High Hopes: A Phillies Podcast - Five Players The Phillies Should Pursue Before Spring Training | WIP Daily

Episode Date: February 1, 2024

Joe Giglio and Tucker Bagley take a look at who the Phillies could acquire before Spring Training opens up in a few weeks. To learn more about listener data and our privacy practices visit: https://www.audacyinc.com/privacy-policy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit https://podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Whether the action is at the link or the bank, there's never an off day on Broad Street. It's the biggest news of the day, every day, with takes from someone who's never short on them. It's WIP Daily with Joe Giglio. Welcome on in, WIP Daily, Joe Giglio with you. Appreciate everyone listening, subscribing, following the podcast. Of course, our video feed, 94WIP. Check it out. Subscribe.

A ton of video content. Clap your hands. Go Birds. High Hopes. WIP Daily. And, of course, a ton from the shows on air at WIP. So there's a lot going on. A lot going on at Philadelphia Sports.

We await the MRI for Joel Embiid's knee. And, obviously, one week away from the NBA trade deadline. Eagles offseason, even before it really even gets going in earnest. There's a lot out there. A.J. Brown and Bill Belichick and all that kind of stuff. But one team has flown under the radar for now months. And they're about to come back into our conscience in a big way. And that's the Phillies.

Spring training starts in less than two weeks. February 14th is pitchers and catchers. And then the 19th, everyone's there. And away we go as the Phillies try to finish the job and get back to a World Series and win a World Series. They've got a good core. They bring back Aaron Noel this offseason, but I've been underwhelmed with the rest of the offseason,

mostly because they haven't done anything. I mean, they really haven't added anything to this baseball team since the Noel signing, which I think most people are like, all right, bring Aaron Noel back. He wants to be here. You know, the money didn't get to a ridiculous level. He'll be a career fill, and he's a good pitcher. But I think the Phillies need to add more to continue to have a shot

to compete regular season-wise with the Braves, and certainly just player for player when we get to a possible postseason matchup with the Dodgers and the Braves. I think they need more. We had Howard Eskin on the Midday Show a couple days ago, and he says he believes they're not done, and Dave DeBraska is going to do something else before we get to, let's say, the beginning of the season, opening day. You could say spring training. Sometimes things bleed into spring training. Arrieta, Bryce Harper. We've seen

the Phillies do this, but let's just say, what are they going to do before they really get ramped up here? I've got five names that I've written down, and it's a varying degree of level of player, but I think they could use a bat and or an arm. So I have a combination of this. Five players I believe the Phillies should be pursuing right now before spring training begins. All right, let's start with the first one. And Tucker will come on in a few minutes and react to my list

and tell me what he thinks of the names. Maybe he's got a name for us. But Tucker first put this kind of thought, got the wheel spinning for me on this name and how it could happen, and that's Cody Bellinger. We did a WIP Daily last summer about Cody Bellinger. Trade deadline. It's before the Cubs kind of heated up, and it looked like the Cubs were going to be a seller. They ended up not really selling much last summer.

But Bellinger was a big trade deadline name, and I loved him for the Phillies. In fact, one year ago, maybe a little more than a year ago, on the evening show, I wanted Bellinger here on a one-year deal because he was going to try to fix his value before going to free agency. I wanted him as kind of a Bryce Harper hedge because we didn't know when Bryce would come back, if he could play the outfield all year. I won at Cody Bellinger a year ago. So I've been a fan of Cody Bellinger for a long time.

Obviously an MVP when he was young with Dodgers, fell off for a couple of years, had a real nice bounce back year last year for the Chicago Cubs. And here's the way this Bellinger thing could work. It reminds me a little bit of the Jake, two players on my list remind me of the Jake Arrieta free agency where they and their agent thought it was going to go one way. And the market said, that's not really happening. Bellinger, according to most reports, has been seeking $200 million. Where is he getting that right now? I don't think any team has that glaring need unless there's a major injury in the next few weeks.

And that happens. I mean, that's how A-Rod got to the Yankees because Aaron Boone tore his knee playing basketball. So things happen. And maybe a big market team suddenly will need someone. Prince Fielder got to the Tigers a very similar way because I think it was Victor Martinez tore his knee up and they needed a player. But, okay, that's a rare instance. Usually, if you're not willing to spend that much money before now, you're not willing to do it now. I don't think Bellinger has that offer out there.

I don't think he's got that team out there unless the Cubs just say, let's run it back. But I look at Bellinger, and if he would take, I don't know, a two-year, $50 million deal with an opt-out after one, I mean, the Phillies can afford that for one year. He hits well, he'll opt out. Kind of like the Reese Hoskins deal we just saw with the Brewers, just for more money per year. Bellinger's everything this team needs. If you're the Johan Rojas, we need defensive center field guy,

Bellinger's a tremendous defensive outfielder. Now, maybe he's not Rojas. I don't know many that are, but he's a high-level, gold-glove caliber center fielder, and he hits. The other part I love about Bellinger is he gives another back to the lineup. We saw what was missing last year in the postseason. You could arrange the order any way you want. It's a little lefty heavy, but you could arrange it any way you want.

It takes you away from having to rely on Bowman, Castellanos, and big spots like they did last year, and it didn't work out in the NLCS. And he's also a hedge to Bryce Harper at first base. If Bryce has another injury or his body just doesn't allow him to play 150 games, Bellinger can play a very high-level first base. Cody Bellinger, another former MVP, a blue-chip kind of player. He fits the Nebraska mold. Bellinger is the first name I have on my list.

Second one, it's kind of the pitcher version of Bellinger, and that's Blake Snell. And his free agency is very parallel in the same brain of a pitcher to Arrieta when he ended up here. Blake Snell wants a ton. He's got Cy Youngs in his pocket. But Blake Snell has some red flags, including his walk rate and his command. I mean, he's kind of a pitcher that's all over the place, although he's effective. But there are some worry of how good he'll be into the future. But if the Phillies get him for three years, $135 million, you have to pay him enough money per year

to, you know, respect what he's done. And I'm sure he wants that money. I mean, he probably looks at himself in the same vein as the best five or 10 pitchers of baseball. But if you could avoid the big years, I mean, if, if, if the Phillies have designs on winning the world series and from everything they've done and say they do, well, I'm just thinking about this rotation and how they get there. I'm thinking about this rotation and who they have. And I think about how they go and beat the Dodgers in the postseason. And if you tell me right now, I could line up Zach Wheeler, Blake Snell, Aaron Nola, I feel like I've got a real chance rather than Ranger Suarez as your

number three. And Rangers has been a big game pitcher, but imagine Ranger as your four. And then you're not worrying about if Christopher Sanchez is up for the moment. You're not worrying about if Tywon Walker can actually get in the mound in a big moment. Those guys get pushed down the pecking order. So those are, that's a big thing for me that you can have. And the Phillies, look, we saw they were in the Yamamoto sweepstakes. They offered them a corner reports, $300 million. So they are,

at least they have that thought process. Like maybe we could use another big starter to really go win the world series. Maybe we need one more guy to go win the world series. Blake's dealt tight with Bryce Harper, their friends, despite him hitting on them a couple of years ago. I think there's something to that.

It's a Boris client. He's funneled a lot of clients here. I think there's something to that. It's a Boris client. He's funneled a lot of clients here. He's got big time stuff. Strikeout guy that plays up velocity, everything that Dave Dabrowski likes. Blake Snell, number two on my list because the market has fallen down. So Bellinger, Snell,

and then the next three are more smaller pieces, but pieces I think they could use and would help them. Let's go through them. We have a utility kind of guy, a power guy, and a relief pitcher. The utility guy is Whit Merrifield. Always been a fan of his. He came up late in his career, so he probably, you know, his peak was short,

and now he's kind of on the decline. But I still think there's some good baseball left in Whit Merrifield. Here's why I like him. He is a guy that has played everywhere. He was a second baseman. He could play third base. He could play right, center, left. Think of what Scott Kingery, they tried to make him into,

but an actually good player. That's Whit Merrifield. He's been on, you know, he's been in the Royals. He's been in the Blue Jays. He's been in the playoffs. He's had a nice career so far. I think he is a really important kind of depth piece. I look at the Phillies bench right now, and I'm underwhelmed.

It's Edmundo Sosa, who we know could play defense, but his offense has never really taken off in the outfield. I mean, are we really going to do the Jake Cave thing again? And what's the backup plan at first base? Is it Alec Bone has to play every day if Bryce goes down and then you're playing Sosa every day at third? They need one more. And Merrifield is a right-handed hitter that could hit lefties. I think he would fit in nicely with the idea of rojas and marsh in kind of a three-player platoon in center and left where against lefties you could play rojas and merrifield against righties you could play merrifield and marsh and you kind of protect johan rojas and maybe late in games you have an outfield across of merrifield and Rojas and Marsh.

And it's an elite defensive outfield. You get Cassianos off the field late in games. I think Merrifield is an interesting chess piece. You know, Bellinger style. We're talking about big money, Merrifield. I don't believe that.

I mean, if it's a one year, $8 million deal, I think that's, you know, kind of what they wanted with Josh Harrison, but a higher level version of what Josh Harrison was last year, way higher-level version.

I like Merrifield a lot. I think he could fit. I think he's the kind of guy that could be a pinch hitter, pinch runner, defense, all that. Merrifield on my list. All right, then I got a power bat and a relief pitcher, and we'll see what Tucker thinks of the list and what the Phillies should do because they need to do something else.

They need another player here. My power bat, and this one, and I've been on this train for a while now, that I think we've gone too far. The Phillies have gone too far. And, hey, we need a lot of defense, and we're going to exclude offense. It's why Reese Hoskins isn't here, in effect. It's why Kyle Schroeder was moved strictly to DH, and they left it that way. It's why it seems like they're going to just hand the center field job to Johan Roas.

All that being said, they went further two seasons ago when they were playing Schwarber in the outfield and they had a poor defense. And they had Reese Hoskins at first base. So this whole defense over offense thing, it sounds great in theory until you get into the NLCS and you can't score. You can't get enough runs on the board like we saw late in Game 6 and Game 7. So the bad I have in mind, and this is almost like an opportunity comes knocking,

how do you say no? A guy we know well in this division, Jorge Soler, is still out there. Played for the Marlins last year. We know he's won a World Series MVP with the Braves. He was a Cub back in the day, a Royal. He's been all over the place. 36 home runs, a 128 OPS plus last year. He had almost 1,100 OPS against lefties. He

crushes left-handed pitching. He's a big power bat. You can put him right there in the fourth spot in a big game against a lefty and I'd feel good about it. Now he's been mostly a DH as years have gone on. He did play some outfield last year. I think about 30 something games last year in the outfield. So would you be willing to make Soler what Schwarber was a couple years ago, where he's a below-average defender, but you know what you're getting offensively? I would because I think the bat is so productive, and it probably wouldn't cost that much. DH, the market has been suppressed.

Soler's on my radar. Last one, a relief pitcher because I think they need one more arm out there. Phil Maton pitched for the Astros last few years. He's really been kind of an under-the-radar guy. I think in this bullpen, he could be an eighth-inning guy, seventh-inning, sixth-inning, ninth-inning. I think they need an arm to replace what Kimbrel was. Big extension on his pitches.

Not great velocity, but he gets a lot of weak contact. I think Phil Maton's a good pitcher. So Bellinger, Snell, top two. Merrifield, Soler, more of the role player role. And then Phil Maton, a relief pitcher, the pitcher of the Astros the last couple of years. Tucker, the Phillies need to do one more thing before spring training starts or at least before the season starts.

It just feels like they're one good player short here. Yeah, and it feels like they think they're close enough based on what they've done the last two years. But, I mean, if they have their sights set on maybe competing for the division this year and not just being content, being the first or second wild card, you need to do more, right? Like the Braves, I think, have improved vastly more than the Phillies have the last few months over the offseason.

And then for me, the reason why I thought about Bellinger earlier this week when we had this discussion, the reason why I think about Merrifield or even Soler is I don't think the lineup's good enough. And I know people look at the breakdown of the salaries and everything, and they're spending a lot of money on this lineup, but the reason they've lost the last two years isn't because of the pitching and isn't because of the bullpen. It's because the offense disappeared, right?

Like you go back to the 2022 World Series. They had that barrage of home runs in game three of the World Series. Then they got no hit. And then they couldn't hit with guys and runners in scoring position. And that was that. Go back to the Diamondbacks series in October where they went up to nothing. They had a barrage of home runs over that four-game stretch from the end of the Brave series to the beginning of that series.

Then the bats went cold. They couldn't figure it out. They couldn't hit with runners in scoring position at all. They fell apart again. They need to figure out how to fix the offense, no matter how much for how many guys you have making $20-plus million. I think adding someone like Cody Beinger or Jorge Soler who is a big power guy I think dramatically increases this team's ceiling and makes it to the point where

they can compete if Bryce Harper isn't is you know getting pitched around if Trey Turner is ice cold if Kyle Schwarber is striking out a lot and until he signed with the Brewers a couple you know earlier this week I thought Reese Hoskins coming back should have been an option on the team. And Hoskins made a point to say when he got introduced in Milwaukee that the Phillies basically told him from the onset, like, we're not interested, sorry, go find the best deal, good luck to you. But I think right now the Phillies desperately need another bat that they can put at the top of their lineup who can consistently hit and take the pressure off of some of their streaky hitters.

And the Bellinger idea, that's why it was one you brought up, and it was top of mind for me. He provides something, and Soler is the opposite. Soler will provide power, but he'll strike out. It's almost like he's a different kind of version of Reese Hoskins. But what Bellinger provides is one thing I think this team needs. And Whit Merrifield does it, but to a lesser extent. He doesn't strike out. I mean, Cody Bellinger last year, one of the best in terms of contact rates in baseball. He changed the kind of hitter he was.

You know, when Bellinger first came up and he became a star, I thought he had a really great ability to put the bat on the ball for a power hitter. And he was MVP level and he was only striking out, you know, whatever it was, 16%, 17% of the time. And then he had a shoulder injury. It fell off. He swung and missed a lot for two years. But last year he came back. Maybe the power didn't come back to the way it used to be.

He had, what, 26 home runs. He had 47 in his MVP year. But he had good power, 26 home runs, and he didn't swing and miss. I mean, his 15.6% strikeout rate, that's enormous. I mean, you know, that's, some power hitters are in the 30% range, the Schwarbers. You know, most hitters are in that 25, 26% range, 15%. You add that to a lineup that has too much swing and miss,

I think that could be, you know, a couple years ago, Castellanos is still sitting there in free agency with about a month to go before opening day, three weeks to go, and Dave Dabrowski walked up to John Miltesoff and said, we can't pass up this opportunity. That could be Bellinger now, or it could be Snell. The Phillies need something else to go win the World Series. There are opportunities still out there, players still out there. Five guys, one of them better be here before we get to opening day.

Appreciate everyone listening, subscribing, following WIP Daily. We'll talk soon. Thanks so much for listening.