Byrd, Brown might be Phillies' best outfield assets

WHILE THE Phillies' ruling triumvirate has given itself plenty of votes of confidence during the organization's 3-years-and-counting swan dive, it has yet to offer a compelling reason to believe that its long-term plan involves anything more comprehensive than a new scouting director and a click of the heels. Granted, the public equivocations of David Montgomery, Pat Gillick and Ruben Amaro Jr. are not definitive evidence of the absence of such a plan. They have their stadium and their cable contract, and thus little motivation to sell the public on their blueprint for the future. Maybe we are witnessing The Plan and we don't even know it. Maybe everything is as they foresaw. Hold, hold, hold . . . then pounce.

Yet it is getting harder to ignore the possibility that, on all of those occasions when you swore they had to be playing coy, they were really just being inert. When 2014 started with Cliff Lee and Jonathan Papelbon still in the rotation and the bullpen, respectively; when the trade deadline passed with Marlon Byrd still in rightfield; when anonymous executives across the game snickered through their media proxies at the paralysis in Phils-ville. Maybe what we've seen is really what we will get until nature runs its course.

The good news, at least for those of us whose curiosity is of a morbid nature, is that the triumvirate will have to show its hand this offseason, and it will have to begin in the outfield, where none of the four players under club control for next season seems to spark much enthusiasm. Ben Revere is a weak-armed singles hitter on a team that needs on-base percentage and power. Byrd will be 37 next season and could easily reach 40 before the Phillies produce their next winning season. Darin Ruf has earned only 447 plate appearances over a 3-year stretch in which the Phillies have had some of the worst production in the majors at the two positions he plays.

And, of course, there is Domonic Brown.

The decision not to trade Byrd in July could prove prudent, given the potential market for him this offseason as a cost-effective alternative to Nelson Cruz and/or Melky Cabrera, both of whom will likely be looking for multiyear deals with double-digit average annual values (AAVs). Byrd's .757 OPS would rank behind only Cruz, Cabrera, Mike Morse and Torii Hunter among likely free-agent outfielders with at least 300 plate appearances in 2014. When you consider that Cruz and Morse are brutal defenders, and Hunter is 39, Byrd might be more attractive than any free agent to a team looking for an everyday corner outfielder with pop, and behind only Martinez and Cruz for a team looking for righthanded middle-of-the-order power (beyond the names already mentioned, candidates for these jobs include Josh Willingham, Colby Rasmus and Nori Aoki). And the pool of potential buyers could be greater than the trade deadline, when only contenders were making bids.

The Phillies would be foolish not to attempt to drum up a market for Revere, who put up a flashy batting average (.306) and stolen-base total (49), but who is, at best, a complementary player because of his lack of power and his inability to draw walks. Just how hollow was Revere's average? Only one other player in major league history has ever finished a season with a batting average that high and an on-base percentage as low as Revere's .325 (Bert Griffith in 1922). Revere's .686 OPS ranked 25th out of 34 centerfielders with at least 400 plate appearances. Still, if the Phillies could coax an offer similar to what the they gave up when they traded for Revere (a young, mid-to-bottom-of-the-rotation starter and a midlevel pitching prospect with some upside), accepting it would be a no-brainer.

The only player the Phillies shouldn't be looking to trade - if they hope to maximize the value of their assets, that is - is Brown. Fresh off a season in which he was one of the worst hitters in the majors, finishing with a .235/.285/.349 batting line and 10 home runs in 512 plate appearances, the 27-year-old outfielder's stock has nowhere to go but up. There is some reason to believe that improvement is imminent, namely that he made contact at the same rate as he has throughout his career. Brown struck out in 18 percent of plate appearances last year, 17.8 percent this year. He walked in 7.2 percent of plate appearances last year, 6.6 percent this year.

The two biggest differences: His ground-ball ratio soared from 0.77 per fly ball in his first four seasons to 1.01 per fly ball in 2014. His .269 batting average on balls in play tied for the fourth-lowest among 65 qualified hitters in the National League. Not all of that can be attributed to luck. Clearly, something was off with Brown this year, as evidenced by the spike in ground balls and the drop in home runs (and it should be notes that Brown's BABIP has been lower than the major league average throughout his career). But it is important to remember that Brown hit 27 home runs with an .818 OPS in 2013, and even if the Phillies do not believe he will ever sustain such production, a hot couple of months like the ones he produced before the trade deadline in 2013 would certainly help his value. And that's what the Phillies' mindset should be right now: the maximization of value. The question shouldn't be, "How can Asset X help us in 2015 or 2016?" Rather, it should be, "How can Asset X help us in 2017 and beyond?"

As for the actual plan? The world awaits.

On Twitter: @ByDavidMurphy

Blog: ph.ly/HighCheese