Sometimes the measure of a move is almost as much about the size of the hole you’ve filled as it is the person you’ve chosen to fill it.
So it is for the Philadelphia Phillies, who on Wednesday morning agreed to a reported four-year, $79 million deal with free-agent slugger Kyle Schwarber.
That’s a lot of money for a team that will likely be skirting luxury tax thresholds for years to come. Thresholds, incidentally, which the team is expected to adhere to while budgeting for the season to come. Luckily for the Phillies, their quest to return to the playoffs for the first time in more than a decade has been aided by the new CBA — at least in the short term.
First, there are the higher tax thresholds, starting with the $230 million cut-off for 2022. According to Cot’s Contracts, the Phillies had about $37.6 million under that threshold before the deal with Schwarber. Thus, Schwarber will eat up a little more than half that amount.
Was it worth it?
Well, for the Phillies to contend, they had to do something about left field. According to Fangraphs, Philly’s group of anticipated left fielders — a mishmash of part-timers like Adam Haseley, Luke Williams and Mickey Moniak — projected to finish 0.3 wins below replacement, the worst figure in the majors by a good margin.
Meanwhile, coming off his best season, Schwarber’s WAR forecast at Fangraphs was at 3.1, and while some of his at-bats will surely come as a DH, that’s still a massive upgrade for a team that entered Offseason Part II on a level where it will be scrambling with the Giants, Cardinals and Reds for the last playoff spot in the NL.
That would be the sixth spot, which incidentally is another reason why the Phillies were one of the winners of the new CBA. The addition of Schwarber bumped up my forecast for the Phillies by nearly three wins, which not only vaults them ahead of the Cardinals and Giants, but puts them in striking distance of the Braves and Mets in the NL East. For now.
(The Reds, meanwhile, pretty much took themselves out of the mix, which is a digression we won’t pursue too deeply right now. But Schwarber is an Ohio native whose addition to the pre-teardown Cincinnati roster would have had the Reds right in the thick of it. Shame! Shame!)
The Phillies still have some money under the threshold with which to play. How should it be used?
Right now, given the figures we have, it seems unlikely that the Phillies would now be able to put in a serious bid on either remaining star shortstop on the market, Trevor Story or Carlos Correa. The team is high on rookie-to-be Bryson Stott and if they’re right about him, GM Dave Dombrowski will be very glad he restrained himself. Bryce Harper (and Schwarber) pal Kris Bryant probably doesn’t fit money-wise at this point, either.
The Phillies can probably get by at third base, hoping that Alec Bohm develops consistency with Didi Gregorius around to provide support for all the infielders, while also figuring into the DH mix. Dombrowski reached a deal this week to bring back Odubel Herrera to do the heavy lifting in center field.
Meanwhile, Schwarber will need a righty hitter to spell him against tough lefties, but 2021 rookies Williams and Matt Vierling are well positioned to provide those needed righty looks against southpaws.
So the Phillies’ position group is filling out nicely. With Oakland unloading at a rapid pace, outfielder Ramon Laureano looms as a shining beacon who would fit in perfectly with the Phillies at a salary that easily works within the Phillies’ limits, but there is likely to be plenty of competition for him.
Things are coming together, but the Phillies could probably use one more bat and it almost doesn’t matter what position profile comes with the player offering that bat. Beyond that, probably the best course of action for Dombrowski now is to target as much low-cost starting pitching depth as he can find.
All of these goals are modest enough that they wouldn’t have the same bottom-line impact as the Schwarber signing, so the Phillies are shaping up as a 90-win team or thereabouts, which is a terrific foundation from which to enter a season.
The only remaining business we have to ponder is whether or not this is an overpay. Well, Schwarber has been at between two and three fWAR, or a little over, in all three of the last full regular seasons. At 29, he easing into his post-prime years, most likely, but he’s also the kind of player whose stick will retain value as he ages because he has two traits that tend to age well: Power on contact, and elite plate discipline.
If Schwarber just keeps doing what he’s been doing, the contract will be fine.
Worst-case scenario, Schwarber ends up as a .220-ish hitter at the back end of the contract but with plus walks and plus dingers. The caveat to that is that Schwarber has had injury trouble, so the Phillies have to cross their fingers that having the DH spot as an option will help keep him on the field for the next four years. In fact, the back end of the deal will look a lot less daunting because of the expansion of the DH rule to the National League, which is our third reason why the Phillies came out so well in the CBA.
Schwarber has enough holes in his game that $19.8 million per season seems steep, but as things played out for him, he hit free agency at the perfect time. He had a terrific 2021 season for Washington, then Boston. He was terrific in the playoffs. And he was on the market just when most of the teams in the NL were on the look-out for a long-term DH. Good for Schwarber, and good for the Phillies.