Major League Baseball

Philadelphia Phillies: Albeit A Modest One They Do Have A Plan

Updated Mar. 4, 2020 9:05 p.m. ET

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Fansided, Steve Contursi/FanSided via Call to the Pen

The Philadelphia Phillies have been struggling of late. And maybe the worst thing you can say about a franchise, and especially one that is struggling, is that they don’t have a vision of the future. Or that they give the appearance of flying by the seat of their pants where one move doesn’t connect to the next dot, and then the next move goes back to the first dot. The Phillies have a plan and they’re  beginning to put it together, slowly but surely.

The Philadelphia Phillies have a rabid and knowledgeable fan base. And they had to know that they were on borrowed time before they would have to start acting like a interested and interesting team again. They took the Jimmy Rollins and Ryan Howard “we’re financially handicapped” excuse to the limit, and to the point where it doesn’t even exist anymore. For a while, they could get away with it.

For The Phillies, The “Party” Ends Now 

Because as much as Philadelphians love their Phillies, they love baseball just as much. Up to a point that is. Up to last year actually when attendance dropped by a half million , placing the Phillies in the bottom one-third of all major league teams. And if that doesn’t ring an alarm bell in any team’s front office, nothing will. So the announcement yesterday that the Phillies had traded for Clay Buchholtz probably came, not only with a sense of urgency on the part of the Phillies, but as a signal to their fans that we’re back in the game.

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And it’s not that Clay Buchholtz is going to put them over the top of anything. Buccholtz had one good year in 2013 when he went 12-1 with an astounding 1.74 ERA. And that was enough to put him at the top of the Red Sox wish list that he could repeat it every year since then. But as we know, the Sox have a glut of starters now with the addition of you know who, so someone had to go and the logical choice was Buchholtz.

The Phillies are in a pretty good position now payroll wise, and currently are at about $65 million coming into this season. And that compares to a payroll as high as $180 million as recently as 2014. The next question that follows then is what they plan on doing with this “extra” money.

The good news is though. if you want to look at this way, is that the Phillies still are likely to be among the majors’ 10 worst teams, which will still mean a top-10 pick in 2018  to add to their eighth pick in 2017.

The Phillies Plan Is Modest, But At Least It’s Something

Or, maybe they decide to take some of their savings and spread it around the bumper crop of free agents that will enter the scene next year. But the main thing now is that they did “something”. No one can pretend that they have the wherewithal to compete with any of the teams in their Division this season, and probably even next year. But at least they are no longer sitting idly by crying “woe is me”, because there are other players out there, like a Clay Buchholtz, who don’t cost a arm and a leg, but who can still help the team remain competitive in one of the toughest divisions in all of baseball.

For the Phillies, it’s (Buchholtz) a baby step in the right direction. They’ll maybe try to load up on similar one year or two years contracts with legitimate major league talent. and go from there. Now, let’s see if they can build on it.

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