PHILADELPHIA — If you think about it, there’s something weird about taking a rooting interest in the way a billionaire spends his money. Which is why you shouldn’t think about it. Just enjoy it. In fact, do everything in your power to egg it on.
So, whaddaya say, Johnny Middlebucks? Just gonna sit there and take that? One of your biggest professional rivals is up there in Queens creating his own G20 economy and you’re gonna spend the rest of the offseason staring at your NLCS trophy? You know what Steve Cohen calls a $238 million payroll? Half empty! Chop, chop, then. You’ve got a vulnerable bullpen and the only way to bulletproof it is with Benjamins. Or David Robertsons. Or whoever is out there to replace Robertson. Because the Mets already signed him.
Granted, in a saner world, it would be an egregious misallocation of funds to spend $10 million on a 38-year-old reliever who made it through the postseason on pixie dust and positive thinking. But you are not living in a sane world. You are living in Cohen’s world. And in order to win it, you have to play by his rules.
The luxury tax? It’s now the cost of doing business. Or, more accurately, it’s a cost of living adjustment. And you know what they say: get busy living, or get busy accepting your eternal fate as a wild-card team. That was the biggest lesson of Cohen’s decision to commit 12 years and $315 million to Carlos Correa a couple of days ago. Who knows if the Phillies lit the fuse or if it’s been burning this hot for awhile. Maybe it was the World Series appearance. Maybe it was the Trea Turner contract. Maybe Cohen took the Taijuan Walker deal on a deep, personal level.
Whatever the case, there’s a certain level of dominance inherent in any man who amasses a fortune of close to $20 billion. By signing Correa and pushing the Mets’ 2023 payroll well past the $300 million mark, Cohen both improved his roster and sent a message to the Phillies.
You sure you want to play this game?
This was a power move. The only choice Middleton has is to answer. The only answer is to spend more money. So tell the fam that grandaddy needs a new Montblanc for Christmas and put the bankers on standby. There are no holiday hours this year. Money doesn’t sleep, and neither does the real king of the NL East!
Sure, there really isn’t anybody left to spend money on. Of the 33 free agents who entered the offseason with the highest 2022 WAR, only four remain: shortstop Elvis Andrus, left fielder Jurickson Profar, and pitchers Corey Kluber and Johnny Cueto. But the Phillies can’t let that stop them. Sign another reliever. Sign two and leave one of them in Cohen’s bed. Meet force with force.
I kid, of course. The Phillies will only get themselves into trouble if they try to match the Mets on the spending front. There are plenty of fates more humiliating for a man than being unable to go dollar-for-dollar with a guy worth $17.4 billion. Like I always tell aspiring sportswriters, the first billion is the hardest!
Reality is, nobody can come close to doing what the Mets are doing. They’ve spent more money this offseason than the Phillies have spent in the last three combined. The $734 million in salary obligations that Cohen has added to his books is more than 20% of Middleton’s estimated net worth. Heck, it’s more than the estimated net worth of at least four MLB owners. At this point, the best thing for the rest of Major League Baseball to do is hope that the Mets are in the market for a CFO when Sam Bankman-Fried gets work release.
Of course, the Phillies can’t ignore what the Mets have done. In fact, there are two big takeaways from the Correa deal. The first involves the short-term. The Phillies need at least one more reliever who has the potential to settle into a high-leverage role. Right now, they have an awful lot riding on the chance that Seranthony Domínguez and José Alvarado remain healthy all season. Connor Brogdon may prove to be a pre-breakout Ryan Madson. Matt Strahm may prove to be an improvement on Brad Hand. But last season was a testament to how thin things can get in a hurry. Robertson may not have pitched like a $10 million reliever in the postseason. But he pitched. Because the Phillies needed him to.
Can they get by with what they have? Sure. They could. But once your payroll reaches a certain point, you are mostly paying to give yourself escape routes when things start to go wrong. Middleton has done a commendable job of putting his bank account where his heart is. It would have been easy to spend this offseason counting the playoff gate receipts and living off the political capital the Phillies earned themselves en route to the World Series. Instead, he went out and signed the hitter they needed and the pitcher they needed at whatever price was required. It would be a shame if all of that was jeopardized by a bullpen that consistently appears to be one arm short.
That said, the longer term takeaway is that payroll alone will not win the NL East. The Phillies need to start developing a steady supply of talent that enables them to find bullpen arms and quality starters. They need to give themselves the ammunition to compete in the trade market, where the best bullpen values are often found. This is easier said than done, as evidenced by how much it has been said. But it remains just as true.
In the meantime, the rest of us should at least appreciate the spectacle that is unfolding. The Phillies and Mets are in a hot war again. It’s kind of fun when your team has one of baseball’s richest owners, and also the underdog in the fight.
