There are certain unstoppable forces in this world. Some of them are acts of nature, like hurricanes and tornadoes. There’s also death, taxes, and reality television — inevitable, all of them. In baseball, there’s the bat of Mike Trout and the glove of Francisco Lindor. There’s the fastball of Noah Syndergaard and the cutter of Kenley Jansen. In the baseball present, these are facts of life, threatened only by the natural corrective measures of health and the passage of time.

While these unimpeachable laws pervade the game, there are times when events fail to obey the natural order of things. Times when Jansen’s cutter doesn’t cut or when Lindor makes an error. Or, for example, when the third out of an inning — a frequent occurrence on any given day in a season — appears unlikely to ever arrive.

Two clubs, the Washington Nationals and Seattle Mariners, suffered from this particular sort of chaos this weekend. The Nationals are good. Unfortunately, the pitcher who started for them on Saturday isn’t — or isn’t any longer. The Mariners are also pretty good. Unfortunately, with one of their best pitchers on the mound on Sunday, they failed to produce a third out in the last, most important inning of their game in Anaheim.

Jeremy Guthrie, by all reasonable measures, has had a good career. His outing on Saturday marked his 14th individual year in which he’d made an appearance in the majors. He’s thrown more than 1700 innings and made more than $43 million by playing a game. He won a World Series with the Royals. Guthrie has a reputation of being a standout human being, as well. At age 38, Guthrie has already lived a full and exciting life. His WAR, or his FIP, or his win total, mean little in the face of all of that.

He turned 38 on Saturday. On that same day, he allowed 10 runs in less than an inning — the game’s first innings — of what may very well have been his final start.

The Phillies aren’t a great offensive team. “Great” is a relative term, though. Major-league hitters are all great relative to the human population — and Guthrie, for his past, spent last year putting up a 6.57 ERA against Triple-A batters. So the fact that he even got a start at the highest level this year is an accomplishment. But the Phillies probably represented an easier task for him than, say, the Cubs or the Dodgers. Again, though: big-league hitters can knock around balls over the heart of the plate, and the Phillies did just that. Enny Romero, who follow Guthrie, would offer up some meatballs of his own before the damage was finally done.

Guthrie’s advanced age (for a ballplayer, that is) and the resulting deterioration of his stuff played a role here, but luck did as well. The ball that Cesar Hernandez hit for a leadoff double, for instance, only goes for a hit about 55% of the time. Had that been an out, perhaps the inning proceeds much differently. It didn’t, though, and the resulting offensive explosion was torrential. Even the two outs that Guthrie induced, fly balls from Maikel Franco and Freddy Galvis, were sac flies that brought runs home.

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It feels like things with the Phillies should be a little more settled than they are. That could just be my own impatience, but even on the pitching side, we have to see if Aaron Nola and Vince Velasquez can stay healthy. And as for the young position players, Odubel Herrera might be the lone sure thing, and he’s bizarre. Maikel Franco still needs to prove that he’s valuable. J.P. Crawford needs to step up his own game. There’s been progress, but the actual core here is still being built.

Thinking about that led me to think about Aaron Altherr. Wednesday’s spring-training highlights also led me to think about Aaron Altherr.

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My most recent Sunday Notes column contained a snippet from Pete Mackanin, those quotes coming from a longer conversation I had with the Philadelphia skipper on Saturday. Much of it is being shared here.

We sat down primarily to talk about this spring’s notable performers. Among them are a pair of veteran non-roster invitees trying to win a roster spot on a youthful club. Offseason signee Daniel Nava is slashing .361/.465/.444, while Brock Stassi, 27 years old and in the system since 2011, is slashing .320/.370/.680 with five home runs.

Outside of asking specifically about Nava and young third baseman Maikel Franco, I mostly let Mackanin lead the conversation. He brought up several of his players, with time constraints limiting his opportunity to cover even more.

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Mackanin on the pitchers: “Our starters have been pitching well. Jerad Eickhoff is right where he should be. Aaron Nola has increased his velocity, and I’m thrilled about that. He’s touched 93, and even 94 once, which we’d never seen. If he can retain that throughout the season, that’s going to be a plus for him. Plus, he’s learned a changeup and he’s thrown that very effectively, as has Eickhoff. They’ve added that to their repertoire, which can only enhance their performance. We haven’t seen Clay Buchholz enough yet, and I think he’s a little sick again today.

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TAMPA, Fla. – Most pitchers try to avoid having Tommy John surgery at all. Sean Burnett wanted it a second time.

The former Pirates first-round pick went to see Dr. James Andrews again after he dealt with elbow pain early in 2013, nearly 10 years after the first surgery on his left elbow. Said Burnett to Ryan Lawrence of PhillyVoice:

“They went in to fix the flexor tendon and Dr. Andrews said it was the ligament. It wasn’t torn, but it was completely stretched out and looked pretty beat up. It was 10-years old (from the first surgery). He wasn’t going fix it, hoping that the surgery for the flexor issue would do something, but the first day I threw after four months I knew it was still a problem.”

Burnett knew his left UCL wasn’t right so he did something you hear few, if any, pitchers attempting to accomplish: he tried to tear it. He went back to the Legacy Golf Club room at which he was staying while rehabbing in Tempe, Arizona, stacked pillows up against his bed’s headboard, and started throwing baseballs with as much violence and velocity as he could into them. I asked Burnett about this bizarre strategy earlier this week.

“I needed to pop it until he would fix it, so I tried to pop it in the hotel room each night,” Burnett said. “It didn’t work but maybe it sped up the process a little bit.”

Did he disturb any neighbors?

“I don’t throw hard enough,” Burnett said. “I had enough pillows up there.”

In May of 2013, Burnett “finally” felt his ligament “pop” in an outing against Seattle.

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Mark Appel is one of the great unknowns this spring. He remains something of an enigma, wrapped in a riddle, and now shrouded in post-surgery mystery.

I will begin with a brief history of a player who has seen his prospect luster diminished as dramatically as few pitchers in recent memory.

Recall that the former Stanford University ace was drafted twice in the first round. In 2012, under the new restrictions on amateur signing bonuses, the Pirates weren’t willing to forfeit a future draft pick for exceeding their pool limit. Appel’s signing demands were not met, and he returned to Stanford.

He returned for his senior year, which seemed like a risky decision given that injury or poor performance could diminish his stock. But Appel won the bet on himself as he was drafted No. 1 overall in 2013, by Houston, one spot ahead of Kris Bryant. While Appel over Bryant looks like Bowie-over-Jordan-like decision at the moment, Appel had an impressive resume coming out of school, including a mid-90s fastball and wipeout slider that helped him set the program’s strikeout record with this very pitch against UCLA nearly four years ago:

But few have fallen further than Appel in the last four years.

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There are different ways to turn a team around. That’s probably an obvious thing to say, but it’s true. Another thing that’s obvious and true: teams are made of humans. Because of that, no turnaround is entirely uniform in nature.

Even so, a team might emphasize certain traits when attempting to rebuild or improve. On-base skills, power, etc. Some of those turnarounds are easy to follow; others, less so.

Given the relatively short history of defensive metrics, the turnaround of team defense hasn’t been thoroughly chronicled, and yet teams have certainly made it a priority. Just last year, the Astros and Indians exhibited improvements in the field in a way rarely matched. Looking further back, it’s possible to find other teams that have accomplished the same feat. The question, though: how did they it? Maybe it’s possible to use past successes as a road map for current teams! So, let’s find the next Indians and Astros.

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Below is an analysis of the prospects in the Philadelphia Phillies farm system. Scouting reports are compiled with information provided by industry sources as well as from my own observations. The KATOH statistical projections, probable-outcome graphs, and (further down) Mahalanobis comps have been provided by Chris Mitchell. For more information on thes 20-80 scouting scale by which all of my prospect content is governed you can click here. For further explanation of the merits and drawbacks of Future Value, read this. -Eric Longenhagen

The KATOH projection system uses minor-league data and Baseball America prospect rankings to forecast future performance in the major leagues. For each player, KATOH produces a WAR forecast for his first six years in the major leagues. There are drawbacks to scouting the stat line, so take these projections with a grain of salt. Due to their purely objective nature, the projections here can be useful in identifying prospects who might be overlooked or overrated. Due to sample-size concerns, only players with at least 200 minor-league plate appearances or batters faced last season have received projections. -Chris Mitchell

Other Lists
NL West (ARI, COL, LAD, SD, SF)
AL Central (CHW, CLE, DET, KC, MIN)
NL Central (CHC, CIN, PIT, MIL, StL)
NL East (ATL, MIA, NYM, PHI, WAS)
AL East (BAL, BOS, NYY, TB, TOR)

60 FV Prospects

Relevant/Interesting Metrics
Slashed .244/.328/.318 with Triple-A Lehigh Valley.

Scouting Report
Crawford’s lackluster statistical output at Triple-A in 2016 is far less problematic when you accept that his 2015 and 2016 stints at Double-A were embellished by the same hitting environment that has given us Angry Philly Sports Radio hype for Darin Ruf and Matt Rizzotti. I’ve been to Reading a lot and can’t explain what’s going on there; batted balls just keep going until they’re over the wall. This is important to consider throughout the duration of this piece as we have a few hitters on this list who had huge years there at some point, and their statistical output requires context.

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This is probably not going to be the Phillies’ year. Probably not next year, either. How’s that for building optimism to begin a post?

Even former Phillies interim president, now senior advisor, Pat Gillick noted he might have been too optimistic in suggesting the Phillies could contend in 2017 or 2018.

Last year wasn’t great for the Phillies, as the club finished 20 or more games out of first place for a fourth straight season. The farm system had setbacks. The Phillies’ system declined from a rank of eight last year by ESPN to 14th entering 2017 even after adding the draft’s No. 1 pick, Mickey Moniak, to the system and with J.P. Crawford yet to debut.

If you’re a Philadelphian searching for optimism, you won’t find it in the PECOTA or FanGraphs projected standings, either, each of which forecast a fifth-place finish for the Phillies.

Among the last-place finishers, perhaps the Orioles have the most reason for optimism. Not only have they beaten preseason expectations before, but they brought a similar club to the postseason, briefly, last October.

At a time when there are groups of teams clearly trying to contend and others clearly attempting to rebuild – particularly in the NL – there’s not a lot of hope entering spring for fanbases in San Diego, Cincinnati, Milwaukee, and Philadelphia. But perhaps the Phillies are the best among the worst teams in the NL, perhaps they are the best hope for an NL Cinderella story.

There is this silver lining: Baseball Prospectus has the Phillies closer to first place (14 games back) than any other projected last-place team. FanGraphs has the Phillies finishing 2017 the fewest games back of any NL last-place team. Optimism!

If you’re hoping the Phillies can surprise and make things interesting in 2017, there’s this, too: the Phillies were among the unluckiest teams in baseball last season (from a pitching perspective). The Phillies’ ERA-FIP differential was fourth in baseball; the bullpen, specifically, ranked second by that measure. While this isn’t to suggest that the Phillies’ 2016 bullpen was a quality group, there’s also reason to believe it wasn’t as catastrophic as its 5.05 ERA suggested.

Moreover, the Phillies have improved the group this offseason by signing Joaquin Benoit and trading for Pat Neshek. From Carson’s report on the fairly optimistic ZiPS projections:

A brief examination of Joaquin Benoit’s (44.0 IP, 0.6 zWAR) player page reveals that the 2017 season will represent his 16th as a major-league pitcher. He recorded one of the highest average fastball velocities of his career last year, his age-38 season. He’s projected to produce the lowest ERA on the club by some measure. Even after Benoit, Philadelphia has a number of pitchers capable of handling high-leverage innings: Hector Neris (78.0 IP, 84 ERA-), Pat Neshek (46.1, 80), and Edubray Ramos (74.0, 88) are all quite strong on a per-inning level.

As for the rotation, it’s intriguing.

ZiPS has the top-five rotation options accounting for 10 zWAR (that’s ZiPS WAR). I wrote about Aaron Nola last week. Not only does Nola have a burgeoning front-of-the-rotation skill set, but no pitcher underperformed his FIP more than Nola last season. Nola finished with a 4.78 ERA in contrast to a 3.08 FIP.

While Vince Velasquez posted a 5.33 second-half ERA after a 3.32 first-half mark, his underlying skills remained consistent. Velasquez posted a 28.4% strikeout percentage and 8% walk rate in the first half, and a 26.3% K percentage and 8.5% walk rate in the second.

Jeremy Hellickson is back after accepting a qualifying offer, Jerad Eickhoff posted a 3-WAR season and 197 innings, and the inconsistent Clay Buchholz lost his command, but not his stuff, last season, and could benefit from leaving the AL East environment for the NL. Even if Buchholz and Hellickson are not part of the next Phillies’ postseason team, with quality seasons, they could perhaps be flipped for assets that are part of the next Philadelphia team to play deep in October.

The pitching staff is going to have to be better, and luckier, because the club’s run-productive capabilities have a long way to go even after adding Michael Saunders, Howie Kendrick and Chris Coghlan.

The Phillies were the worst offensive team in the majors last season. Objectively, as intriguing as Crawford’s two-way game is, it doesn’t look like he’ll be Francisco Lindor or Corey Seager when he’s summoned. At least not right away. Crawford has often struggled after promotions, and produced a paltry 27 extra-base hits across Double-A and Triple-A last season. We’ve read and heard about Jorge Alfaro’s power and arm for years, but expecting a Gary Sanchez 2016 would be folly. Only Maikel Franco and Odubel Herrera project three-win players or better in 2017. If the Phillies’ lineup is going to make dramatic improvements, it will likely require some breakouts at unexpected levels from the Crawfords and Alfaros.

As a group, the Phillies are inching closer to relevance. While there’s a clear divide between the Haves and Have Nots in the NL, the Phillies should have one of the better rotations among second-division teams and an improved bullpen. They have an intriguing collection of young position players who can perhaps exceed expectation and timetables. With improved luck, maybe they can exceed expectations while accelerating the rate at which they return to play meaningful baseball in September.

Chris Carter finally signed! With the Yankees, for $3 million plus incentives. Chris Coghlan also finally signed! With the Phillies, on a minor-league deal for $3 million plus incentives. On the one hand, these players couldn’t be any more different. But there are similarities, too, if we look at them through the lens of the market and its needs.

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One of the most interesting aspects of the Rich Hill story was his decision to break from convention and make his curveball – one of the game’s most effective pitches – his primary offering, a decision about which I wrote earlier this week.

That decision was one of a number of factors that has led to Hill’s late-career resurgence. As you’re probably aware, Hill led all major-league pitchers in curveball usage (49.7%) last season, throwing it more often than his fastball (47.2%). By this standard, Hill is an outlier. Conventional wisdom in baseball stipulates that the fastball should be the primary pitch for just about every arm. Rejecting that wisdom allowed Hill to become one of the most productive per-inning pitchers last season — and to receive a three-year, $48-million contract this offseason despite a limited track record of success.

The only regret Hill might have is that he didn’t change things earlier. What would Hill wish he had told a younger version of himself?

It’s that question which brings me to talented young Phillies starting pitcher Aaron Nola. Nola isn’t left-handed like Hill. His curveball doesn’t have quite the same shape. It is, perhaps, the next best thing to Hill’s curveball among major-league starters, however, depending upon how you judge performance and aesthetic beauty. It’s certainly part of a small group and a candidate in the discussion.

The curve tracks so well horizontally it made Jose Bautista flinch:

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