(Strahm is) a year away from free agency. We were able to get a guy that we liked who has six years of (club control) and we think can help us right away. So you have to give to get. And we still feel good with our left-handers in the bullpen.
Much of the buzz surrounding the Phillies this winter has concerned their efforts to re-sign one or both or Kyle Schwarber and J.T. Realmuto. Since either of those free agents might well end up leaving Philadelphia for another team, the Phils have also been doing their due diligence on other major free agents or trade targets, including Tatsuya Imai and Ketel Marte.
As caught on the game broadcast, the ball bounces away from two fans, one of them a nondescript guy, the other a woman in a Phillies jersey with a distinctive short white-on-black hairstyle. A row or two down, a middle-aged guy picks up the ball, carries it half a row away, and hands it to a kid in his party.
I jumped out of my skin when the woman got in his face and demanded he fork over the Harrison Bader home run ball. I'm literally leaning back as she's in my face, yelling and yelling and yelling, and I pretty much just wanted her to go away. I had a fork-in-the-road, either, you know, do something I was probably going to regret, or, be dad and show him how to de-escalate the situation. So that's where I went.
