Could Machado, Harper end up on same team in ’19?
LAS VEGAS — For most of the baseball industry gathered at the Mandalay Bay Resort and Casino for the annual winter meetings, this week’s omnipresent question - Bryce Harper or Manny Machado? - is a good bar argument, a parlor game, a captivating matchup of free agent sluggers, cutthroat agents and market forces best enjoyed from a healthy, theoretical distance.
But for the Philadelphia Phillies, it is an essential and all-too-real question that could decide the direction and future of the franchise - a potential nine-figure investment that has the power to lift them to greatness or doom them to failure for a generation.
What remained unclear Monday, as the winter meetings got underway and the markets for Harper and Machado shifted into a higher gear, was how the Phillies would answer that essential question: Harper or Machado?
By this point, and really, ever since owner John Middleton told USA Today last month that he was prepared to “be a little stupid” with his spending this winter, it is considered a given around the industry that the Phillies will emerge by the end of the winter with either Harper or Machado - the 26-year-old superstars who along with their agents are angling to set records for the largest contract in baseball history.
Some can even see scenarios in which the Phillies wind up with both players - such is their current financial might and their apparent motivation to wield it aggressively - or perhaps neither, if the more conservative voices in their front office win out over the owner’s impulses. Or if they decide to wait for Mike Trout to hit free agency two winters from now.
But for now, at least, assume the Phillies can have their pick of either Harper, the longtime Washington Nationals right fielder and the 2015 National League MVP, or Machado, the supremely talented shortstop/third baseman who spent 6.5 seasons with the Baltimore Orioles and three eventful months this fall with the NL champion Los Angeles Dodgers.
Which way will they go? Which way would you go?
The Phillies, for their part, have done or said nothing publicly that would betray a clear preference, and it is possible that they would be content with either player, allowing the market to decide which of them can be had at a better value. They were expected to meet with the representatives of both players - Scott Boras (Harper) and Dan Lozano (Machado) - while in Las Vegas this week, but neither play- er appeared to be anywhere near ready to sign.
“I’m not going to telegraph our intentions here,” Phillies general manager Matt Klentak told reporters Monday. “We are trying to get better, and we’re trying to move the needle wherever we can, and we have been disciplined with our payroll for a number of years now to put ourselves in a position to explore different opportunities.”
Even as they pursue the two biggest prizes on this market, the Phillies are addressing other needs. Most notably, having lost out last week on left-handed starter Patrick Corbin, who signed a six-year, $140 million deal with the Nationals, they are reportedly in negotiations with lefty J.A. Happ.
“We’re not going to sit around and be held hostage by one or two players,” Klentak told the beat reporters. “If there are moves to make in the short term that make sense for us, we’re going to do that. If it works out that there are players that fit for us down the road and it makes sense, then great. But we’re not going to sit around and wait.”
For months, the assumption had been that the front office’s ties to Machado - President of Baseball Operations Andy MacPhail was the Orioles’ general manager when the team drafted Machado with the third pick in 2010, and Klentak worked in Baltimore as well - would steer them in that direction. Machado, a two-time Gold Glove winner, also would seem to solve one of the Phillies’ most acute needs - that of a defensive upgrade, after they ranked last in the majors in 2018 with minus-145 runs saved, the lowest mark by any team since Sports Info Solutions introduced the metric in 2003.
But that assumption appears less firm these days, and in some of their public statements Monday, the Phillies at least gave the impression that they would be thrilled to land Harper. In particular, Klentak said on MLB Network Radio that their trade for shortstop Jean Segura last week was a “jumping-off point” that just so happened to open a spot in their outfield.
“Sometimes you need that first move to help set the course for the rest of your offseason,” Klentak said.