Marlins send Phillies to sixth straight defeat on a hit that was ten years in the making

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Wilkin Castillo waited a decade to deliver the game-winning hit

This is not a recording. The Philadelphia Phillies (39-37) lost (again) on Saturday, this time by a 5-3 score, when their bullpen collapsed (again) to blow a late-innings lead. And this was a second consecutive loss to the Miami Marlins (29-46), the team with by far the worst record in the National League.

It marks a sixth consecutive defeat for the Phillies. Eight out of nine, and 10 of their last 12, have resulted in their finishing on the lower side of the final score. The have won just six times over their last 20 games.

That is more than a losing skid, or a poor stretch of games. For a team that was 11 games over the .500 mark and in first place when it all began to slowly unravel, this is a complete and utter collapse. For fans, it has been excruciating to endure. Nothing changed this afternoon.

So they are 6-14 over the last three weeks. That is a .300 winning percentage. The lowest winning percentage right now by any team in Major League Baseball over this full season is the .286 mark owned by the woeful Baltimore Orioles. But the O’s at least won today, ending their own 10-game losing streak. Maybe the Phillies aren’t the worst team in the game right now, but you would have a hard time convincing the fan base.

There were hopeful signs early on. Vince Velasquez, given a second (third? fourth?) chance to demonstrate that he might be a viable starting pitcher took the ball and ran with it. He allowed just one hit, a third inning solo home run by JT Riddle, over five innings. Velasquez struck out five, walked none, and was in command the entire time, throwing 40 strikes among his 50 pitches.

In the bottom of that 3rd inning, the Phillies offense responded in a manner that fans have been waiting for all season. Bryce Harper and Rhys Hoskins slammed back-to-back home runs for the first time all year to put the Phillies on top 2-1.

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Canadian Baseball Hall of Fame to honor Phillies bench coach Rob Thomson

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Thomson (L) joined the Phillies as Gabe Kapler's bench coach for 2018

A member of the Philadelphia Phillies organization was named today as one of four men who will be honored with induction to the Hall of Fame this coming summer.

That would be the Canadian Baseball Hall of Fame, and the honoree will be Phillies bench coach Rob Thomson.

Joining Thomson will be the current Milwaukee Brewers vice-president of baseball projects Gordon Ash, who was the former general manager of the Toronto Blue Jays. Ash had grown through the Toronto organization beginning with a job in their ticket department when the club was an expansion team back in 1978.

The other two honorees this year will be former players Jason Bay and Ryan Dempster.

Bay was the 2004 NL Rookie of the Year with the Pittsburgh Pirates. During an 11-year career with five clubs from 2003-13 he became a 3x all-star. He won a Silver Slugger with the Boston Red Sox in 2009.

Dempster had a 16-year big-league career with five clubs, including nine seasons with the Chicago Cubs. He won 132 games and was a 2x all-star, finishing sixth in the 2008 NL Cy Young Award voting.

Scott Crawford, the Canadian Baseball Hall of Fame’s director of operations, described the four honorees:

“Each of this year’s inductees is a proud Canadian that has had a tremendous impact on baseball in this country. Jason Bay and Ryan Dempster were major league all-stars and are two of the most successful Canadian players of all-time, while Rob Thomson and Gord Ash have seven World Series rings between them and are highly respected in the professional baseball community.”

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Congratulations to Rob Thomson as he is one of four new inductees into the Canadian Baseball Hall of Fame. Induction day is June 15 @Yankees @Phillies http://baseballhalloffame.ca/blog/2019/02/05/bay-dempster-thomson-and-ash-to-be-inducted-into-canadian-baseball-hall-of-fame/ …

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Pivotal day in Phillies off-season as club officials meet with Bryce Harper

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Harper with a 'Key to the City' from his hometown of Las Vegas

A front office and coaching contingent from the Philadelphia Phillies will meet today with outfielder Bryce Harper in his hometown of Las Vegas, Nevada.

In what may prove to be the pivotal moment for the franchise for the next decade, the young superstar and his wife Kayla will be joined by super-agent Scott Boras.

The Phillies will be led by owner John Middleton. He will be joined by the club’s President of Baseball Operations Andy MacPhail, General Manager Matt Klentak, Manager Gabe Kapler, Bench Coach Rob Thomson, and Hitting Coach John Mallee.

During the meeting there will certainly be lengthy discussion about the team and its direction. They will talk about the ballpark and the fans. There will be discussions about the Philadelphia region and some of its attractions and offerings.

The Phillies group is surely going to try to sell Harper on being the face of the franchise. However, they will let him know that he is not going to be alone, that they fully intend to maintain a championship-caliber roster during the life of his deal.

Middleton’s presence in Las Vegas can mean only two things. One is that he intends to let the Harper’s and Boras know that the Phillies will not be financially outbid and are ready to get a deal done right now.

The second possibility is that the Phillies are still really more interested in the other major young free agent superstar on the market, Manny Machado, and today’s Vegas meeting is all just a major ploy, one that itself has a two-fold purpose.

Ken Rosenthal of The Athletic posited the following on Thursday:

“If the Phillies’ preference is Machado, as some in the industry believe, then the meeting from their perspective might simply be a ploy to drive up the price for the Nationals, a division rival. Harper and Boras, in fact, might be proceeding with the same motivation.”

So, the Phillies may be trying to drive up the cost for their NL East rivals to bring back Harper. That could conceivably tie the Nats hands on other moves over the longer term.

Secondly in that alternate scenario, the Phillies could be pushing Machado to make a quicker decision. If Machado and his agent, Dan Lozano of MVP Sports, feels that the Phillies and Harper are close to a deal, it might force the infielder’s hands in beating the outfielder to take a big payday from the team.

Philadelphia Phillies 2019 coaching staff has been finalized

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Rick Kranitz let go after serving as Phillies pitching coach this past season

The Philadelphia Phillies announced moves over the last few days aimed at finalizing their coaching staff for the 2019 Major League Baseball season.

The biggest moves came with the big-league pitching staff. As our Tim Kelly here at Phillies Nation reported just two days ago, the Phillies let former pitching coach Rick Kranitz go, replacing him with the previous assistant pitching coach, Chris Young.

Kranitz had served on the big-league staff over the past three seasons as the bullpen (2016) and assistant pitching (2017) coach prior to taking on the primary pitching coach role this past season.

Prior to joining the Phillies, Kranitz served as pitching coach with the Florida Marlins, Baltimore Orioles, and Milwaukee Brewers.

Today the Phillies announced that Dave Lundquist, who has served as the Triple-A Lehigh Valley IronPigs pitching coach for the last three seasons and has been coaching in the Phillies organization for the last 11 years, will move up to take the position as the new assistant pitching coach to Lundquist in Philadelphia.

Returning to the staff for next season are manager Gabe Kapler, his bench coach Rob Thomson, and both hitting coach John Mallee and his assistant, Pedro Guerrero. Also coming back are first base coach Jose Flores and third base coach Dusty Wathan.

Others making a return to the staff for the 2019 campaign will be bullpen coach Jim Gott, bullpen catcher and catching coach Bob Stumpo, and Craig Driver, who also serves as a bullpen catcher with duties as a receiving coach.

The removal of Kranitz from the pitching coach position was somewhat surprising. There are four legs to any successful baseball team: pitching, hitting, defense, and coaching. It can be argued that the pitching staff was the one competitive leg that the Phillies could rely on for much of the 2018 season.

Todd Zolecki at MLB.com quoted Phillies reliever Pat Neshek on the loss of Kranitz through a text from the veteran:

“Best pitching coach I EVER had. He was a huge influence on me during my time in Philly and I think with the entire pitching staff. You’ll never hear one pitcher say anything bad about him. He had an excellent attitude every day that the players respected. Decisions happen in baseball all the time. Kranny will be tough to replace.”

However, according to MLB insider Ken Rosenthal of The Athletic, a number of teams were after Young to fill their primary pitching coach position. The Phillies simply felt he was too valuable to lose. Evidently, more valuable than Kranitz, who the club will allow to interview with other organizations even though he remains under contract.

Young Phillies benefiting from experience of bench coach Rob Thomson

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Thomson (L) lends tremendous experience to rookie skipper Kapler (R)

In late October of last year the Philadelphia Phillies announced that they would hire Gabe Kapler as their new manager. 

Kapler had spent a lifetime in baseball. But that lifetime was just 42 years long, and he had never held the role of big league skipper.

In fact, Kapler had just one season of managerial experience at all. A decade earlier he guided the Greenville Drive, the Low A minor league affiliate of the Boston Red Sox, to a 58-81 record.

According to Jim Salisbury of NBC Sports Philadelphia, Kapler had impressed Phillies brass, which included controlling partner John Middleton and general manager Matt Klentak, with is “energy and intellect” during the interview process.

Salisbury quoted Klentak at the time of the hiring: “Gabe has a track record of leadership, winning, progressive thinking and working with young players, and we fully believe that he is the right person to guide this organization into the future.”

As Phillies fans have learned, Kapler is extraordinary at planning and research. He also knows his own shortcomings and is always looking to learn and improve.

Kapler knew well that he needed a bench coach with experience. Someone who could help him organize the team during his first-ever spring training, and then be available for sound advice in the dugout as the season unfolded.

According to Salisbury, Kapler did his research and what he kept hearing was that Thomson, then with the New York Yankees organization, was “the best in the business at planning and running a spring training camp.”

The 54-year-old Thomson had spent the last 28 years, more than half his life, in Yankees pinstripes. He was their third base coach when the Bronx Bombers defeated the Phillies in the 2009 World Series. He then became Joe Girardi‘s bench coach, and became one of the leading candidates to take over as manager of the storied franchise. That job ultimately went to Aaron Boone.

Before Boone could get settled in and begin considering his own coaching staff options, Kapler swooped in and swiped Thomson away. Yankees general manager Brian Cashman, who chose Boone over Thomson for his club’s managerial position, was quoted by Salisbury:

“He’s tough. He will be brutally honest. He’ll say what a player needs to hear, not necessarily what a player wants to hear. And he’ll always relate well to players because he always has their best interest at heart. The Phillies got one of the best.”

Thomson was everything that Kapler hoped, taking charge of spring training with input from the entire coaching staff. Meghan Montemurro with The Athletic caught up with him as his first spring down in Clearwater was coming to an end, quoting him on the most valuable attribute of a bench coach:

“…the manager, he’s got so many things to deal with. He’s got the pitching staff. He’s got double switches. He’s got his offense. He’s got his defense. He’s got a lot of things on his mind. So my job primarily is to be prepared and just keep reminding him of certain things and ask questions just to remind him of certain things and to make sure we don’t forget anything.”

As most fans of the team and those around the game already are well aware, Kapler had a rough opening week. The club lost four of their first five games and stood at just 3-5 after the bullpen blew a game late on April 8. Worse than the on-field struggles, it appeared that there could be early trouble brewing in the clubhouse as well.

Jon Heyman

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Inside Baseball: Gabe Kapler heard some boos today from the home crowd, but he has more important folks to win over. he has time but here's a quote from the clubhouse on phils' slow start: "We'll be OK ... We just need the manager to get out of the way." https://bit.ly/2Jm0bBv 

9:19 PM - Apr 5, 2018

Inside Baseball | Kapler to face toughest critics

NEW YORK — Philly isn’t an easy town. Heck, they’ve booed Santa Claus there. So what’s going to be the reaction when a new manager hits town for the [...]

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