To hear John Middleton tell it, the entire conversation lasted three minutes, maybe four.
It was March 17, one week after the end of Major League Baseball’s unbecoming 99-day lockout and three weeks before a rushed opening day. Hundreds of free agents were unsigned. Teams scrambled to complete their rosters. And upon arriving that morning at the Phillies’ spring-training complex in Clearwater, Fla., president of baseball operations Dave Dombrowski ducked his head into Middleton’s office.
A few days earlier, the Phillies agreed to terms with Kyle Schwarber on a four-year, $79 million contract. Now, Dombrowski wanted to double down on sluggers. With the designated hitter coming to the National League, there was a place on the roster for Nick Castellanos. But there wasn’t space in the budget. Not unless ownership was willing to push the payroll over the competitive-balance tax threshold for the first time in club history.
Seven months later, the irony is delicious. A baseball season that almost didn’t get off the ground because owners and players were arguing over money will end with the Phillies in the World Series after their owners spared no expense.
“If you’re in this business to make money, you’re in the wrong business,” said Middleton, standing on the wet grass in front of the infield Sunday night as the Phillies celebrated winning their first pennant in 13 years. “There’s only one reason to be in this business, and that’s to win.”
For years, Middleton, the Phillies’ managing partner and largest stakeholder, asked club executives the same question: “Is there anything we can do that you can think of to make us materially better?” The 67-year-old, who sold his family’s tobacco business for nearly $3 billion in 2007, let it be known that ownership would pay the tax if it meant acquiring the right player at the right time for a chance to reach the World Series.
After going 82-80 last season, the Phillies were more than one or even two players away. But Dombrowski can read a room. He knows his audience. And most important, he has the track record of success over 33 years of running baseball operations for five organizations to compel an owner to go along with his plan.
“He looked at us,” Middleton said, “and he said, ‘We’re a hitting-heavy team. We’ve got top-end pitching that’s really good. We’ve got back-end bullpen that’s really good. We’re not great fielders. So, we’re going to have to slug, and here’s a guy [Castellanos] who can slug. He can help us. He might help us win 10-8 in some games that we would lose 8-6 or 8-7 without him.’
“That was Dave’s judgment. When a guy’s taken three other teams to the World Series before you, you’ve got to trust the man’s judgment.”
Two days later, the Phillies agreed to a five-year, $100 million contract with Castellanos. And with that, the payroll climbed above the $230 million tax threshold.
For the purposes of the competitive-balance tax, which uses average annual salary values for players on 40-man rosters, the Phillies are projected to come in at about $243 million, which would bring a $2.6 million tax bill.
“I never like going over the CBT, and the reason is, it’s a penalty. Why do you want penalties?” Dombrowski said. “There’s a reason why you call them penalties. But I think where our club had developed, if all of a sudden we put one more premium bat in the middle of it, that we’d have a chance to have a really good club. I thought it was worth it, and fortunately enough, [ownership] agreed and supported it.”
If ever an owner was going to authorize paying the tax for the first time, this was the year to do it. Under terms of the new collective bargaining agreement, the tax threshold rose to $230 million from $210 million last season, a 9.5% increase and the largest year-over-year bump since the current system was put in place in 2002.
The Phillies wound up benefiting from other changes to the CBA, too. They were the sixth and final NL team to qualify for the postseason, claiming a third wild card that didn’t exist before the playoff format was expanded for this year. And the arrival of the universal DH enabled Bryce Harper to stay in the lineup after straining a ligament in his right elbow in April. In previous years, the Phillies would have lost him for the season.
On the field, things didn’t always go according to Dombrowski’s blueprint. Castellanos had the worst year of his career. Harper missed two months in the summer with a broken left thumb. Schwarber led the league with 46 homers but batted only .218. Rhys Hoskins ran typically hot and cold. J.T. Realmuto didn’t produce in April, May, and half of June before putting together an MVP-quality second half.
The Phillies survived the 162-game grind because their roster was deeper than it had been in recent years. They also got more help from the farm system. Third baseman Alec Bohm and rookie shortstop Bryson Stott made big impacts as homegrown regulars, but Matt Vierling, Nick Maton, Darick Hall, Bailey Falter, and others produced after coming up from triple A.
But Middleton also followed through on a promise that he made to Harper when they met three years ago and sized up each other to determine if they were right as a baseball partnership.
“I said, ‘Bryce, what I’d like to do is, a hundred years from now, I’d like one of our Phillies teams to be in the conversation of what is the greatest team in the history of baseball. That’s my standard,’” Middleton recalled. “I said, ‘I don’t know if I’ll ever hit that, but that’s what I’m shooting for. And anything less than that to me will be, I won’t say it’s a failure, but it will not be achieving my goals.’”
An 87-win team that got hot at the right time and advanced to the World Series probably won’t carry that label. Then again, if these Phillies win it all, they will rank with their 1980 and 2008 predecessors as the most beloved teams in franchise history.
Middleton would surely take that legacy.
“This team is expected to be here with the way that Mr. Middleton and Dombrowski went into the offseason and the moves that we made and the opportunities that we had,” Harper said. “This is what we went out to do and we were able to get here.”
