The word “window” is used in sports to describe a period of time in which a team is competitive, hopefully for a championship. The implication of a window is that it is open and then it closes, and in sports terms that means a rebuild, and restarting the cycle again. In most sports, a window revolves around a singular player (mostly quarterback in football or a superstar in basketball) or a core. It can be defined by the end of a contract or a career. Baseball though, has much different economics than other sports. A lack of a cap means a team can continue to spend their way out of bad decisions, and the minor leagues coupled with a longer development time and less certain draft means a team can with luck and talent, continue to replenish their team.
This leads to the conclusion that for a team with enough resources, will, and player acquisition talent to not harm itself, need not have windows that close. The Phillies aspire to be one of those teams, joining the Dodgers, Braves, and possibly a few others in that distinction. Now none of this implies that every year brings home a ring and that down years do not occur. Prior to this year, the Dodgers struggled in the postseason, as have the Braves, and the Braves had an injury related crater this season. At no point to either of those teams look poised to begin the rebuild cycle.
So now that we have moved past the idea of the competition and rebuild window cycle, then how do we talk about this continuous team building? We can reuse the word window, or use the word core, or whatever word we want to use. I am going to use “core” in the sense that it is a nucleus moving along together. None of these groupings need to be solid, and they are snapshots in time. Ideally a healthy team wants to be spread out along these groupings and constantly triaging and moving between them, and I personally would break them up into these three broad “cores” by team control.
- Long Term (5 years+): Prospects, 1st/2nd year players, long term (hopefully) all-star+ contracts
- Mid Term (3-4 years): Established young pre-arb and early arb players, new FA contracts, non-star level extensions
- Short Term (1-2 years): Short term FA, Pending FA, late arb, bullpen
I have lumped the bullpen fully into the short term due to volatility. There may be some contracts signed that make them mid-term, but those should be special players. To pivot this into the Phillies, here is how I would group them around very specific dates of control.
- Long Term (2030+): Prospects, Bryce Harper, Trea Turner, Aaron Nola, Cristopher Sanchez
- Zack Wheeler Contract (2027): Zack Wheeler, Bryson Stott, Brandon Marsh
- Short Term (2025-2026): Alec Bohm, J.T. Realmuto, Kyle Schwarber, Taijuan Walker, Ranger Suarez, bullpen
I have purposefully kept this just to players who are or project to be everyday contributors, so for example Johan Rojas is not someone included, but could become part of the core.
Given they had 3 free agents, it is not surprising that is a bunched and busy group. This gets us to thinking about the offseason and a focus on the last two groups and notably the Short Term group and maybe how you reconfigure into the Zack Wheeler window.
Take the case of Alec Bohm who is reportedly available in trade. Bohm only has two more years of team control, and that means the Phillies will have to think about whether he should actually be part of the Long Term group. If he isn’t, is he a pathway to improving the Short Term or Zack Wheeler timeline? Same thing can be said of Ranger Suarez, who the Phillies don’t need to move, but is also in a similar limbo given the presence of Nola, Wheeler, Sanchez, and Painter in some of the longer range thinking. Part of these may be moves where they two step to increase the prospect supply to then spend from the future on the nearer term groups.
This also fits in thinking about those pending free agents. I don’t know if he would take it, but adding two years of extension onto Schwarber to move him onto the Wheeler timeline might make sense for the Phillies. The same is unlikely to be said of the other players in the short term group.
All of this is really just more of a framework for thinking about balancing an ecosystem for the long term. You don’t want to expend the entire long range in favor of the short, but also you do need to churn contracts and players through shorter term windows to then triage into the longer term. The end goal is to eliminate windows and to be constantly be building the now and future teams.