Entries Tagged 'Philly Ramblings' ↓

Just getting my 2 cents in on a variety of issues that I don’t feel like writing a whole post on.

- Jamie Moyer, 45, has not completely shut the door on returning to pitch next year, and considering he hasn’t counted on arm strength for awhile, it is certainly a possibility. If Moyer does return, and gets 15 more wins before he retires, he will be just the 8th Left-Handed pitcher ever to finish his career with 250 wins and 2,000 strikeouts. The others are Randy Johnson, Steve Carlton, Tom Glavine, Warren Spahn, Tommy John, Jim Kaat, Lefty Grove and Eddie Plank.

- Pedro Feliz has a higher BA, OBP and SLG% than the Nationals Ryan Zimmerman.

- Considering how good our offense and bullpen are, all the Phillies need from their Pitching Staff is Cole Hamels and 4 guys with a 4.50 ERA. Right now the ERAs of our 5 starting pitchers are 3.18, 4.45, 4.71, 5.37, 5.79. Too bad cheap one-year options like Livan Hernandez (4.22), Kyle Lohse (4.26), Odalis Perez (4.13) and Mark Hendrickson (4.14) weren’t availiable. Except that they were. And everybody knew they needed one of them (not Kris Benson, who they knew wouldn’t be ready until mid-season).

- Chad Ford released his 2nd mock draft today. He once again has the Sixers taking Florida PF Marreese Speights. His comment is -

If they can’t get Elton Brand this summer, they’ll have to seriously consider Speights. Speights does a lot of the same things that Brand does; he just doesn’t have the conditioning or motivation.

Wow - so he is essentially Elton Brand. Except he sucks. Thanks Chad! Did you know that Eric Snow does the same things LeBron James does; he’s just 7 inches shorter, can’t shoot, can’t penetrate, has short arms and sits on the bench. Other than that, they are more or less the same player. I didn’t particularly want Speights before (raw, couldn’t lead his team to the NCAA in a weak SEC conference, and doesn’t strike me as anything more than a plain PF), but if there is ANY question about his motivation - cross him off my list.

I’ll be updating my Mock Draft this week - with a couple more comments this time.

- The least classy thing I’ve seen from fans this year? Utah fans booing Derek Fisher, who left the team to go to L.A. so that his daughter, who has a rare eye disease, could recieve better medical care. If that was Philly, media would have been all over it.

- The “Robert Horry to the Hall of Fame” debate is one of the stupidest things I’ve ever seen. The man is 6′10” and has a career FG% lower than Allen Iverson’s. He has a nickname and made some big shots. He’s also a dirty player who underachieved at every other part of his game.

- If Lito Sheppard is still on the Eagles roster come training camp, it is NOT going to end well. It’s just not.

- Players I will be keeping an eye on for a variety of reasons once training camp comes around: Max Jean-Giles, DeSean Jackson, Brent Celek, Stewart Bradley, Victor Abiamiri and Broderick Bunkley.

While I’ve been engulfed in my MLB Preview, a whole bunch of things have happened in Philly sports that I felt I should comment on, but didn’t have the time to write a whole post on. So I’m gonna do what I can here in bullet point form. Please hold back your excitement.

- The Asante Samuel signing was very interesting to me. It was a typical Eagles move to draft/sign someone at a position that they did not need help. However, I’m certainly happy this guy is an Eagle. He is an upgrade over Lito Sheppard in that he will stay on the field. He can hit better than Lito and provides the same, if not slightly better, play-making ability. However, considering the money they put forth, I really hope they can get a good deal for Lito and turn it into another impact player.

- I personally don’t think Randy Moss had any intention of ever signing with us. I think he was just using us to beef up the Pats offer. However, the best thing to come from this is that it shows that Eagles do actually know they need a big-play receiver. The word is that they want Larry Fitzgerald, but the Cardinals are inclined to keep him despite his absurd salary. Personally? I’d give them whatever they want. Lito, 1st round pick and a 3rd round pick? STEEP price, but if we get Fitz, we go to the Super Bowl. (Note: Gcobb.com is reporting today that the Eagles will make strong pushes for both Roy Williams and Chad Johnson)

- So the Eagles have added Samuel and Chris Clemons (who appears to be a real good pass rusher) to the defense. They have Lito to trade for a piece of the puzzle, and each of their draft picks. They need to package their remaining assets into 1 or 2 impact players for next year and it will be an extremely successful offseason.

- Cole Hamels is acting (and talking) like a damn child. The only thing that is clear in this situation is that he (and Prince Fielder and Nick Markakis and Jonathan Paplebon) do not understand how the MLB salary process works. This is a process that the players association has signed off on for years. When you are arbitration eligible, you can plead your case, until then, let’s just try to get through 200 innings without getting hurt before running our mouths about “respect.” I love Cole Hamels, but as you can tell, his little cry-fest really ticked me off.

- Speaking of the Phillies, I’m officially terrified of Kyle Kendrick and whoever our 5th starter turns out to be. I am rooting for Kris Benson to be healthy and “win” the 5th spot.

- I think Ryan Howard is going to be out of control good this year and that Jimmy Rollins won’t be able to put up the performance he did last year. I have nothing to back this up.

- I never really commented on the Phillies off-season because it abruptly ended when the Mets traded for Santana and everything we did seemed insignificant. However, I like nearly every move they made. Jenkins, Feliz, Lidge, Taguchi, Bruntlett, C. Durbin and Benson aren’t going to set the world on fire, but they are all slight upgrades (if healthy) over the people in their position last year (with the exception of the Rowand for Jenkins swap). The real reason the Phillies have been unable to make a move is our terribly thin farm-system. There were a lot of quality pitchers on the market that would couldn’t even get in the discussion with because we came up well short on the quality and quantity of prospects the teams were looking for in return. Overall Offseason Grade: B+.

- Couldn’t agree with Dannie more that people need to start watching the Sixers. They are young, exciting, and leave everything on the court. In the beginning of the year, I had them as one of the 5 worst teams in the NBA, but through sheer grit and determination, it looks like they are going to make the playoffs, and I’m kind of really really excited to see a playoff game again - even if the Pistons stomp all over us.

- You are killing me St. Joes. Absolutely killing me. Looks like the fate of Big-5 might rest in someone knocking off Xavier and winning the A-10. At this point, Temple might be the best bet.

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I’ve been working diligently on my 7-part baseball preview, so I’ve been a little lazy of late in terms of posting. But unless I want Dannie to take over the blog entirely - I figured I’d spend my 25th birthday with some quick hits on what’s on my mind in the Philly and National sports scene.

1. The Big-5 is in trouble - Since the creation of the NCAA tournament, 1 team from the Big-5 + Drexel has made the tournament every single year. Right now, it looks like our best bet is St. Joes, and they have lost 2 straight. ‘Nova looked like they would make it, but their very young team has looked, well, very young (and phantom fouls to end the games against NC State AND Georgetown don’t help either). Usually in these types of years, we could rely on Penn to win the Ivy, but they are struggling at 2-2 in the conference and 7-14 overall. Hopefully St. Joes can finish up their A-10 schedule tough and keep the streak alive.

2. That’s all it costs for the best pitcher in baseball? The Johan Santana trade was an absolute punch in the gut for Phillies’ fans. Before that trade, the Phils had made some solid, albeit small, upgrades and the Mets and Braves had done very little. We were the solid favorites to win the division. But, not only did the Mets get the best pitcher in baseball, but they got him for LESS that the Mariners gave up for Eric Bedard and lost NO ONE who was going to be of impact to their team in 2008. The real victims here are the Twins fans (who also lost fan-favorite Torii Hunter), who just watched a once in a lifetime pitcher leave for no other reason than they don’t live in New York or Boston. Phillies fans will moan your ear off that we don’t spend enough, but I can’t imagine being as passionate about baseball as I am and live in Kansas City, Minnesota or Pittsburgh right now.

3. The Sixers are a half game out of the what?? The recent 4-game home winning streak has put the Sixers in a position that neither their pre-season expectations, nor their 22-30 record would seem to indicate: 1/2 game out of a playoff spot. Part of the recent surge has been the outstanding play of Andre Miller (NBA player of the week) and energy of the young guys. In particular, Thaddeus Young, 19, has shown he may be special player. He had a great feel for the game, is an elite athlete, and is already showing some big time moves. Also, if you watched the Dallas game tonight, he completely shut down Dirk Nowitzki. Dannie will write more about him soon, but I’m excited about him (Young, not Dannie).

4. Pitchers and Catchers on Wednesday - Please no one get hurt, please no one get hurt, please no one get hurt, please no one get hurt, please no one get hurt, please no one get hurt, please no one get hurt, please no one get hurt, please no one get hurt, please no one get hurt, please no one get hurt, please no one get hurt, please no one get hurt, please no one get hurt, please no one get hurt.

5. Chad Johnson is ticked off - TRADE FOR HIM! I very much enjoyed the recent espn.com headling “Johnson’s agent says he will not sit out ‘08″ for a couple reasons. First of all, I love the stories where they announce something isn’t going to happen that they never originally announced might happen. Something like “Bob Knight decides he will not go on a homicidal rampage” - wait, Bob Knight was going to go on a homicidal rampage? When did that happen? This is usually a big hint that ESPN is trying to make a non-story a story. The second reason I love this headline is because it means the rumors of Ocho-Cinco wanting out are true. With B-West getting McNabb’s back that we could use a big-time receiver, I still say you offer up an impressive package that the Bengals can’t resist.