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Phillies hope Clay Buchholz pitches well - so they can trade him

CLEARWATER, Fla. - The day the Phillies acquired Clay Buchholz last December, there were no pretenses about his place in the franchise's methodical rebuilding process. Buchholz is 32 years old, making $13.5 million in the final year of his contract, and best described as inconsistent in recent seasons.

Pitcher Clay Buchholz in the Phillies' dugout with his teammates against the New York Yankees in a spring training game on Friday, March 10, 2017.
Pitcher Clay Buchholz in the Phillies' dugout with his teammates against the New York Yankees in a spring training game on Friday, March 10, 2017.Read moreYONG KIM

CLEARWATER, Fla. - The day the Phillies acquired Clay Buchholz last December, there were no pretenses about his place in the franchise's methodical rebuilding process. Buchholz is 32 years old, making $13.5 million in the final year of his contract, and best described as inconsistent in recent seasons.

He will not be a part of the next great Phillies team. But if Buchholz pitches well for three months and the Phillies eat some of the millions owed to him, they could turn Buchholz into another younger and cheaper lottery ticket.

It's baseball's version of a real estate flip.

"It's certainly not lost on us that, if the standings are looking the other way in July, we'll have a number of guys that are in the last year of their contract - not just pitchers," Phillies general manager Matt Klentak said when he traded for Buchholz. "We have a number of guys entering the last year of their contract that could potentially be trade chips."

All winter, the Phillies pursued marginal upgrades through trades or free agency with the shortest possible commitment. That led them to players such as Buchholz, Howie Kendrick, Michael Saunders, Joaquin Benoit, and Pat Neshek. Baseball is a copycat industry, and from the moment the Chicago Cubs transformed a one-year, $6 million deal for Scott Feldman into Cy Young Award winner Jake Arrieta, every rebuilding team has tried to duplicate it.

Good luck.

The blueprint of adding a veteran player, with the goal of later flipping him for younger prospects, is rooted in logic. In practice, it is much more difficult. The player must remain healthy. He must perform. And there must be a demand in the trade market.

The veteran players added during the winter represent $63.7 million in payroll. The Phillies see that as an investment in the 2017 on-field product and as a necessary price to pay for the possible return in younger talent. The Phillies established that precedent when they inherited almost $30 million on broken pitcher Matt Harrison's contract to improve the package of prospects that came from Texas in the Cole Hamels trade.

The Phillies attempted a similar strategy last winter, when they traded two low-level prospects and assumed $16 million to acquire veteran starters Jeremy Hellickson and Charlie Morton. Then Morton tore his hamstring in his fourth start and the market for Hellickson collapsed to the point where the Phillies were forced to retain the righthander at $17.2 million in 2017.

Klentak, as he prepared to interview for the Phillies' general manager job, prepared studies of successful teams that executed their rebuilding plans. Those are studies he has often cited in the year-plus since he was hired. The ideas most in vogue are always the ones espoused by the most recent winner, and that is why industry observers have pointed to the Cubs' influence in the Phillies' offseason model.

Chicago won 61 games in 2012, Theo Epstein's first year in charge of the club's baseball operation. The Cubs' rebuilding was in its nascent stages, and Epstein searched for an immediate upgrade for 2013 that could pay larger dividends later. He paid Feldman, who was 29 with a career 4.81 ERA, $6 million. He made 15 starts with Chicago and posted a 3.46 ERA, and the pitching-desperate Baltimore Orioles pounced in early June. They surrendered Arrieta, labeled a bust at that point, and hard-throwing reliever Pedro Strop. It was an inflection point in the Cubs' rebuilding efforts.

The Cubs employed the strategy again in 2014, with a one-year, $6 million deal for veteran Jason Hammel. He made 17 starts with a 2.98 ERA and became part of the Cubs' package, along with Jeff Samardzija, that netted shortstop Addison Russell and others from Oakland. The Cubs used Dan Straily, also in that deal, as part of the trade to acquire Dexter Fowler. Billy McKinney, another prospect gained in that deal, later went to the Yankees in the trade for closer Aroldis Chapman.

The original deal, involving a flip investment in Hammel, proved to be crucial.

But, ever since, few trades like that have happened. The A's flipped Ben Zobrist, acquired in a trade earlier in 2015, to Kansas City for a strong pitching prospect named Sean Manaea. The Detroit Tigers traded for Yoenis Cespedes before the 2015 season, believing he could lead them to the postseason. He, instead, netted them promising righthander Michael Fulmer from the Mets. There were other minor flips, involving players such as Tyler Clippard, J.A. Happ, and Dan Haren, in 2015.

Last summer, the most notable flip again involved Oakland. The A's had signed reclamation project Rich Hill to a one-year, $6 million deal. Once the A's fell from contention, they packaged Hill with Josh Reddick in a trade with the Los Angeles Dodgers for three prospects.

Buchholz is optimistic about having a new employer, albeit a temporary one. He spent 10 years in Boston. A new outlook and a new league could benefit everyone.

"Obviously, it's a pretty big platform year for me, being a little bit older than I was a couple of years ago," Buchholz said. ". . . You have to be on top of your game. I'm coming in here and hoping to definitely impress and help this team win some baseball games."

The Phillies would not mind that. They would love it, though, if Buchholz produced a prospect who helped them win some games in 2019.