Philly Front Office

While the NBA and NFL Fred Flintstone free agency, riding down a dinosaur of contract negotiations within seconds of the whistle, Major League Baseball is more like a school dance. Players and owners put on their best clothes and go with their agent and GM friends to the league scheduled Winter Meetings only to immediately start talking to their media friends who pass around notes to see if they like each other. Eventually the agents and GMs will take their friends built up courage and ask the other if their friend wants to dance, more notes will be passed, and then, if the mood is just right, the player and the owner get off their chair, get close together, look into each other eyes and kiss…err sign a contract.

Max Fried is a Yankees – After getting taken for a ride on Soto, the Yankees overcompensate by handing out the largest and longest contract for a lefty free agent ever. $218m over 8 years was a LOT more than anyone was predicting for Fried. Corbin Burnes is feeling VERY good this morning. Fried is a solid pitcher, but not someone I was ever afraid of on the Braves. Still, I am happy he is out of Atlanta. I am sure they will do something to add pitching on a reasonable and infuriating salary, but at least for today they are a worse team.

Miami Sells Burger – Jake Burger looks and plays like a mid 40s softball player, but has somehow not reached arbitration yet. Despite the control, the Marlins have a strict policy against keeping any likable players for too long. Obviously having a cheap, masher with a fun name like Burger was not something they were interested in. They received young prospects in the deal and have absolutely no one on the roster with any name recognition outside of Sandy Alcantara and Eury Perez. Expect Alcantara to be moved this season once he’s back to dealing.

Nationals Win Draft Lottery – From the lottery to the picks themselves, the MLB Draft is VERY strange. After being limited to #10 the previous year because Washington DC is big and they picked #2 the year before, the Nationals won the lottery. There is no [looks into the camera] “home run” selection this year apparently. Still, the Nationals already have #1 prospect Dylan Crews ready to terrorize us and I would prefer it if he did not have a partner.

The Marlins had the best odds in the lottery but failed miserably in their ping-pong-pickability and will be selecting 7th. The Phillies are slated to pick 26th, but this could move depending on what happens in free agency.

Rumors –

• Dylan Cease Available: He is not coming to the Phillies in all likelihood, but he does add another name to the pitching carousel. The Padres owner died a year ago and without a good TV deal, the team is on a much leaner budget. Spotrac has him projected for a $13m salary this year. That’s not crazy, but with no hope of resigning him, the Padres will trade him like they did Soto last year. This could be an indication that they feel confident about signing Roki Sasaki. Why do we care? The Mets make a lot of sense for Cease. I hate to say it, but expect them to get at least one of Cease, Burnes, or Crochet.
• Nolan Arenado has a list: Guys with no-trade protection have the power to dictate their next team. Arenado listed the Phillies, Angels, Mets, Padres, Red Sox, and Yankees as his desired locations. He will be 34, has a declining but league average bat, and still plays solid defense at 3rd. The contract is partly paid by the Rockies (what a dumbass fucking trade that was, wtf) coming with a bill of $64m over the next 3 years. They are going to have to eat a lot of that money to trade him.
• Phillies on Croch-Watch – Garrett Crochet wants out of Chicago and the White Sox are going to move him. Media outlets are reporting that the Phillies are now less motivated than they were at the trade deadline and other teams (like the Mets) are apparently all of a sudden interested. Rob Thompson even called Alec Bohm to tell him he shouldn’t be worried about a trade to the worst team ever. I could be wrong but my read on this is that Chicago wants Aiden Miller and the Phillies don’t want to give him up. Everything else is posturing to make this happen or not happen. This is the pivot point of the whole off season for the Phillies.
• Kyle Tucker and the Astros Might Break Up – The Astros do not want to give him the $400m contract he is going to get next year. Tucker is very good and every team should want him. However, this is a deal theoretically for the spenders only. This is apparently picking up steam as of this morning and could change that whole Phillies “pivot point” nonsense I wrote way back in the previous paragraph.

What is up today? – The Rule 5 Draft unofficially closes out the Winter Meetings each year. This is where prospects of yesteryear and late bloomers are potentially plucked from the system and will remain with their plucking team if they stay the season on the MLB roster. These selections don’t often come back to bite teams but has unearthed some gems. We’ll probably talk more about this tomorrow.

One more day in Texas!