Are the Phillies Spending Wisely?
As Craig Edwards noted closer to the start of this offseason, the Phillies have a lot of money to spend. Edwards estimated that Philadelphia entered the winter with approximately $70 million in payroll space, trailing only a rebuilding Tigers club that is unlikely to invest as much in its major-league roster as in recent years. While the Phillies have also been in a rebuilding period in recent years, they believe they are on the ascent.
Earlier this offseason, I attempted to better understand when the Phillies might begin to spend and what type of spending might make sense in free agency for the club. While the Phillies are likely to keep significant spending power in reserve until next offseason to court the likes of Bryce Harper and Manny Machado, I thought some buying might make sense this offseason. Namely, this author thought it would behoove the club to target either some of the top free agents under 30 years old (like Tyler Chatwood, for example) and/or to explore two-year deals for talented arms like Michael Pineda and Drew Smyly — that is, pitchers coming off injury who wouldn’t benefit the club much in 2018 but could provide returns in 2019.
I closed with this:
The Phillies likely have their eye on spending next offseason, but there could be some opportunity this winter, too, for a team with about as much spending power as any club. At some point, they’ll need to use it.
Indeed, Philadelphia has started to use it considerable payroll space. They’ve just done it in a curious way.
The Phillies have spent. They have signed three free agents so far this offseason, to deals that guarantee $94 million over the next three seasons. The Phillies have so much payroll space that, if they find opportunity in this market, they should take it — even if they entered the offseason projected to win just 72 games.
But what’s curious is how the Phillies have spent.
Their big-item signing, Carlos Santana, is entering his age-32 season. Pat Neshek turned 37 in September. Tommy Hunter will turn 32 in July.
While some team is likely to surprise us like the Twins did a year ago and while the Phillies are perhaps a candidate to be that team if enough things go right, the odds are still against them in 2018. Even after those three signings, the Phillies project to win 76 games.
Dave Cameron and I each liked Santana entering the offseason, but we each question the fit for the Phillies.
Dave had him as his top free-agent bargain. This author, meanwhile, wrote that Santana was an alternative, and superior option, to Eric Hosmer.
As Dave opined, the deal Santana signed with the Phillies could very well produce value for the club. It’s a weird fit, nevertheless.
But there’s no way around this; the fit in Philly is weird and doesn’t really make sense. Santana is a short-term value, a guy who can help a team win right now, but probably won’t age extremely well. We currently have the Phillies projected for 74 wins. Santana doesn’t push them into playoff position.
And given that they already have Rhys Hoskins at first base and a crowded outfield, it’s not actually clear where Santana is going to play, or if the redistribution of talent to get him in their line-up will be a significant improvement. They could stick Santana at third, I guess, but he was horrible there, and Cleveland pulling the plug on that experiment should be a red flag if that’s the plan.
Neshek was productive a year ago, but he’s at a point in his career where his performance could fall off a cliff. Hunter is intriguing, but his addition might not help the club reach the postseason this coming season or in 2019.
In essence, in these three shorter-team deals — two-year deals for the relievers (Hunter’s contract includes an option) and a three-year deal plus an option for Santana — the Phillies seem to be paying for short-term upgrades that don’t move them close enough to playoff contention to justify the spending.
In 2018, the Phillies will be paying the trio $36.75 million and yet are unlikely to reach the postseason. In 2019, Santana will be 33, Neshek 38, and Hunter 33. Neshek and Hunter could be free agents in 2020.
The Phillies perhaps ought to be spending with a longer-term plan in mind.
Perhaps they could have signed pitchers coming off like injury like Smyly or Pineda, or under-30 free agents. They could have utilized it by “buying” prospects — that is, taking on bad contracts — from the Yankees or Dodgers. With the new luxury-tax threshold acting more like a cap, the Phillies are in a position to make some NBA-style trades, to buy prospects for bad contracts.
Now, as Eno pointed out, maybe the Phillies have a long-term vision in mind.
Perhaps by signing these veterans they add some wins, are more competitive in 2018, and become more appealing to Harper or Machado even if they don’t qualify for the postseason. After all, Harper and Machado are the big prizes they are expected to recruit next winter. If things go south, they could perhaps flip a Neshek or Hunter for young talent.
But they could have added to their appeal by adding younger talent with their payroll space. There are other ways to appeal and pitch to players like Harper and Machado.
The Phillies should begin to flex their financial might, but they perhaps could be doing so in a more efficient manner with a longer-term vision in mind.
A Cleveland native, FanGraphs writer Travis Sawchik is the author of the New York Times bestselling book, Big Data Baseball. He also contributes to The Athletic Cleveland, and has written for the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review, among other outlets. Follow him on Twitter @Travis_Sawchik.
Or, is it possible they’re buying some guys who will be valuable at the deadline to a contender (thus return more talented youth)?
Santana’s bat could fit several contenders with question marks, or if there’s an injury. Relievers are more in demand than ever.
I think they’re still sacrificing this year, will wedge Hoskins into a corner for now, and hope Neshek and Santana have good years so they can flip the team-friendly contracts for younger guys.
Rebuilding teams typically do this with cheap veteran types with upside, but I think the idea here is the same.
And they can use their financial muscle to eat money in return for better prospects, as well.
But the main thing really is that $37m across three players doesn’t mean *shit* to the Phillies.
Are they really team-friendly contracts though? The Phillies aren’t a top free agent destination right now. Chances are they had to outbid the competition to sign both players. The deals seem reasonable, but if they were the highest bidder I don’t know of other teams would consider them team-friendly contracts.
It doesn’t matter if the Phillies have the flexibility to pay down a bigger share of the contract in a deadline deal. They’re essentially paying more in FA to buy prospects at the deadline.
Neshek’s deal is outstandingly team-friendly contract: it’s frontloaded with a $4 million signing bonus, so a team acquiring him in trade will only have to pay $5m a year.
Update: the Santana contract is also front-loaded, with a $10 million bonus.
In lieu of adding actual young talent that will be in their prime in 2-3 years (which barely exists in free agency anyway) adding relievers is a totally defensible way for a rebuilding team to scratch a spending itch. If your reliever is doing well, you can almost always flip him for talent at the deadline. But many teams are looking to sell position players and so the return on many of them is minimal. That goes double for first basemen (Santana).
While taking on bad contracts for talent is ideal for a team like the Phillies, there’s not much evidence that the Yankees or Dodgers (or any other team) were/are willing to do that. Maybe the Marlins.
Hell, the Marlins *ate* a good chunk of Giancarlo’s awful contract to maximize their talent return.
No team in baseball is willing to package talent with a bad contract for salary relief, because doing so is *fucking stupid.*
I don’t know. Is the goal to win games, or just hang out and collect revenue sharing?
While I agree this is not good strategy and is not likely to happen often, this is essentially what happened with the Chase Headley trade (on a small scale) and with Touki Touissant (on a moderate scale).
I mostly just don’t think any team is likely to do this on a scale that would actually help the Phillies.
Mitchell was out of options and wasn’t going to make the 40 man.
And I’m not sure that Dave Stewart having done something contradicts the idea that the strategy in question is “fucking stupid,” haha
The Pirates are. Not that Ramirez and McGuire are likely to come through, but they were talent packaged to trade a contract.
The Marlins did the exact opposite of this. They’re not paying any of Stanton’s contract unless he surprises everyone by not opting out. They certainly could have received a much better return had they been willing to eat more of the contract, but cutting costs was their primary motivation, not improving the return.
https://www.fangraphs.com/blogs/padres-buy-bryan-mitchell-from-yankees/
https://www.fangraphs.com/blogs/pirates-shed-salary-at-the-cost-of-two-prospects/
https://www.fangraphs.com/blogs/touki-toussaint-and-prospect-valuation/
I’m starting to question how likely he is to opt out. He’s only 25M, 26M, 26M per season until his opt out. Is he going to do better than 208M/7yr (25M or 10 buyout/1 team option) for 30-37/38?
The bright side for Stanton is he gets to see how the new CBA rules change the free agent game. Ie: How does JD Martinez/Harper/Machado do?
Didn’t the Yankees just do this with Headley?
The Santana signing somewhat resembles the Ian Desmond to the Rockies deal last year. No positional fit which makes the whole thing puzzling.
Let’s hope they don’t put Santana in CF…
Nonsense. Hoskins was adequate in LF last year; if he can continue to play there for a few years, he becomes a more valuable player. Moving Desmond to 1B meant lowering his value, and moving him to a position he’d never played before.
It may not be a *perfect* fit, but lots of FA signings aren’t, especially if you’re a 95-loss team trying to bring in a big name.
I suppose “adequate” can be stretched to cover someone who was below the league average in both UZR/150 and DRS, and it’s conceivable that Hoskins could get better with more experience given that he had only played three total games in the outfield before his thirty games there with the Phillies, but you’re out on a somewhat precarious limb there. I would not be willing to make that bet, especially given that Hoskins has always been viewed as a below average athlete.
I suspect these signings give them flexibility. They can either hold these guys if they are competitive, or flip them at the trade deadline from teams. For better or worse, teams have seemed to be hesitant to pay much at the trade deadlines for pure 3-month rentals. That might be the lesson they learned from the Jeremy Hellickson experience over the last 2 years. For example, having Hunter available for 1.5 years remaining might become an attractive asset if he retains his performance gains from last year.
Yeah I tend to agree with this article. While Philly spending some money isn’t surprising since it can help lure some FAs for next yr, and build some buzz with the fan base. Where they have spent it is what doesn’t make sense.
Maybe they can flip the relievers at the deadline this year or next, but Santana will be tougher to trade since it’s a bigger commitment and few teams need 1B.
Santana makes sense as a strong veteran presence in the clubhouse and in the batting cage for a young corps of hitters. Plus, some Phils scouts see Hoskins as a better OF than 1B. If Hoskins plays LF then the Phils can trade Herrera as part of a package to get a starting pitcher, put Altherr in CF and keep Williams in RF. (Or trade Williams and keep Herrera.) I have no problem with how they’re spending their money. A few more wins this year will encourage a loyal fan base and attract better free agents. At least they’re not sitting around biding their time.
I don’t think Altherr in CF, next to Hoskins in LF, would be tenable. If someone goes, it’ll be Williams or Altherr.
Not that anyone needs to; five players for four starting jobs is not some kind of a logjam.
He’s not a great defender anywhere and he wasn’t a complete disaster in left field, but according to the numbers he has less range than Kyle Schwarber.
I hear you Travis, but I really don’t buy that the alternatives you outlined are any better. You mention:
*Smyly/Pineda – good ideas and worthy of the gamble contracts they received, but I’d rather have Neshek/Hunter for only a little more $. They can actually help the Phillies win this year and can be flipped at the deadline if nice offers come in.
*Tyler Chatwood – still not sure why everyone assumes this guy will get better. He has a 4.30 ERA over the last 2yrs and over that time actually has a lower xFIP at Coors than on the road.
*take on bad contracts for prospects – again a good idea, but I’ll believe in it when I actually see the NYY & LAD give away good prospects. Not sure how realistic it is.
Also, their 3 signings pushed them up to a projected 76 wins. I think it’s really important that they try to at least be decent this year. If they only win 66 games again next year why would Harper or Machado want to join that? They will absolutely have comparable offers from good teams.
It’s a weak division.
If the Marlins move more talent the Phils might hit 80 wins and look decent-ish.
If mets pitching keeps getting hurt they might have a shot at a (distant) second place finish. 🙂
They’re buying hope.
Articles like this are frustrating to read because they start with the premise that if you aren’t going to make the playoffs (or are sufficiently close on the win curve) there is no point in putting a better product on the field. There are a lot of reasons why fielding a better baseball team has advantages, even if the projection systems only has them at 78 wins.
And quoting Cameron’s article that says “it’s not actually clear where Santana is going to play” is both lazy and flat out wrong. It’s already been widely reported that Santana is going to play 1B and Hoskins is moving to LF. That paragraph was wrong when it was written and to use it now is even worse.
I think it’s about time writers get their stories inline with the current times. Why would the Phillies go after Tyler Chatwood when he signed with the Chicago Cubs 12 days ago. Now that “wouldn’t” be spending wisely! Nor is this wise writing for an article. Research your players mentioned about making a deal to acquire, before writing about how good it would be if ……… would sign (or trade for) ……..
Except that nowhere is Travis saying that these are things that the Phillies should be doing *today* – rather, they are moves that the team should have made earlier, when they had the chance, hence the use of the words “could have”.
Based on the fact that FanGraphs has posted an article about every single signing this winter as far as I can tell, I would hazard to guess that Travis and the rest of the authors are at least vaguely aware that Chatwood, Pineda, etc. are no longer available.
I think it’s about time Commenters read the story accurately before making ignorant accusations…
“Perhaps they could have signed pitchers coming off like injury like Smyly or Pineda…’
Their 40 man is jammed full due to a surplus of legitimate, if not high-end, prospects. They will have a lot more to protect in next year’s rule 5, as well. They don’t have the roster flexibility to give that roster spot away for this offseason and next.
“…or under-30 free agents.”
Other than Chatwood, there were no under-30 free agents that represented a significant long-term upgrade. This is a team that is swimming in 22-27 year old potential back-end starters. They need frontline guys, which is why they’ve been looking into trades for Stroman/Archer/Duffy/etc. Bringing in a 28-year old that’s going to post a 4.50 ERA while taking away opportunity from a younger guy would be worse than useless, it would be counterproductive.
“They could have utilized it by “buying” prospects — that is, taking on bad contracts — from the Yankees or Dodgers.”
The Dodgers-Braves swap was in the works for over a month, so no, that likely wasn’t possible. And the Padres got one low-end prospect for agreeing to take Chase Headley … not bad, but again, they have craploads of low-end prospects.
Seems like as long as they’re acquiring surplus value they should be able to trade it to a team that listens a little too much to Dave, and acquire something useful to them.
I’m pretty sure they thought that in the worst case scenario, they’d be able to flip Santana to Dombrowski at the deadline.
Agree with Travis “fit in Philly is weird and doesn’t really make sense” especially now that Hoskins must move to OF. If PHL was going to spend $60M for 3-years of past-prime Santana, even Ozuna would have made more sense & PHL could have put better package together than STL did. Now that Santana is here and Yelich & Realmuto want out, I’m not sold on future strike zone judgment of Williams or Alfaro in lineup that already has Franco’s AB approach. How about Hernandez, Williams, Altherr, Alfaro & Knapp for Yelich & Realmuto.
“perhaps…perhaps…Perhaps…Perhaps…perhaps…perhaps…”
Hmmm…perhaps, Travis. Perhaps.
So, you write an article about spending without discussing the details of the contracts given to Santana, Hunter and Neshek?
All three contracts were front-loaded. Once bonuses get paid out, all three of the newly signed players will be getting paid below market value. Notably, Santana will average $16.5MM per season after he gets his $10MM bonus. If the Phillies aren’t ready to take a step, then they could easily flip any of the three players as they’ll be earning figures below their market values.
I’ll reiterate that you and Cameron should have done more research about Santana’s fit positionally–he’s clearly a 1B. Hoskins slides to LF, where the Phillies were comfortable playing him last season.
One last bit, why didn’t you pay any attention to positions with breakout potential? Historically, Hernandez and Herrera have been high BABIP hitters. Projections fail to account for this trend and show regression in both players next season. It’s possible that the two continue to improve, though. Aside from one terrible month, Herrera was a 130 wRC+ player. Hernandez, too, showed ability to improve on his production over a full season. If he stays healthy for once, Altherr will provide good value at corner OF. Finally, it’s likely that the Phillies acquire pitching via trade and UFA market. Taking small breakouts and starting pitching acquisitions into account, how many wins seem reasonable–80+?
Front-loading contracts is always a bad move for a major league organization because they’re not gaining any interest on the extra money included early, and teams always have the option of paying part of the remaining contract in future trades if they want to. The only reason teams ever front-load contracts is if they can’t get the player to sign without doing it.
Hoskins had never played a professional game in the outfield until August 7th, and while he was not a disaster there in the major leagues, the early numbers suggest that he was below average. It takes a while for defensive numbers to stabilize, so maybe he’s better than that and maybe he will improve with experience, but he’s not Cody Bellinger, who scouts always viewed as an above average athlete. Hoskins had always been described as a below average athlete by major league standards, and now the Phillies are locked into hoping that he can survive out there. It’s entirely possible that this will work out beautifully for them, but any reasonable person should be able to understand why Travis and Dave view it as risky.
I think you missed my point on front-loading. Your comments are tangential.
Hoskins is also below average at first. LF at CBP is not as demanding as it can be in other parks. It also helps to have Herrera and Altherr at CF and RF, both above average fielders.
Signing Santana improves defense at 1B and makes the team better at hitting overall.
Not at all. Your suggestion was that front-loading contracts makes those players more appealing in trades later on, but that would only be true if teams didn’t have the option to pay down part of the contract of the traded player. So front-loading the contracts has no benefit at all to the Phillies and is actually a detriment given that present money is more valuable than future money, but Philadelphia presumably had to cave on that in order to get the players to sign there.
That’s fair, but half of his games will be played in other parks and I would be concerned about the wear of playing 140+ games in the outfield for someone who had never done so professionally before last August.
Sure, but he’ll turn 32 around the start of next season and the Phillies aren’t quite yet ready to contend. It was a weird signing.
The benefit to front-loading is signing a player who otherwise might not consider the team. The Phillies have more flexibility than the average MLB team to spend in the short term. You conveniently ignore this.
Why you are you so convinced that the Phillies aren’t ready to contend at any point during Santana’s contract? The off-season isn’t over yet. If the Phillies acquire Stroman and sign Lynn or Cobb, they’d be well positioned to compete.
The Phillies had money to spend and saw opportunities to improve their team. What would be the advantage of losing 90 or 100 games again? An outside shot at the playoffs is better than giving up before the season starts.