Jayson Stark of The Athletic hears that the Phillies talked to the Diamondbacks about Paul Goldschmidt. A potential deal involving pitcher Zach Eflin was discussed, but then things broke down once the Phillies brought up the idea of Arizona taking Carlos Santana which, nope, is not exactly what the Dbacks are wanting to do right now.
Goldschmidt, as we’ve discussed, is heading into his walk year for a Dbacks team that could very well lose Patrick Corbin and A.J. Pollock this offseason and is thus considering just tearing down and selling off. In addition to Goldschmidt, Zack Greinke is reportedly on the block as well. For his part, Goldschmidt remains an MVP-caliber player and is only making $14.5 million in 2019, so he’d take quite a haul of prospects, even if it is his walk year.
Like a lot of offseason transaction rumors, the end product of this is “welp, nothing came of it, so why should I care?” I think the takeaway here, however, should be more like “dang, the Phillies are willing to try anything and at least are thinking big.” The talk about them has mostly surrounded how they’ve positioned themselves to bid on Bryce Harper and/or Manny Machado, but they clearly aren’t limiting themselves to that. And, in trying to shop Santana, they are not content to pretend that past signings weren’t mistakes, as so many teams tend to do.
