It's over: Phils, Revere reach deal, avoid arbitration

To no surprise, Ben Revere and the Phillies avoided arbitration on Friday by agreeing to a one-year, $1.95 million deal.

Revere became the fourth and final arbitration-eligible Phillie to ink a one-year deal, joining Kyle Kendrick, John Mayberry Jr. and Antonio Bastardo.

Revere made $515,000 in 2013 and asked for a 2014 salary of $2.425 million, while the team offered $1.4 million.

So Revere’s midpoint was just over $1.9 million. Turns out, both parties landed right around that.

And with that, the arbitration talks thankfully come to an end.

Comments

[Jack]

Jimmy Rollins had an 85 OPS+ last season and had his worst defensive numbers since his rookie year.

If you think Galvis' defense is good enough, you could make an argument that he should be our starting SS.

[Sil]

Its Over: the new mantra for this thread, at least I wish. Revere day 4.

[Jack]

Phillibuster is a good name alright.

Don't know when I've seen longer posts that say less on BL...

[aksmith]

Fearless Prediction: Rube will mess up the roster math and leave us all scratching our heads at the final composition of the team to start the season.

Further Fearless Prediction: Nieves will not last two months on the roster before Cameron Rupp is promoted to replace him. Alternatively, Rupp may be brought up to replace the injured Chooch, but I think it's more likely that watching balls skitter to the backstop will become tiresome to even Rube before long. Nieves is one of the worst major league catchers I've ever seen defensively. And for someone who isn't exactly an offensive force, that's saying something. There have been some very good catchers who were mostly hit and little glove. He isn't one of them. It think that at some point it's more likely that we see Rupp and Donald as the catching tandem, due to injury and ineptitude, than we see Nieves get past 60 days of service time.

[Meyer]

Marson too.

[Cyclic]

346 doesn't sound like Jack.

Maybe he forgot to change his name back to Captain Hindsight?

[Meyer]

I'd use Nieves to catch Aumont's stump grinders at Clearwater.

[aksmith]

Meyer - You are correct. I wrote Donald, but I actually meant Marson.

[Meyer]

It's all the same. Is Donald available? Joe Jordon is looking for Rube to sign another infielder to clutter up his minor league plan.

[smithy]

Look at my posts guys! See how intelligent my discussion points are?? I participate in the discussion but turn it from intelligence into self-loathing and pity!

[bay_area_phan]

Marson is actually considered a good defensive catcher, has a career OPS+ of 72, and is 27. Nieves is a wretched defensive catcher, has a career OPS+ of 60, and is 36. So, naturally, RAJ gives Nieves the guaranteed contract & Marson the minor league deal.

[Dickie Thong]

Marlon Byrd ought to help with the team "chemistry" thing.
He can bring a lot to the clubhouse..

Posted by: Ruben

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Nothing breaks up an argument better than someone with a nice set of cans walking by.

[LorecorE]

Seasons the Phillies had multiple pitchers strikeout 200 or more players from 1883-2009:

1 (Chris Short and Jim Bunning, 1965)

Since 2010, they've done it every season.

[Jack]

BAP: Someone (maybe on here, maybe elsewhere) once had a theory about backup catchers, which is that the worse they are offensively, the more attractive they become to teams. The theory being that catcher defense is really hard to evaluate, and in the absence of proof, you would assume a catcher must be really good defensively if they stick around with such bad offense.

Nieves would fit that theory perfectly (Paul Bako was perhaps the best example).

[awh™, Founder, Hire Jamie Moyer Club]

In case you missed it:

There will always be room for Jamie Moyer

[Steve]

There have been so many good CSN articles for these fine young Comcast scribes to copy and paste. Here are some recent topics to consider instead of Ben Revere's arbitration hearing:

Cole Hamels hits on the issues: Team chemistry
Marlon Byrd not hiding from PED mistake
Jonathan Pettibone is ready for a battle

[awh™, Founder, Hire Jamie Moyer Club]

More stuff (because it's been since Friday that we had a new thread):

Justin Klugh has a post up at philly.com

Phillies are train wreck in 2014, per MLB projections

referencing Clay Davenport, who picks the Phillies to finish last:

First Projections for 2014

Well, at least one guy thinks r00b is dreaming about contending...

[bay_area_phan]

Jack: I think that was actually the Phillies' new analytics guy who came up with that correlation. Now all RAJ has to do is look through the FA catcher list & find the guy with the lowest OPS and he's got himself a backup catcher. Although he's still trying to refine the search criteria a little bit, so he doesn't have to study up on what OPS means.

[bay_area_phan]

A.J. Burnett says he's going to pitch in 2014, but not necessarily for the Pirates. Shocking. Who could have possibly foreseen that a guy who had a 3.30 ERA last year was spewing bullsh*t with all that talk about retirement? And bad on the Pirates for being gullible enough to let this guy string them along, while they spent their entire off-season doing nothing.

[Coach Kent Murphy]

Over under on yu K total opening day? 12.5

[Meyer]

Now A.J. is looking for a team that needs a #3/4. Good job Roy. Bring your students home. This may have been the plan all along. Teats, Cheats and Repeats.

[Cyclic]

How much do the Phillies have left to spend?

Won't Burnett get $10+ million?

[Cyclic]

Yoon Suk-min received 4 offers from unidentified MLB teams, currently talking to 2 of them, could sign soon -- Tweet, via MLBTR

They think Red Sox or Twins. Also think a 2 years, $10 million would get it done.

[clout]

I agree with BAP that with Hernandez and Galvis on the bench, you don't need a 2nd UT INF.

LorecorE's prediction that Mayberry will be kept over Ruf will end up like 98% of all LorecorE predictions: Wrong.

[Willard Preacher]

So I assume this will eventually just become the prediction thread, round about "clout Day?"

At any rate, reading earlier posts about believing Howard in a platoon when they see it, I actually think that Sandberg has things setup pretty nicely to implement to some degree, without too much issue. Someone mentioned the 3rd game against a LHP. Well, what better time to "give Howard some early rest to really ease him back into play after years of serious injury?" In other words, I suspect Ryne may use the "give the big guy some early rest" card while he attempts to prove his hypothesis, at which point it may actually be up to Howard to play himself out of a platoon.

But, time will tell, and either way, unlike Rube and/or Sandberg, I don't need to see 2014 performance (even just Spring Training) to tell you that Ryan Howard cannot sustainably hit left-handed pitching. I have the luxury of the past decade or so to tell me that (though, to be fair to Rube, I should go back and isolate those 2007 splits).

[NEPP]

I will hate AJ Burnett till the end of my days for his performance in the 2009 World Series. If he doesn't pull that game out of his arse, we likely win back to back WS.

[aksmith]

NEPP - Yeah, can't stand Burnett either. But if he'll sign for one year, I think 15 mil would slot him nicely behind Hamels. Don't you think?

I'd love to see a little lightning in a bottle.

[NEPP]

I wouldn't mind it if they could sign him obviously.

I dont know that he'd be a real difference maker and that's nothing against him. I just don't see us as a contender even with a strong addition to the rotation like that.

Fun fact, he actually pitched better than his 3.30 ERA suggests last year:

FIP: 2.80
xFIP: 2.92

[aksmith]

NEPP - For lightning in a bottle to occur, there'd have to be a couple of things happen. Paps would have to be healthy, and a couple of his pen mates would have to be very good.

A couple of hitters would have to crank up sensational seasons. Say, a Howard/Whomever platoon would hit 35 homers with high OBP and Asche and Byrd would far exceed what we are expecting.

And then throw Lee, Hamels, Burnett, Slop, Slop out there and Slop and Slop somehow help the Phillies win half the games they start.

Yes, it's a very long shot. But should those things happen, that could be a wild card team. Barely.

[CS]

Yoon Suk-min a much younger and probably cheaper middle of the rotatino starter. If the FO allowed Ruben to bid on Tanaka why would this be different? Ugh. I wanted Watanabe the submarine thrower even if he was 38.

[Willard Preacher]

"I'd love to see a little lightning in a bottle."

This is actually the team mantra going into this year, I believe.

[Willard Preacher]

Earlier, amidst all of the talk about the bench, I was going to posit "I wonder if other teams' blog sites have this much discussion about how to comprise their bench?"

After thinking about it a bit more, there's no effing way most other teams need to do the level of "contingency planning" that the Phillies do. As much as we can all hope for the "if only everybody can stay healthy and put up career norms" line of thinking, is there anyone who doesn't put thinking of the "Plan B" even higher on the likelihood list?

[awh]

Burnett on a one year deal? Why not us?

[awh]

WP, lots of teams rely on their benches a great deal. The Phils were moreso than most, but not unprecedented.

[The Truth Injection]

If Law moved us up that much in his prospect rankings I would imagine we moved up in all of them. Middle of the pack with another hopefully solid draft this year and we could be beating on the outside of a Top 10.

[awh]

I don't really care where the farm system ranks, in the sense that I dont see much difference in being, say, #3 or #6. As long as their producing decent players who can help the big club win, as long as they've got a good pipeline then the specific ranking isn't THAT meaningful

[NEPP]

MLB.com has us at #29 out of 30 when it came to our farm...they also forgot to list JP Crawford on their Top 100 which is pure garbage.

[Smaug]

Ruben either won't or can't spend the money it would take to sign Burnett. End of discussion.

[NEPP]

Signing Burnett would take us somewhat close to the luxury tax (assuming a 1/15 deal)...but not over it. We'd be sitting at around:

$159.5 million + $15 million + $11 million (40 man costs/medical/benefits) - $500K = $185 million.

It will never happen though.

[The Truth Injection]

awh: The rating- being used as an aggregate though- does matter. Moving up in any one year can be connected to any number of factors. It could be a very good draft that shows what people believe will be major league talent into the system. It could show good development from one year to the next. It could also show a bunch of teams ahead of you dropped.

To me- the Phillies are going to need to start building the farm system because they let it go too long. Last year was a good draft and another good one here in 2014 shows their is a ton of potential in the system which you need. Of course much of it might not pan out but having guys with potential is important for a consistently successful franchise.

[NEPP]

It's not that they let it go too long or even that Rube traded away a lot of prospects...its all about simply missing badly on the 2009-2012 drafts and having several poor drafts from 05ish to 2007.

I agree they really need to start hitting on some draft picks...especially with these high picks. They 2nd round pick this year will be nearly as high as their top pick was in the last several years before 2013. They really really need to hit on both their 1st and 2nd rounders this year.

[aksmith]

Seems to me that Law, uncharacteristically, has hugely overvalued the most recent draft. Yeah, maybe it was a very good one. But those players are almost all going to flame out. That's the nature of drafts. If two of them are above average major leaguers, that's a pretty good draft. And that won't happen for three to four years at least.

I was looking at the rankings over the top thirty going on over at PhuturePhils and thinking how woeful this farm is. There is exactly one impact guy who has played above rookie league. And exactly one starting pitcher who looks to have at least mid rotation starter potential. And both those players come with major question marks.

I wonder what exactly Law sees in the 13 draft class that most others don't. Because it looks okay, but nothing more.

[Smaug]

The Cardinals are the best example of a team that builds through the draft. Since they draft and develop players so well there's little need to spend big in free agency. Look at the link below and you'll see one free agent, Randy Choate at 3 years, 7.5 million. Holiday and Wainwright were traded for. The rest of the 2013 team were all drafted and developed by the Cardinals. For them to sign Peralta shows how badly they wanted to upgrade SS.

http://www.baseball-reference.com/teams/STL/2013-payroll-salaries.shtml

[NEPP]

***I was looking at the rankings over the top thirty going on over at PhuturePhils and thinking how woeful this farm is***

FWIW, that Top 30 list they are compiling is ludicrously bad in places as most of those guys over there have no idea what they're doing and they get hung up on what the "experts" that run that site post during the year instead of reality. Every player on the list is a "sure thing superstar" in their eyes somehow. If you read their comments, you'd believe that Aaron Alterr is the next Willie Mays, etc etc.

[Juums]

NEPP:
A few months ago a thought occurred to me that I've never had a chance to articulate on BL, and your post re: missed draft picks from 2009-12 finally provided an avenue. Much obliged.

And that is: How much institutional knowledge did Arbuckle take with him when he left after 2008? I can't help but wonder if Arbuckle's departure gutted the scouting department not so much by taking his hand-picked lieutenants with him but by leaving without writing anything down. Player evaluation remains as much art as science, and scouting departments in theory should require the accretion of substantial amounts of institutional knowledge in order to effectively do their jobs. Given the bile that's purported to have been stirred by naming RAJ GM over Arbuckle, it wouldn't be too surprising if sizable chunks of that institutional knowledge simply vanished overnight with the churn induced by Arbuckle's departure.

Which would nicely explain the rash of missed boats with high draft picks over the past few years. It's also a positive note for the future, as the 2013 draft showed that the Phils are slowly rebuilding what was lost in the fallout of Arbuckle's leaving.

[NEPP]

Arbuckle missed pretty badly on a few drafts before he left too. He hit big time on the 08 draft though so there's that. Marti Wolever stayed on and he was Arbuckle's top deputy so who knows how much was lost when Arbuckle left. Its not as if we were a drafting powerhouse under him. We did well for sure but a good part of that was having a lot of very high picks.

I remember I went through all of his drafts at one point this winter and came to the conclusion that he either was very solid at drafting or he got damned lucky on a few picks (Rollins and Howard come to mind as non 1st rounders that he smacked out of the park...KK too for that matter)

[The Truth Injection]

NEPP: It's a combination of all those factors. Missing badly, not getting good return on players, overpaying for guys. Collectively it hammered the farm system.

[NEPP]

Recent Drafts:

2009 - Top pick was Dugan at #75...we had no pick thanks to signing Ibanez. Darin Ruf and Josh Zeid are two guys with MLB action from that draft. We drafted AJ Griffin too but he didn't sign...that would have been nice, eh? You could probably count Singleton as a hit there too but we traded him for Pence of course. We drafted Andrew Susac too and he's a pretty good C prospect...we simply couldnt sign him. We ended up getting Brodie Colvin to take that money instead...oops. Jake Stewart was the other "hard-sign" pick we made that year with Susac and Colvin and he's terrible now...so we had a 1 in 3 chance of hitting there on those hard sign guys and we missed. Dugan still has an outside shot at making it though.

2010 - Jesse Biddle was the top pick at #27 and he's been pretty solid as a prospect so far. He might have been a bit of a reach at #27 but they knew he would be off the board by their next pick at #77 so they grabbed him. Cameron Rupp is the only guy who has made it to the majors so far and his ultimate upside is "defense first backup catcher"...no so impressive. None of the other picks are even prospects anymore and they have all really crashed/burned to include Percy Garner , Gauntlet Eldemare, and Bryan Morgado. We did pop on Scott Frazier but he didnt sign and was drafted by the Cubs last year in the 6th round (we drafted him in the 5th in 2010). He's had an okay debut for them but he's hardly a top prospect.

2011 - Larry Greene was the top pick and he's been brutally bad, not just bad. Roman Quinn was the next pick and he blew his achilles so his entire career is in jeopardy. Harold Martinez was the 3rd pick and he floppped. Adam Morgan was a good pick till the shoulder issue/surgery. Cody Asche could be seen as a good pick (I imagine we'll have a better read on that after this season) and Mitch Walding was another miss (an interesting strategy that year was to go hard on infielders with Martinez, Walding and Asche all picked early on and only Asche has made it out so far...and he was the afterthought pick at the time. Austin Wright was a good pick but injuries took him out and Ken Giles might end up as a good reliever if he can supplement his 100 mph fastball with a good secondary pitch. The rest of that draft was pretty unremarkable.

2012 - Shane Watson was the top pick at #40 and he had surgery on his shoulder so he's off the list for now and likely forever. Mitch Gueller was a lottery type pick and he has been terrible in his two minor league seasons...likely not a prospect. Dylan Cozens looks like a decent pick and he's shown real power so far...Lakewood this year will be a real test for him though. Zach Green looks like a decent pick so far too though he's sucked defensively at both SS and 3B so far despite being rated pretty good with the glove in the draft. Andrew Pullin is a bit interesting but he really struggled in his sophomore effort in Williamsport. This will be an interesting year for him too.

So yeah, 09 wasnt a terrible draft but not signing Susac or Griffin and trading Singleton basically zeroed out any real value from it. 10 was a mediocre year even if Biddle does become a #3 SP as hoped. 11 was also a flop even if Asche becomes an okay 3B and Giles somehow makes it as a reliever as neither have real upside...losing Quinn and Morgan like that to major injuries really hurts that year. 2012 looks bad now that Watson's career is in doubt. Cozens is the only guy with a real shot and he's not really that highly rated due to contact concerns.

[bay_area_phan]

"If you read their comments, you'd believe that Aaron Alterr is the next Willie Mays, etc etc."

Maybe clout is mixing up his Phillies blogs. He seems quite sure that Beerleaguer was the one to tout Aaron Altherr as the next Willie Mays.

[aksmith]

BAP - Careful now. That's a challenge. I can just see Clout, his Gollum-like fingers gliding across the keyboard, hunting for Altherr quotes. Oh, in his mother's basement.

[Phil]

I'm all excited to see my Phils, from SC.

[bullit]

i like w. preacher's theme for the season: "catching lightning in a bottle"
mb the marketing dept can create a give-away based on that. i'd make it a antique-style bottle, in blue glass like the old Ball jars. a raised design could feature Ben Franklin along with the sponsers info. good for candy or cut flowers.