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Philadelphia Phillies: Winter’s buy-a-bat forecast

By Tal Venada

BALTIMORE, MD - JULY 10: Bryce Harper #34 of the Washington Nationals and Manny Machado #13 of the Baltimore Orioles talk during their game at Oriole Park at Camden Yards on July 10, 2015 in Baltimore, Maryland. (Photo by Rob Carr/Getty Images)
BALTIMORE, MD - JULY 10: Bryce Harper #34 of the Washington Nationals and Manny Machado #13 of the Baltimore Orioles talk during their game at Oriole Park at Camden Yards on July 10, 2015 in Baltimore, Maryland. (Photo by Rob Carr/Getty Images) /
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Harper will have plenty of teams chasing him this winter. Photo by Dustin Bradford/Getty Images. /

Bidding battles:

Dropping under the competitive-balance threshold for 2019’s free agents, San Francisco with an aging squad is willing to increase spending to remain relevant. And their corner outfield situation has been a sore spot for quite a while, but their strategy is retooling instead of rebuilding. Ergo, they’ll target Harper.

As for the Giants’ hated rivals, the Dodgers also have interest in Harper: Machado only filled in at short due to Seager’s season-ending injury. Moreover, pursuing the corner outfielder could be their reason for resetting their base rate tax, and they are in a good position to wait for the Scott Boras’ client.

With two young sluggers manning the outfield corners, the Yankees might have interest in Machado for the hot corner due to Adujar’s 15 errors. And Machado is willing to play third base for New York (AL). In other words, the Yanks are eager to spend, and Machado prefers them.

In today’s market, having payroll flexibility is not permanent if an organization re-signs its top homegrown talent. Basically, teams unwilling to pay the Luxury Tax penalty without a trip to the World Series will have three superstars, and big spenders will have four. In other words, the Phillies are in category one.

Potential big-ticket contracts:

Yes, the Dodgers and Yankees will pay the penalty. But the calculation could change in Chavez Ravine due to Kershaw’s velocity: His fastball had averaged 95.2 mph in 2008 and gradually declined to 90.9 mph by 2018. And while he probably won’t opt out of $65 million for ’18 and ’19, his future earnings are uncertain.

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