Marlins say their offer to Albert Pujols was “nowhere near” $275 million

Joe Frisaro of MLB.com reported yesterday that the Marlins’ final offer to Albert Pujols was $210 million for 10 years, but then later Bob Nightengale of USA Today reported their top proposal as $275 million.

Today team president David Samson vehemently denied Nightengale’s report, telling Juan C. Rodriguez of the South Florida Sun-Sentinel that the Marlins’ best offer was “nowhere near” $275 million and just slightly more than $200 million.

There’s been some speculation that the $275 million figure was floated by Pujols’ agent in an attempt to make it seem like he turned down more money to sign with the Angels for $254 million.

Whatever the case, the Marlins at least are saying they offered considerably less than the Angels and perhaps less than the Cardinals as well.

Chris Young joined the Phillies as their assistant pitching coach last offseason. This offseason he’s getting a promotion: the Phillies just named as their main (um, top? lead? alpha?) pitching coach for the 2019 season. He replaces Rick Kranitz.

Ken Rosenthal, who reported the promotion, says that the Phillies didn’t necessarily want to shake up their pitching coach situation, but that since several clubs wanted to hire Young away, it was either promote him to the top job or lose him. That’s bad news for Kranitz, but he remains under contract for 2019 and will, in the meantime, be allowed to interview elsewhere.

The Phillies pitching staff ranked 11th in runs allowed in the National League in 2018. They were tenth the year before that, but some early season uncertainty and mismanagement by Gabe Kapler and a late season collapse served to hide what was, for most of the season, a bit of a better staff than the year before. The Phillies obviously credit Young for that and want to keep him in the fold.

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