Good morning,
Normally I focus on the Phillies at the beginning of the week, but so much happened in baseball since early Friday morning that I cannot ignore. The Cleveland baseball team changed its name. The Rays traded for Nelson Cruz. And the Padres traded for Adam Frazier.
Of course the Phillies had an adventurous weekend of their own, splitting a four-game series with Atlanta. Now they’ll host the Nationals in another four-game set.
Guardians of mediocrity
Cleveland’s baseball team finally announced what it will be called next season, after announcing last year that it would ditch the racist Indians moniker. Starting next year, Cleveland will be home to the Guardians….
Yeah, at first I thought it was a kind of mediocre name. It sounds like a name preloaded into a video game for a create-a-franchise. But then I started to read a little more about why they chose the name, and it’s pretty cool. There are these great art deco statues called the Guardians of Traffic on a bridge just outside of Progressive Field. So it’s a nice name and it’ll be really cool to have a new name for this franchise.
If I still have a problem, it’s with the presentation of this new name. The team just sprung it on the world on a Friday morning during the Opening Ceremony of the Olympics. Normally in the news industry, we’d call that a news dump. It’s when you hide news you don’t want to get a lot of coverage.
The team should have had a big rollout for their new name. There should have been a countdown and a big onfield ceremony. Instead, it was kind of a blah rollout.
They also kept way too many of the old stylistic elements of the team. This was an opportunity to introduce some new colors, a new font, and just a new attitude for this franchise. Instead, it seems like they tried to make this change happen as quickly and cheaply as possible.
One of the problems with that is it makes it seem like the team’s heart wasn’t really in making this change. It sounds like it’s a move they made last summer out of fear and when they realized they had to actually come up with a new name, they did the least possible.
Which sounds like the team’s approach to franchise building on the field right now too. Here’s the team’s starting lineup from Sunday:
That’s not the lineup of a winning team. Fans in Cleveland already have to deal with a franchise that wants to look like it’s trying to win without actually trying. They’ve traded more franchise players than most teams develop. Friday was a chance to reinvigorate the fanbase and the team decided to stick with mediocrity instead.
Nelly in the Bay
The Tampa Bay Rays did not have a lot of offensive areas that needed improvement. Their steady pipeline of development means they have good talent at just about every position. And they like their positional flexibility, which allows them to move their best players around to fit everybody into the lineup.
But the team has had a problem at the designated hitter spot this year. Their DH’s had hit a combined .227/.315/.412 this year with 16 home runs, good for a 103 wRC+. You don’t want your DH hitting just 3% above league average.
The Rays’ acquisition of Cruz last week should fill a big hole in their lineup, adding consistency, thunder, and a guy a lot of players love to play with. He’ll instantly improve those hitting stats out of the DH spot too. So far this year, Cruz is hitting .289/.365/.534 with 20 HR and a 140 wRC+.
The Rays announced that they’re serious about putting a good lineup on the field. They know the Red Sox and the rest of the AL contenders have weaknesses. The Rays are going to make the playoffs and it looks like they’re intent on making noise again.
All of the infielders
The San Diego Padres acquired Adam Frazier from the Pittsburgh Pirates Sunday evening. The Pittsburgh Pirates now have four natural second basemen on their roster in Jake Cronenworth, Ha-Seong Kim, Jurickson Profar, and now Frazier.
Of course, they all play different positions, too. Kim has filled in at short. Cronenworth starts a lot at first base. Profar is essentially in a center field platoon with Trent Grisham. This is a team that values positional flexibility and that has seen its share of injuries this year. If you emphasize having the best 26 players possible on your roster, you’re going to put yourself in position to win over the 162-game season.
And they’re getting a good ballplayer in Adam Frazier. He’s hitting .327 this year and leads the league in hits. He doesn’t add a lot of power and he doesn’t hit the ball that hard. But he’s a great hitter and every team needs a great hitter like Frazier.
Phillies talk
Honestly, I didn’t watch much of the Phillies this weekend. I watched the Olympics. I don’t think I missed much. Matt Moore and Vince Velasquez had bad starts and the Phillies lost. Zack Wheeler and Aaron Nola had good starts and the team won. Not exactly breaking news.
It was great to see Nola’s start Sunday though. He came one home run away from a complete-game shutout. It was his best start since June against the Yankees. He’s really been struggling and hopefully this is a sign that he’s coming out of whatever slump he’s been in. If Nola can return to co-ace form, that might be the biggest acquisition the Phillies can make this year.
Now they turn their sights on the Washington Nationals who are suddenly sellers at the deadline this year. They just got swept by the Orioles and Stephen Strasburg had a setback in his injury recovery. It doesn’t look like the Nationals are going to be winning this year.
What’s surprising might be how far they take a selling attempt. The expectation is that they’ll sell just minor parts, because that’s how their front office operates. But they have big fish, especially with Max Scherzer, Brad Hand, and Kyle Schwarber due to be free agents after this season. In a story in The Athletic Sunday, Ken Rosenthal also hinted that Trea Turner might become available, although it’s more likely he’d be traded this offseason. Rosenthal also wondered whether Juan Soto, who’s a free agent in two-and-a-half seasons, might also be trade bait at some point in the future.
All of that means, it’s even more important that the Phillies win at least three games against the Nationals this week. If a team is in this bad of shape, you have to beat them. They’ll also get lucky, with Max Scherzer skipping his start this week. Beat the Nats. Beat the Nats!
Probable starters
Monday, 7:05 PM
Joe Ross at Spencer Howard
Tuesday, 7:05 PM
TBD at Matt Moore
Wednesday, 7:05 PM
TBD at Zack Wheeler
Thursday, 1:05 PM
TBD at Vince Velasquez.
NL East standings
Phillies playoff odds
FanGraphs: 16.9%; 14.3% chance to win the division
PECOTA: 21.8%; 18.5% chance to win the division