MLB News & Notes - 2024 Season

[allentown]

I had the opposite reaction: wanted the Mets to win. My closest following of Phillies was in high school, 1962-5. The Mets were the hapless, loveable, underdogs starting out. The Dodger were the enemy. They also led the flight to the West Coast. My current main reason is that I would be able to feel better about the Phillies if the Mets had smashed the Dodger, rather than being smashed.

One reason I don't want to trade from our still inadequate base of minor league talent is the sense of futility in doing so. The current arc of the Phillies fortunes is eerily congruent to that of the 2008 team -- but the current Phillies are the lower-lying arc -- didn't win WS, didn't have a 100+ win team. In both runs, the Phillies initial team did best in post-season with a steady march downward in post-season, even though the team strength grew progressively stronger, as evidenced by regular season wins, as well as eyeball, largely through the addition of costly FA and trades for expensive vets. If the congruency holds, then we have, at most, one more year of contention, then back into the darkness.

The two counters to this are that the farm does seem stronger today than it was in 2010-11 and the current Phillies management doesn't show the penny-pinching behavior, which I associate with the Halladay/Lee mess and the give-away of Pence that sunk RAJ and the team.

[bkeich]

I had the opposite reaction: wanted the Mets to win. My closest following of Phillies was in high school, 1962-5. The Mets were the hapless, loveable, underdogs starting out. The Dodger were the enemy. They also led the flight to the West Coast. My current main reason is that I would be able to feel better about the Phillies if the Mets had smashed the Dodger, rather than being smashed.

One reason I don't want to trade from our still inadequate base of minor league talent is the sense of futility in doing so. The current arc of the Phillies fortunes is eerily congruent to that of the 2008 team -- but the current Phillies are the lower-lying arc -- didn't win WS, didn't have a 100+ win team. In both runs, the Phillies initial team did best in post-season with a steady march downward in post-season, even though the team strength grew progressively stronger, as evidenced by regular season wins, as well as eyeball, largely through the addition of costly FA and trades for expensive vets. If the congruency holds, then we have, at most, one more year of contention, then back into the darkness.

The two counters to this are that the farm does seem stronger today than it was in 2010-11 and the current Phillies management doesn't show the penny-pinching behavior, which I associate with the Halladay/Lee mess and the give-away of Pence that sunk RAJ and the team.

Yes, I hold hope that there is finally an understanding that you need low cost talent ALSO if you are going to bring in big FA. We are about to experience the downside of the big signings of Harper and Turner (about being 5 years from now), you have to have league minimum talent to balance that out.

Our Farm System seems so much better now, but prospects are just that. As Abel showed last season the flame-outlet percentage is high. Just look at the Flyers, 5 years ago we really thought we had a golden age coming with a plethora of young talent in the pipeline. It almost all burned out.

[zambonir]

Mets-Yankees would have been more unbearable than Dodgers-Yankees in a very specific way but I definitely wanted the Mets to win. I guess part of it is my entire family is actually from NY - both parents went to Penn State and moved to Lehigh Valley where I grew up a Phillies fan - so I don't hate the city in the same way some Philadelphians do, and I have lots of Mets fans friends who I feel more kinship with than my Yankees fan friends (i.e. they are more long-suffering, like Phillies fans once were). But also they just don't feel like our actual hated division rival (vs. the Braves) whereas the Dodgers have always been our most hated NLCS rival in my lifetime.

Not sure there's any right answer for how to win or how to team-build these days, but the money is really the thing that makes the most difference. The Mets almost just made the World Series with a team that does not resemble their 100-win 2022 team, and with more than $90 million in dead salary. The two teams that went to the WS last year didn't even make the playoffs this year. They can't go out and sign a comp FA, exceed the third threshold and trade away prospects for the next two years just to prop this window open, but they can do some of those things and there's also a middle ground between cheap young talent (always preferable, obviously) and overpriced vets.

For better or worse, I think the crapshoot aspect of the post-season goes away by the time a team wins 11 games (though the Rangers had to win 13, having lost their division in a tiebreaker) and it's also always going to be a Top 10 team or even Top 5 team that wins it all. Yankees are #2 and Dodgers #5 (Phillies were 4th. Mets were 1st but just on paper). Rangers were 4th in 2023.

[VoteForKalas]

Some fond memories as a kid watching Yankees - Dodgers WS contests in 1977, 1978 and 1981.

Of course the latter was after my Phillies won it all in 1980, but I still felt upset about that 1981 playoff run.

I think, overall, this is good for baseball. LA vs NYC. Ohtani vs Judge. Other stars in Betts, Soto et al. Two ex-player managers.

[Philsmania]

I think, overall, this is good for baseball. LA vs NYC. Ohtani vs Judge. Other stars in Betts, Soto et al. Two ex-player managers.

I think this is the WS matchup that MLB and Fox really wanted in their heart of hearts--the two biggest media markets in the country and the Ohtani-Judge showdown with Betts and Soto and two October-maligned managers seeking validation being a subplot.

I think this current Phillies core has one or two more cracks at it before a retool will be necessary--so long as the prospects we have now work out. It would be nice to be able to retool instead of having to rebuild. Being able to reload--like the Dodgers, Braves, Yankees and Astros seemingly do--would be the best but that's probably too much to ask for.

[zambonir]

It is certainly hard to argue with the star power, both individually and franchise-wise. I think it's less about media market sizes as the brands. I'm sure the networks would still rather not have a West Coast team if they didn't have to, but a lot better to have the Dodgers than the Dbacks. Last year was the lowest-rated WS ever (but of course viewership has generally declined over the years and before that it was 2020 when the Dodgers were actually in it (but a lot going on there including Tampa being the other team).

Highest rated ones ever are still Yankees-Dodgers '78 and Phillies-Royals, back before games were anywhere other than broadcast TV.

[zambonir]

https://x.com/CowboysDubs/status/1848208825007939671?t=9drn2XUqS4XVhYvEoTefEw&s=01

The Florida part is a nice touch. Of course you could also have a big red Japan.

[Philsmania]

https://x.com/CowboysDubs/status/1848208825007939671?t=9drn2XUqS4XVhYvEoTefEw&s=01

The Florida part is a nice touch. Of course you could also have a big red Japan.

I imagine Japan would be Dodger blue, not red. And, to get really detailed, Northeast PA would be dark blue for Yankees.

[zambonir]

I imagine Japan would be Dodger blue, not red. And, to get really detailed, Northeast PA would be dark blue for Yankees.

Yeah I just brainlocked thinking red vs blue a la politics rather than the two different shades of blue.

The Mass joke is also funny.

Probably still some Dodgers fans in Arizona, and also Mexico. And I doubt all Mets fans in those regions are rooting for the Yankees.

[EastFallowfield]

Mets were 1st but just on paper

Their payroll drops to #2 if you let them not count a couple players that don't play for them any more, but not sure where it lands if you let all the teams play that game too.

[zambonir]

According to Spotrac the Mets are paying 30 players who were either traded, released or bought out. Obviously there are two really big ones (plus McCann).

And then Bonilla and Bret Saberhagen are still getting deferred money.

Dodgers are still a hair ahead of the Mets in total cap allocations (i.e. counting the deferrals that aren't being paid yet).

Speculatively (since it's not final), the three teams that were in the highest CBT tier were three of the four teams in the LCS (should be obvious which ones). Braves, Phillies and Astros were next tier and all made the playoffs. Blue Jays and Rangers were third tier and missed. Padres exceeded it in 23 and might again in 25 (if they didn't already this year), while the Astros did not exceed it in 23.

Much like March Madness the new system is designed to give more teams a chance be in the mix, but the championships will still probably go to the big teams more often than not. Wild cards give the high payroll teams more chances too, whereas winning one of the Central divisions is best path for lower-budget teams.

[Philsmania]

According to Spotrac the Mets are paying 30 players who were either traded, released or bought out. Obviously there are two really big ones (plus McCann).

The Mets had their big Thanksgiving Weekend free agent shopping spree in 2021, signing Marte, Canha, Escobar and Scherzer. They needed a centerfielder, a leftfielder, a third baseman and a starting pitcher and basically signed the best available free agent at each position. Only Marte is still with them.

[allentown]

The Mets had their big Thanksgiving Weekend free agent shopping spree in 2021, signing Marte, Canha, Escobar and Scherzer. They needed a centerfielder, a leftfielder, a third baseman and a starting pitcher and basically signed the best available free agent at each position. Only Marte is still with them.

And while we've had quite a lot better luck with our big $ FA signings, this does illustrate how difficult, dangerous, and destructive of the team's future, this lavish-FA-spending model often is. The dead $ well into future is killing. Up until Harper/Turner the Phillies didn't have a significant exposure to this particular sort of future killing. Although we've had some poor FA signings, a category in which I include Castellanos, they weren't as long term or as big $. We've gotten some, albeit it extremely costly $/WAR from Casty, so not a dead loss yet, with two seasons remaining. Schwarber, Harper, JT, Wheeler have been well worth the $ to date. Schwarber could stink next year and it would still count as a plus, full-value signing.

[zambonir]

I think we still think of things as being the old Phillies and the old MLB though. We'll see what the next couple of years hold for the Mets but this doesn't look like a fluke team. If you are actually willing to pay the "Cohen tax" (as the Dodgers and Yankees also will this year) that comes with some consequences, but the money still buys your way out of a lot of trouble, and they didn't sell the farm over the last three years.

But what's probably more important is getting the little major league moves right, whether that's luck or skill. The Mets got more out of their mid-range guys and cobbled-together rotation.

In four or five or seven years we might be looking at the spotrac list with Harper and Turner on it as non-factors or players for other teams but it might not be hindering the team at that point any more than Verlander and Scherzer did the Mets this year.

[EastFallowfield]

The cobbled together rotation deal is what makes me think the Mets season was a little flukey. And three of the starters are free agents.

[Philsmania]

The cobbled together rotation deal is what makes me think the Mets season was a little flukey. And three of the starters are free agents.

I agree. The Mets really struck gold with their rotation in 2024 and that was the foundation of their success. But, it is unlikely to be duplicated considering that their big three--Manaea, Quintana and Severino--were all over 30 veterans with inconsistent histories.

[DurhamBull]

According to Spotrac the Mets are paying 30 players who were either traded, released or bought out. Obviously there are two really big ones (plus McCann).

30 sounds like a lot! I wouldn't have guessed anywhere near that many. I wonder what's typical in MLB.

[zambonir]

Phillies were 12 I believe with Merrifield, their portion of Soto/Seranthony before the trade (I don't think they paid anything as part of the trade) and Kingery's buyout from last year at the top. The rest were minor leaguers (like, David Dahl still got his MLB salary the rest of the year. And Rucker got paid to be on the 60-day. Etc.)

As for the Mets, perhaps they will sign their version of Taijuan Walker (ironically) this time but there's also nothing stopping them from trading for or signing a higher-end arm. It's not like their rotation was Kolby Allard types, was just a lot of #3-4s. None of the teams who made it further than the Phillies had better rotations than the Phillies (if only due to health). Does that mean anything or is it just the luck of the draw?

[phillychuck]

I dislike the typical Yankee fan as much as the next person, but this Yankee team is full of likable players, for the most part. I can't find much rooting interest in this series since I like players on both teams and dislike both franchises historically.

[xogfog]

Thank you PC, you put elegantly into words what I precisely feel about this series.