This is an entirely speculative post concerning the Phillies, RAJr's ridiculous trade demands, and scouting. Its really just a thought that came into my head while on r/baseball, and I want to do some more research into the idea later. I basically posit that Philadelphia is horrible at scouting other MLB teams' minor leaguers, and that is why they only ask for ridiculous packages. More specifically, they over-scout the top 10 and under-scout the rest of other teams' systems.
The Philadelphia MLB franchise is in an unenviable situation, the fanbase is livid with the front office, it sucks. As a Philadelphia resident now, I am eyewitness to it all. And its honestly quite odd The people are loyal to their players, but hate their GM. They resent the fact that they suck, acknowledge that RAJ has continuously boned them, but then side with the front office whenever someone suggests that they dump Hamels or Rollins for a mediocre package and consider themselves lucky to have gotten anything. It hard to for them understand the perspective of trade partners, that no other team wants to do the equivalent of paying for Hamels full value twice. Like, pay Philadelphia in prospects, and then pay Hamels himself in dollars. On the whole, Hamels is an excellent pitcher, and to pay for him in just prospects, like if Phila fronted his whole contract as part of a trade, you might give up a Mookie Betts +. Or, if he was a free agent, he would get his 5-6 year, ~23million/yr deal like Lester is about to get, or basically what he is on now if you include the option year.
It is an uncommon situation that the Phillies are in, because one, they suck and are going to suck for a while, and two, they have good players. This is unusual because most teams with good players don't suck as badly as Philadelphia. But when a team does sucks and has good players under contract, its usually wise to exchange their current value for future value by trading for prospects. Hamels has value, and Philly can convert it to future value if they want, but only at a loss, because a Hamel's buyer is only going to want to pay for half his value in prospects since they would be paying the other half in money once acquired. No one wants to lose, so the FO must figure out a way not to lose in this situation.
Philly eating money off of Hamels deal is one way to mortgage even more "now" for a bigger slice of "future", but the fans are already sore enough about losing Hamels and paying for him to play elsewhere is really quite unappealing, although it may work out well in the long run. The other way the Phillies come out of a Hamels deal is to ensure they get the best prospects back. Philadelphia obviously knows this, but RAJ is going about it is all wrong. He is asking for the biggest present under the Christmas tree because, while it is a brutish strategy, bigger very often does mean better if you don't know what's under the wrapping paper. Other GM's roll their eyes at him because, no they're not giving that one away, everyone knows its probably mega cool. They say, here look at ALL of these other potential prizes and pick a few. Philadelphia's folly is that they didn't sneak into the closet and look at the other presents before they got wrapped. Or maybe they did, but when they got there all they could stare at was the XBOX or the basketball-hoop.
Boston's system is considered one of the deepest in all of baseball right now, which means that if you look around the entirety of their system, you're going to find good young players. Outside of their top 10, there guys pushing to get into the top 10, the top 20. They're drafting well, they're grabbing International prospects, etc. But there is only some much acclaim to go around, so while Devers and Margot are great young prospects who've earned their hype to some degree there are certainly young prospects who are similarly talented, but felt the wrath of BABIP or something and don't see their name as highly on fangraph's or b-ref's or espn's lists. I'm guess that teams like the Rays or Oakland, who are consistently trading productive major leaguers for potentially potent minor leaguers, and then turning them into productive major leaguers again, and trading again have excellent methods of finding these guys and making sure they get them when the deadline comes 'round. The market inefficiency they are attempting to exploit is imperfect minor leaguer evaluation systems.
The stupidity of asking for a package of Betts and Owens plus says to me that Philadelphia is bad at evaluating minor leaguers, so when they try to flip their major leaguers for prospects, the best method they have to make sure they get good value is to ask for only highly rated top prospects and a bunch of them. Its like trying to get people to play a game with you where you demand your probability of winning be higher than theirs, because you've lost before and it wasn't fun. Philadelphia blew it with Cliff Lee a few years back, they've blown it with the Howard and Papelbon contracts, and they've seen top prospects turn into nobodies (mayberry, brown). Yeah, the Phillies have taken some big blows but my god they haven't been very creative in the face of adversity.
Hamels is a damn good pitcher on a very fair contract. Philly's not going to get full "Hamels-value" for him on that contract, but he's such a desirable player that even half-value is something you can make do with. The best way to do that is to eat a chunk of his AAV to maximize the return, while scouting the hell out of the Sox system so you can grab one recognizable name to make your fans not hate you now ("At least we got Prospect C for Hamels, but we really should have gotten Prospect A"), and then fleece Boston out of two or three undervalued guys so maybe, down the road, you can maybe approach the realm of having gotten "Hamels -value" for Hamels. Fans won't recognize the genius, but they'll recognize competitive September baseball and they'll recognize the 2nd and 3rd pieces from the Hamels trade putting up 2 WAR seasons for the major league-minimum, contributing to playoff runs.
Now this may come off as Boston homerism, because I am focusing on the Hamels trade, and my arguments smells suspiciously like that familiar refrain of "take our scraps and be content, Philly". I do not deny that I want Hamels here next year, and I don't want to part with Betts/Bogie/Swihart/Owens for him, so yes homerism may play a part. But honestly, I am just fascinated with the intricacies of running a front office, and if Philadelphia pulled off my strategy, taking a group of lower ranked prospects for Hamels who all turn out to be productive for them and Hamels craps his Boston bed, I would applaud good GMing. I also simply refuse to believe that with a good, sound evaluation system for other teams' minor leaguers you cannot find a few undervalued prospects. The valuable[SIZE=14.3999996185303px] [/SIZE][SIZE=14.3999996185303px](but not as valuable as they think) t[/SIZE]rade chips that Philly has could easily return a recognizable name (recognizable, but not headlining) and a few more of these guys. The end result might not be a world championship, but its probably better than watching Hamels pitch meaningless games in 2015, 2016, 2017...
Yes, Philadelphia is being greedy about its trade demands right now. But that's not the problem. Greed is good, says Gordon Gekko. I just think their greed is manifesting in a piss-poor strategy that hurts the franchise. Philadelphia just needs to be productively greedy, get better at snooping the closet for underrated presents, and begin rebuilding a historic franchise.
The Philadelphia MLB franchise is in an unenviable situation, the fanbase is livid with the front office, it sucks. As a Philadelphia resident now, I am eyewitness to it all. And its honestly quite odd The people are loyal to their players, but hate their GM. They resent the fact that they suck, acknowledge that RAJ has continuously boned them, but then side with the front office whenever someone suggests that they dump Hamels or Rollins for a mediocre package and consider themselves lucky to have gotten anything. It hard to for them understand the perspective of trade partners, that no other team wants to do the equivalent of paying for Hamels full value twice. Like, pay Philadelphia in prospects, and then pay Hamels himself in dollars. On the whole, Hamels is an excellent pitcher, and to pay for him in just prospects, like if Phila fronted his whole contract as part of a trade, you might give up a Mookie Betts +. Or, if he was a free agent, he would get his 5-6 year, ~23million/yr deal like Lester is about to get, or basically what he is on now if you include the option year.
It is an uncommon situation that the Phillies are in, because one, they suck and are going to suck for a while, and two, they have good players. This is unusual because most teams with good players don't suck as badly as Philadelphia. But when a team does sucks and has good players under contract, its usually wise to exchange their current value for future value by trading for prospects. Hamels has value, and Philly can convert it to future value if they want, but only at a loss, because a Hamel's buyer is only going to want to pay for half his value in prospects since they would be paying the other half in money once acquired. No one wants to lose, so the FO must figure out a way not to lose in this situation.
Philly eating money off of Hamels deal is one way to mortgage even more "now" for a bigger slice of "future", but the fans are already sore enough about losing Hamels and paying for him to play elsewhere is really quite unappealing, although it may work out well in the long run. The other way the Phillies come out of a Hamels deal is to ensure they get the best prospects back. Philadelphia obviously knows this, but RAJ is going about it is all wrong. He is asking for the biggest present under the Christmas tree because, while it is a brutish strategy, bigger very often does mean better if you don't know what's under the wrapping paper. Other GM's roll their eyes at him because, no they're not giving that one away, everyone knows its probably mega cool. They say, here look at ALL of these other potential prizes and pick a few. Philadelphia's folly is that they didn't sneak into the closet and look at the other presents before they got wrapped. Or maybe they did, but when they got there all they could stare at was the XBOX or the basketball-hoop.
Boston's system is considered one of the deepest in all of baseball right now, which means that if you look around the entirety of their system, you're going to find good young players. Outside of their top 10, there guys pushing to get into the top 10, the top 20. They're drafting well, they're grabbing International prospects, etc. But there is only some much acclaim to go around, so while Devers and Margot are great young prospects who've earned their hype to some degree there are certainly young prospects who are similarly talented, but felt the wrath of BABIP or something and don't see their name as highly on fangraph's or b-ref's or espn's lists. I'm guess that teams like the Rays or Oakland, who are consistently trading productive major leaguers for potentially potent minor leaguers, and then turning them into productive major leaguers again, and trading again have excellent methods of finding these guys and making sure they get them when the deadline comes 'round. The market inefficiency they are attempting to exploit is imperfect minor leaguer evaluation systems.
The stupidity of asking for a package of Betts and Owens plus says to me that Philadelphia is bad at evaluating minor leaguers, so when they try to flip their major leaguers for prospects, the best method they have to make sure they get good value is to ask for only highly rated top prospects and a bunch of them. Its like trying to get people to play a game with you where you demand your probability of winning be higher than theirs, because you've lost before and it wasn't fun. Philadelphia blew it with Cliff Lee a few years back, they've blown it with the Howard and Papelbon contracts, and they've seen top prospects turn into nobodies (mayberry, brown). Yeah, the Phillies have taken some big blows but my god they haven't been very creative in the face of adversity.
Hamels is a damn good pitcher on a very fair contract. Philly's not going to get full "Hamels-value" for him on that contract, but he's such a desirable player that even half-value is something you can make do with. The best way to do that is to eat a chunk of his AAV to maximize the return, while scouting the hell out of the Sox system so you can grab one recognizable name to make your fans not hate you now ("At least we got Prospect C for Hamels, but we really should have gotten Prospect A"), and then fleece Boston out of two or three undervalued guys so maybe, down the road, you can maybe approach the realm of having gotten "Hamels -value" for Hamels. Fans won't recognize the genius, but they'll recognize competitive September baseball and they'll recognize the 2nd and 3rd pieces from the Hamels trade putting up 2 WAR seasons for the major league-minimum, contributing to playoff runs.
Now this may come off as Boston homerism, because I am focusing on the Hamels trade, and my arguments smells suspiciously like that familiar refrain of "take our scraps and be content, Philly". I do not deny that I want Hamels here next year, and I don't want to part with Betts/Bogie/Swihart/Owens for him, so yes homerism may play a part. But honestly, I am just fascinated with the intricacies of running a front office, and if Philadelphia pulled off my strategy, taking a group of lower ranked prospects for Hamels who all turn out to be productive for them and Hamels craps his Boston bed, I would applaud good GMing. I also simply refuse to believe that with a good, sound evaluation system for other teams' minor leaguers you cannot find a few undervalued prospects. The valuable[SIZE=14.3999996185303px] [/SIZE][SIZE=14.3999996185303px](but not as valuable as they think) t[/SIZE]rade chips that Philly has could easily return a recognizable name (recognizable, but not headlining) and a few more of these guys. The end result might not be a world championship, but its probably better than watching Hamels pitch meaningless games in 2015, 2016, 2017...
Yes, Philadelphia is being greedy about its trade demands right now. But that's not the problem. Greed is good, says Gordon Gekko. I just think their greed is manifesting in a piss-poor strategy that hurts the franchise. Philadelphia just needs to be productively greedy, get better at snooping the closet for underrated presents, and begin rebuilding a historic franchise.
