Philly Front Office

It’s no secret that Harrison Bader was a “gift” to the Phillies this year. He was maybe the single best acquisition of any team at the trade deadline and he gave the Phillies something they completely lacked the previous year in the playoffs, irrational confidence. In 2022 and most of 2023, the Phillies ethos was “that sign won’t stop me because I can’t read.” At some point, that got away from them. For years, that’s who Harrison Bader has been. He’s a baseball neanderthal and I want him to stay. How much will it cost to keep him?

An Ideal and Rational Phillies Offseason

Comps

Bader is a 31-year-old true centerfielder about to enter his 10th year in the league. He just wrapped up his 2nd best season but did especially well with the Phillies down the stretch, hitting .305/.361/.463. These are easily career highs but a small sample size. For his career, he is a sub-.250 hitter who doesn’t walk much. Oddly enough, despite not having a track record for a platoon split, over the last 2 seasons and especially with the Phillies, the right hander hits much better against righties. Over the last 4 seasons he has played on 6 different teams and after a rough go with the Mets last year, he signed a 1/$6.25m contract (with a $10m mutual option that he will decline) with the Twins.

What all this tells me is that Phillies fans are overvaluing the hell out of him. For as good as he was, this is not who he is. There was a whole lot of luck involved in his 2nd half run as evidenced by his .415 BABIP with the Phillies. He also struck out a LOT. The hope is that he can be the player he was with the Twins going forward, a slightly above average hitter who plays the hell out of center.

Not surprisingly, there are not a lot of comparable contracts for what Bader is looking for. Why is that not surprising? Because players in their 30s don’t play CF for the most part. The only CFs I can find that signed multi-year, $10m+ contracts at age 31 or above are:

• Gary Matthews Jr (32) – 5/$50m – 2007
• Coco Crisp (35) – 2/$23m – 2015
• Ian Desmond (31) – 5/$70m – 2017
• Lorenzo Cain (31) – 5/$80m – 2018
• Charlie Blackmon (31) – 6/$108m – 2018

Five, that’s it. Desmond, Cain, and Blackmon were all long established stars when they signed their deals but all 3 promptly fell off a cliff shortly after signing their deals. It’s probably Matthews who compares most favorably to Bader. After an up and down career, Matthews parlayed 1 incredibly good season into that big contract and was promptly never a productive player again.

The last two years, do you know what someone like Harrison Bader has received on the open market? 1-year deals of $6.25m and $10.5m, the contracts signed by Harrison Bader.

Kyle Schwarber and his Next Contract

Market

What Bader has going for him is that the free agent crop of CFs this year stinks. There is Cody Bellinger who is going to be looking for $30m+, Trent Grisham who just inexplicably hit 34 HRs, and Bader. If those two go back to the Yankees, Bader won’t be lacking for dance partners.

Money will obviously be the most important thing here, but you have to think Bader liked playing for a contender and wants to play every day. The Phillies can give him both. Other teams in the mix are the Reds, Mets, and the aforementioned Yankees. Of that group, the Yankees have better options and the Mets might not want Bader back. Of course, anyone can enter the mix because no one will be priced out if they don’t want to be.

Contract

Those comparables really do not help very much other than give us a rough ceiling. No one is giving him anywhere close to what Matthews received. At 31.5, Bader will probably be looking for a 3-year deal. Considering how many aging CFs had to settle for 1 and 2 year deals, 3 is the highest he could conceivably get. The high here is $12m per year, but not for 3 years. My best guess is 2/$24m or 3/$30m. There is just no precedent for 31-year-old journeyman CFs getting anything more.

While proofreading, I realized that I made this all sound pretty negative. I am actually all for bringing back Bader. I am not deluded into thinking we are going to get a .300 hitter next season, but we would have a guy who shows up every night and tries his ass off. That has always been his MO. As long as he isn’t getting any more than my prediction above, I want him to stick around with Justin Crawford in left and Kyle Tucker in right.