The Future of The Phillies Looks Like Manny Machado
Okay, I’m absolutely all in with the Phillies. You know when you can’t think of a word and how frustrated you get when it’s on the tip of your tongue?
Well winning is on the tip of the Phillies’ tongue. You can see it when they play, they’re almost there. The bats flash, the pitching flashes, the gloves flash. You just never get results over a sustained period. It’s time for a re-branding.
How about Manny Machado? Yeah, that 3 time Gold Glove winning, 2 time All- Star, playing on the worst team in baseball? A team that the Phillies just happen to be playing tonight. He’s not Lebron or Kawhi, but let’s have a word about him.
At 25, he has a 29.8 WAR, .281/.332/.484, 156 home runs, and 3 top 10 MVP finishes. Not counting his brief rookie campaign and this unfinished season, he played at least 156 games in 4 of his first 5 complete seasons with a knee injury sidelining him back in 2014 which hasn’t appeared again. His numbers this year look even better than his career numbers (I won’t bore you with more numbers but you nerds can Google them).
Who cares what they ask for?
Realistically however, Machado is an infielder which we are in excess of right now. So, here’s my pitch to Baltimore.
Manny Machado for Maikel Franco, Cesar Hernandez, and whatever pitching prospect that The Orioles want (hopefully not Sixto).
That leaves JP Crawford, Scott Kingery, and Manny Machado as our “first-team” infield. They can all play all three positions so Gabe and his analytics geeks can get their rocks off moving them around every day.
Other players that can easily go on the trade block are Carlos Santana, Nick Williams, Aaron Altherr, or JP Crawford. Obviously, there are certain combinations of these players that would make the most sense to the Phils but, again, I won’t bore you with the extra words.
Now, let’s talk salary.
As of right now the average team payroll is $144 million. The Phillies total team payroll this year is 22nd in the league at less than $105 million. This year, Manny is making $16 million in the last year of his contract. The Phils can easily afford to trade for him before the deadline and give him a monster contract immediately. I’m talking 10+ years $250-$300+ million. It’s totally feasible for someone who is young enough to still be a franchise shortstop.
Philly is a large market team and baseball has no salary cap (yes there are tax brackets to stay below but fuck that) so a big name like this will literally pay for itself.
Nola, Cesar, and Franco are all going into arbitration after this year so trading the two of them and giving Nola some money he deserves will be the biggest existing salary hit.
Long story short, the Phils can afford Machado. And if they trade the correct players and play their cards right the rest of the season they could kill free agency too.
Yeah.
I mean Bryce Harper.
My (fuck me for using this term) “dream team” right now looks like this:
P- Nola, Arrieta, Pivetta, Young Guy(s)/ Prospects
C- Alfaro (maybe…who cares?)
INF- Hoskins, Kingery, Crawford, Machado
OF- Odubel, Williams/Altherr, Harper
There’s no reason they can’t afford both of those guys to put around all of our young (and inexpensive) talent and when they do, watch out National League…hell…
Watch out for the MLB, The Phillies are back.