News of Phormer Phillies, 2024

Once we got Kepler then Clemens never fit unless we were going to get him 3B at bats against RHP. There is an argument that trading Bohm and letting Clemens and Wilson and Sosa split 3B in some way would have been a good thing, but we chose not to because the team is in win-now mode and Bohm probably was only going to net prospects (and not somebody like Luzardo).

We saw enough of Clemens to know he did some things well, but not enough of them consistently to be a full time player or even the strong half of a platoon.

Yeah I just thought it was odd he didn't have a realistic look at his situation, but I guess that's why you have an agent. At the time he was DFAed Marsh was also on the DL and Stevenson was up, but even if they'd been willing to go without a second CF then it wouldn't have been for very long. There was just never going to be a spot for him

Austin Hays is back on the IL for the third time this season.

https://www.mlb.com/news/austin-hays-has-left-foot-injury4

Holy Roman Quinn, Batman!

This also made me wonder if Spencer Turnbull had managed to get hurt yet. He's actually still assigned to Dunedin, 5.56 ERA in three starts/11.1 innings.

Atlanta Braves have DFA-ed Jose Ruiz

Not too surprised this eventually happened. Michael Schwimmer is probably in the right legally here without knowing all the details. Morally is another question. I just assumed the son of a major leaguer would have entered this agreement with expert representation. This could get ugly though. Maybe they just assume Big League Advance would settle pretty quickly since they have their whole business model at stake.

Same here, not knowing the details, but it seems to me to be legitimate and legal. Perhaps it can be a cautionary tale for some stud in the future, but I am sure there's plenty of others, heck, most of them, that don't succeed and are the winners in the deal with Big League Advance Fund.

It seems to me it could very much violate some law or another (predatory lending, dodgy investment schemes) but does that actually apply if the deals were made in the player's home country? The other question, as Andy said is does Tatis just want his money (or some of it) via settlement or does he want reform?

Either way I could see the California AG or legislature looking into it due to the publicity, especially if MLB owners or agents have it in for Schwimer and lobby for it.

Whit Merrifield retires.

I always liked him as a player in KC and liked the Phils signing at the time but his career definitely collapsed rather quickly.

I would imagine he could have scraped through another season if not two, he was better with the Braves and still had a positive WAR with both teams. But pretty cool he had a kid and decided it was time. Short career because he got to MLB pretty late.

Don’t think he is in danger of economic hardship... "Whit Merrifield has made career earnings of $33,038,473 in his thirteen years of MLB career as of 2024 as per Spotrac."

I mean, no, he's not hard up but he truly could have made another $20 million if he'd broken into the bigs a couple of years earlier. He never really cashed in on either free agency or the peak arb years. Phillies paid him almost as much (or possibly actually the most) as he ever made in a single year. His first time ever as a UFA when he was already in decline.

Going into 2019, the Royals and Merrifield agreed to an extension. The deal guaranteed him $16.25MM over four years with a club option for a fifth year. That total looks fairly modest to compared to some more recent deals but it was a product of his late-bloomer status. Since he didn’t debut until his age-27 season, he wasn’t going to qualify for arbitration until after he turned 30 and wasn’t slated for free agency until after his age-33 season. That deal may have sacrificed a bit of future upside but it allowed him to guarantee himself some life-changing money ahead of schedule.

I always thought he was a poor man's Ben Zobrist.

Well put.
I like him even more thanks to that Philly comment!

Merrifield is an example of why age-based free agency (in all types of leagues) is a good thing. If free agency were based on service time or age - say 6 years OR age 29/30 - then it reduces the incentive to keep players in the minors too long and also lets the late developers like Merrifield get paid while still in their prime.

The NBA is the best example of how this would help. Make free agency completely age-based (26?) and all but the top 5 18-year-olds probably just stay in college for the NIL money. The NHL already does something like that.

Regarding Merrifield’s comment that he liked Philly better than we liked him, I think players get confused about how fans think of them. I think all of us actually LIKE Whit Merrifield, the person. I’d love to have lunch with him and chat, he seems like a cool dude. Our disapproval is confined to the play, not the person (at least for most fans).

Well, you probably don't give that too much thought when you're hearing boos, or reading social media (if you're foolish enough to do that).

I wish I wanted to have lunch with more of people I like as players!

z, those guys would probably pick up the check, too. That could be a point in their favor.