Philly Front Office

There were a lot of things we wanted this off season: a left fielder, frontline pitcher, and relievers. The Phillies addressed all three of these needs, but not in the way anyone expected or wanted. People were mad. Yesterday made everyone feel a lot better.

Braves are Cheating and Still Bad

The Braves are having a GREAT start to the year, well great if you are a Phillies fan. They are 0-5 and their big free agent pick up, Jurickson Profar, just tested positive for PEDs. In case you were wondering, the PED in question is called hCG. This is a hormone naturally produced by the placenta during pregnancy that tells the female body to stop menstruating. Was Profar having this problem? Maybe, but probably not. Professional athletes can fail drug tests due to having female hormones because they are often taken to mask whatever substance they are using to cheat. This is what happened to Manny Ramirez back in the day. Maybe hCG has its own benefits, but I am very obviously not a doctor or performatively enhanced.

Profar has been suspended 80 games, which is standard for first time offenders. This also means that he is INELIGIBLE for the playoffs. During this time he is not paid, so 80 games worth of his 3/$42m contract stays with the Braves. No word on how this effects the mandatory donation Braves players are required to give to the Braves charity wing that comes with every contract.¹

Phillies fans wanted Profar. At 3/$42m, this didn’t seem like that much to pay for a guy who walks a lot and doesn’t strike out much, two things our lineup could desperately use. The knock on Profar was that his breakout last year came very oddly during his age 31 season, 12 years after he made his debut as the #1 prospect in baseball. I guess now we know how that happened.

Garrett Crochet Gets PAID

The Phillies had targeted Garrett Crochet from the White Sox both at the trade deadline and the offseason, eventually losing out to the Red Sox who put up the kind of high end prospect (Kyle Teal) the Phillies would not (Andrew Painter and then Aiden Miller). Yesterday Crochet signed a 6/$170m contract.

At first glance, this seems a little low for a Cy Young candidate who is only 25 years old. The $28m AAV puts Crochet 7th among starting pitchers, but well behind the top group that includes Blake Snell, Garrett Cole, and Corbin Burnes who are all over $35m. It puts him more in line with the likes of Jordan Montgomery, Sean Manaea, and Max Fried. Basically the “okay but overpaid” category. Crochet is better than that right? Well, most of those guys were full on free agents when they signed their deals. Crochet still had 2 years of arbitration left. This deal buys out one of those years since the current season had already been agreed to. It is basically a 7 year, $174m deal. He also only has the one year of good performance under his belt. Unlike Profar, there is reason to believe that this is legitimate though.

For their part, the Phillies did not stand pat. They went out and traded for Jesus Luzardo when they could not reel in Crochet. Luzardo only went 5 innings and gave up 2 runs in his debut, but 11 of his 15 outs were by strikeout. He still has his 2 years of arbitration ahead of him. Do not expect him to get extended right away like Crochet.

Max Kepler Impressed the Home Crowd

Instead of Profar, the Phillies spent $10m on 32 year old Max Kepler. Kepler had a few good seasons for Minnesota, but that was years ago now. He has been battling injuries ever since and was not resigned by the Twins. So far, the early returns are good. In his 3 games so far, he has 4 hits and 3 walks with a home run and a double. That will play. He also seems to look comfortable against lefties which was a big concern. I don’t want to jump the gun though. Let’s see how he looks over the next 80 games to see if his production keeps up with Profar.

1. Yes, this is a thing. ↩︎