Phillies Off-Season 2024-2025 (Part 2 including Spring Training)

[andyb]

Prospects are traded all the time. Caba was thought of in the same breadth as Crawford by some evaluators and we traded him for 2 years of a starting pitcher.

We really don't have a bunch of prospects outside of Painter that you can pencil in a lineup and think they are going to be a star. Crawford has flaws (ground balls, no certainty on power, bad routes on defense). Miller has flaws too (slightly older, defensive uncertainty). Prospects might just become decent regulars like Stott and Bohm even if they are successful. If they don't become stars they are tradeable.

[Austinfan]

Caba was 3-4 years away, lots of risk, Crawford is a half to one season away, he's hit at every level and will get his last test in AAA. If Crawford is plus fielder in LF, with his speed, it's unlikely he's not above replacement when ready even if he struggles.

[andyb]

But they were ranked pretty closely by most evaluators.

Everybody but Painter is tradeable in the right deal. Your entire planning is based on plugging in prospects that may or may not succeed. That is just not how baseball works if you are a big market franchise.

[Austinfan]

If you can't find a half dozen cheap starters, you'd better be willing to spend like the Mets.

[andyb]

If you can't find a half dozen cheap starters, you'd better be willing to spend like the Mets.

One can do both. You act as if I don't want prospects to succeed and provide 6-7 years of cost-controlled production. I want that as much as anybody. I just don't overrate our prospects and their chance of success like you do. You are penciling in lots of uncertainty into your lineup.

The best teams usually have a mix of home grown and acquired prospects. Those teams also do a good job of evaluating which of their own players have a chance to succeed. Hopefully we make the right call with Crawford. At the moment though we just don't KNOW that he will succeed. If we think he'll never be more than an average starter then of course he is tradeable, just like Caba.

[zambonir]

I'm not saying I want to trade Crawford but even as this team needs to get younger and has some big decisions to make about Schwarber and JT, they are still all-in for the length of Wheeler's contract, they still don't have any big corner OF bats on the way (and Miller seems more likely to replace Turner than Bohm), and at some point it won't be Dombrowski's problem (even though he has done a good job, IMO, thinking both long and short-term).

If the Phillies need and can get Kyle Tucker in July, for instance, everyone's available (and even more so if he might be re-signable). And yes, they will have to remain financially competitive with the Mets, but they already are. The Mets and Dodgers' spending may leave 20 MLB teams basically out of the picture, but the Phillies aren't one of them.

[jimbomill]

how depressed Castellanos's were by his slow start, and how important Nick actually was to the offense once he got going.

Emotion aside, this is the right observation!

[zambonir]

Bohm's private coach is hoping he can hit 50 doubles and win the batting title. From his mouth....

It sounds like he might have been bothered by the hand injury for at least all of August, and then on August 29 took the swing that hurt him badly enough to go on IL. He didn't feel strong enough again until December 1.

Alec Bohm’s offseason bubble: After a winter without social media — and trade...

there were moments late last season in Kansas City and Washington when Bohm’s outward frustration about a personal failure angered coaches and teammates, according to multiple team sources. This influenced manager Rob Thomson’s rare decision to bench Bohm at a critical moment.

The Phillies could not find a suitable trade. They weren’t upset to keep Bohm, who will not be a free agent until after the 2026 season. It was natural to wonder how he’d react to it all. Bryce Harper said he texted Bohm at various points during the offseason. They share an agent, and Harper had poked around. The rumors were real. He wasn’t going to tell Bohm that. Harper wants Bohm not to feel the weight of everything on his shoulders in 2025. He’s been there; he was emotional — at times, immature — as a younger player.

“We always got your back,” Harper said he texted Bohm. “You know that we all love you in here.”

[dcsman]

I remember one guy cut himself trying to open a CD jewel box.

Thank goodness for streaming. Those jewel boxes were a pain to get open.

[andyb]

ESPN ranks us 3rd. Braves 2nd and Mets 4th though. It is a top heavy division.

MLB season mega-preview: Power Rankings, playoff odds and everything you need...

[zambonir]

I used to have a custom opener tool, kind of like a box cutter but only for CDs.

This is one of those columns where the predictions are not always serious (or at least hyperbolic). Bowden predicts Phillies win NL East, that Painter is in rotation by June 1 due to injury and in the playoff rotation (not sure the latter is possible if the former happens) and that Wheeler wins the Cy.

Plus this:

18. After a strong season with the Cubs, Kyle Tucker signs a 14-year, $604 million contract with the Phillies in free agency. The deal includes significant deferrals.

25 MLB predictions for 2025 season: Vlad Jr. extended? Cease to O’s? Phillies...

[andyb]

Deferrals seems to be the one thing we have not done in free agency. Assume this implies they could get the AAV close to $30 million for Tucker (more like $35 probably). He'll be 29 next year (2 years younger than Turner who got 11 years). Given the positional difference though I can't see Tucker getting more than 11 or 12 years. $400-$450 total range most likely.

This seems another of Bowden's fanciful misreading of the market predictions. Guerrero (2 years younger than Tucker) for 15 years is also a bit much for a guy who'll probably be a DH in 5 years. Just because Soto gets 15 years does not mean everyone does.

[zambonir]

I guess I'm giving Bowden more of the benefit of the doubt here in reading it as a deliberately ridiculous exaggeration, though I guess the deferral part makes it less exaggerated.

Where I reckon he's correct is that there's a pretty good chance the Phillies do sign a new mega-deal FA, maybe even while also bringing back JT and Schwarbs, because the reinforcements to ultimately replace Bohm and Castellanos, or just to fill LF, still aren't really there before Wheeler's deal is up. But, a lot will also depend on how this season goes obviously.

[andyb]

I think they definitely want one more year of knowing how Miller and Crawford fit in before pulling the trigger on that long a deal. Probably more likely we get Tucker in a midseason trade than a 14-year long term deal.

[Philsmania]

Another ST is in the books. Phillies finish 15-13 with a three game win streak.

Just wondering, when do the Phillies travel to DC? Did they travel there yesterday? Today?

[Austinfan]

Depends on both our players and how Tucker looks this season, last year was a big outlier.
He really improved his BB rate and has a low K rate, which bodes well for aging (better than Turner).
But signing him would mean they're letting Schwarber walk ($25M) along with Kepler ($10M).
Move Castellanos to DH and maybe platoon him there for one season.

Tucker is already a below average fielder in RF and won't get better.

[zambonir]

Or they could do it all and get into Mets/Dodgers territory. Unlikely but not impossible. It does make more sense to patch through one more year, possibly, or re-sign Kepler if he's good and then go big after Bohm and Castellanos are gone. But they might want to get ahead of it. Especially since there might not be baseball for a while in 2027.

[andyb]

I doubt labor negotiations have anything to do with their future thinking. The reality is we have zero sure things in the OF after this season. We'll use the time to see what future holes exist and what resources we want to devote. Tucker may well be a fit for this team. Or Crawford and Miller improve to the point where Miller at SS, Turner in LF, and Crawford in CF fills the big holes. We don't know yet. We are prepared to spend money, but always at a level slightly below the Mets and Dodgers and Yankees. But the main goal is to win within those parameters whether it requires a payroll of $250 million or $350 million.

[zambonir]

Well, I'm sure you are right and I assume there will be a World Series in 2027 but if you have reason to believe the labor dispute could get that ugly and you might actually lose more than a little of the last year of Zach Wheeler's career (or at least his contract) that might put a little more urgency on the '26 campaign.

But even if pencil in Crawford and Miller at their likely best this early, you still need a corner OF or corner bat. I suppose '26 could also be Turner in LF, Crawford in CF and Marsh/Castellanos in RF but that still looks like a weak middle of the order to me even if Schwarber is still here (and Bohm hasn't been traded). The only way it isn't is if Nick truly stays a .780-.800 bat or if Crawford unlocks the power.

[Jazzhead]

Tucker's a great player, but isn't worth a contract that dwarfs Harper's. We have been extraordinarily lucky with Harper, who has stayed healthy, stayed hungry, and put his heart into marketing himself and the team. Unless a player is truly extraordinary, and plays a premium position, he should be paid well for three years at a time, no more (e.g., the Red Sox Bregman deal).