Hoskins shouldn’t be excluded from trade options
PHILADELPHIA >> The Phillies’ season not what John Middleton had paid for, not what the fans expected, not what Gabe Kapler suggested, not what Matt Klentak had believed he would deliver, Andy MacPhail surfaced the other night for his annual mid-season, pre-tradedeadline babble.
Typically thick with self-admiration and lacking any scent of awareness about the city his baseball team represents, the Phillies’ president basically reduced his buyer-or-seller decision to one point.
“I think you start to be protective,” he said, “of your crown jewels in the system.”
Given everything, it was a reasonable if unpopular position. Technically, the high command of the No. 1 monopoly market in baseball should never stop striving for a world championship. But the Phillies are committed to Bryce Harper for 13 years and, at some point, must surround him with farmgrown talent to maximize their $330,000,000 investment.
So MacPhail is not ready to authorize any offloading of young talent for temporary major-league help, even if the Phillies are likely to remain in the wild-card race until midSeptember. OK. But they are going to need better pitching, and soon, and plenty of it during Harper’s career. So what about the unspoken alterna
tive? What about moving some alluring if replaceable major-league gems? Like?
Like Rhys Hoskins. Like Cesar Hernandez. There’s two.
The Phillies are ill-structured. If nothing else was made clear during their unacceptable retreat to third place in the NL East, it was that what Klentak assembled was flawed. He thought he could out-homer teams, particularly in tiny Citizens Bank Park, then win with the same pitching rotation that didn’t work last year. That included Zach Eflin, who had lost five of his seven decisions before allowing nine hits and seven earned runs in six unsightly innings Monday.
Key to the corollary that their power would overcome their pitching was the projection of Hoskins as a superstar. He did hit nine home runs in his first 54 career at-bats, a record. He did need just 120 games, or two fewer than Hall of Famer and previous Phillies record-holder Chuck Klein, to hit his first 30 home runs. Hoskins has a good eye, is a clubhouse leader and will be able to hit with power for years.
But in an era of springy baseballs, lousy pitchers and homer-orbust hitting policies, Hoskins is not close to challenging for a home run championship and has never made an AllStar team. A former college player, he is 26, not 19. Though a Scott Boras client and thus likely to be paid heavily and soon, Hoskins only makes $575,000 this season, is not eligible for arbitration until 2021 and can’t become a free agent until 2024.
Under no circumstance should the Phillies consider a deal for Hoskins for less than maximum value. But if they are convinced that Alec Bohm is developing quickly enough to supplement Harper for a good chunk of that 13-year Harper gig, then they should move Hoskins before his contract expires for a couple of good, young arms.
As for the trading of Hernandez for any pitcher better than Eflin, Nick Pivetta or Vince Velasquez, which is to say pretty much anybody, that should have happened already. Though he isn’t necessarily saying it, Kapler appears to be warming to the idea of relocating Scott Kingery to his natural second base position. He did that Sunday, and the Phillies won. And he considered it again Monday, but elected instead not to expose Adam Haseley to Clayton Kershaw. So Kingery, who launched a third-inning homer, returned to center, and Hernandez played second and flinched before covering first base during the Dodgers’ six-run fourth.
Hernandez is 29 and on an expiring contract, and should be of some value to a playoff-minded team in need of veteran infield help. But while a switch-hitter, Hernandez is overmatched by lefthanded pitching, hitting only .242. Consistently lost on the basepaths, the one-time farm-system prize has been around long enough to show that he is just an average player with below-average baseball instincts.
“It was cool to see Scott play second and not miss a beat and look great out there,” Kapler was saying before the game Monday. “I guess it’s kind of nice to know he can play an effective centerfield and play an effective second base or third base as well.”
He’s a second-baseman. He’s four years younger than Hernandez. And he is a good, but not a special, outfielder. And every day that the declining Hernandez stands in Kingery’s way is one more day into that Harper contract that is not being maximized.
While it makes for fun midsummer baseball conversation and handy talk-show chatter to characterize a team as a buyer or a seller, it doesn’t have to be an either-or. The third alternative is to exchange what isn’t working for what might work.
What the Phillies have is not working. And if they are not prepared to move minor-league talent to make it work, then they must acknowledge that other than Harper, Aaron Nola and J.T. Realmuto, they have no untouchable major-league players.
“Adding starting pitching is going to be something I’m sure everybody’s looking at all the time,” MacPhail said. “We certainly wouldn’t eschew that. Now, I think we’ve tried to in the past. And sometimes there are different markets for different commodities.”
The Phillies have horrifying starting pitching and a lineup that looked good but doesn’t function. With the right vision and moves, they can begin to change both.