It's obviously time to get rid of Odubel, he wouldn't want to play for an owner like Meddleton.

phillychuck wrote:

SCPhillyPhan wrote:

Shore wrote:If we're dumpster-diving at this point, I'd take a flier on Zack Cozart once he clears. Traded from LAA to SF, now DFA'd.

For $3M, so would I. But he'll give us the same numbers as Franco.

In 2017 he was an MVP candidate. He was replacement level in 2018, worse in 2019. Has a lingering shoulder issue. I'd love to see him bounce back, but I think he's cooked due to the injury.

I think he's probably cooked, too. But I'd like to get 4-5 guys like him, both hitters and pitchers, and be proven wrong once or twice. I wouldn't promise him anything.

it's only the 26th man, right??

Bucky wrote:it's only the 26th man, right??

I think we're a long way from the team that gave Delmon Young, Ben Revere, Michael Young, John Mayberry, Keven Frandsen, Freddy Galvis, Erik Kratz, Cody Asche, and Laynce Nix about 2,500 PA. And tried to foist Yuniesky Betancourt on us

Herrera has less than 5 years of service time and options remaining, so if the Phillies really intended to keep him, they would've just optioned him to the minors. Pretty sure this is just a last ditch effort to see if anyone will take the rest of his contract.

Eickhoff to the Padres ... minor league deal + ST invite

The Joe Posnanaki article on the Athletic re Robin Roberts is awesome. Ranked as 77th best player ever. Really well done

The Joe Posnanaki article on the Athletic re Robin Roberts is awesome. Ranked as 77th best player ever. Really well done

Trent Steele wrote:The Joe Posnanaki article on the Athletic re Robin Roberts is awesome. Ranked as 77th best player ever. Really well done

I love Posnanski's podcast - The Poscast with Brooklyn 99 and Good Place creator Mike Schur.

Odubel has cleared waivers and has been outrighted to AAA per Zo.

Polar Bear Phan wrote:Herrera has less than 5 years of service time and options remaining, so if the Phillies really intended to keep him, they would've just optioned him to the minors. Pretty sure this is just a last ditch effort to see if anyone will take the rest of his contract.

This takes him off the 40-man roster. No one was going to claim him. Smart move for the Phils.

Wonder if this makes a buyout any more likely.

I was told some team was def going to trade for him, I don't believe in anything anymore

WhiteyFan wrote:

Polar Bear Phan wrote:Herrera has less than 5 years of service time and options remaining, so if the Phillies really intended to keep him, they would've just optioned him to the minors. Pretty sure this is just a last ditch effort to see if anyone will take the rest of his contract.

This takes him off the 40-man roster. No one was going to claim him. Smart move for the Phils.

It is, although I still doubt he makes the trip north after minor league spring training.

I found another dude I'd give a shot to - Scooter Gennett. He hit .303 with an .859 OPS and 50 HR between 2017 and 2018, then got hurt and shit the bed in 2019. It appears he's not going to get a major league deal, so if he's anywhere near healthy, I'd give him a shot at re-finding his swing.

Shore wrote:I found another dude I'd give a shot to - Scooter Gennett. He hit .303 with an .859 OPS and 50 HR between 2017 and 2018, then got hurt and shit the bed in 2019. It appears he's not going to get a major league deal, so if he's anywhere near healthy, I'd give him a shot at re-finding his swing.

Every baseball team needs someone named Scooter. He doesn't appear to be particularly fast, though, so I'm a little disturbed thinking about how he got his nickname.

swishnicholson wrote:

Shore wrote:I found another dude I'd give a shot to - Scooter Gennett. He hit .303 with an .859 OPS and 50 HR between 2017 and 2018, then got hurt and shit the bed in 2019. It appears he's not going to get a major league deal, so if he's anywhere near healthy, I'd give him a shot at re-finding his swing.

Every baseball team needs someone named Scooter. He doesn't appear to be particularly fast, though, so I'm a little disturbed thinking about how he got his nickname.

Anal sac inflammation. Need to be expressed weekly so it's difficult to find a major league training staff willing to comply.

Shore wrote:I found another dude I'd give a shot to - Scooter Gennett. He hit .303 with an .859 OPS and 50 HR between 2017 and 2018, then got hurt and shit the bed in 2019. It appears he's not going to get a major league deal, so if he's anywhere near healthy, I'd give him a shot at re-finding his swing.

I'm on board.

Shore wrote:I found another dude I'd give a shot to - Scooter Gennett. He hit .303 with an .859 OPS and 50 HR between 2017 and 2018, then got hurt and #$!&@ the bed in 2019. It appears he's not going to get a major league deal, so if he's anywhere near healthy, I'd give him a shot at re-finding his swing.

i like your brainstorming along these lines, though i'm more interested taking a gamble on pitchers than hitters. i just spent some time estimating how much we can afford to pay for such lottery tickets...

lasttrain hasn't updated his payroll spreadsheet since the arbitration cutoff day last week, but when he does the phils will have saved an extra $800 thousand on morgan, vv, alvarez, and eflin, relative to the spreadsheet figures. if they insist on being safe with the cap, any spending they do between now an the result of the jtr and neris arbitrations should count losing and going a total of $2.05 million over the spreadsheet for those two. [i would just give them each what they asked for to encourage good will in later contract negotiations and eliminate uncertainty] deducting the saving on the other arb guys gives a net payroll increase of $1.25million, bringing the spreadsheet total to around $203.58million, or about $4.42 million under the cap.

however, the spreadsheet also has three roster spots filling by mlb minimum salary players owed $566.1million each, meaning that we actually have a total of around $6.1million to spend on those three positions without incurring cap penalties. that is more than enough for one or two players like the ones you are suggesting, since i expect it would take $2-5 million to get each. the phuturephillies and spotrac.com payroll estimates are at most $1million higher, and lead to the same conclusion.

moral of the story: i'll be disappointed if the phils don't do something of the sort. i don't see a good reason not to do so that outweighs the importance of shoring [ha!] up the back of the rotation and the bench so that we don't have to rush howard and bohm. this is especially true now that we know that realmuto hasn't submitted a huge arbitration figure that he would be all to likely to win, and also that no one will be doing us the favor enabling a bigger move by taking odubel and his salary off our hands this offseason.

phorever wrote:

Shore wrote:I found another dude I'd give a shot to - Scooter Gennett. He hit .303 with an .859 OPS and 50 HR between 2017 and 2018, then got hurt and #$!&@ the bed in 2019. It appears he's not going to get a major league deal, so if he's anywhere near healthy, I'd give him a shot at re-finding his swing.

i like your brainstorming along these lines, though i'm more interested taking a gamble on pitchers than hitters. i just spent some time estimating how much we can afford to pay for such lottery tickets...

lasttrain hasn't updated his payroll spreadsheet since the arbitration cutoff day last week, but when he does the phils will have saved an extra $800 thousand on morgan, vv, alvarez, and eflin, relative to the spreadsheet figures. if they insist on being safe with the cap, any spending they do between now an the result of the jtr and neris arbitrations should count losing and going a total of $2.05 million over the spreadsheet for those two. [i would just give them each what they asked for to encourage good will in later contract negotiations and eliminate uncertainty] deducting the saving on the other arb guys gives a net payroll increase of $1.25million, bringing the spreadsheet total to around $203.58million, or about $4.42 million under the cap.

however, the spreadsheet also has three roster spots filling by mlb minimum salary players owed $566.1million each, meaning that we actually have a total of around $6.1million to spend on those three positions without incurring cap penalties. that is more than enough for one or two players like the ones you are suggesting, since i expect it would take $2-5 million to get each. the phuturephillies and spotrac.com payroll estimates are at most $1million higher, and lead to the same conclusion.

moral of the story: i'll be disappointed if the phils don't do something of the sort. i don't see a good reason not to do so that outweighs the importance of shoring [ha!] up the back of the rotation and the bench so that we don't have to rush howard and bohm. this is especially true now that we know that realmuto hasn't submitted a huge arbitration figure that he would be all to likely to win, and also that no one will be doing us the favor enabling a bigger move by taking odubel and his salary off our hands this offseason.

I was holding out on an update for more pre-hearing arb settlements or news on the auto-resign players, since I believe the auto numbers had to be submitted to the players in Dec. These tend not to come out until opening day figures are reported various places, though some guys like Gelb had ways of finding them in the past. There's one other update I had to make, however, which was adding the 26th roster spot. This replaces an MiLB 40-man roster player at the $92,210 estimate with a minimum MLB player at $566,100, so a cost of $473,890 against the cap.

My current total is just over $202M, so about $6M under. They will use a good chunk of that with the temporary increases from Milb salary to MLB salary for injury replacements, callups, etc, so there really is no flexibility to add anything.

This is assuming, of course, they plan to stay under the cap...at least until late July. If at that point they are at or near the top of the NL East and an available player fits an obvious need, I could see them deciding 2020 is the year to bust the cap. But I don't see that decision taking place now and frankly I don't think it should take place now. I'm sure they don't want multi-year penalties even if they are willing to do it once, and 2020 is by no means a sure bet playoff run at this point.