Phillies Reportedly in Hot Pursuit of Nick Castellanos and the Luxury Tax

According to Jayson Stark at The Athletic, and Jon Morosi at MLB Network, the Phillies are in serious pursuit of Nick Castellanos. Which means for the first time ever, they would be going over the Luxury Tax threshold:

#Phillies in serious pursuit of Nick Castellanos, sources tell @TheAthleticMLB

Castellanos would put Phillies well over tax threshold. But they appear to view him as a big enough difference maker to justify that

Castellanos could push Kyle Schwarber to DH@jonmorosi was on it

— Jayson Stark (@jaysonst) March 18, 2022

Gotta give a hat tip to the decency shown here from Stark not only to confirm the report, but also give credit to Morosi for having it earlier than him. You just don’t see integrity like this anymore:

#Phillies and free agent Nick Castellanos "progressing" in talks on a contract, source confirms. Credit to @jaysonst for reporting on the Phillies' "serious pursuit" of Castellanos earlier this morning. @MLBNetwork @MLB

— Jon Morosi (@jonmorosi) March 18, 2022

You think John Middleton woke up today and thought “I’m tired of being a bottom feeder in the division“? “If I want to win I’m going to need to spend!” So he sold off a couple shares from his sale with Altria and phoned Dave Dombrowski and said, “Do the deal.” Probably not.

The situation is probably more along the lines of Bob Wankel’s more-nuanced thought process:

Phillies get this deal done and don’t win, it’s not on John Middleton anymore.

Think he probably knows it, too.

— Bob Wankel (@Bob_Wankel) March 18, 2022

For anyone that says bullying doesn’t work, show them the tweet when Nick Castellanos signs with the Phillies. The billionaire owner is tired of Phillies fans berating his son and the Phillies online while smoking black and milds on their rooftops. Now if it doesn’t work, he can wipe his hands clean and say “I tried.”

This team is going to be so much fun. I know everyone is worried about the defense. To that I say you don’t have to worry about defense when you score a bajillion runs.

Kinkead edit: looks like Heyman is getting in on this:

Some surprise teams are showing interest in Castellanos. One of those is his old team, the Reds, who seemed to be in steep sell mode. They do have needs but with contenders in the mix, that would seem like a long shot. Philly, others presumably much more likely.

— Jon Heyman (@JonHeyman) March 18, 2022