The Philadelphia Phillies Literally Have Unlimited Money - Now Taijuan Walker Gets $72 Million To Be Their 4th Starter
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Trea Turner was surprising even though that was a major rumor for weeks. It was still very surprising to see $300 million over 11 years. Especially when they're paying Realmuto and Harper and Castellanos and Walker and Scwarber and probably Aaron Nola when his extension's up. Shocking to see a team hand out multiple big deals to build a core of very good players. Trea Turner leading off and playing short in this mix was honestly staggering to process. John Middleton you old sand bagging son of a bitch.
And now they're casually adding Taijuan Walker, arguably one of the best available starting pitchers after the big dogs. $18,000,000 for the 4th starter? Ranger Suarez is trending up and that's a different argument so let's just say $18M for a non top-2 starter. John Middleton is probably getting so much pussy this weekend. Babes love rich dudes.
Also shoutout to Oak Lawn guy Dave Dombrowski. No clue what this roster looks like in 3 years but worry about that shit later. Taijuan Walker's got nasty stuff and it's only cash. Somebody else's at that.
Speaking of which. Kinda cool the guy behind Backwoods cigars spends this much money on his baseball team. That's such a pure American dream story. We're gonna talk about it this week on Starting 9. One of us actually got paid a decent amount by John Middleton one time so we kinda know the feeling.
Congrats to Taijuan Walker. Statistically he bounced back this year. More important is the 48 combined starts the last two years. Some heavy volatility in 2021 but a productive albeit (underwhelming peripherally) 2022. Again much more on the podcast.