Park Swaps Roles with Happ; Gabor Paul Bako II Signed

The Phillies announced Tuesday afternoon that J.A. Happ would be taking Chan Ho Park's spot in the rotation. Happ will start on Saturday, in a nationally-televised battle against the Yankees. (A designated hitter will be used at Yankee Stadium, so the Phils won't suffer from losing Park's bat in the lineup. Unless Eric Bruntlett is the DH.) J.A. Happ has been very effective out of the bullpen, and would have started last Saturday, if he hadn't been needed in Friday night's extra-inning game in Washington.

Park had serious difficulties in his seven starts, pitching to a 5.64 FIP and a 1.69 WHIP. Despite Park's struggles, the Phillies were fortunate to lose only twice (both to the Mets) in his starts. (One of those losses was 1-0, to Mets' ace Johan Santana, in a game any Phillies' pitcher would have had difficulty winning.) Despite Park's ineffectiveness, there were some positives to the decision to start the season with Park in the rotation. The Phillies guaranteed Park the chance to compete for a rotation spot in Spring Training, and gave him the spot when he outperformed his competitors. This will lend credibility to the Phils, which could prove useful if they make a similar guarantee to another free agent in the offseason.

Using Park in the rotation for the first month and a half of the season, also helped keep Happ's early-season workload light. Happ is at twenty-one innings pitched at present, while he might be around fifty innings, if he had been in the rotation from the start of the season. Happ threw one-hundred and seventy innings in 2008, including the postseason. In order to avoid Verduccifying Happ, the Phillies should keep Happ below one-hundred and ninety innings in 2009. The thirty innings the Phillies have already "saved" on Happ should help protect the young southpaw's health, and postseason effectiveness. (Of course, if the other members of the rotation, specifically Jamie Moyer and Joe Blanton, don't figure things out soon, the Phils might not have to worry about Happ's postseason workload.)

In a minor move, the Phillies signed free agent catcher Paul Bako. Bako, who will be thirty-seven in June, played ninety-nine games for the Reds in 2008. He failed to make the Cubs roster in Spring Training, and was unconditionally released. Bako is a poor hitter (.274 wOBA lifetime), but is satisfactory on defense.

It's not really clear what the plan is for Bako. Perhaps the Phils believe that Bako will be a better mentor in AAA for top prospect Lou Marson, than current AAA backup Paul Hoover? Maybe they would like to add Bako or Hoover to the MLB roster, and free up Chris Coste to be used as a right-handed pinch-hitter/occasional corner infielder? Possibly, they are just adding some catching inventory, to put them in better position to deal one of their current backstops? (Another possibility is that they simply felt that the opportunity to roster the first player named "Gabor" in the illustrious history of the franchise was too much to pass up.) No matter their reasoning, this is probably a low-risk signing, unless they let Bako use a bat in MLB on a regular basis.