Make It A 40

Wilson Ramos played 727 games prior to Wednesday night and tallied one career triple.

The lumbering catcher started his first game for the Phillies having missed a month with a hamstring issue. Needless to say, we weren't expecting a three-bagger. But when a Ramos liner split the right-field gap and took a crazy bounce off the wall, the big man rolled into third base standing.

Maybe it was a sign. Ramos would add two doubles and become the first player with three extra-base hits in his Phillies' debut since Ed Freed in 1942.

No. 40 never looked so good on a Phillie.

To be sure, Ramos was the difference between a crucial win and a costly loss. After the game, I saw a tweet from a giddy Phils' blogger claiming the team should ink the free-agent-to-be Ramos to a new contract.

The following day, I started thinking about that tweet. It's not a crazy idea.

Let's review the market conditions for Wilson Ramos to the Phillies:

* The Phils have a young catcher they like very much in Jorge Alfaro. But Ramos is 31, so he wouldn't be a super-long-term solution. And you need two backstops.

* The Phils are committed to doing short-term, higher-dollar deals. My hypothetical guess is they'd like to go two years with Ramos, but it will likely take three.

* Ramos is injury prone, which might dampen his market. He's exceeded 435 at-bats just twice in a nine-year career.

The current top of the catching contract market is a three-year, $60 million extension Yadier Molina signed last year. Ramos is good, but he's not Yaddy, offensively or defensively.

Wilson is playing under a two-year, $12.5 million deal and has banked $25 million in his career. This will be his last significant contract.

So what would it take? Let's say the Phils offer three and $35 and they settle at $38.

What do you think?