Phillies 2023 offseason tracker: Trade talk, signings, analysis, key dates, and more

After another deep playoff run ended short of a World Series title, the Phillies enter the offseason with some needs and questions. Rhys Hoskins, the longest-tenured Phillies position player on the roster, is expected to move on in free agency. But Aaron Nola will not follow him out the door, after agreeing to a seven-year contract.

Follow along here with the latest news and analysis from The Inquirer throughout the offseason. We’ll update this list with every move and break them down as they happen, all the way until spring training gets underway in February.

The Phillies announced on Monday at the winter meetings that they extended manager Rob Thomson’s contract through the 2025 season, and hired two assistant hitting coaches, Dustin Lind and Rafael Peña. Read more

If Juan Soto gets traded this winter, it won’t be to the Phillies. At the risk of disappointing folks who want to see a big offseason splash, the Phillies aren’t involved in trade talks for Soto, a source familiar with the club’s thinking said during the first day of the baseball winter meetings. Read more

The Phillies signed hard-throwing right-handed reliever Jose Ruiz to a minor league contract on Monday, according to a report by MLB Trade Rumors. Ruiz’s deal reportedly includes an invitation to big league spring training. Read more about Ruiz here.

Aaron Nola has agreed to a seven-year, $172 million contract with the Phillies, The Inquirer confirmed on Sunday. According to a source, Nola turned down more money from other deals to stay in Philadelphia. The contract is pending a physical.

Once it is official, Nola’s deal will be the biggest contract for a pitcher in Phillies history. Will the Phillies sign another starter in free agency?

Faced with a deadline to offer 2024 contracts to players who are eligible for salary arbitration, the Phillies signed three of those players to one-year deals.

Backup catcher Garrett Stubbs, reserve outfielder Jake Cave, and right-hander Dylan Covey agreed to terms to return next season, the team announced Friday night. Cave signed for $1 million, while Stubbs and Covey will be paid $850,000 in the majors. They also tendered contracts to five other arbitration-eligible players.

If Aaron Nola signs elsewhere, the Phillies won’t lose him for nothing. Nola, as expected, turned down a qualifying offer from the Phillies by Tuesday’s deadline. He’s looking for a multiyear contract on the free agent market, and the $20.325 million offer was for only 2024.

The Phillies’ offer, like Nola’s rejection, was strictly a formality. But it does guarantee that the Phillies will receive draft-pick compensation between the fourth and fifth rounds if he signs with another team.

The Phillies dealt infielder Oliver Dunn to the Brewers for infielder Robert Moore and outfielder Hendry Mendez, the team announced. Moore and Mendez were Milwaukee’s No. 20 and 25 prospects, according to Baseball America’s midseason rankings. Read more.

Bryce Harper, 31, hit .293/.401/.499 over 126 games this season with a .900 OPS. He hit 21 home runs over that span. He first won the Silver Slugger award in 2015, and again in 2021, but this go-around might be the most impressive of the three. Harper began his season on the injured list after undergoing Tommy John surgery on his right elbow on Nov. 23. Read more.

Bryce Harper will play first base going forward, Phillies president of baseball operations Dave Dombrowski told reporters at the general managers’ meetings in Scottsdale, Ariz. Dombrowski reportedly called Rhys Hoskins on Sunday to tell him about their decision.

“[Harper] said, ‘I’ll do whatever is good for the club,’” Dombrowski said to reporters. “The more we talked about it internally, we just think it’s a good situation for us and a good situation for him.”

Dombrowski said he envisions Harper as the first baseman and Kyle Schwarber as the designated hitter for “the majority of the time.”

The Phillies claimed left-hander Josh Fleming off waivers, then traded for righty Michael Mercado. Both were added to the 40-man roster, with pitchers Michael Plassmeyer and Erich Uelmen getting outrighted to triple-A Lehigh Valley. Read more.

Cesár Ramos was promoted to bullpen coach, the team announced, after two seasons as the pitching coach at triple-A Lehigh Valley. He will replace Dave Lundquist, who was let go after the season.

Ramos, 39, joined the Phillies in 2020 as a player information assistant and took over as the organization’s rehab pitching coach a year later. The Phillies still are searching for an assistant hitting coach after moving on from Jason Camilli. Read more.

Dave Dombrowski and Jim Leyland won a World Series in 1997, as the Marlins’ GM and manager. They worked together in Miami for two years, then reunited in 2006 when Dombrowski hired Leyland to pilot the Tigers. For eight years in Detroit, they represented the model partnership of executive and skipper.

In announcing Rob Thomson’s extension on Monday, Dombrowski brings the Phillies closer to the continuity that he and Leyland achieved all those years, not insignificant for an organization that has been through two front-office regime changes and five managers since Charlie Manuel was let go in 2013. Read more

On Day 1 of baseball’s winter meetings, Phillies president of baseball operations Dave Dombrowski said his club is “exploring” and “keeping an open mind.” This could mean anything, of course, but given the Phillies’ payroll and star power, they likely will look to improve around the margins.

Dombrowski has said in the past that his roster is mostly set, but on Monday, he mentioned two areas where they could add: in the bullpen and the outfield. Read more

With the payroll projected to top $250 million for luxury tax purposes and “no gaping holes” in the roster, as Dave Dombrowski puts it, the Phillies probably won’t make the biggest move of baseball’s winter meetings, multiple rival executives are forecasting.

But Dombrowski also didn’t come to the Gaylord Opryland Resort & Convention Center this week to splash around the lazy river that runs through this massive hotel. Here are three storylines to watch as the meetings get underway. Read more

Nine of Dave Dombrowski’s last 12 teams went to the playoffs. Three won the pennant. One — the 2018 Red Sox — triumphed in the World Series. But through it all, the architect rarely rolled up his blueprints.

It would be out of character, then, for Dombrowski to simply run back a roster, even though the Phillies played at a 100-win pace from June 3 on before coughing up the National League Championship Series at home in Games 6 and 7. But with the winter meetings set to begin Monday in Nashville, he has signaled that he may do just that. Read more

Two less glaring — but still important — needs are adding a versatile reliever who can pitch multiple innings and a bench outfielder who can create some defensive flexibility. Ahead of baseball’s winter meetings next week, here are a few outfielders and relievers they can realistically consider.

For years, there was an easy rebuttal to the city of Philadelphia’s constant ooh-la-la-ing over the thought of Mike Trout in a Phillies uniform. Why would the Angels trade the best player in modern history while he is in the midst of an unprecedented prime?

General managers like to say that nobody is untouchable. But Trout may have been the least touchable player in baseball history. Phillies fans thought he was the savior of the world. And he was. Da Vinci’s.

Priceless.

Well, Trout, 32, sure has a price now. And the framing of the question has changed.

The Phillies didn’t have much appetite for a bidding war for Aaron Nola. All along, president of baseball operations Dave Dombrowski said re-signing Nola was the club’s “priority,” a sentiment that grew even stronger as it explored the alternatives in free agency and the trade market.

Talks picked up late last week. Nola strongly preferred staying with the Phillies, and his agent Joe Longo let it be known that $172 million would get it done. The Phillies agreed, provided the contract was lengthened to seven years to reduce the average annual value to less than $25 million for luxury-tax purposes. Read more

For all of Blake Snell’s talent, multiple scouts noted this week that the two-time Cy Young winner isn’t necessarily an Aaron Nola substitute. Because while Nola pounds the strike zone and eats innings like Pac-Man chomps power pellets, Snell’s exceeding walk rate and average of five innings per start make him the polar opposite.

The Inquirer polled talent evaluators from five NL teams, asking if they would rather have Snell or Nola. Here’s how they picked.

The Phillies have “done significant work” on Yoshinobu Yamamoto, according to one National League scout. “Most teams have sent scouts to see him, but I would say the Phillies should be considered one of the top five or six suitors for his services.”

Yamamoto, 25, is one of the most accomplished pitchers in Nippon Professional Baseball history. And he would be a fine backup plan if the Phillies don’t re-sign Aaron Nola.

It’s much easier to find high-leverage bullpen arms on the trade market than it is to find front-line starters. Again, look at the Braves. Last December, they acquired Joe Jimenez from the Tigers for a prospect (Justyn-Henry Milloy, who was ranked No. 6 in the organization at the time).

The Phillies don’t have the organizational depth that the Braves have, which is why they ended up trading for Soto instead of a higher-pedigree arm like Jimenez. But they do have Johan Rojas.

Bryce Harper’s willingness to play first base or the outfield spoke to his self-confidence. There’s also a level of selflessness and a desire to follow through on his pledge to do whatever he and the team agree is most helpful to deliver his first World Series title and the Phillies’ first since 2008.

Eventually, though, the receipt will come due. The Phillies want Harper to play first base in 2024 and beyond? No problem. But at some point — ideally after he rides in a parade down Broad Street, but perhaps sooner — Harper will want to talk about a contract extension.

For two years, Rhys Hoskins embodied baseball hope in Philadelphia. For four years, he partnered with Bryce Harper to make the Phillies a destination franchise. This year, the Phillies almost won a second consecutive pennant, and they did it without him, because he injured a knee in spring training.

They did it without him, and with Harper at first base, and he was really good there, and he’s 31, and his superb arm in right field got surgically repaired a year ago and so it might never again be superb again, and that made the Phillies’ decision easy. The Phillies have convinced Harper to play first base full time. Hoskins is a free agent. Whatever Hoskins commands on the open market — and, as a selective, right-handed hitter who averaged 36 homers per 162 games with an .846 OPS, he’ll command plenty — will be too much of a luxury for the Phillies.

Here’s a look at all of the key dates for the Phillies’ offseason: