Philly Front Office

I should have seen this coming. The Padres are not adding salary and there hasn’t been a single rumor floating around about Jurickson Profar. Naturally, the Braves swooped in and gave him a completely reasonable contract of 3 years and $42m.

The Braves absolutely needed to sign him. As much as everyone wants to believe there is an everyday player within Jarred Kelenic, there isn’t. With Ronald Acuna out until around June, Atlanta was looking at Kelenic in left, Bryan de la Cruz in right, and a platoon once Acuna was ready. de la Cruz was one of the worst players in baseball last season with a -1.5 bWAR. That just wasn’t going to fly for a team looking to get back to the World Series. Now instead of that crapfest (that I was really looking forward to), the Braves can run out Jurickson Profar and his .839 OPS last year.

To say Profar has had a strange career is an understatement. He debuted at 19 as the #1 prospect in baseball with Texas. It didn’t work out. Over his next 12 years he has had 3 good seasons, none consecutively, and some real stinkers. However, at 31 years old last year, he just had his best season. Everything was off the charts from his career norms, including all 3 parts of his triple slash line showing career highs: .280/.380/.459. His calling card is his patience. He works counts, walks, and doesn’t swing and miss too much. It should be noted that Profar has consistently changed teams in his career but has only succeeded with the Padres. It is certainly on the table that he falls off a cliff this season.

For argument’s sake, let’s ignore the strong likelihood that this will work out better for the Braves than it would have for the Phillies (for example, Whit f’n Merrifield). Both teams were in pretty desperate need of corner outfield help. The Phillies in particular were very much in need of patient corner outfield help, which is exactly what Profar brings to the table. To fix their problem, the Phillies signed Max Kepler to a 1 year, $10m deal. I kind of defended the deal because it compared favorably to other outfield deals like Michael Conforto (1 year, $17m). This changes all that. Profar is better than both these guys and at $14m AAV, he is right in the middle of the two. The $4m difference would have brought a huge upgrade.

Interestingly, the numbers on the Anthony Santander contract just came out. Despite being labeled a 5 year $92.5m contract, the contract comes with a Dodgers-ian $61m in deferrals (with opt-outs). This takes it’s present value for tax purposes down to $13.7m. That’s even less!!! Santander isn’t nearly as patient as Profar, but 44 homers is 44 homers.

Of course, timing is everything. Seeing Conforto’s deal, I’m sure the Phillies thought the outfield market was going to balloon and wanted to act quickly on Kepler. I don’t think it was the right move, but there could be other factors involved here. Maybe the Phillies were only looking to give out 1-year deals? Maybe they just didn’t want a whiner who doesn’t know how to check his swing on the team? Unfortunately, this does fill the biggest hole for one of our biggest rivals who always seem to make the right move.

(all reporting via MLBTraderumors.com and all statistics via baseball-reference.com)