The Phillies are playing the whole good cop, bad cop routine with unrestrictive free agents.
The Philadelphia Phillies have now opened spring training camp, but without the new, veteran starting pitcher many observers have said they need. In that regard, the team now seems to have adopted a good-cop-bad-cop strategy with the remaining free agent hurlers out there. Perhaps the drill is also meant somehow meant to throw off fans and sportswriters for some reason.
The opening moves of the strategy usually reserved for TV police procedurals played out over two days with Phillies GM Matt Klentak playing the cop who gets the suspect a Coke, and team president Andy MacPhail taking the part of the cop who eats garlic at lunch then yells in that suspect’s face.
Thursday Klentak came out to address reporters and said that the Phillies are still open to plucking a veteran starter from the remaining free agent crop. “We’re open to anything,” Klentak said. Of course, he provided use usual caution about that hypothetical starter “making sense” for the Phillies, but he seemed to emphasize the positive: “The search hasn’t stopped.” The Phillies were “relentless about the pursuit of upgrading.”
Friday MacPhail said, forcefully, let’s not get out over our skis. Or to stick with the cop analogy, he reminded everyone while the suspect may have a Coke, the plumber just arrived, and the bathrooms will be down for a bit. Said MacPhail: “You don’t want to do anything impulsive because something may or may not be out there that you anticipate.”
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Let’s be clear about a couple of things here. First, only the first seven words of MacPhail’s remark are meaningful; the rest is gobbledygook. If one of my college freshman students wrote that sentence, I would scribble “filler” in the paper margin closest to the second half of it. Second, regarding Klentak’s “search” for an upgrade, Jake Arrieta, Alex Cobb, Lance Lynn, and Chris Tillman are not playing hide-and-seek. They may be playing show-me-the-money, but everybody involved here is on everybody else’s speed dial, including four agents (at least).
As Philly.com writer Matt Breen points out in his coverage of MacPhail’s remarks, the Phillies have the lowest payroll in baseball. Despite this, they seem to be warily guarding the pile of TV cash in the team safe at Citizens Bank Park. That may seem smart. Arrieta is nearly 32. The other three top starters still available come attached to question marks and surgical scars, and none is 25.
Late yesterday Dan Clark reported on Twitter out of Baltimore the Phillies had made an offer to Chris Tillman, as had the Twins. The Baltimore Sun’s Eduardo Encina reported that Tillman is expected to decide the team he’ll join within a few days. If the Phillies don’t scoop him up, expect them to sign either Cobb or Lynn later this month or in early March. They will have outwaited the one they sign.
Forget Arrieta, Philadelphia. Despite his accomplishments over the last few years, every team is implicitly telling the right-hander that he’s just asking too much.