The 2018 Phillies were a flawed team, and understandably so. They were young at nearly every position. They ran their rotation pretty ragged when all of their young arms stayed healthy all year. Their bullpen had some injuries, but ultimately could not get everyone healthy and effective at the same time. It was frustrating, but understandable given their players. The Phillies faced an offseason with plenty of choices, highlighted by two young superstars and a bunch of solid players. It left the Phillies with two choices, run the whole thing back and count on the young players improving or go big and push in with what resources they had.
The first option didn’t need to be a do nothing offseason. They could have dumped Carlos Santana somewhere to move Hoskins to first still. They still could have signed a vet on a reasonable contract to fill that void, say Andrew McCutchen for 3/$50M. They still could have gotten a bullpen arm or two, maybe they even still swap Luis Garcia to Los Angeles for a LHP. The front office wouldn’t have been able to sell the team as a division winner, and most of the fans would have been mad. The direction would have been there though. They would have had promising young players in Jorge Alfaro and J.P. Crawford who could build in their second year into solid major league players. They still would have had their top prospect to come up soon to help or as a high end trade chip should the team over perform.
The other option was to go out and spend on impact players. There were two big names in Machado and Harper, and guys a step or two behind, but still impactful in Patrick Corbin, A.J. Pollock, and Josh Donaldson. The Phillies could go for one of the big guys and then make some supporting moves around that player. They could alternatively sign one of the second tier guys and then spread money to some of the older win now players like Dallas Keuchel, Yasmani Grandal, or Craig Kimbrel, maybe sign some of the McCutchen, Michael Brantley, Mike Moustakas, Wilson Ramos, J.A. Happ, or Charlie Morton pieces. The Phillies could have supplemented their young core with reliable and talented veterans, and see if some of the young players would step forward to make them a playoff contender.
Instead the Phillies went in an entirely different direction. They stripped the young players to upgrade those positions, trading youth and upside, for prime and reliable. There is nothing wrong with Realmuto and Segura. They are almost certainly in the same tier of players as Corbin, Pollock, Donaldson, Keuchel, Grandal, and Kimbrel. They even signed another good third tier guy in McCutchen and a very good reliever in Robertson. But in the process they didn’t actually fill any of their holes and they stripped out the guys that could get better to help them. They could have augmented this strategy by signing more of those second and third tier guys, but they watched Corbin, Pollock, Happ, and Morton all go by on mostly reasonable deals. They then declined to beat a reasonable 10 year $300m contract for Manny Machado. That leaves them staring at a market with three players on it; Bryce Harper, Dallas Keuchel, and Craig Kimbrel.
Kimbrel and Keuchel would be upgrades, but together they are likely to cost a year at least what a year of Harper does. Keuchel over Zach Eflin or Vince Velasquez probably nets the Phillies another win or two. A number that probably stays pretty consistent over whoever their #5 starter would be each year. But with their depth, they may be able to beat that from within, at very least he isn’t shifting the NL East needle. Kimbrel would anchor a bullpen which might become the best in the NL. There is a legitimate concern if a bullpen of Kimbrel, Robertson, Dominguez, Neris, Arano, and Neshek might be redundant, especially given they are all right handed. Maybe solidifying the closer spot is worth a win, maybe two. We don’t know what either is asking, as we haven’t heard anything but 5 year speculation early in the offseason.
If the Phillies do nothing they enter the year with Nick Williams, Maikel Franco, Vince Velasquez, Nick Pivetta, and Zach Eflin in prominent roles. There is no upgrade to Franco now, not with Moustakas off the board (and we can debate how much difference there actually was). There is not really an outfield upgrade on Nick Williams, and internally Roman Quinn and Aaron Altherr aren’t amazing options, and Adam Haseley isn’t ready and isn’t impactful. The Phillies have bolstered their rotation by bolstering their defense and their bullpen. They also know they have AAA pitching depth to try and patch up holes, but there is downside and downside the offense will need to improve upon. As detailed earlier, there were non-Harper options before, but the Phillies watched them go by. Now they have built a mid to high 80s win team with a lot of ifs to make it better than that, and the only player that can really help them now is Bryce Harper.