Signing David Robertson was easy. The Phillies’ next bullpen addition will be more painful.
With the bullpen as a recurring problem and a club-record payroll this season, acquiring another arm at the trade deadline could come at a hefty price for the Phillies.
Five months ago, with the Phillies’ payroll poised to surpass the highest luxury-tax threshold, John Middleton sat in his spring-training office and mulled over a question.
Is there a point when the owner will stop spending?
“I would say no,“ Middleton said. ”I look at payroll — and I push [president of baseball operations] Dave [Dombrowski] to look at the payroll — as a meaningful guidepost, but that’s kind of all it is.
“The bigger thing is when you’re talking about trades.”
» READ MORE: The Phillies are at the front of the line for bullpen shopping. How much will a ‘difference maker’ cost?
Let’s leave that there — and come back to it shortly — as a backdrop for what happened Sunday night.
Desperate for bullpen help, the Phillies reached agreement with 40-year-old reliever David Robertson on a one-year contract that became official Monday after his physical. Because he hasn’t pitched competitively since the end of last season, he will go on a 15-day assignment to triple A before joining manager Rob Thomson’s bullpen, likely by Aug. 5.
The Phillies will pay Robertson approximately $6 million of the prorated $16 million deal. They will also be charged an additional $6 million as a 110% tax penalty for carrying a payroll in excess of the $305 million threshold.
But, as Middleton said in February, “That’s just money.”
Rest assured, the next move in the bullpen’s facelift will be tougher to execute.
And much more painful.
Take it from Robertson, who represents himself without an agent and was intentional about when he signaled to teams that he wanted to pitch this season.
“I was getting calls throughout the season, everybody kind of circling back to see where I was at, seeing if I was ready to come back sooner,” Robertson said Monday. “I was kind of planning to line it up around this time. Instead of having to trade for me, you can just pick me up and you don’t lose any prospects. I thought it gave me a little more leverage.”
» READ MORE: The Phillies need bullpen help, and there’s appealing options. But are they willing to take a big swing?
Imagine, then, the leverage that the Twins, Guardians, and Orioles will have in 10 days if they trade their closers. Minnesota’s Jhoan Durán, Cleveland’s Emmanuel Clase, and Baltimore’s Félix Bautista are elite and under team control beyond this season.
And given the disproportional number of buyers and sellers (all but nine teams are within five games of a playoff spot), the returns will be considerable.
It brings to mind for Middleton all of those deadlines when then-Phillies general manager Ruben Amaro Jr. went for it. In back-to-back-to-back Julys, the Phillies sent away a raft of prospects for Cliff Lee, Roy Oswalt, and Hunter Pence.
“Honestly, you give him an A-plus for every single move and the players that he brought in,” Middleton said last week on Phillies Extra, The Inquirer’s baseball show. “These guys all performed and performed well. And yet, we didn’t win.”
It’s a cautionary tale. It also might be unavoidable.
Not only are the Phillies in a win-now stage of their life cycle, with the aforementioned club-record payroll and an aging core that’s unlikely to stay together for a fourth consecutive season.
But the bullpen has been a recurring problem. Relievers blew late leads in tide-turning Games 3 and 4 of the 2023 National League Championship Series in Arizona and in tone-setting Game 1 of last year’s divisional round at home against the Mets.
Dombrowski has been protective of his prospects, especially the trio of Andrew Painter, Aidan Miller, and Justin Crawford. But the general belief among rival team officials is that he would consider moving anyone except maybe Painter for the right return — “a difference-maker,” as he often describes it to Middleton.
» READ MORE: Trade deadline preview: Dave Dombrowski on the Phillies’ biggest roster needs and their X-factor
Last season, for instance, the Phillies tried to get Garrett Crochet at the deadline. Middleton said they made “an incredible offer” to the White Sox for the ace lefty, who would have been under club control for three postseason runs.
“It was almost painful to look at what we were giving up,” Middleton said. “Frankly, Dave looked at me at one point and said, ‘John, I’m totally ambivalent. If they take the deal, I’m happy. If they don’t take the deal, I’m happy.’”
The White Sox didn’t take the deal, instead trading Crochet to the Red Sox in December. The Phillies weren’t quite as aggressive in the offseason.
But it’s apparent that Dombrowski believed Crochet was one of those difference-makers, just as Amaro regarded Lee in 2009 and Oswalt in 2010. And Dombrowski was right. Crochet, at age 26, is a leading candidate for the Cy Young Award.
Less clear, though, is whether Dombrowski regards Durán, Clase, or any other controllable closer (Bautista, maybe the Athletics’ Mason Miller) as being similarly impactful, if they’re even available. Maybe the Guardians, for example, feast on the Orioles, Royals, and Rockies over the next 10 days and decide to keep Clase.
Check back next week.
And that brings us back to something Middleton said in his office in spring training.
“I don’t think we get to the World Series without Cliff Lee in ’09. I just don’t,” he said. “I’m not even sure we win the division. I think we do, but we don’t get to the World Series. And I’d say the same thing about Roy Halladay [in 2010]. Those guys were real difference-makers. … If Cliff or Roy’s equal is available in July, or would have been available this past December, I think you have Dave Dombrowski talking to me in a very different way than he was talking to me.”
Until then, the Phillies spent Middleton’s money for one reliever while they debate how far to go to get another.