Phillies Interested In Christian Yelich; Marlins Waiting To Market Core Players

The Phillies have strong interest in Marlins outfielder Christian Yelich and would be glad to take some of Miami’s underperforming contracts to facilitate his addition, according to a report from veteran journalist Ken Rosenthal. (With FOXsports.com evidently morphing into a vlog, Rosenthal is writing from his Facebook page during what is sure to be a short-lived foray into free agency.)

From the Phils’ perspective, that would preferably mean taking on some lower-priced contracts that are clogging the Marlins’ books in the near-term. While the Phillies have at least weighed internally the idea of taking on Giancarlo Stanton’s massive contract as part of some swap, Rosenthal makes clear that the team has not expressed interest in doing so and that discussion of that concept never “got started.”

Other organizations, though, have reached out to Miami regarding Stanton. And as Rosenthal suggests, it seems reasonable to expect that there’d be a taker for him at some price point, though the prospect of taking all of his contract remains daunting. That explains all the chatter about possibly packaging Stanton with another player, though Rosenthal says he doesn’t expect that to occur.

While the creative possibilities are endless, it seems the Marlins will be taking a cautious approach at the deadline with regard to its most notable players. Despite an inclination in the baseball operations department to embark upon a rebuild, says Rosenthal, the organization is not willing to deal core players while still orchestrating the sale of the team itself.

That stance also seemingly means that Yelich is off-limits for the Phillies at the moment. There’s little rush to add to the MLB roster in Philadelphia, of course, but the interest (along with the possible trade concepts discussed above) strongly suggests that the team is looking into ways to install pieces for 2018 and beyond. That could conceivably result in any number of interesting scenarios this summer and over the winter to come.