2018-19 Phillies Off-Season Discussion (2019 version)

[EDmuch]

I do not see Harper taking less than Machado got in terms of both years and money.

[EastFallowfield]

Phil Rogers (philgrogers)

[frylock]

But to me, that's the irony re: handcuffing. By not signing him, I feel like this team is handcuffed. Some young talent, but aging players, and probably not too much significant help from the farm. Add to that, the other free agents coming in without Harper is probably an aging Kuechel and Kimbrel, probably at overpays. I'm not optimistic at all minus Harper.

[zambonir]

The Phillies and Philadelphia are no less attractive than the Chicago Cubs were at the time they signed Lester and even (oops) Heyward. They were one of the most pathetic teams around, with an entire brand built around fans who cared more about beers in the bleachers than winning. The Red Sox were like that too. The Astros, while not real players in the FA market, worse than all of them. Being a bad team or going through a deliberate rebuild - our Phillies of the past six years did both - doesn't take you out of the market (as Machado signing with San Diego also proves. He didn't take less money for nicer weather, he took the most money). You just gotta pay. If they aren't ready to top $325 then they were never truly all-in on these guys. If they are and the Giants are ready to go to $350 well, that might be a problem.

Short-term, you still got to play the games. If they turn around and signed Keuchel and Marwin Gonzalez (I still don't see why you'd want to allocate $ to Kimbrel, at that point you'd not only have to pay him but eat $10 million between Nicasio and Neshek, unless you trade a young guy) and the question-mark bats (Franco, Williams, Herrera) produce and they are active at the deadline there is no reason this team can't win the East or at least a wild card.

The real problem remains the long-term one, that there is no one on the current roster and no one ticketed for Philadelphia in the next three years who is of Machado or Harper's caliber (best case, maybe Bohm or Haseley or even Moniak exceed expectations and become really good players but do you expect any of them to win ROTY or be an all-star in their first two seasons?) That's why these two guys deserve the big bucks.

It's funny to me that writers this week have kept saying "Franco is still only 26, the same age as Machado and Harper." They are saying he is still relatively young and might still figure it out and has yet to reach the typical ballplayer's peak age. But wouldn't it have been better if he'd just been great from age 21-26?

I still choose to believe they're getting Harper, the comments of the last 24 hours are spin for Boras, not the fan base. But if they do miss, it will increasingly look like they were not as serious as they thought, and were too cautious, inasmuch as they didn't reallyneed Segura if they got Machado (even if the combination of the two would be better than Machado at SS and Franco at 3B) and they could have certainly made do without McCutchen if they got Harper (though then you'd have an all-lefthanded OF I suppose). If they are suddenly shy about spending maybe they shouldn't have added as much salary as they did before this carousel began.

[Lawman]

If this is true, then the hold up may not be money. Could be opt-outs, no trade clauses, other perks holding up the deal?

Jon Heyman (JonHeyman)

[EastFallowfield]

Wouldn't an opt out be a good thing for anyone who's worried about the length of the contract? If he opts out after 4 seasons you let someone else buy his (steeper?) decline.

[zambonir]

Well, if they are over $300 but under $350, they have simply been waiting for the offers to get better after Manny signed. Correctly as it turns out. The goal is to break both the Stanton total contract record ($325/10) and the Greinke AAV ($34.4 million).

I'm sure the opt-out and other stuff is important but unlikely to affect the final amount, neither side is going to offer more or take less in tandem with those things.

[Austinfan]

Player only exercises the opt out if he outperforms the contract or the cap rises faster than expected. At 31 or so, most top players aren't good enough to get 5yr/$150+M.

[EastFallowfield]

Right, so if you're the Phillies and you get 5 years of Harper that's good enough for him to get a better deal elsewhere you say OK, bye, and keep the change.

[zambonir]

If there is any debate over the opt-out it is probably because Boras wants three or four years, not five. Martinez and Arrieta got two years, albeit on much shorter total deals.

While it's true you can just kiss an older player goodbye and get out from under a lot of future $, and things are trending against older players, if the player is good enough to use the opt-out the team also probably doesn't want to lose them, and will be forced to offer a new deal/renegotiation/extension.

[andyb]

if the player is good enough to use the opt-out the team also probably doesn't want to lose them

That is true, though the decision in this age of analytics may not be as clear. The Yankees should have let ARod go when he used the opt out. I was a little surprised the Dodgers did not force a harder bargain on Kershaw. One could argue that they should have let him go risk-wise also.

An opt out after 3 years would be a little quick, but we are really trying to win in the next 2 (Realmuto, and then after that guys like McCutchen and Arrieta may not be that good). I just have no problem giving the opt out because the worst thing that happens is that we give extra money to a player who has performed well. If we get 3-4 really good years out of Harper do we really care if he is worth $40 million a year at that point. If we are still competing we pay it. If we are rebuilding we let him go (which is probably the analytics conclusion anyway).

[zambonir]

That is true, though the decision in this age of analytics may not be as clear. The Yankees should have let ARod go when he used the opt out. I was a little surprised the Dodgers did not force a harder bargain on Kershaw. One could argue that they should have let him go risk-wise also.

Yup, but that's where sentiment and marketing/PR starts the enter the picture. If you take Klentak at his word about "valuation" etc., he probably wouldn't have kept Kershaw. And the way the FA market came out Kershaw probably couldn't have beaten what he already had (the extension, if not the original remaining deal). But both sides didn't really want to break up and they bargained in pretty good faith it seems.

Regardless I don't think the opt-out is a big deal. And a no-trade shouldn't be either. A guy like that is going to be hard to trade and if I'm the team I'd rather make it a limited clause, not a full one, but given how few teams will actually ever be in a position to make a deal at any given time it won't matter much, most players know how to block the right 10 teams to their advantage.

[allentown]

A 4-year opt-out is fine with me, in fact, I think it's ideal. Give the player something to play for. Get 4 good years then let him move along. It starkly defines our next window of opportunity, which isn't a bad thing at all. If Boras wants top AAV, give him that over first 4 years -- Harper can sign the deal and Boras can point at the 4-year AAV and crow. That contract structure greases the skids for Harper to opt out. That's a plus. 10-year deals are iffy.

[zambonir]

If Boras wants top AAV, give him that over first 4 years -- Harper can sign the deal and Boras can point at the 4-year AAV and crow.

I don't think that's gonna do it, even it did for Arrieta (in that it was higher than Darvish). If there is truly a competitive market I don't think they'll be able to avoid paying $345 million. If there isn't and they can call Boras's bluff, great.

Or perhaps a nine-year $315 million deal (then they can say they got the record AAV and the biggest FA contract ever, w/o topping Stanton which was not a FA deal).

[andyb]

I just think we are playing with house money if we get 4 years from Harper after which he would be good enough to get an increase over whatever original deal he had (say 10/350 with 6/210 remaining after 4). If Harper has been good enough to justify it - and we are still a good team - then paying is not the end of the world. We'll have gotten 5 or 6 really good years before everything collapses into older players with bad contracts.

[fish]

• I would agree with the sentiment is was always more likely that Machado was going to sign first, and Harper was going to sign for more.
• It felt like it had become apparent that the Phillies decided that Harper was their preference as the winter progressed.
• With that in mind, signing Machado instead would make sense if it would come at a significant discount to Harper (either years or contract value), unless they felt like the odds of signing Harper was against them. 10 yrs and 300 mill doesn't qualify as a discount for Machado, so you let him walk ...as long as your confident in getting Harper.
• For my money, San Francisco is one of my top 3 favorite cities in the country- but my gawd, there is no way they are competing for a playoff spot in the next 3 years and the ballpark is awful for him to hit in HE'S A .164 CAREER HITTER WITH 2 HOME RUNS IN SAN FRAN. Money being similar, could it really even be a consideration for him??

I think the only thing that really scares us is when Klentak talks "value" and it triggers a reaction to want to curl up into the fetal position as the ghosts of JD Drew comes back to haunt us. Sure, it's a logical poker move by Klentak- but we have a whipped dog response to things like that.

[Austinfan]

When you play poker with Boras, you'd better not blink.

[tom81]

I like the way Cool Hand Klentak plays the game.

[Lawman]

10 years/$400 Million total with first opt out after 4 years, and then after every other season after that.

[zambonir]

Brookover is happy

Manny Machado’s $300 million deal should be incentive for Phillies to sign Bryce...

I’d say somewhere between $350 and $375 million is about the right price for the Phillies to pay Harper. I don’t think any other team is going to be willing to pay more than $350 million and if the Phillies can make that deal then Boras and Harper can hold up victory signs in their winter-long battle to land the biggest deal in baseball history.

The Phillies, in turn, would land the more marketable of the two 26-year-old superstars. If recent polls of Phillies fans are true, the signing of Harper should provide a much bigger bump in attendance than Machado would have. That alone should make Harper worth more than Machado because it makes the deal a good business move.

The vibe out of Phillies camp following the news about Machado did not seem to be one of either surprise or disappointment. In fact, three team sources said they were not disappointed at all by the news.

“The other guy [Harper] is a better fit here,” one of them said.