Pete Mackanin had the “interim” tag removed yesterday from his job title. The rebuilding Phillies extended the 64-year-old skipper’s contract through next season, with a club option for 2017. Mackanin has been at the helm since Ryne Sandberg unexpectedly stepped down in late June. The team has gone 30-46 under his leadership.

This is Mackanin’s first full-time managerial job at the big-league level. Prior to Philadelphia, he served in an interim capacity in Pittsburgh (2005) and Cincinnati (2007). He previously interviewed for openings in Houston, Boston and Chicago (Cubs), only to be bypassed.

Earlier this month, Mackanin sat down to share some of his thoughts on running a ball club. Our conversation was by no means comprehensive – we only touched on a few of his philosophies – but it does offer a snapshot of Mackanin’s mindset.

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Mackanin on playing the kids: “When I make out a lineup here, I don’t necessarily make out a lineup that I feel gives us the best chance to win. I have to play players we want to get a look at. It’s part of the job right now. With the team we have, we need to find out about players – we have to see what some of these guys are capable of. For instance, Darnell Sweeney joined us recently and I knew nothing about him. If I’m playing for a division title, I probably wouldn’t have put him in the lineup, but under these circumstances, he’s playing. And he’s made a good impression.”

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Aaron Nola is 22 years old and just nine starts into his big-league career. He still has a lot to learn. At the same time, his approach is akin to that of a veteran. Drafted seventh overall last year by the Philadelphia Phillies, the Louisiana State University product has a mature mindset that belies his age.

Nola features two- and four-seam fastballs, a changeup, and a curveball. Each offering is of solid quality, but more importantly, he knows how to employ them. The right-hander isn’t a flamethrower — his fastball is averaging 91.7 mph — but that’s not his game. Mixing and matching, and commanding to both sides of the plate, is his M.O. Unlike most youngsters getting their feet wet at the highest level, Nola is more of a pitcher than a thrower.

Nola — who has won five of his seven decisions and has a 4.02 ERA — talked about his game when the Phillies visited Fenway Park over the weekend.

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Nola on simplicity and preparation: “Nothing in baseball is easy or simple. Everybody out there has a plan, and mine is to get guys out any way that I can. Everybody has their way of approaching pitching, and the game. But while a lot goes into it, you do want to try to simplify pitching. Over-thinking can get in your way.

“There’s a lot more information available up here. Nothing is really a secret anymore. We all study hitters, and the hitters study us. Especially when you haven’t pitched against a team — it’s good to look at the information to see what their approaches are. I definitely use it.

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A home run is generally the result of a one-on-one battle between pitcher and hitter. A pitcher throws the ball, the batter hits it, and all the other players are more or less observers as the ball sails out of the park. Weather and park factors play a role in whether the ball leaves the yard. An outfielder might give chase. Then teammates show elation or disgust depending on the side of the battle where they are aligned. An inside-the-park home run is not like those other home runs. An inside-the-park home run needs this:

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Two seasons ago, I ranked the job security of each general manager and listed GM prospects. I think I did a pretty good job with both lists given what we knew at the time, and may do it again as Opening Day 2016 closes in. We’ve had less executive movement in the last few off-seasons than usual and it looks like the regression is happening this year, with four GM jobs currently open and a likely fifth coming soon. This seemed like a good time to cover each of the situations in flux and target some possible changes in the near future, along with some names to keep in mind as candidates to fill these openings.

The Open GM Spots
We have two teams without a top baseball decision-making executive, in Seattle and Milwaukee:

Mariners
The Mariners moved on from (now former) GM Jack Zduriencik recently, a long-rumored move that club president Kevin Mather admitted he waited too long to execute. Mather has said they’re looking for a replacement sooner than later (likely eliminating execs from playoff teams), with GM experience (eliminating most of the GM prospects you’ll see below), and that the team doesn’t require a rebuild (meaning a shorter leash and higher expectations from day one). This should prove to narrow the pool of candidates a good bit, but this is still seen as the best of the currently open jobs.

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The Los Angeles Dodgers made another move after a very active trading deadline, trading for life-long Philadelphia Phillies’ player and icon Chase Utley. The Dodgers, attempting to hold off the San Francisco Giants for a division title are currently two games ahead of the Giants, but are also one game behind the Chicago Cubs in the wild-card standings, making the division title potentially the only real avenue to make the playoffs. The Phillies will reportedly pay $4 million of the $6 million that Utley is owed for the rest of the season and in return receive minor leaguers Darnell Sweeney and right-hander John Richy. While the players the Phillies receive are not non-prospects — each appeared in Kiley McDaniel’s Dodgers write-up this past spring — for this season, the trade is centered on Utley’s potential contribution to the Dodgers.

For the Phillies, this trade is another in a series of transactions which represents a move away from their World Series’ runs at the end of last decade and toward rebuilding. For the Dodgers, in a tight playoff race where any additional help could mean the difference between the playoffs and going home despite a $300+ million outlay in salaries, the move for Chase Utley is no guarantee of success, but the possibility, especially when Utley had been rumored to go to the Giants, likely makes the move worth the effort. Read the rest of this entry »

There are three reasons to be interested in Chase Utley as a baseball player. One, there’s his whole history. Utley’s track record of being one of the best second basemen in baseball. If his career ended today, he’d be a borderline Hall-of-Famer. Two, he’s available. The Giants are reportedly in negotiations, with the Phillies looking to keep getting younger. If you want Utley, you can have him, provided you give a little something, and provided Utley is open to the chance. Three, this:

Good news on Utley: Per source, he not only is feeling better, but also has figured out a flaw in his swing that was caused by ankle injury.

— Ken Rosenthal (@Ken_Rosenthal) July 15, 2015

Utley’s numbers this year are very bad. He’s not one to typically offer excuses, but Utley injured his right ankle over the winter, and it never really got quite right. Lousy on-field performance followed, and then Utley went to the disabled list for a while. There’s no positive evaluation of what Utley’s been. The Giants are presumably thinking about what Utley might be now. They’d only be interested if they thought that Utley was better. His numbers since returning from the DL the other day are better. Small-sample numbers mean only so much, though. The numbers aren’t the encouraging thing. The swing is the encouraging thing.

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When the Padres decided to sell nothing at all at the trade deadline, one of the public explanations was that the team didn’t want to give up on the playoffs. And one of the explanations for that line of thinking was that the schedule looked pretty soft, so the Padres would have a chance to rack up some much-needed wins against lesser competition. At the time, it seemed more like a fantasy. And now the Padres’ odds are somehow even longer. Their season, for all intents and purposes, is finished. For, this past weekend, they were swept at home by the Phillies.

The Phillies, who are having trouble losing. I don’t know how to gauge public awareness, but just in case you haven’t noticed, the Phillies are playing some really good baseball. I imagine a lot of people tuned out entirely once Cole Hamels went away, and the season started so poorly it wasn’t even worth acknowledging the Phillies’ record, but, as hot as the Blue Jays are at the moment, the Phillies might be no cooler. It’s the Phillies who have baseball’s best record since the All-Star break, at 16-5. You’ll recall it was the Phillies who had baseball’s worst record at the All-Star break, at 29-62. A 52-win pace became a 123-win pace, and while we can still say with a high degree of certainty that the Phillies as presently built are not good, this is the sort of run that has to be talked about. Three or so weeks of the Phillies winning more than anyone else. For those three weeks, I can offer three thoughts.

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Heading into the season, Kris Bryant enjoyed favored status when it came to predicting a National League Rookie of the Year. When FanGraphs writers were polled before the season, 20 of 36 votes went to the Chicago Cubs’ third baseman; seven went Joc Pederson; six were cast for Jorge Soler; Noah Syndergaard, Jung Ho Kang and Raisel Iglesias each got one. A couple months into the season, Pederson inserted himself into the race with 13 home runs by the end of May. As the year has moved on, Bryant and Pederson have come back to the pack a bit while Matt Duffy, Kang and Syndergaard have moved into the conversation for the NL’s top rookie. The award is no longer a two-horse battle, and all the players who have risen up are sure to see plenty of exposure since each of them is in the middle of a pennant race.

As Owen Watson wrote, this season has been a historic one for rookies, particularly position players. With Bryant and Pederson leading the way, the rookie class is producing at a greater level than any in the past decade. It’s likely the best class in nearly 30 years, back when Barry Bonds and Jose Canseco were rookies. In the past month, Bryant and Pederson have allowed a few other players to enter the race. Pederson — a three-true-outcomes player to begin the season — has removed the two positive outcomes over the past month, walking just 3% of the time and hitting only one home run. Bryant hasn’t fallen quite as far. He’s still drawing walks, but he is striking out nearly one-third of the time and has a wRC+ of 58 over the past 30 days. Read the rest of this entry »

This breakdown starts with the Scott Kazmir deal on July 23, but there weren’t any trades from the 16th to the 23rd, so this covers the whole second half of the month, trade-wise, up until now. I count 25 total trades with prospects involved in that span that add together to have 58 prospects on the move. Check out the preseason Top 200 List for more details, but I’ve added the range that each Future Value (FV) group fell in last year’s Top 200 to give you an idea of where they will fall in this winter’s list. Also see the preseason team-specific lists to see where the lower-rated prospects may fall within their new organization.

40 FV is the lowest grade that shows up on these numbered team lists, with 35+ and 35 FV prospects mentioned in the “Others of Note” section, so I’ll give blurbs for the 40 FV or better prospects here. I’ve also linked to the post-trade prospect breakdown for the trades I was able to analyze individually, so click there for more information. Alternately, click on the player’s name to see his player page with all his prior articles listed if I didn’t write up his trade.

I opted to not numerically rank these players now, but I will once I’ve made the dozens and dozens of calls necessary this fall and winter to have that level of precision with this many players. Look for the individual team lists to start rolling out in the next month, with the 2016 Top 200 list coming in early 2016. Lastly, the players are not ranked within their tiers, so these aren’t clues for where they will fall on the Top 200.

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What a time to be alive. In a span of hours, Carlos Gomez was almost traded to the Mets; Wilmer Flores cried on the field; and the Dodgers, Braves and Marlins all but completed a deal that seemingly involves dozens of players. But most exciting of all, Cole Hamels is heading to the Rangers in an eight-player deal that also includes Jake Diekman, Matt Harrison, Nick Williams, Jorge Alfaro, Jake Thompson, Jerad Eickhoff and Alec Asher. Here’s what my fancy computer math has to say about the five prospects headed to Philly in the trade. Read the rest of this entry »