It’s the Same Old Noah Song, but a Different Team Since He’s Been Gone

Philadelphia Phillies
Jonathan Dyer-USA TODAY Sports

When I filed my story about LSU’s two-way star Paul Skenes on Monday evening, I thought, “Well, I probably won’t have to think or write about another pitching prospect whose career was complicated by military obligations for at least another 72 hours!”

How wrong I was. On Wednesday afternoon, momentous news filtered up from Florida, and not the kind of news that normally filters up from Florida: Noah Song, late of the Red Sox and the U.S. Navy, is bound for Phillies camp.

Song is quite famous for a 25-year-old who’s thrown 17 professional innings, and none since 2019. The 6-foot-4 righthander out of California was a star pitcher during his time at Annapolis; in his senior season, 2019, he went 11–1 with a 1.44 ERA and struck out 161 batters in 94 innings. He dominated the New York-Penn League after being drafted in the fourth round by the Red Sox, then in October hit 99 mph while pitching for Team USA in the WBSC Premier12.

If Song had pitched for almost any other school, he would’ve been a first-round pick based on his stuff. Even though he spent most of his career dominating Patriot League competition, he held his own in two trips to the Cape and had all the physical tools you’d want from a big league starter, including top-end velocity and not one but two distinct breaking balls that our Eric Longenhagen put a plus grade on.

Unfortunately for Song, midshipmen who start their third year at the Naval Academy are obliged to complete school and then serve five years on active duty. Song was 22 when he was drafted; waiting five years would have all but killed his chance of any kind of meaningful baseball career, so he applied for waivers to delay his service but was denied each time. By December 2022, Song was on the military list in the Red Sox system, basically a professional ballplayer on paper only. The Sox had nothing to lose by keeping him, so he remained on their books. He looked like a first-round prospect the last time he pitched competitively; why not hang on to him just in case?

Boston held on to Song so long that he became eligible for the Rule 5 draft this past winter, where the Phillies — whose president of baseball ops, Dave Dombrowksi, drafted Song when he ran the Red Sox — pounced. (I was at the Rule 5 draft when this happened, and I let out a conspicuous “OOOOOOOH” like a fifth-grader whose classmate had just had their secret crush revealed on the playground.)

If Song’s status were still up in the air, the Phillies could have hidden him on the military list indefinitely. Now that he’s coming to camp, they have until Opening Day to open a spot on their 40-man roster. After that, they have to carry Song on their 26-man roster all season, trade him, or put him on waivers.

The Phillies came into camp with a relatively settled roster, but still have quite a few interesting questions to answer: Who will get Bryce Harper’s playing time while the two-time MVP recovers from Tommy John surgery? Can 19-year-old Andrew Painter crack the rotation? And how does the bullpen shake out in front of Seranthony Domínguez?

The man-bites-dog quality of Song’s arrival pushes all of those questions to the back burner. The Phillies now have about five weeks to figure out whether he is worth keeping, and if he is, how to make him fit.

When Song last pitched competitively, he had slam-dunk MLB rotation stuff but needed refinement in terms of his command and control. And while it’s easier for a pitcher to come back from a long layoff than a hitter, it’s worth remembering that he hasn’t appeared in a meaningful game in 39 months. Anyone who’s familiar with The Return of Martin Guerre can tell you that the guy who goes off on extended military service isn’t always the guy who comes back. If Song shows up in camp throwing 85 mph, this becomes an easy problem to solve. The Phillies risked almost nothing to get him, so there’s no harm in sending him packing.

But for the sake of argument, let’s assume that the Song who shows up in Clearwater is the same guy who graded out as a first-round pick in 2019: upper-90s velocity, two plus breaking pitches, questions about the changeup and command. Those components are absolutely rosterable in an MLB bullpen, particularly in a low-leverage role. (Having plus stuff and no idea where it’s going is clearly not a dealbreaker for the Phillies, who just this offseason signed Craig Kimbrel to a $10 million contract and traded three roster players for Gregory Soto.) But Song, again, is three and a half years removed from competition and has never played above short-season ball. That raises questions about his ability to pitch in the majors right now, and if so in what role.

The good news is that the Phillies wouldn’t need much more out of Song than bulk low-leverage innings. The bad news is they’ve already filled out their pitching staff to such an extent that it’s going to be hard to find a place to hide Song.

Finding a 40-man spot isn’t going to be too difficult. The Phillies were going to need to find a place for Painter or Griff McGarry anyway. Harper can go on the 60-day IL, and the Phillies’ 40-man pitching depth off the MLB roster is… let’s just say, if Song pitches well enough to hang out on the big league roster, the Phillies won’t miss the pitcher they have to get rid of to accommodate him.

Getting him onto the big league roster is a different story. The Phillies have 13 roster spots to use on pitchers, and almost all of them are spoken for.

Projected Pitching Staff, 2023 Phillies
Rotation
SP1 Zack Wheeler
SP2 Aaron Nola
SP3 Taijuan Walker
SP4 Ranger Suárez
SP5 Bailey Falter or Andrew Painter
Bullpen
High-Leverage Seranthony Domínguez
High-Leverage José Alvarado
High-Leverage Craig Kimbrel
High-Leverage Gregory Soto
Middle Relief Andrew Bellatti
Middle Relief Matt Strahm
Middle Relief Connor Brogdon
Long Relief Nick Nelson or Bailey Falter

Nola, Wheeler, Walker, Suárez, Domínguez, Alvarado, Kimbrel, Soto, and Strahm are absolute stone cold locks to make the team, I think we can all agree. Bellatti and Brogdon, based on their performance in 2022, probably are as well. That leaves the fifth starter spot and the mop-up relief spot in the balance. If there’s an expendable Phillies pitcher, it’s probably Nelson, who has two option years left and has never pitched in a regular high-leverage role in Philadelphia. If Painter were to make the rotation out of camp, it seems reasonable that the Phillies would keep Falter as the 13th pitcher and use him as some kind of caddy to keep their top prospect’s innings down: as a multi-inning piggyback reliever, or to take Painter’s turn in the rotation periodically, or even as a sixth starter.

Throwing Song into the mix complicates things insofar as that one spot can’t accommodate both him and Painter. (Though having Song and Painter on the same pitching staff would make the Phillies the favorite team of every American with synesthesia.) Falter also has one option year remaining, and he got demoted six times in 2022, so if both Song and Painter force their way onto the team by Opening Day, he could be the second pitcher who gets sent to Lehigh Valley.

The Phillies’ bullpen is in a bit of an odd spot right now. They have seven one-inning relievers who could conceivably be trustworthy in high-leverage roles, but this is not last year’s Astros or the 2006 Padres. I think Domínguez is the absolute goods, but I recognize that’s probably a minority view; there might not be a single hands-down elite arm in the bunch. If it were possible to consolidate two or more of those middle relievers into a standout closer on the trade market, the time to do so has probably come and gone. This is the army Dombrowski is going to war with.

What the Phillies could do, if Song and Painter are both lights-out this spring, is send a pitcher like Nelson (or even Bellatti or Brogdon) out in a trade in order to shore up depth elsewhere. Kimbrel himself was involved in such a trade just last year, getting dealt for AJ Pollock on April 1. It’d be a tough call to make close to the season, but it might be the best way for the Phillies to get the most out of their pitching talent.

The truth is, Dombrowski will probably go to bed tonight praying he has to deal with that problem in five weeks’ time. Such a scenario would not only involve his entire pitching staff going into the season healthy, but would also require Painter — a teenager — and Song — a pitcher coming off a three-year layoff with no experience in full-season professional baseball — to be pitching so well he has no choice but to carry both. If the Phillies have to deal with that dilemma, they should probably start printing playoff tickets now.

Can Song force them into a roster crunch they can’t solve? The thing that makes him such an interesting player to follow this spring is the fact that nobody knows for sure. He’s in a literally unique situation, one that gives the usually meaningless Grapefruit League warmup something it usually lacks: actual stakes.





Michael is a writer at FanGraphs. Previously, he was a staff writer at The Ringer and D1Baseball, and his work has appeared at Grantland, Baseball Prospectus, The Atlantic, ESPN.com, and various ill-remembered Phillies blogs. Follow him on Twitter, if you must, @MichaelBaumann.

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goat
1 year ago

this headline was not hugged enough as a child

Sonny Lmember
1 year ago
Reply to  goat

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