👋 Good morning! Less than two months until pitchers and catchers!

Today's newsletter is brought to you by Righteous Felon Craft Jerky!

Use code PHLY25 for 25 percent off orders of 35 bucks or more. They have so many great flavors like OG Hickory, Street Taco Pork, Lemon Pepper Turkey, Spicy Habanero and so many more. Take it from me, they are all delicious. Check them out today!

OK, let’s talk about the Phillies’ new right fielder. As always, you can reach me at [email protected]

Just a few weeks ago, I wrote that I was “not in on the Adolis García idea.” But after the Phillies have reportedly signed ol’ Adolis to a one-year, $10 million deal, I do want this qualifier from that newsletter to be read into the record for you, dear reader: But I do admit that there are not a lot of good answers out there.

Let’s do some rationalizing, you and me. But before we do that, check out Tyler’s thoughts on the signing, which I will be referencing quite a bit. Great first segment.

Longtime readers know how wary I am of Dave Dombrowski shopping in the discount aisle. It’s not fair to judge Adolis García on the Phillies’ past moves, but whenever I see Dave D whistling while pushing the ol’ shopping cart down the “one year, $10 million-ish” aisle, it scares me. The recent track record has not been very good.

Now, get ready for a bit of a jump scare.

Ahhhhhhh!!!!!!!

(Gotta eat your Whitties, though.)

Outside of re-signing Kyle Schwarber (whose bat you could not lose) and potentially re-signing J.T. Realmuto (whose position you likely cannot fill adequately otherwise), most of us would have agreed on the type of archetype that the Phillies most needed to add this offseason: right-handed power bat, preferably in the outfield.

And yes, that player sounds great in theory. But when you scour the list of free agents for actual names, that player really does not exist. I looked at a few of the Top-50 lists and the only righty-hitting outfielder that I could find on them is… Harrison Bader! More on him in a minute. One year of Taylor Ward, who is a decent righty corner outfield type, earned the Angels a risky but super high-upside dart throw (Grayson Rodriguez) in their starting rotation via trade. And García got a raise from the Phillies after getting non-tendered by Texas!

My point? If Bryce Harper is gonna stay at first base, it’s hard to acquire righty power bats in the outfield. This is precisely what Dombrowski told reporters at winter meetings.

“There’s just a lot more left-handed hitters nowadays than there are right-handed hitters, for whatever reason,” he said. “We’ll talk about something that comes up, and I’ll say, ‘Yeah, but that’s a left-handed hitter again.’”

Where did all the righties go, fellow kids?

Alas, the Phillies really needed some pop from the right side. As Tyler pointed out here, the Fightins had just 85 homers from righty hitters a season ago. That was the fifth-fewest in baseball, and every team behind them with the exception of Cleveland (who stunk at hitting) stunk. Trea Turner not being able to hit homers in Citizens Bank Park for whatever reason hurt the Phillies, as did Alec Bohm and Realmuto taking steps back.

Righty power bats in the outfield are so hard to acquire that Dombrowski signed Max Kepler to this same contract last year. Think about that one more time: They signed a lefty that played the other corner outfield position. As hard as I was on Kepler last year at times, that partnership was doomed from the start.

So, in replacing Nick Castellanos with Adolis García, the Phillies are at least signing a guy that hits from the right side of the plate and plays the right position. Baby steps, that is a start. But when you shop in the discount aisle, you are gonna get a player with some questions. Case in point: Lots of blue on that Baseball Savant page.

Two years ago, when García was the ALCS MVP and a World Series champion in Texas, that very same Baseball Savant page had a lot of red. And then the last two seasons in which García fell off a cliff, happened.

Oof, those are Casty-level numbers. When you look at OPS+, which factors in the ballparks — CBP is a hitter’s park, while the Phillies’ former house of horrors in Arlington is a pitcher’s park — García was slightly better at the plate than Casty this season. But yeah, it’s not much of an upgrade.

Now, where it is unquestionably an upgrade is in the field. All season, I marveled at how poorly Casty graded out in fielding metrics. It was an, “I knew he was bad, but I did not know he was that bad…” type of thing. Well, García is by all accounts a very good right fielder. There is a YouTube video of his defensive highlights from the 2023 season that runs 8:23. I do not know if we could find a defensive highlight reel from Casty’s entire Phillies tenure that runs 8:23. Like Jay Buhner before him, García appears to have a rocket for an arm.

What about the bat, though? Deep down, that is what we all care about the most.

García and Castellanos are unfortunately pretty similar hitters. Like Casty, García chases and whiffs a lot. More of his whiffs are in the strike zone, but a pretty similar profile. One potential issue I see with García is that he is not a guy who has raked against lefties for most of his career.

If I were to try and put an optimistic spin on the signing, it’s that when García does make contact, he still is hitting the ball hard. You can see that with his average exit velocity, barrel rate and hard-hit percentage in the graphic above. That is unlike Casty, who legitimately never hit the ball hard over the last two seasons. So, maybe Kevin Long can unlock something here. See ball, hit ball.

The final question is what this does for to the Phillies outfield. We know that Castellanos will be gone one way or another, and that García is your new right fielder. But what about the other two sports?

As of today, which might not mean anything since the offseason is still going on, my guess would be…

But Bader is still out there, if the Phils want to shop in a different, multi-year aisle (just make sure you drop the cart off in the corral, Dave). Maybe if Realmuto leaves, they can more or less can give his money to Bader. The Phillies could trade Marsh too, but of course, that means you would also have to replace him. It does seem like Crawford projects more as a left fielder, and the Phillies could be pretty good defensively with a Crawford-Bader-García outfield.

We will find that part out when everything else shakes out. Until then, is Adolis García likely gonna be the cleanup hitter that legitimately protects Kyle Schwarber or Bryce Harper? Unless he turns back the clock to 2021-23, maybe not. But 27-ish home runs with good defense would not be a bad consolation prize.

Here’s hoping he regains some level of form.

Marcus Mariota Time: The Eagles faced Jayden Daniels three times last season, and hand up, I was impressed by the young guy. Even in the NFC Championship Game, Daniels mostly traded blows with an all-time Eagles defense. That was never gonna be enough when the Eagles offense was scoring at will that day, but he was game.

Well, the Eagles will face Jayden Daniels zero times this season. Clearly the right move for Washington. Tough season down there for poor Tailgate Ted.

That means the Eagles will see old friend Marcus Mariota perhaps twice in the final three weeks. That’s right, the only man standing between the Eagles breaking The Streak is the man that local talk radio unsuccessfully tried to will to Philadelphia back in Spring 2015. How about that for a completely manufactured storyline?

By the way, terrible job by the NFL putting Eagles-Commanders as a Saturday standalone game followed by Commanders-Cowboys as a Christmas standalone game. The whole world knew that Washington was gonna take a step back this season! They are the oldest team in recent memory! I was calling them the Washington Regressions back in August!

Some wild under-center numbers: Even if we obsess over the smaller details of the Eagles offensive issues at PHLY, “Just do X!” can be lazy analysis… especially with an offense like the Eagles’, one that cannot run the ball at will like last season.

All that said, maybe just go under-center more?

The three times that Jalen Hurts was most under-center this season? His three best games of the year: at Minnesota, home against the Giants, home against Las Vegas. Again, not the greatest teams in the world, but maybe keep trying that until it does not work?

As Fran showed below, Dallas Goedert was wide-open off under-center play-action a bunch during Sunday’s game. It does open up your passing game.

Q or Coop? Interesting little discussion on yesterday’s Eagles show: If you had to start a defense tomorrow, would you start with Quinyon Mitchell or Cooper DeJean?

I am curious: What say you guys?

Byron Young: Go Birds. Go Flyers.

Braves loadin’ up: Remember the Atlanta Braves? You might not remember them, so here is a quick refresher: Once upon a time, the Braves were the franchise that won a million games every regular season only to meekly bow out in four to the Phillies in the NLDS as Bryce Harper hit balls out of the stadium.

Atlanta has had an unlucky few seasons. Still a lot of talent down there, and to their credit, they do spend money. GM Alex Anthopoulos has thrown some cash around this offseason…

Seems like Kim will be the Braves’ everyday shortstop. And Suarez will form a nice end-of-bullpen duo with Raisel Iglesias. Bryce Harper still owns both of those guys, but the point stands.

Speaking of Atlanta…

The NBA has no idea what a backcourt violation is. I wrote a little bit about this yesterday, but watch the video below.

That seems like the most textbook backcourt violation in the history of basketball. Nickeil Alexander-Walker catches the ball, takes two steps in the frontcourt (would have been a catch in the NFL) and then puts it down in the backcourt. At any level of basketball, that feels like it would be called an easy backcourt violation and Sixers ball. Alaa Abdelnaby pointed it out on the broadcast, and while he was passionate, Alaa’s comments were not over-the-top.

But apparently not in the National Basketball Association. The official NBA Refs account, the one with 136,000 Twitter followers, fired right back at Alaa!

What an insane reply! To signal out Alaa, when Nick Nurse and every Sixers player on the floor are also calling for a backcourt violation, is ridiculous! I have pointed out Alaa being a homer before (which is fine to a degree, it’s a home broadcast after all), but this is not that. #TeamAlaa all the way on this one! Just a wild response from the referees association.

We also still have not received a good answer as to why that is not a backcourt violation from either the refs association or the NBA. Here is what the Last Two Minute report said: Correct No-Call, Alexander-Walker's (ATL) momentum carries him into the backcourt, which is legal in the last two minutes of the fourth quarter and overtime.

Momentum? What on earth kind of rule is that? Does your momentum not technically carry you into the backcourt on every single violation? It seems difficult to commit a backcourt violation while standing still. If anyone could do it, the Sixers could I guess.

I could care less about the Sixers losing that game. It’s 1 of 82, we will not remember it by next week. But this is bigger than that. I am not someone who is not usually on the NBA’s case for allowing the gather step and most of their other officiating quirks. It’s a hard job, after all. But Adam Silver needs to forget about his precious little NBA Cup for a second, get Monty McCutchen on the horn and rewrite the backcourt violation rule immediately for the good of the sport. Momentum?!?!?

Flyers-Habs (7:00 p.m., NBC Sports Philly). Typical Montreal!

Your tentative Tuesday schedule at PHLY:

Let's make it a good one.

Rich Hofmann
Daily Newsletter Editor
PHLY SPORTS