Phillies Catch an Upgrade in Wilson Ramos
Weeks ago, Wilson Ramos appeared to be the ideal trade target for the catching-deficient Nationals given his previous experience with the team (2010-16) and their current Replacement-Level Killer-esque production, but a funny thing happened on the way to Washington, DC. A left hamstring strain forced Ramos to bow out from the All-Star Game, the Nationals continued their descent into disarray, and now the Rays have traded the nearly 31-year-old backstop to the Phillies in exchange for a player to be named later or cash considerations.
Ramos, who also missed the first 76 games of last season due to a torn ACL, has been doing catching drills and is likely to begin a rehab assignment soon. He’s enjoyed a strong season at the plate, hitting .297/.346/.488 with 14 homers in 315 PA, good for a career-best 130 wRC+. That’s a significant upgrade over what the Phillies have gotten from the 25-year-old Jorge Alfaro (.254/.305/.398, 85 wRC+) or 26-year-old Andrew Knapp (.223/.318/.372, 87 wRC+) on the offensive side, no small matter for a team whose 92 wRC+ ranks 10th in the NL.
Assuming that Ramos replaces Knapp in some kind of pairing with Alfaro, who has started 70 of the Phillies’ 106 games behind the plate, this looks like a defensive upgrade, as well. Via the version of Defensive Runs Saved that doesn’t include pitch framing, Ramos has been average this year, Alfaro two runs below average, and Knapp five below average, while via the framing-inclusive version, the numbers are -1, 0, and -10 runs, respectively. According to Baseball Prospectus’ numbers, Ramos has been 0.9 runs below average overall but dead even on framing, not as good as Alfaro (7.4 runs above average overall, 8.5 above average via framing) but significantly better than Knapp (-5.7 runs overall, -4.3 via framing), who’s gotten about half as much playing time.
As for the return to Tampa Bay, obviously, there’s no scouting report to offer on PTBNL. Ramos’s $10.5 million salary made him the highest-paid Ray, but as with Denard Span earlier this year and Evan Longoria and David Price previously, that title is always a temporary one. Like the mortality rates among those crowned the oldest living human, there’s no mystery about the turnover.
Brooklyn-based Jay Jaffe is a senior writer for FanGraphs, the author of The Cooperstown Casebook (Thomas Dunne Books, 2017) and the creator of the JAWS (Jaffe WAR Score) metric for Hall of Fame analysis. He founded the Futility Infielder website (2001), was a columnist for Baseball Prospectus (2005-2012) and a contributing writer for Sports Illustrated (2012-2018). He has been a recurring guest on MLB Network and a member of the BBWAA since 2011, and a Hall of Fame voter since 2021. Follow him on BlueSky @jayjaffe.bsky.social.
What an odd trade. I’d say it was a 2018 draftee but…the phillies only had Bohm in the 1st round which seems expensive and then a 4th rounder which seems cheap. Could it be an international signee? Or they just came in late and gave the Rays a choice of 3-4 players to choose from after the Rays scout them because…the Rays hadn’t scouted the Phillies minor league system??
So who will now be the 2nd-highest paid Ray (after Kiermaier)?
An Arb2 CJ Cron at ~$3M?
Right now highest paid Ray is Hechavarria at 5.9M who’s prob DFA’d within the next couple weeks… Then it’s KK making just over 5.5M (8M next year) followed by Carlos Gomez at 4M to conclude a strange top three salary allocation
I should have been more clear: I meant for 2019.
Hechavarria is a FA at year-end, as is Gomez.
With Archer, Span, and Colome gone, I think every player on the 40 man (ex KK, who signed and extension through 2022) is either pre-arb or in their arbitration years.
IE, their salary obligations next year are ~$8M to Kiermaier, $2M to Longoria (!), and then … nothing. Except MLB minimums and arbitration settlements.
It’s absolutely fascinating to me. I’d love to see someone here write this up.
Could the Rays contend for a WC2 with a <$50M payroll?
My bad, thought you were referring to current payroll.
But yes, you are spot on for 2019. KK will be the only one who isn’t arb or pre-arb in 2019, if the roster stayed how it is.
Even weirder, only Sucre (and Vidal Nuno if he hangs around) is entering his 3rd year of arbitration. Cron and Duffy are the only ones entering it for the second time.
Legit possibility for a really good roster on a minuscule payroll in 2019
I am really surprised that there wasn’t more interest from the Brewers and Red Sox. Really, really surprised.
If the Rays did it just to dump salary, well, then I’d hope that Rays fans would be pissed.
Why would they be pissed? Rays aren’t competing this year, and in a few months Ramos will be a free agent.
Because they could have gotten something of value?
I’m assuming they got the most value that they were able. Not sure why anyone would expect to get a ton for a rental catcher currently on the disabled list. Now, if there was a better (talent) offer on the table that would have required the Rays to eat some salary that would be one thing, but at the moment I’m not aware that such a thing existed.
As a Nats fan, I’m annoyed that Rizzo didn’t beat this admittedly meager offer.
I would say the same for both Sox and Brewers fans.
I’m not getting it from the Nats side either. Rays even sent money. Brewers could just play Kratz more. Red Sox seem content for whatever reason.
So with the Phillies feeling the need to upgrade on Alfaro, it makes me think their recent wave of position players graduating to the majors has been pretty underwhelming, no?
None of Alfaro, Nick Williams, Roman Quinn, JP Crawford, Scott Kingery, or Maikel Franco have done much of anything. It’s basically Rhys out their on his own. Not to say that those guys are all toast already. Far from it. Just woulda hoped for more. Don’t get at me about Cesar Hernandez – he came up in 2013 – or Odubel Herrera, who was one hell of a Rule 5 pick but didn’t really go through the Phillies player development system.
My initial thought is that this is less “we need to upgrade Alfaro” and more “we need to stop giving at bats to Knapp, and if we can get someone better than both of our current catchers we might as well.” I do still think Alfaro (and his 1.2 fWAR) is a viable MLB catcher, and I still think the Phillies feel that way too.
That being said, I agree with your broader point: the Phillies are pretty much doing this with only one of their many hyped young hitters getting up past his 50th percentile-type projection.
Yeah, its less that Alfaro is bad and more “we’re contending earlier than expected but we need another bat because too many underwhelming bats”. Its about Alfaro to an extent but its also about Kingery, Williams, and Crawford also being underwhelming and getting the best value upgrade bat to one of those 4.
Seems like this will come relatively cheap and there weren’t many good upgrades left that could be had at Corner OF or SS by this point.
In Alfaro, Williams, Quinn, Crawford and Kingery, you’re talking about 5 guys who’ve combined for 1,728 PA’s and 3.7 WAR so far in their careers and only 2 of the 5 have even reached their 25th birthday. I don’t know what was expected from them, but I still think it’s likely at least one of them joins Rhys as a long-term contributor to the Phillies.
Franco, on the other hand, has more PA’s than the other 5 combined and has been underwhelming so far. However, he’s still not 26 and seems either (1) to have “figured some things out”, which gives Phillies fans some hope or (2) to be on a hot streak, which will inevitably be followed by a slump, which will leave him with another season as a below average regular.
PTBNL was only a 35+ prospect, but just missed Cistulli’s Fringe Five.
Yes he sucks but teams keep trading for him. It’s baffling.
Great least line Jay