Murphy: Phillies need to avoid temptation on this year's free-agent market

There's an argument to be made that the Phillies should open up the checkbook and invest in a free-agent hitter or two this offseason. They have the bank account and the payroll space to accommodate such a player (or two), and they've been competitive enough this season to at least dream of making things interesting in 2017.

Clearly, they would need a lot of things to go right just to consider .500 a possibility. Aaron Nola needs to be healthy and effective, Vince Velasquez needs to take the next step in his development and become a starter capable of logging 200 innings, and one of their other young arms needs to emerge as a viable middle-of-the-rotation option.

Jake Thompson is the most obvious candidate, though I suppose Ben Lively or Mark Appel are at least worth mentioning. Maikel Franco needs to be more than a No. 7 hitter, Tommy Joseph needs to put up a full season of his current numbers while holding down first base, and Cesar Hernandez needs to keep reaching base at a .340+ clip. That's a lot of ifs, some of them highly questionable ones.

Regardless, the Phillies don't have much reason not to try to put the best possible team on the field. Assuming they don't mind spending money, why not invest in a pair of corner outfield bats, regardless of price? Why not go for it?

Actually, there's a big reason why not. Any of the hitters who you might have in mind figure to garner contracts of at least three years. Yoenis Cespedes tops the market, and he will be looking for something more than the three-year, $75 million deal he figures to opt out of after this season. Josh Reddick, Ian Desmond, Jose Bautista, Dexter Fowler … all seem likely to get multiple years at big money. In a vacuum, the Phillies can afford it, at least with regard to the cash itself.

What they can't afford is the opportunity cost they would incur. Those opportunities lie in the post-2017 and post-2018 offseasons.

The following is a sampling of players who are projected to reach free agency after next season: 1B Eric Hosmer, 3B Todd Frazier, 3B Mike Moustakas, OF Justin Upton, OF J.D. Martinez, OF Lorenzo Cain, OF Carlos Gonzalez, SP Danny Duffy, SP Masahiro Tanaka, and SP Johnny Cueto.

The post-2018 class might be the best ever. At the moment, it projects to include Bryce Harper, Jose Fernandez, Matt Harvey, Manny Machado, Adam Jones, Josh Donaldson, and Michael Brantley.

Nobody is suggesting the Phillies should pencil any one of these players into their 2018 or 2019 lineups. But any player they sign to more than one year is going to lessen the amount they can bid on free agents in subsequent years. If each of the next two free-agent classes figure to be better than this year's free-agent class, and if the Phillies figure to be closer to contention in 2018 and 2019 than they are in 2017, then it really doesn't make a whole lot of sense to sacrifice spending power in 2018 and 2019 to improve in 2017.

That's not saying they should stand pat. If there is an opportunity to overpay for a guy such as Michael Saunders or Justin Turner on a one or two-year deal, they should absolutely consider it. They should absolutely kick the tires on players who might have to settle for a one-year, show-me contract such as Carlos Gomez or Colby Rasmus.

But as tempting as it might be to throw the bank at somebody such as Cespedes or Fowler, the Phillies would be foolish to sacrifice any spending power down the road.