Report: Juan Soto Has Offers From Five Teams

Happy Tuesday. We can smell the Thanksgiving turkey already!

In today’s send:

• Five teams have offers on the table for Juan Soto, according to reports late Monday night. The Phillies are not among them.

• The Sixers are a mess, but calls for Nick Nurse’s job need to stop.

• The Flyers blew 3-0 lead to Vegas.

Let’s jump in.

In the email today:

• 💰 Juan Soto Has Offers From Five Teams

• 🤷‍♂️ The Calls for Nick Nurse's Job Need to Stop

• 🎰 Flyers Blow Three-Goal Lead, Lose to Vegas in Shootout

  • 📆 This Day in Philly Sports History

  • 📊 Poll

  • 🔗 Links

  • 📺 Coming Up

If the Phillies have any interest in Juan Soto, it may be time to pick up the phone.

John Middleton is on record as saying the Phils see themselves as a “stalking horse” ($) for the outfielder’s services. The New York Post’s Jon Heyman reported last week that the Phillies plan to meet with Soto. And ESPN’s Buster Olney recently said he has “no doubt” that the Phillies will land a star, throwing Soto’s name in the mix when discussing who that star could be.

If you were skeptical about any of that talk, you were probably right to be. Because other teams are making offers while the Phillies are… doing whatever a “stalking horse” does? (We are not exactly fluent in old-money billionaire speak here at On Pattison.)

So we’ll temper our expectations over Soto, obviously.

What else could be in the works for your Fightins? Garrett Crochet rumors seem to have legs. That won’t help the lineup, of course. And most of the other Phillies chatter lately seems to focused on who they may send away (Alec Bohm, Nick Castellanos) rather than who they may bring in.

“Real Gs move in silence, like lasagna,” wrote one of this century’s greatest poets. And maybe that’s what Dave Dombrowski and his team are doing here. The MLB rumor mill is powered by players’ agents, more than anything. The Phils could surprise us at any moment with a move that we haven’t seen discussed.

Fingers crossed. Because maintaining last year’s lineup (or subtracting from it to add pitching depth) would be an odd way to go about getting Middleton’s “f’ing trophy” back.

The Sixers entered this season with championship aspirations. Sixteen games into the season, let’s charitably say that the Sixers’ goals have been adjusted.

They’re 3-13. They’re half a game ahead of the Washington Wizards for 14th place in the Eastern Conference.

On Sunday, while the Eagles were tearing the Rams apart in L.A., the Sixers were being ripped asunder by the Los Angeles Clippers here.

As the adage goes, you can’t fire the players. So here’s what’s starting to bubble to the surface in Sixerville.

Of course, why didn’t we think of this? The Sixers should definitely fire their coach. Nurse is fully to blame for all of the following:

• Joel Embiid has played 124 of a possible 768 minutes this season. In that time, he’s averaging 19.8 points (down from 34.7 last season) on 38% shooting.

• Embiid got himself suspended for a non-basketball related reason and later was called out by teammates for serial lateness to team activities.

• Paul George has played 231 of a possible 768 minutes this season. In that time, he’s averaging 14.9 points (down from 22.6 last season) on…38% shooting.

• Tyrese Maxey has played 354 of a possible 768 minutes this season. His production (24.4 PPG) is OK, until you see that he’s shooting 41% from the field.

There’s a major downstream effect to all of the time that the “Big 3” has missed. Nurse is being criticized for that, too.

We’re not going to speculate on who leaked the report that Embiid can’t tell time. Has the offense been stale? Have the rotations been bad? Maybe!

And that was to be expected given the massive volume of time the Sixers’ “stars” have missed.

The Sixers didn’t want players like Caleb Martin and Eric Gordon to play a lot of minutes. They were supposed to be spot guys, holding leads for the starters at the ends of quarters or in games where the Sixers led by double digits.

Martin averaged 10 points per game in Miami last season. He’s averaging those same 10 points in Philadelphia this season, but he’s playing five more minutes per game and shooting a far lower percentage.

Gordon is 36 years old. The 18 minutes per game he is playing is probably eight more minutes per game than anyone thought he’d play before the season started. Related: He’s averaging 5.4 points per game and shooting 34% from the field.

“Adjustments” assumes that Nurse has had better options. Based on the foregoing, he really hasn’t. As a team, the Sixers are shooting 43% from the field and an abominable 31.5% on three-pointers.

Also…if the Sixers fire Nurse, who do they replace him with? Even the usual retreads (guys like Mike D’Antoni and Terry Stotts) aren’t likely to leap at the chance to jump into this Sixers mess.

This Sixers season might be beyond saving. But firing Nurse won’t fix anything.

In recent weeks, the Flyers have been spotting the opposition leads and then valiantly fighting back. Their comeback win over the Chicago Blackhawks on Saturday was an example of this, as was their narrow loss to the Colorado Avalanche last Monday.

Last night, the Flyers tried something different, jumping out to a 3-0 lead 28 seconds into the second period. That ought to have worked, eh?

The Flyers’ last goal in this game came from rookie sensation Matvei Michkov, who scored his eighth of the season to make it 4-2 Flyers.

Unfortunately, Michkov was one of the three Flyers who failed to score in the shootout, giving Vegas the comeback win.

Flyers’ defenseman Emil Andrae, playing in only his 16th NHL game, scored his first career goal to give the Flyers the 3-0 lead they eventually relinquished.

This outcome could have been worse. The Golden Knights play in the Western Conference. The point the Flyers sort of gifted them won’t haunt the Flyers in the Eastern Conference playoff chase. It didn't go to a division rival.

Still, for a team stuck somewhere between rebuilding and “we think we can sneak into the playoffs,” it’s lost points like this one that might be telling in April.

📆 This Day in Philly Sports History

On November 26, 2000, the future was bright for Donovan McNabb and his Eagles.

📊 Poll

Results from Monday:

Our poll sample may be a bit biased. But go Birds!

🔗 Links

• 🗽 To no one’s surprise, Daniel Jones cleared waivers.

• 🌧️ The Tampa Rays’ home schedule will be heavily front-loaded as MLB attempts to mitigate the effects of summer rain in Florida.

• 🚶 The Utah Hockey Club had to walk to Scotiabank Arena to take on the Toronto Maple Leafs due to crippling downtown traffic.

📺 Coming Up

No games for the locals tonight.

Thanks for reading. See you tomorrow.

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