High Hopes: A Phillies Podcast - WIP Daily: Patience or Panic For Five Struggling Phillies?

Episode Date: May 19, 2023

From 'WIP Daily' (subscribe here): Joe Giglio weighs his level of concern for five Phillies who have gotten off to a rough start in 2023. 'WIP Daily' is a new podcast from WIP and Audacy Sports. Fifteen minutes, every weekday, on the biggest news from the best sports city in the world, plus clips from your favorite WIP podcasts and shows. It’s your one-stop shop for everything Philly sports. Follow wherever you get your podcasts. 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

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Whether the action is at the link or the bank, there's never an off day on Broad Street. It's the biggest news of the day, every day, with takes from someone who's never short on them. It's WIP Daily with Joe Giglio. Welcome on in. WIP Daily for Joe Giglio. Welcome on in. WIP Daily for May 19th. Joe Giglio with you. Appreciate everyone who listens to this program and subscribes to the feed, anywhere you get your podcasts, WIP Daily. Follow it.

And, of course, our video podcast, doing twice a week with Tucker Daly, the producer of this show. Today I wanted to dive in to the Phillies a little bit because, you know day yesterday coming off the sweep of the hands of the Giants the Phillies are not playing good baseball. 2023 come home now to play the Cubs. It's been a very weird year for the Phillies so far. Up and down, up and down. I think everyone realizes this team is still not where they need to be and but there's really as about it, there's about five players here that are having really poor starts to the season in a lot of ways. And I think we've reached the quarter point.

I think it's a good time to dive in on patience or panic with these five players. And I'll look at some of the numbers, some of the StatCast stuff, where it's all kind of laying out. But the bottom line is, the Phillies have five significant players that are all performing below the standard they need them to perform at.

Let's dive in. Number one, we start with the guy that I just continue to wait. Like, I just, I feel like that meme, I'm just like looking at my watch over and over and over. When is Trey Turner going to look like a $300 million player? Because he hasn't yet at all. Trey Turner, as we sit here right now heading into play with the Cubs series coming up, Trey Turner hitting.262 with a.308 on base,

a.399 slugging. He has a.707 OPS. It's 6% below league average. He's only stolen five bases. He only has four home runs. He has struck out 52 times. He's on pace for nearly 200 strikeouts this season. It's bad. I mean, Trey Turner has been a poor performer to start the year for the Phillies. Now, you look at Trey Turner and his stack cast metrics, they're all poor. Average exit velocity, 33rd percentile. Hard hit, 30th percentile. Expected batting average, 26th percentile. Expected slugging, 16th. I mean, it's bad. The only reason that I am going to preach patience on Trey Turner is because of his

track record. That is it. I mean, folks, I have nothing else. If I had never watched Trey Turner, if you just put him in Philadelphia, put him in a Phillies uniform, and I just had no recollection of who he was. I wasn't a big baseball fan. I didn't have access to his stats. If you just watched him for the last two months, you'd say, they gave this guy $300 million?

Are you kidding? That being said, he has a track record. Now, the track record has two parts to it I think are important. Number one, the long track record, which says he's going to get out of this. He's going to hit. He is one of baseball's best players. He has been a notoriously kind of a slow starter. He did a little bit of this last year, then he broke out. So there's a lot of those things that make you feel better. And there's a reason for patience.

That being said, I don't think it should be ignored. And I hope the Phillies and really all of baseball didn't ignore this. But Trey Turner, if you look at his numbers, 2020 to 2021 to 2022 to 2023, guys, there is a four-year dip in overall play and production that I feel like when teams are just throwing money at him, they just like pretend it didn't exist. Okay, in 2020, again, the short year with the pandemic, but in 2020, Trey Turner hit 335 with a 982 OPS. Okay. Then 2021, he hit 328 with

a 911 OPS. Outstanding. But again, his batting errors dropped seven points. His OPS dropped, you know, about 70 points. Okay. Let's go to 2022. He had 298. So a 30-point drop in average, 37-point drop in average from the two years prior. His OPS dropped to 809. So nearly a 200-point drop from 2020 and a 102-point drop from 2021. And now to this year, we're down to 262. Again, it's early and a 707 OPS. I mean, guys, the four-year trend line now is a OPS that has dropped nearly 300 points and a batting average that has dropped 70. So let's hope it changes. I'm preaching patience with Trey Turner, but goodness gracious, it has been a bad start to the season. Let's get to Tyjuan Walker here. And as much as I am going to preach patience on Trey Turner,

I'm hitting the full-blown, complete, and total, without question, panic button on a guy like Tyjuan Walker. He has not just been bad. Tyjuan Walker has been, for all intents and purposes, the worst starting pitcher in baseball this year. I still can't believe the Phillies paid more money and more years to Tywon Walker than Zach Eflin got. It will go down if this doesn't change quickly. As the worst contract the Phillies have given out pitching-wise since Arietta. And the Arietta thing was only three years. This is four years. Holy moly.

So I'm looking at some of the metrics here for Walker, who we know is off to a ridiculously bad start. I mean, Taiwan Walker statistics right now are, I mean, mind-bogglingly bad. I mean, he has nine starts, a 6.53 ERA. He has allowed 30 runs in 41 and a third innings. He has 19 walks and eight home runs allowed in 41 and a third innings. My goodness. Like Trey Turner, a lot of the expected numbers,

the percentiles are bad. The only things that are good are his average exit velocity. Teams are not crushing the ball off him, which is great. And his chase rate. But here's the problem with the chase rate. Yeah, they'll swing and miss at that splitter. But you watch that game the other day against the Giants.

They just were laying off the splitter, and he can't throw anything else for strikes over the plate. So they're just barreling what he throws over the plate. And when he does, they'll just spit on it. So eventually, that chase rate's not going to matter if they don't chase the splitter because they know that's the only pitch he has right now that works. Everything else is bad.

Ks, velocity, spin, whiff rates. It's all pretty rough right now. I questioned the Walker deal when it happened. I never really loved this guy. And I think it could be a disaster. Now, maybe he's hurt. He had that forearm thing about a month ago. He insists he's been healthy.

I don't know. But this one I'm hitting the panic button on. I think the Taiwan Walker signing was a mistake. And I'm not sure he's going to figure this out anytime soon, which really makes the Phillies pitching problems more acute because they're going to have to get a starter at some point here. But are they going to have to? If Walker figured it out, they could just get a fifth starter

and patch this thing together and cross their fingers and say, okay, we got Ranger back now. Our top three is set. Maybe Painter comes back. Let's get a four or five starter, a Kyle Gibson-ish kind of guy, and just patch this thing together for the rest of the season. Hopefully, Painter arrives. If Walker's not good, they might have to go get a real starting pitcher.

That's a problem. I'm hitting the panic button on Taiwan Walker. Want to get in on the best savings hack ever? Only Kudo saves you up to 40% on a sweet phone plan, on Taiwan Walk. All year long, as long as you're with Kudo. Dare I say saving this much money has never been this easy? Stack more, spend less. Like, way less. A happy stack. Only at Kudo. Now with internet.

All right, let's get to Kyle Schwarber, who, I mean, Kyle Schwarber, whenever he's struggling, it becomes such a big thing because, you know, you just look at the batting average and it just, it stands out like an eyesore. I mean, I'm not, I'm not numb to it. When a guy's hitting 175 as we're approaching Memorial Day, it stings. But I have zero worry about Kyle Struber. Zero. This is what he does.

He will get red hot in June. He will end June with 22 or 23 or 24 home runs for the season, and he will be in the 225 range for a batting average, and we will just accept it. I mean, Kyle Schrober, since he's gotten here, has hit basically 60 home runs. He was a monster in the postseason when they got beyond the first round or so. He has been consistently a guy that sees good pitches, sees a lot of pitches, and hits home runs. We know who the player is. Let's stop expecting more.

I'm not going to lose my mind over a couple percentage points of batting average this early in the season. This is who he is. And I like the player. I think he's a leader, a winner. I'm a big, big, big Kyle Storber fan. So here's the stuff that matters to me. His average exit velocity is in the 86th percentile.

Max exit velocity, 87. Hard hit, 67. Okay, barrel percentage, 76. Walk percentage, 93. He's not chasing, 72th percentile. Like, he's not swinging the bad pitches. When he hits the ball, he hits it hard. He's taking his walks.

That's it. He's going to strike out a lot. I get it. He's awful defensively. I get it. He should be a DH. All that stuff is fine. Everything I need for him to be the player I want him to be,

it's all there. He hasn't barreled the ball yet. He will. Launch angle is a little down. It'll come up. Sweet spot percentage a little down. It'll come up. He's going to end up at some point here hitting like he always does,

and it's going to be very, very productive for the Phillies. I'm still in on Kyle Schwerber. Patience, patience, patience when it comes to Kyle Schwerber. So patience on Turner, total panic. I mean, total panic on Tyjuan Walker. And let's hit some patience here with Kyle Schwerber. Let's get to Aaron Nola. I think Aaron Nola is an interesting one to touch on here because Aaron Nola is in a contract year. Before the season, there were talk of $200 million for this pitcher. I think that is a lot of money. I'm an Aaron Nola fan.

I think I've come to appreciate what he is over the long haul. But so far this year, there's some reason to worry. I'm going to hit on Nola more of a... Not like I'm smashing the panic button for Tyjuan Walker. on Nola more of a, I want to not like, like I'm smashing the panic button for Taiwan Walker. I am hovering over the panic button for Aaron Nola. And I want to make, be clear.

It's not because I think Nola is bad. Like I think Walker is bad, but I'm not sure based on what I've seen this year, the diminished velocity, how I think the pitch clock really is impacting Aaron Nola. If he's going to be his best this year, if we're going to see any part of him like he was at his best a year ago. I'm not sure.

His velocity's down. I mean, it's one of the slowest fastballs in baseball. He's not getting swings and misses like he typically did. That's the kind of stuff. He's not getting chased at an enormous amount like he used to. He's not getting chased at an enormous amount like he used to. He's not getting crushed. But when I see a pitcher that is not striking batters out as much, my antenna is up, and his fastball velocity is down.

I mean, there's just no other way to say it. He's not throwing the ball like he used to. He's not getting that kind of just swing and miss and velocity. And when the pitchers pitch as many innings as he has, it makes you wonder, has he reached a point where it's just, it's not going to come back? And I wonder if the pitch clock is kind of, in a way, affecting him to where he can't, between pitches, just generate that kind of, it's almost like, you know, if you ever lifted weights or watched someone lift, you need that time in between the set, in between the rep to push that bar again, or to deadlift, whatever it is, or squat again. Obviously, if you ever met me, I don't strike as

a weightlifter. I'm not, but in high school, when I played football as part of like the off season stuff, we had, if you weren't playing a sport in the next season, like the winter, you had to lift weights. So for a couple of years, I, I did, I mean, I then left heavyweights, but like I learned how to do it and I'd love to,

whatever the heck I could at my size. But it really is like, if you try to, if you don't take the proper time in between, you just not going to be able to feel as strong that for the next rep. And, and I'm, that's where I think of when I watch Aaron Nola,

that he used to take that time in between and it would really, really help him reach his max or reach whatever percentage he's trying to get to. Like, can he hit that 95, that 94 when he needs to over and over? He did. Now it's like 91, 92. It's a problem. Aaron Nola doesn't look to me like he is poised to break out of this thing and have himself an enormous season and it's a worry because I mean the Phillies could use I mean right now Aaron Nola and he's a guy that you know we know strikeout to walk ratio usually so good at right now his strikeout to walk ratio is 3.5 he's only striking at seven batters per nine which for him is way lower I mean last year just to take a look back quickly struck out 10.3 batters per nine he had an eight to one strikeout toto-walk ratio. It's down to 3.5-to-1. His walks are a little bit up. I think that'll be okay.

But it's really the strikeouts. That's where he's different. I'm not seeing a Nola I think is going to be drastically better the rest of the season. I need to see a lot more hovering over the panic button for the context of this team. And let's end with Zach Wheeler, who also has a pitch very well. I think it's fun on the radar because Nola's been worse. Walker's been worse. But, you know, Wheeler this year, 4.06 CRA in nine starts.

But I think he's been more of a product of bad luck. You know, his strikeout number is good. It's almost 11 per nine. He's walked more than I would have expected. But his fielding independent pitching is 2.42, which is really, really good. I think Zach Wheeler will be okay. Their health is there.

The velocity, for the most part, is there. I don't think Zach Wheeler is going to go into a situation where he's... I'd be surprised if Wheeler doesn't start reeling off some good starts. I was at the Blue Jays game a few weeks ago, and I thought Wheeler pitched exceedingly well against a good lineup. So I think Wheeler's going to be A-OK.

I'm going to preach a lot of patience on him. I think his numbers point to a guy that should be better. And I think as the time goes on, he will be better. I'm not really worried about Wheeler. If the velocity

was in a bad place, I'd be worried. But you look at his percentile rankings, it's all in the red, which is good if you go to baseball savant. I mean, it's all there. Spin, velocity, you know, whiff percentage. No one's hitting him hard. I mean, no one's barreling up the ball against him. Teams really don't hit him hard at all.

You know, he'll get some bloopers, and that's kind of been his thing where four or five hits in an inning and it goes bad quickly. But I'm feeling good about Wheeler. Wheeler and Schwarber, I feel the most confident they will get back to their norms. Turner, his track record tells me he will. But again, that trend line in the last three years, it's just amazing to me that no one's pointed this out.

Like, hey, why is he getting worse every year? I mean, he shouldn't be. He looks like a great athlete. Like, hey, why is he getting worse every year? I mean, he shouldn't be. He looks like a great athlete. He still runs. Why is he getting worse every year? Let's hope that trend line changes like now because the Phillies need it. Tywon Walker, I'm almost to the point where I think it's a lost cause for this season. I just think the guy is in a bad place physically, maybe physically,

but certainly his stuff stinks right now, and it's very easy to lay off him. And Aaron Nola, my antenna's up. I think we could be in for one of his down years. You know, I don't think he's going to be as good as he was last year. Bad timing for him, obviously for the Phillies. So Turner, Walker, Schwarber, Nola, Wheeler, patience, panic. The Phillies got to hope all five come back to their level. I think at least two definitely will.

Nola, you hope. Turner, you hope. And Walker, I'm out. I think this guy absolutely stinks. But the Phillies got to turn this thing around. 2023, opening a series against the Cubs. Appreciate everyone who listens to WIP Daily. Follow the show wherever you get your podcasts.

And, of course, 94WIP, the YouTube page. We put up some video podcasts with myself and Tucker Bagley a few times a week. Thank you for listening. We'll talk soon on WIP Daily.