Twins Sign Bell, Phillies Sign García, Because Nobody Learns From Others’ Mistakes

On Monday morning, the Twins signed Josh Bell to a one-year contract with a mutual option for 2027. Between salary, signing bonus, and option buyout, the deal guarantees Bell $7 million. A couple hours later, the Phillies and outfielder Adolis García agreed to terms on a one-year, $10 million contract.

Look around whatever room you’re sitting in as you read this. Consider the material of the walls, the furniture, whatever appliances (if any) are in view. The carpet, or wood or laminate or tile of the floor. Pens and pencils, soap, hand lotion, power cables, books, magazines, children’s toys… whatever you can see, you know what it’d feel like and taste like if you licked it.

That’s from experience. At some point in your life, you put everything you encountered in your mouth, just to see what would happen. If you’ve ever raised a child, or met a child, or been a child, you know kids are always putting stuff in their mouths. You know equally well that kids aren’t supposed to do that. They could choke, or get sick, or otherwise come to harm by licking the sidewalk.

But they do it anyway, no matter how forcefully their parents remind them not to. There’s only one way to know for sure what the TV remote tastes like, and it’s too important an issue to take anyone else’s word for it.

When these signings dropped, I felt the resigned annoyance of a parent watching their preschooler grab a mouthful of crayon. I was a kid once, I’ve eaten crayons, I know they’re not good. But I guess everyone has to find out for themselves.

I’ve come to realize that major league GMs feel the same way about Bell. This is the big Texan’s seventh organization since 2020, including two stints with the Nationals. In that time, I’ve written about Bell frequently, because he’s a cool and unusual player with a tantalizing combination of skills.

Bell is listed at 6-foot-3, 261 pounds, and having been up close with him in postgame scrums before, I simply don’t believe those numbers. He is huge. So huge I don’t trust any dimensions that show a height and weight, rather than beam and displacement. He’s one trip to Golden Corral from being big enough to play offensive guard in the NFL.

Accordingly, Bell can really lay into one. Last season, he was 20th among qualified hitters in EV90, at 108.0 mph. In the 2020s, he has 61 batted balls with an exit velo of 110 mph or more, tied for 43rd in baseball. And yet this Nimitz-class man, with his bat full of thunderous vengeance, has a league-average overall whiff rate and genuinely plus bat-to-ball skills.

Taking out the 2020 season, which was a rough one for Bell, he has played in nine major league seasons. On only one occasion has he posted a single-digit walk rate, and on only one occasion has he posted a strikeout rate of 20% or higher. He’s not going up there like Happy Gilmore; this is a hitter with an unusual combination of physical strength, hand-eye coordination, and tactical nuance. If he ever puts it all together, he’s going to be a top-10 hitter in baseball.

That’s why a quarter of the league has tried to get into the Josh Bell business. It’s why I keep squinting to try to find the moment it’s all going to click. Also, Bell likes kittens and wants kids to read more books; he’s very easy to root for.

However, the man is 33 years old, a veteran of a decade and more than 5,000 plate appearances in the majors, and it hasn’t happened except in spurts. The best of those spurts was the first half of the 2022 season with the Nationals. Bell will go down as a historical footnote, the guy who got traded to the Padres alongside Juan Soto, but at the time the deal was made, Bell was matching his more famous teammate’s offensive production.

But Bell struggled after the trade, slugging just .271 in the last 53 games of the season. His full-season wRC+ marks in the three years since have been 104, 101, and 107. With the exception of 2020, Bell has never been a below-average hitter over the course of a full season, but it’s been some time since he was significantly above average.

That’s a problem, because I’ve compared Bell to a ship twice already, and he accelerates like one too. He was the least valuable baserunner in the league among qualified hitters in 2025; for context, the other three guys in the bottom four were Alejandro Kirk, Rafael Devers, and Pete Alonso. Bell is also a very poor defensive first baseman, so much so that he’s now best understood as that synonym for poor defensive first baseman: designated hitter.

That puts tons of pressure on the bat, and an average-ish hitter who has to DH usually ends up within a couple tenths of replacement level, as Bell has done the past few seasons.

With that said, this signing is fine for the Twins for four reasons.

First, Minnesota kind of punted on running a competitive baseball team back in July. Steamer projects that the difference between Bell and Alonso in 2026 is going to be about two wins. (I’m not implying Steamer has the gift of exact prophecy or anything, I just need a number to work with. If you think the difference will be one win, or four, or more, the following point stands.) That’s more likely to be the difference between 70 and 72 wins than the difference between 87 and 89. The Twins are also not currently within $120 million of hitting the first luxury tax apron; they have the money to spend.

Which leads into reason no. 2: It’s $7 million for one year. Who cares? Especially because of the way the deal is structured, with $1.25 million due as an option buyout. Enter reason no. 3: The Iron Law of Josh Bell is that someone will always want to trade for him at the deadline, and there are 23 teams who haven’t licked him yet. Whoever the next guy is who thinks he can get Bell to put it all together will be on the hook for that buyout as well.

But then there’s the fourth reason this signing works for the Twins: Bell changed his swing in 2025. He’s putting in more fast swings from both sides of the plate, adding bat speed, meeting the ball out in front more. Those are the kinds of adjustments that helped Geraldo Perdomo, another guy I write about all the time, go from a utilityman to an MVP candidate.

Ah, crap, here I am talking myself into believing in Bell again. I can’t help it! See how easy it is to fall back into old patterns?

On the other hand, I am not going to talk myself into believing in García again. He’s another guy I’ve written about a lot over the years, starting in February 2023, with an article titled, “In Which I Talk Myself Into Adolis García.”

García was the one pretty OK player on some pretty awful Rangers teams, with an offensive profile I usually run away from as fast as my little legs will carry me. Here’s what I wrote in that article:

García has what is usually a lethal combination for hitters: He doesn’t draw walks, he chases tons of pitches outside the zone, and he has a rock-bottom contact rate. In 2022, he was in the 21st percentile for walk rate, ninth percentile for chase rate, and eighth percentile for whiff rate. That shouldn’t be survivable, particularly for someone who isn’t… well, a pitcher, usually, but at least a shortstop or catcher.

Then something amazing happened: Out of nowhere, García developed decent plate discipline. He hit 39 home runs with a 10.3% walk rate and cobbled together 4.7 WAR and a 128 wRC+, both career highs. Once a pretty OK player on an awful team, García was a core component of a World Series champion.

The Phillies have needed some right-handed punch, especially in the outfield, for ages. Their two best hitters are Bryce Harper and Kyle Schwarber, with Bryson Stott and Brandon Marsh as key supporting pieces in the bottom of the lineup. The intended counterbalances to that quartet have disappointed. Trea Turner has been good on the whole, but J.T. Realmuto has shown the physical effects of catching 5,000 innings a year for a decade. Alec Bohm has been OK on balance, but not good enough to hit cleanup on a World Series contender.

That was supposed to be Nick Castellanos’ job, but Castellanos is coming off an annus horribilis in 2025. He finished with -0.6 WAR and ended the year no longer on speaking terms with his manager. Actually, I don’t know if I can call 2025 an annus horribilis for Castellanos, because every annus of his Phillies tenure was horribil in some fashion or other. The worst-kept secret in baseball is that the Phillies are going to cut their longtime starting right fielder this winter unless they can find a trade partner to eat some of the remaining $20 million left on his contract.

Which they won’t, because, again, it’s the worst-kept secret in baseball that Castellanos is going to be available for free pretty soon. When Phillies president of baseball ops Dave Dombrowski officially announced the García signing on Tuesday, he didn’t bother with the pretense of mentioning Castellanos.

Phillies plan to move forward with this current outfield group, Dave Dombrowski said: Brandon Marsh/A RHB in LFJustin Crawford in CFAdolis García in RF

— Matt Gelb (@mattgelb.bsky.social) 2025-12-16T17:29:11.005Z

The first Phillies outfield of this run — Schwarber in left, Marsh in center, Castellanos in right — was truly awful defensively. The 2026 version should be pretty good in that respect. Marsh, stretched in center, is a very good defender in a corner. The same is true of García, who had truly abominable defensive numbers in 2024, but seems to have rebounded to average or better in 2025. There are significant questions about the rookie Justin Crawford’s defensive polish, but he’s a 70 runner and deserves a chance to prove himself.

I’ve seen some criticism of the Phillies’ new outfield alignment, but I think two thirds of it is fine. Crawford is a bit of an odd hitter, with a groundball rate that might not be survivable in the majors, but he’s also a former first-round pick who hit .334/.411/.452 as a 21-year-old in Triple-A in 2025. You have to give that guy a shot at some point. Marsh has been a consistent 2-plus WAR player during his time in Philadelphia. Even if you have to platoon him, he hit .300/.356/.482 against righties in 2025, and the Phillies have options for the short end of the platoon: Otto Kemp, Weston Wilson, maybe AFL breakout star Dylan Campbell once the season gets going. And if those guys can’t hack it, I dunno, Rob Refsnyder or whoever should be available on the cheap. That’s an easy problem to solve.

I am substantially less sold on García, whose skill set and batting side have made him a popular point of trade conjecture for the Phillies since he was actually good. Because he’s not anymore.

“Substantially less sold” is a softer rephrasing of my initial reaction to this transaction, which was that the Phillies would’ve been better off throwing $10 million into the Delaware River than spending it on García.

As good as García was in 2023, the decline since then has been precipitous.

The 39-homer power of 2023 was 19-homer power in 2025. At the same time, he’s hemorrhaged bat speed over the past three seasons, while still running chase and whiff rates in the 30s, placing him in the 10th and 15th percentiles, respectively, in those two stats in 2025.

Or how about this for some context: García vs. Castellanos over the past two seasons.

The Phillies have been hamstrung over the past four seasons by their aging right fielder, who swings at everything and doesn’t hit for enough power to break even offensively. They’re weeks away from throwing $20 million in the sunk cost pile to get rid of him. And to replace him, they’ve spent $10 million on an aging right fielder who swings at everything and doesn’t hit for enough power to break even offensively. At least this one is a decent defender.

The García of 2023 would be a steal for $10 million, and exactly what the doctor ordered for the Phillies. But that guy disappeared in a fashion that is consistent with irreversible age-related skill erosion. Unless the Phillies get their hands one some magical elixir, that guy isn’t coming back.

If the Phillies do realize this, and seek outside help for right field, García isn’t even an ideal right-handed platoon partner for Marsh. His platoon splits have tended to be small, inconsistent, or even reversed throughout his career. There’s not really much to be gained by hiding him in a reduced role, if it comes to that.

Ultimately, this is a missed opportunity for the Phillies, whose financial resources are vast but limited. There are much cheaper ways to get replacement-level production from right field, and $10 million spent on García would be put to better use shoring up the team elsewhere. More than that, this was a chance to alter the composition of the lineup, to at least get a radically different type of bad right fielder. Instead, the Phillies are likely in for a lot more ugly strikeouts with a befuddled-looking Harper standing on second base.

It’s frustrating to watch a team make such an avoidable mistake. But sometimes there’s nothing to do but sit back and watch. They have to learn this lesson for themselves.