2021 Phillies Major League Regular Season Discussion

[fish]

Hmmh, you raise a good question, is it because the Phillies aren't sellers or because nobody on the Phillies roster who is actually tradeable would be higher than 41? No relievers on this list, so not even Neris probably.

If they don’t sit around and wait they have three starting pitchers on reasonable contracts that could bring a wave of talent. Maybe they’d have to throw some coin in to pay some of Wheelers contract to maximize return. The sin would be to wait until all the value they have dries up like they did at the start of the last rebuild.

[zambonir]

If they don’t sit around and wait they have three starting pitchers on reasonable contracts that could bring a wave of talent. Maybe they’d have to throw some coin in to pay some of Wheelers contract to maximize return. The sin would be to wait until all the value they have dries up like they did at the start of the last rebuild.

Well, you're talking about something else entirely. No way they go full rebuild before July of 2022, if not 2023. By which point, yes, they will have let most of the value bleed out.

This deadline, if they're not buyers, they shed the spare parts and expiring contracts, or maybe if we're lucky figure out a way to move Didi or Segura, perhaps by taking someone else's problem. Or maybe Kingery is in a creative deal. But then they're still gonna reload around Realmuto, Wheeler, Harper and Nola.

Heck, Eflin is the guy with the most trade value - that's what the Rays would do. Even JT probably requires picking up some money. But our owner didn't (or couldn't, or wouldn't) hire any of the candidates who might have had that vision.

[bkox]

the other problem with a rebuild is how does it get done without alienating Harper? Remember Middleton promised him that the Phillies would remain a top 5 team in overall salary. I know you could say it doesnt matter what Harper thinks.. but when an owner makes a promise like that to a player to help convince him to sign here... if he breaks that promise, how does it affect future free agent pursuits?

[zambonir]

Oh, I think Harper probably gets traded if they go full-bore. And he'll understand. If they try to win for five years, with near-max payroll all five times, you can't say they didn't fulfill their promise to him. And if he doesn't want to be traded and is really going to be on the team for life, a rebuild give him a better chance of playing for a winner in his twilight years than 2-3 more years of 81 wins at $200 million.

If anything, the promise to Harper is the reason the team is in trouble. But even Harper knows just signing free agents and spending money doesn't make a team good.

[Taudawg]

I believe a full rebuild is not in the cards, not under Dombrowski. I also believe a full rebuild is not necessary. If they decide to sell this year, it will hurt, but Eflin and/or Hoskins would hold the most value. Productive, affordable and under control for another 1 and 2 years. The Mets and Nats have several key free agents the upcoming off-season and the Ozuna situation in Atlanta jams them up a bit with Freeman hitting the market. The NL East should remain winnable for the next few seasons.

[bkeich]

Always funny how we talk about the division and just ignore the Marlins (I do it too). At some point I guess they will be important, but maybe in 50-75 years.

[fish]

Oh, I think Harper probably gets traded if they go full-bore.

Unfortunately, Harper is screwed. With his health issues and contract he is untrade-able. He knew he’d see a rebuild here at some point in his contract, I’m sure just not as soon as he was expecting.

There is absolutely no talent in the minors to help them and not enough on the mlb roster to get them to the playoffs- the cornerstone of any strategy they have right now is hoping their division rivals are worse than they are. Middleton already balked at that strategy at the trade deadline in 2019. He was well on his was to realizing the futility in going all in last winter before Dombrowski arrived- there doesn’t seem to be a reason to believe he’s going to pull a rabbit out of a hat (or a bunch of them) before it’s too late this year.

[Squire]

The tragedy is that we were a really bad franchise for like 8 plus years and have very little in the pipeline to show for it.

[David_Criss]

Past rebuilds included the likes of players like: (Hamels, Rollins, Utley), (Pence) and then Pablebom and Giles. Those years the Phillies were clearly sellers and those players were needed by the teams that traded for them.

Hoskins, Neris and Segura are the biggest and best trade chips, but is it worth it to ship them?

In a couple years I can see Realmuto playing 1B with Marchan ready to take over behind the plate - do you trade him now? His energy and power is loved by Philly though.

Segura is the best hitter and now would be a sell high time, but his 2023 $17 million option automatically kicks in if he is traded making him expensive - then who plays 2B Maton/Miller/Kingery/Torreyes

Gregorius - injured we are stuck with him next year. Hopefully he will be healthy and productive

McCurchen - aren't going to get much

Knapp - is there a team that wants a defense first catcher? Eflin loves throwing to him.

[andyb]

If the team falls out of the playoff race but is still around .500 I think they go to a rebuild while still trying to compete strategy. A quick rebuild in other words like Boston did between a couple of their earlier titles (not the most recent rebuild which was a little deeper).

This means limited trades for players on the last year or two of their contracts. Maybe you dip and trade a younger player or two, but the real goal of a quick rebuild is to shed a little salary and add at least a few midlevel prospects. Not necessarily game changing prospects.

Then the team adds free agents to remain competitive without going to the line where they lose draft picks. This probably does not include long free agent contracts. More 2-3 year contracts of starters to replace the ones they trade (Didi, Segura, Cutch, etc.). The key is to improve the prospect base while still retaining enough good players to be a competitive team.

Not sure it will work, but having money is itself an advantage. Maintaining a $180-$200 million team salary lets them add players without giving up prospects. None of this works unless the prospects develop of course, but throwing a few 2-3 deals for players in the $15 million a year range can keep the team competitive without hurting the future. They won't get any top prospects this way of course, but if we add 3 or 4 prospects that fit in the back of our top 10 we'll probably get a player or two out of it.

[Philsmania]

A lot depends on how good Barber and his scouts are at his job/their jobs in terms of a retool rebuild. There are some promising signs but we probably said the same thing about Almaraz at first.

As for Harper, we'll have to see how long his back holds out to see if he really plays here the whole thirteen years.

[allentown]

No, history says it will be a lot quicker than that. The Marlins are the ultimate low-budget pop-up team. They haven't figured out how to sustain success and meet their budget constraints, as the Marlins have, but seem to have the recipe for being a very good team, perhaps once a decade. They were the NL WS representative in 1997 and in 2003. Their ownership always sell off the players after a successful run, but their baseball people seem smarter than ours. They will be in the playoffs this decade and probably far into them.

[andyb]

A lot depends on how good Barber and his scouts are at his job/their jobs in terms of a retool rebuild. There are some promising signs but we probably said the same thing about Almaraz at first.

None of this ever works without successful prospect acquisition and obviously a partial rebuild without trading your best players like Nola is heavily dependent on the draft and international spending. The current Clearwater roster really needs to produce several good major leaguers and a couple of stars (Abel, hopefully Rojas).

[allentown]

Past rebuilds included the likes of players like: (Hamels, Rollins, Utley), (Pence) and then Pablebom and Giles.

Don't forget Ryan Howard and picking up Werth. That last rebuild succeeds because Sal found Ruiz and Ruiz slowly developed into a hitter -- the Adderall helped. We also did very well in Rule V with Victorino.and, frankly, got very lucky with the season LIdge had after we traded for him. All that 'luck' says we had topnotch baseball people back then. I don't know what happened to Sal and his organization --- may be as simple as the Phillies tasked him to find power-hitting corner OFs and he just isn't good at that-- it appears nobody on Phillies baseball side has been good at OFs for quite a while, at least in the amateur arena. Burrell was a gimmee, and also a first baseman. Drew was a gimmee and we wouldn't take. Sooo many Phillies OFs and OF prospects lost over the years to injury (and inferior development?)

In defense of Sal, it seems to me that there is a lot of corruption (under the table money to buscones) in the market for the best LA position prospects and that the Phillies don't participate in that game. Shutting off that corrupt market is likely the real reason there is so much opposition to an international draft amongst the DR locals and LA players in MLB.

[Taudawg]

No way Phillies go full rebuild for reason previously mentioned - Dombrowski. Look at the NL East, it's mediocre and Mets, Nats and Braves all have key free agents this fall, plus Ozuna's dead money in ATL. Minor Leagues - only Miami has a good farm system at this point and they don't spend the money to fix what the system doesn't provide. The Phillies future isn't clear, but it's not ugly.

If an 83 win 2006 Cardinals team can win the World Series, there is no reason bail on a 2022 foundation of Wheeler, Nola, Harper and Realmuto. Remake, revamp, reimagine but not rebuild.

[zambonir]

The Marlins have new ownership now. And so many young players. They're a threat. The old teams also spent money, and then did teardowns. That's almost where the Phillies might be. I assume they will spend money when they are ready. We'll see if their GM is actually good. Still not sure if ownership is.

Nobody is completely untradeable. A-Rod got moved. Stanton got moved. Prince Fielder got moved. You just end up paying a lot of the salary. If Harper is truly untradeable, he'll also be unplayable, so it's kind of moot, the Phillies lose either way.

It will be up to Dombrowski to try and make this work somehow. On paper the half-rebuild half-compete model is hard to pull off, and hard to shed salary if the players are too old and expensive. Obviously also doesn't help that Kingery's contract is no less of an albatross than Segura's (but I don't think it's true that his option kicks in if he's traded. He may ask for that of course. He can also stop any trade. But I doubt anyone's picking that up).

I think you probably trade Hoskins, just to shake things up a little bit. Everyone else either has too little value or is still too important. Then you maybe move KIngery if nobody will take one of the other two middle IFs (though if you've traded Hoskins, you now have Segura and Didi as DH options too). Adding some Brad Millers or Kolten Wongs can be just as good if not better than adding another Cutch-type contract.

So for sure they can try to win in 2022 and maybe even 2023. I still think it will be grim at that point, and that a big reason the Phillies' rebuild failed is not just the scouting/development failures but that they did it 1-2 years too late and ended it 1-2 years early (in both cases with nothing to show for it but .500 teams). A full Marlins/Astros tank is obviously not an option but if there's no playoff spots over the next two years they are right back where they were in 2018 (and 2014), drafting high but not high enough, while only reaping modest trade returns on aged-out players (or in Nola's case, just a draft pick or rental return - unless they also repeat the Hamels pattern by re-signing him).

[andyb]

I don't think they entertain trading Harper, but next year he'll be a 29-year-old with a 10 year/$248 million contract. That is not an awful contract. Take $50 million off of it in a trade and he would bring back a pretty good return. His contract is nowhere near as long age-wise as the Pujols contract and its for fewer dollars (and remember there will be inflation).

A team with money has huge advantages in moving these contracts by taking on a little cash along the way. Buying prospects with our financial power should be a huge part of any quick rebuild regardless of whether they trade top players. Something like the Pivetta trade where we threw in a prospect (Seabold) to avoid the luxury tax should NEVER happen again. That one is on Middleton being cheap. Getting in the luxury tax last year would only have meant a small 1-time tax, especially since they got under it this year again to reset the rate.

[zambonir]

Something like the Pivetta trade where we threw in a prospect (Seabold) to avoid the luxury tax should NEVER happen again. That one is on Middleton being cheap. Getting in the luxury tax last year would only have meant a small 1-time tax, especially since they got under it this year again to reset the rate.

Not so much cheap as unwilling to buck the MLB tide, I suspect. And also unwilling to recognize that the roster and system he and his chosen people built was ill-constructed to the point where exceeding the CBT was necessary. If his position remains that he'll only do that for a true World Series contender, he's not going to do it, but I assume he'll listen if Dombrowski starts considering big names.

Meanwhile:

VOTE: 2021 MLB All-Star Ballot

Can't really see voting for anyone besides Wheeler and JT. Segura is probably a perfectly reasonable choice but nothing special.

[andyb]

There are times to exceed the luxury tax and times not to. I think the whole construct of only doing it for a World Series contender is just happy talk for the columnists. A luxury tax decision should be made with analytics too. If you are heading into a year where you are shedding some contracts to get you under the cap, the penalty was only money (i.e. Middleton being cheap). If you are also heading into an offseason where you really do not intend to play for any compensation free agents (other than our own in JT) then the cost of exceeding the cap by a small amount is only money.

The rate also goes from 20% to 30% to 50% for 3 consecutive years exceeding the tax. The whole reset thing allows a strategy of exceeding it one year like last year and getting under this year. I am not going to say Connor Seabold was a great prospect. He isn't (and he is out with elbow inflammation like every single other pitching prospect). But we gave him away to save a couple million dollars. What a waste for a big market team that could easily get under the cap the next season and reset their rate. This has little to do with the Phillies not trying to buck the tide and everything to do with Middleton not being willing to suffer temporary cash flow losses in a pandemic year. I am sure they lost lots of money last year, but he can afford it and they made hundreds of millions in the previous decade anyway.

[Taudawg]

This is why I believe Dombrowski was brought here. The 95 win 2011 division winning Tigers didn't look that much different than the 81-81 2010 Tigers. A couple savvy trades and signings and a .500 team is a division winner. Dombrowski's trades were primarily established major leaguers and prospects trades were in quantity, not quality. Now the trade market has changed quite a bit in the last decade, so we will see if Dave still has the magic. I certainly trust him more than I did Klentak.