Before the Phillies summoned the man who might take at-bats away from Brandon Marsh, the 25-year-old outfielder had made his own assessment. “I’m pissed it took me this long to get my stubbornness out,” Marsh said last week, “to get back to what I was doing.” It hasn’t been right for weeks. In Marsh’s estimation, he’s been “a frame or two late on the heater” and that is something he noticed through extensive video study.
Maybe he saw this 91 mph fastball on the inner half from April.
And maybe he’d compare it to a 91 mph cutter he saw over the weekend in Oakland. The results were different, but so was the timing.
“I’m just going to simplify, really,” Marsh said. “I’m just going to simplify and go back to two plus two.”
What’s two plus two?
“Four,” he said.
He laughed.
Marsh finished April near the top of the league in on-base percentage and slugging percentage. Pitchers made adjustments. Regression was natural. But Marsh has yet to apply the proper fix. He’s hitting .198/.286/.248 since May 1. The Phillies added Cristian Pache, who returned from knee surgery, to the active roster over the weekend and he could steal time in center.
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It’s an interesting dynamic. Marsh, at the very least, will be part of a platoon.
“I think he’s caught in between right now,” Phillies manager Rob Thomson said. “So he’s taking a lot of good pitches and he’s swinging at some bad pitches. He’s got to get back in the zone and attack the balls that are in the zone.”
Marsh crushed fastballs in April, a welcome adjustment from a season ago when he missed too many of them. So, opponents adjusted. Marsh thought he needed to focus more on the breaking balls because he was seeing them in fastball counts.
Month | BA ▼ | SLG | FB % |
|---|---|---|---|
March/April | .396 | .854 | 57.9 |
May | .268 | .293 | 60.6 |
June | .136 | .136 | 52.2 |
Now, everything has spiraled. Marsh’s last hit on a fastball was June 11, a single against the Dodgers. His last extra-base hit on a fastball came May 31, a double against the Mets.
“I guess it’s just a little mind game,” Marsh said. “I got off the heater because I stopped getting them. And now I’m getting them and I’m missing them. So, I just got to get back on that fastball.”
Marsh’s assessment is not wrong: He saw about 70 percent fastballs when he was ahead in the count during the first two months of the season. But, in June, that rate dipped to 57 percent.
Pache’s defense will always earn him looks. He went 2-for-8 with two doubles and a walk in the weekend series against the A’s. It’s foolhardy to suggest Pache, in 35 plate appearances this season, has made himself into a viable big-league hitter. But he’ll continue to have chances.
So will Marsh.
“It feels like I’ve been guessing a lot up there,” Marsh said. “It’s not that I’m trying to. It’s just kind of what my brain has been telling me. So, have to get off that. Get back on the fastball. That’s the plan.”
To the left
The Phillies have faced a left-handed pitcher in more plate appearances this season than 28 other teams. They have a .294 on-base percentage against lefties; that ranks 28th in MLB. (Their .336 on-base percentage against righties leads the majors.) Their lineup is vulnerable against lefties, so it’s no accident that opposing teams have tried to use as many as possible.
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Some trends should even out. Trea Turner, who has an .866 career OPS against lefties, is batting .209/.287/.396 against them in 2023. Bryce Harper, who sat Sunday against a lefty, is hitting .177/.212/.242 against them in 66 plate appearances. He has a lifetime .807 OPS versus lefties.
But what Harper is seeing this season is different than anything he’s seen before. Lefties threw him 34 percent breaking balls last season. They are going with breaking balls 55 percent of the time this season. He’s seeing only 40 percent fastballs from lefties. It’s a huge change.
Harper hasn’t picked up spin well from lefties. He’ll continue to see it until he does. He hit .302 with a .512 slugging percentage against lefty breaking balls in 2022. Those numbers have dipped to .067 and .167 in a much smaller sample this season.
Harper is seeing breaking balls in fastball counts. That’s messed with his thinking a bit. He noted last week that many of the breaking balls he’s faced from lefties have been quality pitches — on the edges. But he’s missed hittable ones.
The Phillies are scheduled to face righty starters for all six games in the upcoming homestand against the Braves and Mets.
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Bullpen shuffle
The day after Yunior Marte allowed a run for the first time in nine appearances, Thomson was asked why the Phillies demoted him to the minors.
“Well,” Thomson said last Tuesday, “it certainly wasn’t (his) performance.”
The Phillies have performed numerous roster gymnastics to keep Dylan Covey on the club as a long reliever who is sporadically used. Last week, optioning Marte to Triple-A Lehigh Valley to replenish a depleted bullpen was a choice the Phillies decided they had to make.
“He’s a big part of this ballclub,” Thomson said then. “He really is. I love the kid. I love his arm. I love the slider.”
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Four days later, Marte was back in the majors to replace an injured Seranthony Domínguez. Marte recorded five key outs in two days against the A’s, including striking out the side during a 15-pitch save in Sunday’s series finale.
He might be, right now, the club’s most-trusted righty reliever not named Craig Kimbrel. It’s hard to imagine Marte, who was overwhelmed at the start of the season, going back to the minors anytime soon.
But the threat will always loom because Marte and Gregory Soto, who won’t be sent to the minors, are the only pitchers in the bullpen with minor-league options. If the Phillies find themselves in a bullpen bind and are still unwilling to part with Covey, Marte would return to the minors. He’s been optioned three times this season; he can be sent down twice more before he must be exposed to waivers.
Now that the Phillies have settled on Cristopher Sánchez as the fifth starter, Covey’s role is as a mop-up man. The Phillies are functionally carrying a seven-man bullpen because they do not trust Covey in meaningful situations. He pitched five innings May 23 in his Phillies debut and five innings in the 21 days since.
With Domínguez on the injured list with a strained oblique, it’s possible the Phillies swap Covey for a righty who could handle higher-leverage situations. Andrew Bellatti has had six straight scoreless outings at Lehigh Valley. Or they could just keep Covey.
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More roster ruminations
The Phillies made one transaction Monday and will have to make another later this week. Darick Hall and Rafael Marchan must be activated from their minor-league rehab assignments by Thursday. Neither is expected to be added to the active big-league roster then, but they are on the 60-day IL and the club’s 40-man roster is full.
There aren’t many places to trim.
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Hall was activated and optioned Monday while utilityman Dalton Guthrie, sent to the minors over the weekend, was designated for assignment. Guthrie did not hit in his limited playing time but is a strong defender who can handle almost every position on the field. His removal from the 40-man roster over another infielder, Drew Ellis, was somewhat surprising.
Three pitching reserves on the 40-man roster — Michael Plassmeyer, McKinley Moore and Erich Uelmen — are on the minor-league IL. Plassmeyer and Moore have arm injuries of unknown severity. Phillies general manager Sam Fuld declined to elaborate on the injuries last week. If the Phillies were to remove one of those pitchers from the 40-man roster, they must be released. The Phillies could promote an injured player to the majors, then transfer them to the 60-day IL if the injury is serious enough.
Trade chips?
Two 40-man roster members, Símon Muzziotti and Johan Rojas, have had solid seasons in the minors. Both outfielders are blocked in the majors, and that has led rival evaluators to speculate whether the Phillies will attempt to use them next month as trade chips to upgrade the edges of the big-league roster.
Rojas, 22, is considered the better prospect — an athletic center fielder who plays an elite center field with significant questions about how he’ll hit. He’s closed some holes in 2023 with better plate discipline but still falls into bad habits whenever he’s home run happy.
Muzziotti, 24, is finally playing for a prolonged stretch. He’s appeared in more games this season than in any since 2019. He’s displayed strong on-base skills with increased power at Triple A. The Phillies have used Muzziotti mostly in left field this season, although he profiled as a plus defender in center before.
How the Phillies treat Rojas and Muzziotti will depend on the long-term view of Marsh and Pache in center. If the club is confident that one or both of them will hold the spot in the majors for the coming years, then it makes sense to dangle the prospects.
This and that
Bryson Stott’s batting average dipped Sunday to a mortal .296. He’s flirted with .300 all week. There’s a long way to go. But the list of Phillies players since 1965 who hit even .290 in their first or second seasons (while qualifying for the batting title) is two names long: Marlon Byrd (.303 in 2003) and Odúbel Herrera (.297 in 2015). … Credit to the Phillies for seeing something in Andrew Vasquez, a lefty they claimed on waivers last August only to lose him on waivers two weeks later. They claimed him again four days after the World Series ended and kept him on the 40-man roster all winter despite Vasquez being out of minor-league options. He basically throws one pitch, a slider, with different arm slots. He’s been an important member of the bullpen all season with a 1.62 ERA in 33 1/3 innings. … Matt Strahm allowed a home run Sunday for the third time in his last four outings and hitters have barreled his fastballs in June. The pitch initially ticked up with a move to the bullpen in May, but Strahm has been leaking velocity for a few weeks. The concerns about his durability — Strahm has already pitched three more innings than a season ago — are real. … It could be a big week for Noah Song, the enigmatic Rule 5 draft pick from the Naval Academy. He might appear in a minor-league game after being sidelined for almost three months with back tightness.
(Top photo of Brandon Marsh: Ross D. Franklin / Associated Press)