottom of the 8th inning. He then stepped up to the plate in the top of the 9th and drilled a home run.
The Phillies now have just 35 players on their official 40-man roster. Three or four of the openings can be expected to be filled by some combination of prospects Adonis Medina, Tom Eshelman, Arquimedes Gamboa, and Daniel Brito, all of whom would need to be protected from the Rule 5 Draft in December.
That would leave one opening for a new player, either added via free agency or acquired via trade. Of course, the Phillies can always make more room by releasing even more players should the need arise.
The most likely players to go could include pitchers Drew Anderson and Yacksel Rios and infielder Mitch Walding. If they are unsuccessful in finding a trade partner, you may see veteran infielder Cesar Hernandez non-tendered at some point down the road this winter.
With the release of Florimon, the Phillies have made just the first of what promise to be a number of roster moves this off-season. While this one was relatively minor, we should expect at least a couple more significant moves coming down the pike.
Jake Thompson dealt from Phillies to Milwaukee Brewers
The Philadelphia Phillies “traded” pitcher Jake Thompson to the Milwaukee Brewers on Tuesday.
In exchange the Phillies received…cash. Not an intriguing prospect named “Cash”, just plain cash, as in money.
In effect, the Phillies sold Thompson to a National League Wildcard playoff rival. There is no other way to color this transaction than the Phillies giving up on Thompson.
Though details on the exact “why” were not announced, the likelihood is that the Brewers claimed Thompson after the Phillies designated him for assignment on Friday. That move was done in order to make room on the roster for the newly acquired Justin Bour.
With the claim, the Phillies would have three choices. Pull him back and DFA someone else. Let him go to the Brewers for nothing. Or cut some type of deal with Milwaukee.
GM Matt Klentak was obviously offered some amount of cash that he felt comfortable receiving back from Brew Crew GM David Stearns in order to surrender Thompson.
All of this begs the question, why Thompson? Why did the Phillies choose to DFA a 24-year-old pitcher who in seven minor league seasons has surrendered fewer hits than innings pitched, has produced a 3.55 ERA over 669 innings, and who just two years ago was the 2016 International League Most Valuable Pitcher?
There were other options. The club could have chosen to DFA someone like Mitch Walding, a soon-to-be 26-year-old. Walding is enjoying a nice season with the AAA Lehigh Valley IronPigs. However, he is nowhere to be found on any list or discussion of top Phillies prospects. He is an “organizational” guy available for positional depth at best.
These would have been the other candidates. You can make a legitimate argument that none has higher upside than Thompson. It’s hard to see any reason that Taveras was kept over Thompson other than the age-old baseball love for left-handed pitchers of nearly any skill level.
If you’re wondering whether the Phillies could have chosen to DFA catcher Andrew Knapp, the answer is both yes and no. The backup backstop turns 27-years-old in early November and has slashed .217/.310/.354 while demonstrating questionable defensive ability at best behind the plate.
However, with Wilson Ramos still on the DL at the time that the Bour move needed to be made, Knapp and Jorge Alfaro were the lone catchers on the 40-man roster. There is no way that you can play with just one legitimate catcher. So, while results and upside might mean Knapp could go, short-term practicality meant that he could not.
None of this is to say that Thompson didn’t have his own issues, command and control chief among them. With the Phillies, Thompson had allowed 4.7 walks for every nine innings pitched. Over 16.1 innings with the big club this season that BB/9 average was at the unsightly 6.1 mark.
His minor league record reveals just a 3.2 BB/9 figure over 144 games, 118 of those starts. However, this year his 5.0 mark revealed regression. Perhaps the Phillies simply didn’t think that he was fixable.
There is also always the possibility that some situation was going on behind the scenes to which we aren’t privy. Some personal or disciplinary problem. But that would be nothing more than pure speculation.
What we do know is that the Phillies now have given up on half the return which they received from the Texas Rangers in the Cole Hamels trade three years ago.
Thompson was considered a big part of that deal at the time. He had been the Detroit Tigers second round pick in the 2012 MLB Amateur Draft out of a Texas high school. Detroit dealt him along with Corey Knebel at the approach of the 2014 trade deadline to the Rangers in exchange for reliever Joakim Soria.
Almost exactly two years ago at this time, Thompson was making just his second MLB start. In earning his first big league win with a five-inning effort against the Colorado Rockies at Citizens Bank Park he also made a little Phillies history.
Thompson struck out four Rockies batters in the second inning of that contest. In doing so he became the first Phillies pitcher ever and the 80th in MLB history to accomplish the feat.
Also gone from the Hamels deal is lefty pitcher Matt Harrison, who was never going to pitch for the Phillies. He had career-ending injury issues that the club new about at the time of the trade, and his inclusion was simply the Phillies taking on a contract in order to obtain a better prospect package.
Right-handed pitcher Alec Asher was basically given away to the Baltimore Orioles. He was dealt at the end of spring training in 2017 for cash considerations or a player to be named later who was never named. Odds are that some small amount of cash was passed between the two organizations.
Remaining with the Phillies are the current starting right fielder Nick Williams, starting catcher (for the time being) Jorge Alfaro, and injured pitcher Jerad Eickhoff.
The Phillies are not likely to miss Thompson very much in the long run. That they felt capable of giving up on a talented pitcher who still projects to have some upside says something positive about the state of the organizational pitching options.
