but man, can you imagine utley, holliday, howard, and burrell all in a row. that is terrifying for opposing pitchers.

am i missing something in regards to fuentes? is he even closing for colorado anymore? why would colorado require carrasco in a deal straight up for fuentes (no holliday included).

if gillick goes all out in his last year, what kind of shape is he leaving for the team and farm system for his successor? i really don’t know what to think of this possibility and wonder if it is actually dead at this point.

Also, I wouldn’t mind a lateral move with another contender to shake things up, like trading J-Roll and one of our outfielders to Detroit for Renteria and Ordonez/Granderson/Guillen.

I just don’t think Holliday and Fuentes would be enough, the urgency that was there at beginning of the season just isn’t there anymore, that clubhouse needs to be shook up a bit.

Thanks for the compliment about my baseball posts. I appreciate it very much. So, what do I think about the Blanton deal? I agree with Pete. There are many positives to this deal.

1) At a minimum, Blanton is better than either Eaton or Myers. (BTW, why is Eaton still on the team? What could he possibly do for us out of the pen beyond mop up in a blowout? I know we are still paying him, but we will pay him whether he pitches for us or not and he only hurts us when he does, so I’d rather pay him to not pitch. We get a lot more for our money that way.)

2) Blanton did not really cost us that much. This allows us to pursue another deal to strengthen the team. (like the Holliday/Fuentes one that is floating around)

3) Even taking all of my frustrations into account, I do trust Gillick. Moyer has given us much more than I ever anticipated. Romero has turned out to be a major steal. Durbin is very solid. The Lidge deal. All of that tells me to give this deal some time. Blanton has a chance to turn into something for us.

4) Blanton is young and we have him for 2 more years, which I think will be significant.

5) I also agree with Jason Stark about our pitching situation for next year. We don’t want Eaton in the rotation, so that’s one hole. Even if Myers comes back and pitches acceptably for the rest of this season, we don’t know what we will get from him next year, so that’s a potential hole. Also, we don’t know if Moyer will come back or what we will get from him if he does, so that’s another hole. Blanton fills one hole, and since we didn’t give up Carrasco or Bastardo, they will both be there if and when the need arises to fill the second or third hole in the rotation.

We need to give this some time. Unless Blanton pitches out of his mind, goes 10-0, and gets us to the world series, we will not be able to assess the true value of this deal until next year. Also, if Gillick is able to pull off another deal now because he didn’t ship off 5 players for Sabathia, you will have to factor that in as well.

@PETE: Please keep up the good work with your baseball topics. I look forward to them. I know I’ve said before that I’m more of a baseball guy than a basketball guy. I’m glad that this topic got a bunch of posts. It bugs me that many of the baseball topics don’t get much action. I mean your mid-season topic got 8 comments. That disturbs me because we are smack dab in the middle of the season, the basketball season is long over, and football has yet to begin. Plus, the Phils are in first place(barely). I could see if they were out of it by the end of May like many seasons in the past, but come on. Anyway, I’ll be here.

No worries mate, just wondering why you hadn’t commented on the Blanton deal. fyi, I’m going to China for most of August (unfortunately not to watch the Olympics, I can’t believe it, I had to be in Western Australia for the Sydney Olympics), so I’ll be disappearing, too. I know you’re just a commenter, but I like reading your writing on baseball. I even went on Zo Zone and told people that you’ve taken your comments over here, I’m sure there are people over there who know good, insightful writing when they see it.

I don’t see how it would improve us too much. I don’t see the need for Fuentes and I honestly (and I know I’ll catch some crap for this) don’t see Holliday as a huge upgrade from Victorino on this team. They don’t get much better than Victorino defensively and he’s got a gun for an arm. Offensively, he’s a solid a player and a fantastic base stealer. He’s also a large part of our team identity and has really become one of the understated faces of this organization.

Holliday’s stats are inflated from playing home games at Coor’s field. He’s due 9.5 million this year and 13.5 million next year. Don’t get me wrong, he’s a great player and is actually a bargain at those rates. It’s just that if you throw him in right field and move Werth to center, our outfield defense takes a BIG hit.

the whole blanton vs. harden thing is interesting. would you rather have a solid innings eater who you know is going to be there to take the ball every 5 days or an ace where you just dont know if he will even be able to pitch for you in the playoffs? its a tough call and based on the phillies current situation, i think they made the right one.

the phils kept the two prospects they cannot trade and definitely upgraded the rotation. i am happy.