Phillies Off-Season 2024-2025 (Hot Stove)

fish 2024-12-14 01:20:06 UTC #962

You’d have to gameplan that trout is a 70-100 game player, which is entirely fine, but what’s the value of that for him? $10-12 million? The angels probably have to figure it’s a better gamble to keep him around than pay him as much as it’s going to take to play for someone else.

Austinfan 2024-12-14 01:31:08 UTC #963

I don't have a problem with Rojas if he plays in the field the way he did two years ago.
That player just has to put up .700 OPS to be worth 3+ WAR.

Platoon Marsh with Wilson, have Crawford, Ricones and Kemp start the season in AAA.
Marchan and Stubbs for backup catcher and limit Jt's workload.

Then play it by ear and see if someone who's an upgrade shakes loose.
But my priority would be 5th SP and another top 5 BP arm.
I'm not sold on Alvarado or Strahm in pressure situations, and no young arm looks ready.

UnsaltySailor 2024-12-14 02:25:16 UTC #964

I really wish we were talking about moving Trea Turner to OF. It would change everything. Sign Ha-Seong Kim on short term deal for SS. He might not be ready to start the season, but we have Sosa to hold it down until Kim is ready. We need a RH OF bat, and his name is Trea Turner. I know, not going to happen. Marsh can then be spread around to all three outfield positions. Sosa/Kim big defensive upgrade over Turner. More athletic team in general, and it won't cost a bunch.

andyb 2024-12-14 03:18:32 UTC #965

You do realize that he just put up a 601 OPS. He certainly has potential. He just may not be good enough now and needs time in AAA which he has never had. The Phillies are built to win now and Rojas is a weakness at the moment.

allentown 2024-12-14 04:08:01 UTC #966

Unfortunately, the Phillies are not built to win now. The Dodgers are built to win now. The Phillies are built to fall back from last year's performance. We are built around older stars who will be a year older. Our bullpen was ac playoff weakness last season and the guys we currently have signed are a lesser pen than we had last season. This may change before the season starts but this team is currently not built to win in 2025.

Austinfan 2024-12-14 05:59:05 UTC #967

Which is why my emphasis would be 5th starter and one more RP.
Walker/Phillips/Allard put a lot of pressure on the bullpen last year.
And they need one more reliable arm.

You can live with Rojas with incremental improvement.
Backup catcher is more important b/c JT can't be playing 130 games if you want him fresh for the playoffs.

I just don't see the point of a marginal offensive improvement that hurts OF defense.
Unless you can add a 3-4 WAR OF, it's a waste of resources.

zambonir 2024-12-14 11:19:04 UTC #968

Rojas is probably a .650 OPS player is all. He'll still get 400 ABs if Marsh is the primary CF by one or the other of them playing a bit of LF and RF too (yes, they need to commit to that in the latter instance).

I don't really worry about the bullpen per se. That is just random playoff stuff and a cluster of bad luck. Edwin Diaz blew two saves against the Phillies. Devon Williams helped the Brewers lose to the Mets. Emanuel Clase was a CY finalist and an October wreck. They just better be right that Romano is as good as Hoffman

Alvarado is a bit of an overall question mark. I don't think Strahm is. Kerkering is still a work in progress. You could trade Alvarado or Banks or release Ruiz but otherwise those are your 4th-6th guys - and the fourth of them, Alvarado, used to be 1 or 2 - and the 7/8 spots have to be more fungible. Adding another arm at the deadline is pretty much inevitable but doesn't need to happen now.

UnsaltySailor 2024-12-14 12:25:23 UTC #969

The Dodgers are an older team than the Phillies on both sides of the field. They didn't make themselves any younger by signing Snell, Conforto and resigning Treinen.

zambonir 2024-12-14 13:09:37 UTC #970

Yeah you could say the 2018-2019 and 2021-2023 Dodgers weren't teams on the rise either. There might be a lesson there - if not to trade more prospects (obviously LA had more depth) to spend more $.

I think it's too bad Bohm/Crawford/one pitcher wasn't going to be enough to get Tucker (even Bohm/Miller/one pitcher might not have been since Paredes is just younger/cheaper/more controlled).

andyb 2024-12-14 13:42:22 UTC #971

So are you advocating a complete rebuild? The Phillies won 95 games last year. Yes they could have some age related decline. But they also think the core can win 90 as is and with some tinkering they'll be back to 95 (add a LF that can hit, Painter in the 2nd half, etc.).

It may not be an easy goal to reach, but that is the path that they have taken (i.e. built to win now). That does not mean trade all the prospects for Crochet or somebody like that. But it might very well mean tinkering with the weak spots like Rojas' subpar offense.

xyzabc25 2024-12-14 13:44:14 UTC #972

Cody Bellinger

Squire 2024-12-14 13:47:24 UTC #973

I am a believer in the notion that you cannot build a team that you know will succeed in the playoffs. The sample size is too small. The only caveat to that is having a great 1-2-3 rotation and the Phillies have that. I just think that you can build a team that you believe over 162 games will be in the playoffs. Beyond that I don't think you can buy or build your way to prevent a 4-7 game slump at the wrong time. In any event, I am willing to trade basically any prospect other than Painter, Miller and Tait.

zambonir 2024-12-14 13:55:44 UTC #974

I think it's just about how you spend your assets at this point. Free agency vs. off-season trades vs. deadline trades. Though clearly they are also thinking ahead to 2026 in some of the moves they've supposedly explored. But the current team is good enough to make the playoffs. It may or may not be good enough to win the East. It is definitely still all-in. Next year will be a different crossroads. But you can make the case that Dombrowski's generally admirable conservatism about not mortgaging the future has cost them each of the last two post-seasons (could have used both a bat and a relief arm in 2023, could have done better than Austin Hays even if bad luck was involved there).

You do have to think a deal with the Cubs is still the best option for them if they don't want any of the top free agent OFs (which they don't) or a less inspiring pick-up.

andyb 2024-12-14 14:07:48 UTC #975

I am on board with that too. We can't compete financially with the Mets and Dodgers and Yankees but we do compete with everyone else in the next tier. It is no shame to build a very good team that can easily make the playoffs but is not a certainty to win it all in a short series. The 2008-2011 run also featured the worst team in that stretch winning the World Series and progressively better teams failing in earlier rounds.

I think consistently fielding a good team that can get hot and win it all is not the worst strategy. There is so much balance and randomness that it is hard to do much better (as the Dodgers have shown when they have had the best team almost every year). I am not trading Painter and Miller. And I really don't want to trade too many other prospects. I don't want to trade Tait now for the obvious high ceiling reasons, though there is a tiny thought that his profile has so much risk that I would listen to the right deal for a very good player with 3+ years of control.

I kind of like DD's strategy of tinkering now. Like it or not, we want to try to win while Harper, Turner, Wheeler, and Nola are in their prime adjacent years. Not sure they can win, but I definitely want to try without mortgaging the future too much. The riskiest thing DD has done in the past year is probably the Wheeler extension because the amount was so large in AAV. If people here are not complaining about that contract then they should laud DD's current strategy of trying to win now, because that is what that contract was all about.

saycheese 2024-12-14 14:51:29 UTC #976

The notion we can't compete financially with the Dodgers, Yankees or Mets is just plain wrong. We have the second highest payroll in baseball right now. Middleton does spend. Spending money doesn't always equal winning. Maybe Middleton and DD are realizing that spending huge sums of money and locking yourself in long term at too many positions limits your ability to pivot if you need to. Right now they are having issues trying to pivot. Teams know it and they are offering pennies on the dollar for guys like Bohm and insisting upon our very top prospects for mediocre players or players who are free agents after this year. They are smart to decline. As much as having a Kyle Tucker on this team would have been great. Not at the expense of Miller (who is Smith comparable), Tanner Banks or Kerkering (closest I have find to the reliever they got) and either Stott or Bohm (closest to Paredes). For one year.

I will say this. They are going to add to this team. We just have to be patient. Its not going to be a Kyle Tucker type players. More than likely a Austin Hays type. Maybe its Bryan De La Cruz. Maybe its a Joc Pederson type. Could bring back Spencer Turnbull for another year and have him bridge the gap to Painter. Maybe they roll with giving guys like Otto Kemp an opportunity. I continue to say that Mattingly has talked glowingly about him

Next offseason will be the offseason they can pivot much more easily. Schwarber , Realmuto , Alvardo, Strahm and Ramano come off the books. You hope that Painter, Miller and Crawford are ready to assume roles on the team. With the cash and the ability to say move Turner to left field and put Miller at shortstop or put Miller at Third and trade Bohm for prospects. Crawford could solve our CF issue for 10 years.

Oh and if you want a Guerro Jr or Bichette or Tucker you have more than enough money to overpay and "" compete with the Mets, Dodgers and Yankees

allentown 2024-12-14 15:36:22 UTC #977

No, I'm not advocating a complete rebuild. If I were, I would say that explicitly. I do believe that the Phillies have a lower chance of winning this year than last. Last year we were probably the least injured of the contending teams. As noted by another poster above, we also were basically a .500 team in the second half last season. We are down 1 or 2 last two inning relievers. The Phillies are still contenders this year, but what they have on the roster today puts them towards the bottom of the pack of legit contenders. Most of the highly desirable off-season targets are gone or likely not available to us due to budget or our lack of appeal to Japanese players. We can still attempt rebuild on the fly, but this becomes a lot harder and the future is mortgaged if we do what all the off-season chatter suggests and trade prospects and young or middle-career major leaguers for older players and then replace the traded players with fading guys like Arenado replacing Bohm. Bohm was our #2 RBI guy last year. When the team was flying high in the first half of the season, it was Bohm and Schwarber doing the major damage.

allentown 2024-12-14 15:44:38 UTC #978

I think they should try to win now. They should do it by FA signings, not trading young talent to save $. Sign the best FA they can afford. They probably should have kept Hays through at least ST to see how he does when healthy.

Austinfan 2024-12-14 17:58:14 UTC #979

They should reload this year, that is, go with low cost fixes. This is where your scouts earn their money, 2nd tier teams have to do this all the time, Phillies should be able to plug one or two holes by signing enough low cost options. Hoffman is a good example.

You pay scouts and development guys to create value, if they can't do that on a regular basis, fire them and hire better guys. You can't build an entire team this way, but you can build depth around your big money guys.

If Kemp turns out to be a 2B/3B/LF utliity guy who can give you 2 WAR in 400 PA, that fills a lot of holes, the same way Sosa has the last couple years. If they can find a ST invite who can be that RP depth like Ruiz turned out last year . . .

What I don't want is another Castellanos or Walker making $18-20M for 1-2 WAR on their good years.

allentown 2024-12-14 18:03:25 UTC #980

Which fairly accurately describes what I expect Cody Bellinger to be this season.

Callison 2024-12-14 18:21:29 UTC #981

It is such a great idea. Thanks for getting it back on the board in spite of knowledgeable resistance and reluctance elsewhere. First you get Trout on board and let him break the news to the Angels that he wants to come to Philly for as shot at the WS. Maybe his agent can mention a possible holdout to turn the heat up. Then do what you can with the Angels dreaming they are contenders. Trades are never easy and this one may be one of the hardest, but he answers the biggest question facing the Phils for next season and there's no player close to him elsewhere. Please pick up the phone and work the magic, DD. IT COULD HAPPEN! Sign Trout and the lineup looks like the strongest in MLB. Could mean TWO WS. There would be dancing in the streets at the signing. Nearly all I want for Christmas. You folks having trouble dreaming, I'm here for you.