Phillies Off-Season 2024-2025 (Hot Stove)

[andyb]

I may be the only one, but I have no interest in trading Crawford. His floor is a 2.5 WAR CF/outfielder, and his ceiling is much higher. Sometimes you have to hold on to your prospects.

How would you rank him compared to Rojas? There is certainly more offensive potential, but Rojas is much better defensively. Seems to me a decision on Crawford could hinge on the internal evaluation of Rojas. They are far away, but we did draft 2 CFs also at the top of the last draft.

If your Crawford evaluation is that he'll never hit for much power than maybe he is good trade bait to an organization that values him more.

[Taudawg]

The White Sox want to trade Crochet and anyone they can, minus their top prospects. They are several years from contending and Crochet has two years of control left. The one thing their minor league system has is good pitching prospects. Well, the also have a pretty good SS and Catcher. I don't think the Sox want Bohm, and they aren't going to accept a handful of prospects outside our top ten. They will want quality over quantity.

[saycheese]

I won't argue that Rojas is better defensively. I mean he is probably top 5 in baseball defensively but Crawford is no slouch. He is certainly above average out there. Yes he has much more of a bat.

[David_Criss]

Starting pitching wasn't the problem in the playoffs. Game 1 Wheeler dealt, Game 2 Sanchez decent, Game 3 Nola was decent, Game 4 Suarez despite a shutout was pulled at 4.1 IP.

It was the pen (Hoffman, Banks, Strahm, Alvarado and Estevez) and the bats that were the problem in the playoffs, so why trade an affordable controllable solid bat for a starter???????

Is moving Turner to leadoff and Schwarber to cleanup going to fix everything in the playoffs????

[Taudawg]

Acquiring Crochet makes Ranger available to trade for additional offense. In don't think a Crochet trade would be the last move made.

[saycheese]

For sure it wouldn't be the last deal but not everything is always possible. I am sure Ranger has value and good value. Maybe much the way they dealt two young pitchers for Estevez and got back two young pitchers for Soto they could swing something like that. The question is will it make us better?

[zambonir]

Yeah that was my thought too. Being (apparently) willing to trade Crawford is also a vote of confidence in a Marsh/Rojas CF pair, assuming they do something in LF.

There are some wild fantasy proposals going on here.

MLB trade scenarios: Bowden on Garrett Crochet, Cody Bellinger, Vladimir...

One suggests the Phillies would trade Crawford, Bohm, Abel and Tait to get Crochet (with Bohm going to the Mariners for even more players going to Chicago. That really doesn't reflect well on Bowden that his answer was "I like the concept of the deal.")

Less crazy: Bohm for Williams and a prospect from Milwaukee, or Bohm for Harry Ford (rising Seattle catcher).

Bowden also claims Phillies have interest in Arenado. He can probably give you the same production as Sosa (both with the bat and the glove) but even assuming the cost is very low (and STL adds $ or takes back $) is there really any chance he's more again?

One assumes if the Phillies trade for Crochet he gets an extension too. Which he was insisting on last year anyway.

[saycheese]

Was this a question to him from a person like us. Like would the Phillies trade Crawford, Bohm, Abel and Tait for Crochet and he like the concept or was this something he was reporting on.

I could see the interest in Arenado as a stop gap until Miller is ready and maybe they swap Walker in the deal to help offset Arenado\s contract.

[zambonir]

Yes, totally a fan Q&A proposal, but still, he could have been like, "that price is a bit high!" in his answer.

Arenado certainly makes some sense as an answer to "what would they do w/o Bohm" but still leaves the Phillies needing an OF bat.

[andyb]

but Crawford is no slouch.

I am not sure we know that. Some of his defensive scouting reports have talked about his routes being below average. Sometimes we really don't know until we see some advanced analytics. I am not saying he is bad, but there are a whole lot of minor league prospects that came up with good defensive reputations that have fallen short of that in the majors. All the gushing about Marsh for instance when they traded for him and he is average defensively in CF at best.

Crawford is probably better offensively in his projection, but again without power and walks he may not be that much better. And he has not done it above AA. Rojas clearly needs to take a step forward in the majors too. It just is not that cut and dry to say Crawford projects to be a better player. I might put 60-40 odds on Crawford being better, but it certainly is not 90-10.

[saycheese]

I guess I have a little bias as I have seen him play at least 20 times (small sample size) and he can flat out play out there. I have not seen the route issues. Again I am not a scout and would defer to them but I have not seen that.
Again he is not Rojas, Rojas is better defensively, but from what I see Crawford is above average.

I would say its much better than 60-40 he is better than Rojas. I would put it at 80-20. Again my opinion based on stats and what I see. Least we forget he was a first round pick for a reason and it wasn't just because his Daddy was a good player

[andyb]

One suggests the Phillies would trade Crawford, Bohm, Abel and Tait to get Crochet (with Bohm going to the Mariners for even more players going to Chicago.

I don't think the Phillies would consider that at all. That does not mean I would not consider trading everyone other than Painter. I love Tait for instance, but there is a whole lot of risk in his profile (hitting offspeed pitching, his body growing to the point he is a 1B and not a C). If somebody is going to overpay for Tait I am certainly listening even if he is our best catching prospect by a wide margin.

Frankly I worry a little about trading Abel and not because I think he is great. I think we would be dealing him at the bottom of his value and may not be getting enough for somebody that could still be a number 3 starter if things break right. Of course I kind of liked the Mark Prior acquisition at the time.....

That Bohm for Williams deal does seem like something DD would do if he does not want to sign Hoffman or Estevez.

[zambonir]

That Bohm for Williams deal does seem like something DD would do if he does not want to sign Hoffman or Estevez.

It would just have to be a pretty good prospect coming back to the Phillies as well, IMO. Position player vs. reliever and two years of control versus one.

[Taudawg]

Phillies are apparently in on everyone

Phillies Interested In Alex Bregman, Willy Adames

[flyers19rw]

A problem with dealing with the WSox over Crochet is that the Phillies have been drooling over him for months. Of course Chicago will try to extract from the Phillies all that they can. Their demand is probably Painter and their back off is Miller and Tait. Sometimes the best moves that you make are the ones that don't go down. Pass on Crochet and allow the Sox to see what they can get instead. The Phillies can back off and get it a different FA instead such as a Max Fried level arm. Just how much difference is there between Crochet and Fried or another such pitcher? Not enough to rip the system apart to acquire.

[Austinfan]

Which means the deals DD makes are probably under the radar.

The advantage of being mentioned in a lot of deals is the opposing GM knows it's a game of musical chairs, you're gonna make a deal or two but which ones? So push to hard and the fish will be off the hook.

[andyb]

Adames is intriguing to me. More than Bregman (assuming the price is less) and I do also wonder if the predictions on his contract are a bit overstated given that his offensive performance varies year to year and his defense at SS may be in the decline phase. But he is also relatively young and is great in the clubhouse and might have much more sustainable production compared to Bohm given he is much more athletic and has more valuable sabermetric skills (i.e. walks and power as opposed to batting average). He does not seem like someone who will need to be moved to DH also unless the deal is ridiculously long.

He is a compensation free agent though and aren't we saving most of our pool for Sasaki (sorry in advance to all the 14-year-olds who we had handshake agreements with).

[saycheese]

The one thing about DD is he really doesn't telegraph his deals. I can't recall too many trades that he made that we had too much of an idea until it was almost done if not done.

I think out of all the "rumor" deals the Brewers one of Williams and a prospect for Bohm seems the most realistic as it fills the closer roll. The issue here is Williams is a FA after this year. The prospect would be the key. The one thing is the Brewers have a bunch of 3rd base prospects in their top 30. I don't pretend to know much about any of them except Boeve the 3rd baseman. He didn't look like he had the arm for 3rd. Maybe they can pry Frelick from them in the deal.

[zambonir]

Gonna be a long 10 days

[zambonir]

I'm still fine with not getting a pitcher at all, though I still think (as Matt posted a while back too) it would also mean they possibly trade Suarez for a bat or closer, not go five-deep (six if you count Painter). They don't even need a Max Fried level arm (he's really good!). They just need to hit on another Turnbull or Sanchez.

I don't think the issue is that the Sox know the Phillies want Crochet badly, I think the issue is there are 10 teams that want Crochet badly. But the Sox reportedly want position players, so that's where the Phillies could make it happen without trading Painter. The trick would be keeping Miller rather than Crawford.