High Hopes: A Phillies Podcast - High Hopes Chapter 2: Six man rotation?

Episode Date: January 8, 2023

Don't have time to listen to the entire High Hopes pod? Check out this segment where James Seltzer and Jack Fritz discuss how the Phillies can limit their starting pitchers' workload after last season's deep postseason run. Presented by Miller Lite. To learn more about listener data and our privacy practices visit: https://www.audacyinc.com/privacy-policy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit https://podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Well, I was going to save this for later, but might as well just put it out now. But I think one of the things that they've done here is I wouldn't be surprised if they just go six-man out of the jump. And I wouldn't be surprised, and I know that this is going to ruffle feathers of the traditional baseball minds, but for the first two, three months of the season,

I don't think i'm letting nola and wheeler pitch more than five innings to start and wow i don't i don't disagree i just love you're absolutely right this is the kind of thing where old school baseball fans would not like that they wouldn't but i'm not i'm not letting them pitch more than five or six innings to start five innings in a perfect world and then i'm getting through the rest of the game with like the falters the plasmeyers the chris sanchez's um you know whether that's griff whether that's um any of these guys like that that gives you four options um that that they should give you some depth to where you know you can extend these games and you don't have to ride wheeler and nola into the ground so that they're not tired

come come September come when the innings get get you know more important and this is kind of what they did last year was like last year they keep they essentially gave Wheeler a month off you know with Nola they started giving him extra rest to make sure he's good to go and it ended up benefiting them Wheeler had a bit of a dead arm I think in the playoffs but but still I mean who knows what it would have been if they hadn't have given in that time, right? I mean, does he even make it through the playoffs? Exactly. So I just have this idea that they're heading into the year.

They know that Nola pitched 230-some innings. Wheeler, 175 and pitching into Game 6 of the World Series. Go six men right from the jump. Let those guys pitch like five innings and then hand it over the rest of the bullpen and kind of kind of manage your way through this thing until you get to hopefully the postseason and you go from there and then you know around mid-august september start ramping them up you know say okay now it's go time like we gotta shut this thing down we get

price back and um you know hopefully it doesn't screw them early obviously well yeah and that's the part of it right is that it's that you're in the toughest division in the sport and you're going up against two teams that are both coming off 101 win seasons or whatever it is 101 seasons like that

and it does matter to win the division look we saw the Phillies go on a run in the wildcard game this year and go from there, but you don't want to. You don't want to have to play those extra games. You don't want to have to be a part of that first round, even though I know there was a lot of success for the wildcard teams in the second round, and there's the argument with momentum

and all that stuff. But, I mean, ideally, the regular season is going to matter for this Phillies team. They can't just coast to the playoffs. Like, they need to try and win this division. They need to try and set themselves up for playoff success. But, but having said that, even with that in mind, I think you're right, Jack. I think that the only way that they can, again, unless that, and look, the other part that

we don't talk about is if they're in a certain position at the deadline and they can trade for a starter or this or that, and you can change your team still in season. But like, I just don't see how you make a deep run in the playoffs. If you don't get Nolan Wheeler rest throughout the season. Like, I just don't see how those guys could do what they did last year. Come back after again, a short off season. We're not used to that either. They played in November.

We're usually done at the end of September. You know that I don't know how you can't, you have to get those guys rest. You can't just say, all right, go out and do it again. Like they will not last. They won't. It's kind of like why they should sit Jalen today. Oh, who cares about the Eagles today, Jack? It's a Philly Sunday.

What are we doing here? Yep, yep. They're 16-point favorites. I'm sure Gardner Minshew couldn't beat Davis. I do love that the whole like giants not playing their starters went from tyrod taylor to like ah we're just gonna throw davis we care so little about this game that we don't even want to get our backup quarterback hurt cool yeah yep yep but we gotta get hurts out there because oh they're gonna blow it um who's not 100 anyway it's just

whatever um that was way too much Eagles talk. What are we doing here? I know. It's Gregory Soto today. Yes. But yeah, it's like they have to be – I know Angelo might come out of retirement if they come out, and they're like, listen, Wheeler and Nola,

no more than five innings to start. I think Angelo signs a three-year deal, a three-year extension. Yeah, I'm back in the middays in that case. Nothing changes for me, yeah. And I know it sounds insane, but they have the depth now. We don't have to – this is what – and now it's not the best example because they choke every year, but this is essentially what the Dodgers have done. The Dodgers don't let their guys get overworked.

Now, I do think it does have to be a balance. I don't think you can do this throughout the entire year and expect them to go into the postseason and be like all right give me seven you need those and and a and also you need your relievers to be fresh too i know you have a bunch of guys you can go through but you don't want to do it to the point where you overwork some of these guys where you don't get the best soda or the best alvarado or the best i mean we saw those guys i mean alvarado i mean that was one of the biggest reasons they ended up losing is because he just

didn't have anything left in the tank by the end of it. So you got to worry about both sides of that. It's not just the starters. It's also those relievers. Yeah. In November and stuff too. And he probably extended to the bullpen too, like no back-to-backs until July. Joe Girardi. Oh, he's finally got his team.

Would you let Joe Girardi come back and manage his team now that he has essentially has a super team? That he essentially has a super his team. Would you let Joe Girardi come back and manage his team now that he essentially has a super team? That he essentially has a Super Bowl pen? Would you let Joe come back? All right. We got you what you were looking for. We basically built what you had in New York.

Now go try to win with it. But yeah, now the difference is that last year, they had the pitching guys on back-to-back because they didn't have the depth. Like, Knievel should have been pitching back-to-backs on those guys because they need wins. And look what happened to Knievel, right? Yeah, exactly. So now with the depth they have, with the top seven where you could trust some of those guys,

four or five of them to close out a game, you can kind of mix and match. Real quick, can we just not gloss over the stage that you just like we have four dudes who can come in and close the game what the phillies is that allowed jack is that allowed dude between that and uh craig kimbrell in his like press conference the other day talking about how the phillies biomechanics or whatever like got him sold on everything it's like what am i what world are we living in right now? It's where the Phillies have a... Smart world!

Philly's smart team world! I think they have the second most... Analytics isn't the right word, but the second most scientist guys or whatever in baseball behind the Dodgers. It makes me so happy to hear that. Well, now, listen. In fact, you're in that they're building a $300

million complex down in Clearwater to make it even more souped up. This is more important to me than winning the World Series. We're entering the golden era of the Phillies. All this stuff is good. Dombrowski set up the organization for success. Dude, it's so funny. I just wish he'd go back to the beginning like when Dave Dombrowski walked in and he was like we're gonna

do this this this and this and like Middleton's like sweet I don't know I'm just take it just cool whatever just here's my checkbook go ahead whatever you need buddy that's what they're doing dude that's what they're doing that is what they're doing is that you know listen you can have steve cohen all you want you can but without the right guy running the team it doesn't ultimately matter and like the phillies have a good mix it's so true and also to your point i think middleton always wanted to be the type of owner who who trusted the he did trust clint tack and mcphail too much even right to the point where at the end he kind of just had to step in and start doing things and get involved and doing the harper stuff and all that but like i think that ideally middleton wanted someone there that he just felt confident knew what he

was doing and he could give money and support him and let him do it the problem was with clint tack and mcphail he couldn't trust them and he found that out he's like oh crap i can't give them my money i can't let them do this stuff i have to be involved i think ideally he this is what middleton wanted to well and um the other thing that has made me realize is that you know i think that in a perfect like i think um he wanted i think they wanted to hire hyam or whatever and the difference between hyam is that the red sox like wanted to build the raise i know from a standpoint of like not spending any money whereas the phillies have essentially if things go to plan you know the the the the dodgers hired friedman and then we're also like hey you can go spend a ton of money as well and it's like it's almost they are almost developing a perfect mix now the last thing that they have to get completely right

is um developing hitters and drafting and developing and more guys through the draft and figuring that out but even that like even that they did a whole overhaul james like they hired another guy from driveline that's all like biomechanics he's up i saw it and by uh biomechanics here got hired by the phillies. It's like, you're damn right you did, buddy. You're damn right you did. Don't know what you do. Couldn't explain it to anyone. No, I don't even really know what a biomechanics does, but I want a room full of them down in the complex.

But you read everything they're going through with the player development stuff, and it's like they want a mixture of old school and new school. They're developing a Phillies way. What does this sound like i've never heard these concepts except the entire history of this podcast again we we gave them the blueprint and uh to their credit listen they got some listen we were wrong nebrowski you know whatever we might have been wrong but they're doing everything we wanted and now they added gregory soto