If the Phillies sign Harper which they will and I won’t be surprised if it happens today or tomorrow (I have been waiting all offseason to wake up too the article where it says “Phillies sign Bryce Harper” and we are 90% of the way there with the other 10% as the finishing touches .
We knew this was the most Important offseason maybe even in franchise history . We knew the division was going to be really really tough with the Nationals adding Patrick Corbin , Yan Gomes, Brian Dozier and Anibal Sanchez they got stronger , The Braves got stronger with Josh Donaldson and Brian McCann, and the New York Mets got stronger with there new aggressive and bold GM Brody Van Wagenen trading for Robinson Cano and arguably the best closer in baseball in Edwin Diaz , and going out and Signing Wilson Ramos ,Jed Lowrie , Justin Wilson and bringing back Familia plus the imminent arrival of Peter Alonso who led the Minors in home runs last year makes them a legit playoff threat. With all of those moves and even before the Phillies acquired Realmuto I had them 4th in the division with 84 wins
Back in October , if you had told me the Phillies were going to add Jean Segura , Andrew McCutchen , David Robertson , Jose Alvarez , James Pazos , and THE CROWN JEWELS of this offseason In JT Realmuto and look I know a lot of us are upset we traded Sixto Sanchez and I was too but Realmuto is the best Catcher is baseball , is only in his age 28 season , can do it all, hit , steal bases , throw out runners , hit for contact etc, Sanchez is one injury away from a move to the bullpen and if he got hurt this season he really would of lost his value so the Phillies trading him was absolutely the right call. Players like Realmuto don’t come around too often and we still have a good farm system with Alec Bohm, Adam Haseley , Mickey Moniak, Luis Garcia , Adonis Medina etc Realmuto moving into a hitters ballpark could be an MVP candidate with his hitting numbers only going to improve moving away from Marlins Park as he has owned the best road stats the last two seasons .
And the biggest prize of the offseason is the prize we are about too land in Bryce Harper who I wanted this whole time over Machado. With Harper moving into Citezens Bank park unless negotiations colapse which they won’t as Boras and the Phillies have a great working relationship . I think Harper can hit 50 home runs next season and is the player we have been starving for for a very long long time . And in my view the Yankees had the best 1-2 punch in baseball with Judge and Stanton hitting 3-4. But the Phillies are about too have the best 3-5 punch in all of baseball like this with
3. JT Realmuto
4. Bryce Harper
5. Rhys Hoskins
FORGET ABOUT IT
Once the Harper signing goes through Matt Klentak will get an A+ this off-season and will be in the clubhouse for Executive Of The Year. I think we are now by far the favorites in the NL East and as long as we can stay healthy I fully expect this team to win 90 - 95 games and I fully expect the Pitchimg Staff to only get better and I strongely believe our new pitching coach Chris Young who got promoted after Kranitz got fired is going to do wonders for this pitching staff and don’t be surprised if we add another starter and potentially even Dallas Keuchel getting a contract similar to Arrietas situation last year because we know he won’t get that 5 year contract and even after Harper signs we will still have stupid money to spend .
I have never been so excited to be a baseball fan before and I hope Kapler can get it right and I am confident he will with all of this talent and having the team intact from the get go. I believe part of the reason we collapsed was because when we added all of the extra players at the deadline screwed up the chemistry because he had too many weapons and it messed up the team chemistry and a lot of the rookies we had looked gassed but with this lineup there’s no way we collapse .
