As Juan Soto and Yoshinobu Yamamoto rumors swirl, the Phillies may be done spending, and it may be for the best

Are the Phillies really done?

It’s a big question. It’s also a presumptuous one.

Even if John Middleton put the plug back in the piggy bank right now, the Phillies would be set to enter the season with a payroll projected to be in the neighborhood of $250 million. Only about $200 million of that is for players signed to guaranteed contracts, so there is some guesswork involved. But it’s safe to say that they are again set to enter a season with one of the top five payrolls in the game, at or above last year’s final total of roughly $245 million.

» READ MORE: Why Dealin’ Dave Dombrowski is comfortable running back the core of the Phillies’ roster in 2024

Pity Middleton. For a guy who is set to shell out a quarter of a billion dollars on salary, the two most frustrating words to hear must be, “What’s next?”

But, hey, reputations are hard-earned and hard-shed. When you spend every offseason plugging holes with fists full of cash, you can’t blame people for seeing a caulk gun in your pocket every time the wind blows.

Juan Soto, Yoshinobu Yamamoto, Mike Trout — fire up that money machine and make it whir!

Truth is, the Phillies were always going to reach a point where the offseason was more about maintenance than supplementation. The annual spending sprees of the last several years were largely a function of pulling demand forward. The Phillies spent so long in their self-imposed spending quarantine that they could afford to spend a half decade backstroking through the offseason like Scrooge McDuck. But all of those guaranteed years add up, and they only disappear one at a time. Bryce Harper, Kyle Schwarber, Nick Castellanos, Trea Turner — they are all still here making the same coin. The Phillies may just have to make do.

The Juan Soto juice probably isn’t worth the squeeze.

There’s really only one scenario in which the Phillies could justify making their best possible trade offer for a player who is a year away from free agency and potentially seeking a $500 million-plus contract. It would require the Padres to be intrigued by the idea of Castellanos as a replacement for Soto’s bat. It would also require the Phillies to be ready, willing, and able to keep the slugger around for the long term. At that point, it might make some sense to pull the trigger on a package of, say, Justin Crawford, Castellanos, and maybe another piece.

As we noted earlier, though, the Phillies are at a point where opportunity costs need to be a driving consideration. Forget about the potential of whatever young talent they’d need to sacrifice. It matters, of course. Just look at the package that the Padres traded for Soto and Josh Bell a year-and-a-half ago: a 23-year-old shortstop in CJ Abrams who posted a .752 OPS with 11 home runs and 38 stolen bases over the last half of the regular season; a soon-to-be 25-year-old starting pitcher in MacKenzie Gore who logged a 136⅓ league-average innings and showed the strikeout stuff to be plenty more than that; James Wood, a center fielder who is one of the top five prospects in the sport; a couple more prospects with decent ceilings. Plus, Luke Voit!

» READ MORE: Murphy: If the Angels are smart, they’ll trade Mike Trout. If the Phillies are smart, they’ll resist the urge.

Still, the main concern needs to be the idea of locking in another huge contract for the next decade. Zack Wheeler will need to be re-signed or replaced. Ranger Suárez has two more seasons to go before free agency. Fiscal irresponsibility is fun until the future arrives.

Look at it this way: Even if Yoshinobu Yamamoto ends up signing for $250 million, that still might be half of what it takes to re-sign Soto. And the Japanese sensation wouldn’t require parting with a prospect who has a chance to offset the Phillies’ payroll excesses with six years of surplus value. Granted, I say that as someone who has never seen Yamamoto pitch a full game. But if he is who a lot of teams seem to think he is, and if your scouting department grades him out as a player who is worth X price, and if the choice is between him at X price or Soto at two times that price, the sensible option is clear.

That said, there is always a third choice. And it’s often the wisest one. You wait. You make the best of what you have. You continue to cast a wide net for low-cost, high-reward players, you hope that one of them hits à la Jeff Hoffman or José Alvarado, and you save your powder for the day when another Mookie Betts or Gerrit Cole becomes available.

It will mean heading into the 2024 season relying almost exclusively on the roster that came up short in 2023. But all the money in the world can’t prevent what you can’t control. The idea that the Phillies need to enter next season looking materially better on paper assigns a level of preventability to last season’s NLCS loss that does not exist. Sometimes, players don’t hit. Sometimes, pitchers get hit. In a seven-game series, it doesn’t take much of a slump to cost you big. The Dodgers know that as well as anybody. So do the Braves.

Middleton and Dave Dombrowski may not be done just yet. But, if they are, it might be for the best.

» READ MORE: Rob Thomson’s extension brings Phillies closer to continuity Dave Dombrowski had with Jim Leyland