Never Alone In First Place With A Schizophrenic

Some teams, like the Astros and Cubs, are total estate sales. Because their gaze overlooks the horizon to a point in time two years hence or further out, everything of value must go. Expensive 30-something veterans can make their team irrelevantly better today, but are unlikely to contribute to the next pennant winner. 

Exchanging these luxury items for the coin of the realm -- future stars who may form the foundation of a contender -- makes sense. And that is exactly the course those two franchises have taken.

Some teams, like the Rangers and Yankees, are smooth sailing yachts seeking to batten down the remaining hatches. The present value of a win or two added by the acquisition of an accomplished baller is far greater than the future value of a prospect. They sensibly go all in to acquire the best players they can get.

That's why the Rangers swapped a pair of -- presumably promising -- minor leaguers for the Cubs' Ryan Dempster. It's why the Angels-Brewers deal sending Zack Greinke to L.A. for no one you've heard of is sensible on both sides. (I'm assuming the rebuilders got something of value. My knowledge of minor leaguers is encyclopaedic in the sense that there is no longer such thing as an encyclopaedia.)

Then there are teams that are rebuilding, but only for this year. The Marlins, as I've mentioned before, should be in that position. They'd assembled a club of stars that dimmed in 2012, but who can redeem themselves in 2013. Teams like that might relinquish pending free agents, but should expect to reload for next season.

Which is what makes recent moves by the Phillies so confounding. They seem to be lurching back and forth between contender and rebuilder like a drunken sailor. One day they sign away Cole Hamels' free agency with $144 million and the next they deal two important pieces -- outfielders Shane Victorino and Hunter Pence.

It's not just that the Phillies should reload for 2013; they have no choice. Ruben Amaro Jr. has nearly an entire payroll bound up over multiple years in aging stars -- Jimmy Rollins, Ryan Howard, Chase Utley, Roy Halladay and Cliff Lee, all of whom have under-performed in one way or another this season, leading to a total team face-plant. The only hope the Phils have in the short term is to add judiciously for next year and make a run at a flag.

Signing Hamels confirmed that approach. Then today. Victorino and Pence are two of the younger, higher performing and cost-controlled stars. At least with Victorino, 31, Amaro dealt a pending free agent whom he perhaps knew couldn't be re-signed at a price he considered reasonable. But the 29-year-old Pence has another year of arbitration and several more of peak value in front of him. He's also provided the second-best stick on the team this year (behind catcher Carlos Ruiz) with a .281 True Average. The only Major Leaguer coming back in those deals is Nate Schierholz, a lifetime .270/.319/.421 fifth outfielder in six partial seasons.

The result is that nothing has changed for 2012 in Philadelphia, but there'll be less Phightin' in them in 2013. And it leaves them betwixt and between, neither contender nor rebuilder, seemingly schizophrenic about their place in the baseball universe. It could be a long, slow, painful decline for Brotherly Lovers.