July 2019 Phils Trade Deadline Speculation/Rumors

[Taudawg]

If they thought they were 2-3 years away they would be selling right now, not buying.

[bigegypt0417]

We're not 2-3 years away. With the right moves this off season we can contend next year.

AF always builds towards mediocre and uses the Giles/monty school of building.

[allentown]

I think Middleton may not be happy about some of the trades and relief pitcher signings Klentak has made, but I don't think he is at all chastened about spending big FA $. What else can he do; the Braves have a much better farm than we do. Next year like our last and very likely our best years of Realmuto and Segura and next season should be one of Harper's best years in Philly. Slowly building from within just isn't an option -- there isn't enough quality within down on the farm and we aren't going to be getting primo first round draft slots. If Middleton and whomever his GM is don't push this off-season, we might as well restart the rebuild around Nola, Hoskins, and Harper.

[Austinfan]

This team is not going anywhere until they develop players like Haseley, Moniak, Bohm and Stott, and hopefully hit on one or two others like Stephen, Grullon, etc. Not just to fill out the lineup and bench, but enough surplus talent for a trade or two.

And they also need to develop some young pitchers. Even if you buy pitching, odds are it'll break down. Safety in numbers.

They don't have that much money, even with the RPs gone, they'll almost certain add one or two veteran RPs, Realmuto will cost $20+M to extend, Arrieta has one more year, so we're talking at best one major FA acquisition - and say it's a top pitcher on an overpay, what will that get you, 3-4 more wins next year (4-5 WAR pitcher at $25-30M)? 88--89 wins will not take the division from the Braves.

You can't buy your way into contention unless you're really, really lucky (no injuries and all your FAs play up to your expectations) because you need 40+ WAR and 20 WAR on the market would get you close to the luxury tax.

[fish]

My bet is Middleton is a bit chastened by this season, and understands now that you just can't manufacture a winning team with trades and money.

I would hope he’s a bit chastened by the guys he hired to rebuild that left him with no choice but to trade and spend money.

[Austinfan]

To be fair, the only bad draft pick was Randolph, and that was probably the "holdover" scouts. Though they did nail Kingery in the 2nd rd.

It takes a couple years to revamp an organization, for one thing, guys you want to bring in are often unavailable for a year or two until they get out of their current contracts.

2016 is meh, though Gowdy and Romero have time, Dyer (8th) Stephen (11th) are coming on.
The 2017 draft is starting to look very good:
Haseley (#8), Howard (2nd), Maton (7th), Parkinson (12th), Warren (14th), Dohy (16th), D Jones (18th), B Brown (33rd), DJ Stewart (39th)

Klentak inherited an empty farm system other than the players acquired in trade and most were in A+ ball or higher. So it was like a sugar rush, the system got ranked higher for a couple years until they graduated.
Now we're seeing the long slow slough of rebuilding from the DSL up the ladder.

[zambonir]

The cupboard was especially bare because they waited two years too long to rebuild, and MIddleton is as responsible for that as Monty probably.

Not sure Hoskins would even be part of a "long" rebuild (though you could certainly afford to lock him up if you weren't adding FAs the next two years).

I think they will re-sign Realmuto and of course they will be very active on the trade and FA market. They have a lot of pieces to move, even if they aren't exciting pieces (Franco, Hernandez, Herrera, Williams, maybe one of the failed starters for a team that can afford to be more patient).

Maybe covered in another thread but someone, I think Winkleman, posted that Vargas was the equivalent of the August trade, i.e. just a little extra depth/insurance, not the big deadline deal. We'll see I guess.

[schooldoc]

What do you think Realmuto would cost for an extension? There aren't a whole lot of comps out there. Russell Martin got 5/$82M in 2015 at a similar time in his career as JT, so with inflation I suspect 5/$100M is pretty close to reality.

[bigegypt0417]

This team is not going anywhere until they develop players like Haseley, Moniak, Bohm and Stott, and hopefully hit on one or two others like Stephen, Grullon, etc. Not just to fill out the lineup and bench, but enough surplus talent for a trade or two.

As much as it's important for the future of this franchise, this doesn't stop them from competing quickly. The phillies have money and as much as I don't want to see them waste prospects on sub par talent your narrative is incorrect. They are 1 game out of the wildcard and if they can get even average pitching they could be ok. This team is not years away from being a contender...that is simply fiction.

[andyb]

This team is not really going to attempt any sort of rebuild though. They have committed to this group and they are going to tweak it by spending up to the luxury cap (and maybe go over in certain years) until this group ages out of being competitive. Next year is certainly not a rebuild year. After that I think reload would be more apt than rebuild.

We don't really have any prospects that one would label as likely stars at this point. We clearly need some of them to succeed, but not all of them. Haseley and Moniak play the same position so trading one of them is logical. Bohm is probably the most untouchable now because 3B is simply a hole in our lineup when offense and defense are considered. Hopefully he develops because that would solve a problem.

I think a bigger issue will be whether to add another expensive veteran starter. If that starter is not a free agent it will cost prospects. If we want to compete in this window it is probably the price we need to pay.

[Lawman]

I think a bigger issue will be whether to add another expensive veteran starter. If that starter is not a free agent it will cost prospects.

The problem is that the Phillies don't seem to have high level, blue chip prospects, that other teams would cover in any trade for a top tier pitcher. And, of the top prospects they do have, the Phillies don't have enough blue chip prospect depth that they can afford to trade them.

[Patchmk88]

Blue chip prospects obviously aren’t going in deal for good controllable pitchers. The Stroman deal is evidence of that.

[Austinfan]

If the Phillies extend Realmuto, they can afford maybe ONE top tier FA this winter with the $26M freed up by Hunter/Neshek/Nicasio.
Then when Arrieta leaves, another slot opens but they'll have to make a decision on Rhys in two years or so.

Harper $26M, Arrieta $25M, Realmuto $20M, Cutch $17M, Segura $15M, Nola $9M, Robertson $10M.
$122M right there.
If you move out Herrera, Hernandez and Franco, you free up $17M. But you need to replace them. As well as the veterans in the bullpen.

[kmc1019]

Painful irony - and I love having Realmuto - is that, barring that trade or if the Phillies could have convinced the Marlins to accept Medina instead - Sixto Sanchez would likely be called up by the Phillies to bolster the drive for a playoff spot. He has pitched well at AA all year, but has started to dominate this month - 1 ER in last 3 starts.

[zambonir]

I wouldn't worry about inflation given what's happened to the FA market in the last two years. He's only gonna make like $10 million next year if he doesn't do an extension so this is a situation where the player gives a discount in exchange for the guaranteed $ and security (just like Nola did, albeit for less of his FA years). If not, let him risk hitting the open market with a QO, that didn't work out too well for Grandal (or Ramos who didn't even have a QO).

[andyb]

They could go over the luxury tax line (more for a next year strategy rather than this year). No law against that and the consequences are only money if you don't go too far over. One would not want to do it with long contracts, but taking on money on shorter contracts (like Grienke) is still something they could do if they thought they needed to.

[bigegypt0417]

If the Phillies extend Realmuto, they can afford maybe ONE top tier FA this winter with the $26M freed up by Hunter/Neshek/Nicasio.
Then when Arrieta leaves, another slot opens but they'll have to make a decision on Rhys in two years or so.

They need one top tier free agent as long as it's a starter.

Then they need to find another mid-level guy.

[julio]

Minor League Games - Monday, July 29, 2019

I hadn't thought about that implication - if you DFA someone in August now they either have to be claimed or will more easily go to the minors, assuming they can't/don't refuse. Also, there's still nothing stopping teams from DFAing anyone, and they are still revocable, right? A very unlikely scenario but in theory the Dbacks could put Greinke on if they don't trade him and see if anyone wants to take all of the $. Except that unlike August "trade waivers" any move would also be annnounced.

Now, this is an interesting point.

First... Unless I'm mistaken, a DFA is not revocable. (Think about it; teams would routinely DFA somebody to clear a roster spot, then "un-DFA" the player later - it would be widely abused.) Revocable waivers generally apply only to trade waivers - which are moot now, given the prohibition on waiver trades.

The elimination of any trades after July 31 does impact DFAs in August/September, though, because clubs won't have the option of trading a DFA'ed player... although I'm not certain about the impact of the trade deadline on purely minor-league transactions? I assume minor-league trades are prohibited, but I'd want to check (and we're getting ready to leave on a short vacation, so I won't be doing that kind of research until this evening at the earliest...).

[bigegypt0417]

unless i'm reading it wrong the significant penalty starts at 40 million over when your first picks drops 10 spots.

The phillies have more than enough money to make that work 1 or 2 years.

[andyb]

Yeah. You do pay a higher repeater tax rate, so the goal would be to only stay over for a short time.

This year we are not close enough to the division title to justify it. Maybe even next year they plan free agency to stay below the line. But at some point if there is a Verlander type out there and you are competing for the division, I think Middleton would OK going over the line. Futhermore I would not be shocked if that luxury tax line goes up $20-$30 million in the next agreement. One of the issues with the current labor agreement is that it did not go up anywhere near as quickly as revenues and profits increased. So the Phillies could go over, and suddenly be under when the next agreement kicked in.