I hope the Phillies keep throwing money around like it is candy. No one in baseball wins titles by becoming offseason champions. Their farm system hasn't produced a ton of real talent so they've smartly looked to trades and if they sign Harper I hope they also sign someone like Kuechel to huge deals.
Problem for Phillies is even to become a back-end contender, you need about 40 WAR on your roster. After Segura and McCutchen they're at about 33 WAR with a payroll of $125 million or so. To get to 40+ WAR, they'd probably have to sign Harper, Keuchel, and Yasmani Grandal. That would add about 12 WAR and replace 3 existing WAR on the roster. That might cost $65 million?
And all of a sudden you're a fringe contender with an aging roster.
It's really tough to build a contender without some homegrown superstars. Maybe their SP prospects will pan out and save them a little.
