Yoshinobu Yamamoto Shows The Phillies Shortfalls In Japanese Market

Yoshinobu Yamamoto was perhaps the best player available in free agency this off-season, outside of Shohei Ohtani. His stuff is filthy, and many think he could be a Cy Young-caliber pitcher. But the Phillies never had a chance at signing him. Not because they are cheap. In fact, Scott Lauber reported that they offered him more money than any other team. But because the Phillies just do not have much to offer a player from Japan apart from money.

It is completely reasonable that a player coming from another country would want to play with people from their country. Making the move to another country is hard enough. Add in having no one else who speaks your language around you, and it gets even tougher. And the Phillies have no players from Japan on their roster. To make it worse, they have never signed anyone coming out of Japan.

They are 1 of only 5 teams never to sign a player directly out of Japan. Dave Dombrowski made it a priority when he came over to change that. But it has yet to lead to any results. We now see it holding them back.

It is not just because they are an East Coast team. The Yankees and Red Sox have repeatedly struck gold with Japanese players. Boston landed the top Japanese player last season in Masataka Yoshida. The Yankees were a finalist for Yamamoto. The problem is not location, it is the lack of effort the Phillies have put into that market in the past.

There is nothing Dombrowski can do to change what past Phillies GMS have done. They left him in a bad spot when it comes to recruiting players from Japan. As of now, they completely lack the infrastructure to effectively recruit a player like Yoshinobu Yamamoto. But it is on Dombrowski to change that. Players should not be taking less money to play elsewhere. If they are willing to break the bank for a guy like Yamamoto, they should be capable of actually signing him.

That is not the case right now. It won't be the case until they do more to entice Japanese players to sign here. That may start with smaller signings. It may mean they have to invest in infrastructure to support Japanese players before they even sign somebody. But whatever the case is, they need to change something, otherwise they will keep losing out on great players.

Philadelphia fans, like most fans, love it when a local kid comes up and does well with the team. Think of how much Phillies fans have coveted Mike Trout over the years. It's not just because he is a great player, but because he grew up in the area, and is a Eagles fan. Someone being from the area, and a fan of the same teams we love, just makes it that much easier to root for them. The same goes for Kobe Bryant during his career.

As a city, we love our own. We even went crazy when Smarty Jones won the Kentucky Derby and the Preakness Stakes. If you are from Philly, South Jersey, or Delaware, we will get behind you.

But what if we could only have local players? What if there was no such thing as a draft or free agency, and players just had to play for whoever the closest team to you was? How would our teams look? Would they actually turn out well, or would we be stuck wishing that we could mix in some guys from New York, California, and Texas?

I put together how our local teams would look if only the local players were allowed to play for them. Starting with the Phillies. And trust me, after seeing this roster, you will be happy that is not the case. Philadelphia is not exactly the place to be if you are a baseball player. The weather does not lend itself to playing baseball year-round.

But with that said, we have a few guys from the local area who went on to be solid to great players. Is their presence enough to carry the rest of the roster? Or would the Phillies be doomed to mediocrity despite their presence? The criteria to make the team is that your hometown has to be closer to Philadelphia than any other team's city. So some of these guys may be from places that feel more like New York than Philly. But because they are closer on the map to Philly, they count for the Phillies.

As you can see, we are not off to a good start. Gallagher, from Lancaster, PA, was the best local catcher I could find. Gallagher has been a backup in the league for a while now. Last year he played in Cleveland and caught 56 games. His on-base percentage was under .200. He is decent behind the plate though. Not exactly the most inspiring of starts to building a roster. But he is at least an MLB player. Our other option was bringing 43-year-old Eric Kratz out of retirement.

If we were building an All-Time roster they could have had Mike Piazza, who is from Norristown, or Roy Campanella, who is from Germantown. But if we are building a roster of players who could still play today, the options are very slim.

It is not all bleak for this version of the Phillies. Walker is one of the best 1st basemen in the league. Both at the plate, where he has 69 HRs over the past two seasons, and with the glove, where he won the past two Gold Gloves. Walker is a great bat to build your lineup around. Having him batting 4 or 3rd is a good start. And given some of the other guys they will have at the top of this lineup, they may actually score some runs. They just won't get any help from the back half of their lineup.

A lot of people probably don’t know who Jake Alu is. But to be fair, last year was his first season, and he was on a Nationals team no one wanted to watch play. So why would people know his name yet?

His rookie season didn’t go great, but he had very little help around him. Alu looked like a solid player while down in the minors. He could turn into one in the Majors. But if he is your best option to play 2B, you have an issue. I tried to find a 2nd baseman better, or any middle infielder better. But I could not find one. So the Phillies wind up banking on Alu to grow into something.

Okay, Wendle is solid. Not a star by any means. But given what the Phillies are working with, they will take it. Last year he was bad, but he is a .260 career hitter and has decent speed. The Phillies could do a lot worse. That much is clear from some of the other spots in their team in this hypothetical. In an ideal world, Wendle is more of a backup. But the Phillies have to take what they can get.

The Phillies hero returns. Gosselin spent a couple of seasons here and was Joe Girardi’s favorite player in 2020. And there were some real bright spots, including a 2-HR game. It led to Joe Girardi overusing him, as he loved to do with bench players. But if you got sick just watching him play vs every lefty, get ready to see him as an everyday player. Sadly he was the best active player I could find from the area who can play 3rd base.

Finally, another good player. We saw the Westchester native rob the hopes and dreams of Phillies fans in the World Series. His catch was one of the best you will ever see in the World Series. Too bad it hurt his hometown team. Then he went on to have a very solid season in 2023. 22 HRs, 19 steals, and an OPS of .842. Not to mention a solid glove in the Outfield.

We finally come to the best player we have from the area. Trout’s career has taken a bit of a left turn with all the injuries he has suffered. But even with that, he is still among the league's best players. And at one point he was without a doubt the best player in the league. Were Trout a Phillies player, he would be in that Chase Utley category of not being able to do any wrong in the eyes of fans. He is a guy Phillies fans have coveted for years. And it would maybe be the only good thing that would come out of this hypothetical.  

And we are back to mediocrity. Like Gosselin, Jankowski was once a beloved role player for the Phillies. Well for a bit, until it became clear that he was not all that good and was eventually released. He had a couple of big moments here and continues to be a role player bouncing from team to team. And were he just a 4th or 5th OF, you could deal with him. But in this case, he is one of your starting Outfielders. Not great.

Paul Goldschmidt did not grow up a Phillies fan. But he was born in Wilmington Delaware. So he is a local even if he doesn’t like our Baseball team. And he is easily one of the best baseball players we have a claim to. Even at 35, he is still putting up numbers. He has a very good chance to pass 400 HRS. And that goes with his 4 gold gloves, his MVP, 7 All-Star Appearances, and 5 Silver Sluggers. Were he still in his prime, he would be the first baseman. But at this point, Walker has the better glove. So Goldy becomes a very good DH.

Well at the very least you have a great Ace. Gallen was a Cy Young Semi-Finalist. He struggled a bit more in the playoffs, especially against the Phillies. But still, he is one of the top pitchers in the MLB right now. He had a 3.47 ERA last year and a 2.54 ERA in 2022. No one would complain about him being your Ace. Unfortunately, the rest of the pitching staff is not quite so great.

Charlie was on the border between being more of a New York local or Philly local. But his hometown of Flemington NJ was just a tiny bit closer to Philly than to NYC, so he becomes the Phillies second starter behind Gallen. The 40-year-old has been a solid starter in the MLB for a while. Even last year he finished with an ERA under 4. Not exactly the ideal 2nd starter. But given the talent Pool the Philadelphia area has, we will take it.

In 2022 Ross Stripling was great, finishing with a 3.01 ERA while pitching in the AL East. Since then, and in most years before that, he was nowhere near that good. He turned that into a deal with the Giants, and his ERA ballooned to 5.36. Stripling was great in his first 4 seasons with the Dodgers. In each of those 4 seasons, his ERA was under 4. But in 3 of the 4 seasons since, his ERA was over 4, including 2 where it was over 5. Not ideal.

Porcello is out of the league. But in this hypothetical league where you can only use local players, he would probably still be around. Porcello put together a solid career. But in his ERA eclipsed 5.0 in each of his final seasons. The Phillies would be desperate though. There are not many great pitchers from our area to select from. So welcome back to the MLB Porcello.

Now we are really scrapping the bottom of the barrel. It is one thing to bring Rick Porcello, who was at one point a solid starter, out of retirement. It is another thing to take a guy who was never very good to begin with out of retirement. But he was the 5th best starter from our area I could find, who could feasibly still pitch. So here we are. Gallen, Morton, Stripling, Porcello, and Biddle is your rotation. The top 3 would not be the worst top 3 of a rotation in the league.

Well, maybe their bullpen can make up for the starters? Not likely. The bullpen they would put together would make those Gabe Kapler bullpens from a few years ago look great. Chad Kuhl was the best guy I could find that Philly would have a claim to. Chad Kuhl. If you are wondering who that is, you are not alone. Kuhl had an ERA over 8, and a WHIP just below 2 this season. And he is the best guy I could find. The other options would all be guys from the Minor Leagues mostly.