Well, after this weekend I can tell you one thing I am completely done with, and that is trying to predict what this team will do. Our last 3 wins have all come on games that were lost (down 5-2 in the 9th, down 9-3, down 5-0) and our 4 of our last 5 losses have all come on games that were completely winnable. No more predictions on team performance. This team has no rhyme or reason. Angels fans must just love life. Alright, on to the observations.
- It is my personal belief, having met Jimmy Rollins a couple times, that his recent transgressions are an abberation and not the start of a trend. With the exception of the base-running mishap last Sunday, this kind of stuff happens ALL the time. This isn’t to say that it is OK, but we aren’t talking about a Milton Bradley situation here or anything. I’m thinking the Rollins of his first 7 1/2 years here is the real Rollins, not the Rollins of the last couple months. Manuel is holding him to a higher standard, and that’s a good thing. Right now, he’s ticked off about it, but I don’t think we will hear anything like this again from Rollins this season, and by this time next season, it will be forgotten.
- I would not trade Jimmy, he has a very reasonable contract and even though he is having a down year, is still a well above average shortstop. If you want to make an impact on this team in the offseason, here is the player I would trade: Ryan Howard. Let me first say that I love Ryan Howard, and in a perfect world, he would spend his whole career with the Phillies. However, if the team has made the decision (as I think they have) that they will not give in to his contract demands and plan to let him walk after the 2010 season, then trade him now when you can get a huge return on him. You saw how much we had to hike up our price on Blanton because of the 2 additional years he’s under our control? Now imagine it with the reigning HR and RBI champion. And, as it turns out, there is a perfect fit out there: the San Francisco Giants. The Giants have been desperate to refuel their offense and fan excitement since the end of the Barry Bonds-era. They were so desperate in fact, that they nearly traded one of their young starters (Matt Cain or Tim Lincecum) for the slightly above average Alex Rios. Pitch them the idea of Howard drilling balls into McCovey cove and shooting excitement back into the Giants fan-base and you could probably get the 23-year old Cain, and one of their top pitching prospects. Cain would be under your control until after the 2011 season and you’d have the prospect for 6 years after his call-up. As much as I love Howard, this team relies too much on HR’s to generate runs, which leads to these unbearable inconsistent stretches and really makes it tough to win in the playoffs against top-notch pitching. The acquisition of Cain would extend this team’s “window” as well. A 2010 rotation of Hamels, Cain, Carrasco, Blanton and Kendrick (or whoever blooms from the Savery/Bastardo/Naylor/Garcia crowd) would be quite formidable.
- The Phillies will make another move before the deadline, probably for a reliever, but not for Manny Ramirez. I agree that we don’t want any part of Manny Ramirez. His act just wouldn’t fly here. It’s really as simple as that.
- The Phillies have called up J.A. Happ and sent down Adam Eaton. This should have been done a bit ago, but better late than never. What’s curious is that with Eaton already demoted to the bullpen, we now have 6 starters. Do the Phils have another deal in mind? Are the moving Myers or Happ to the bullpen? We will find out soon enough.
- If the team stays as is, the Phillies are going to have very little financial room to improve the team next year unless they up the payroll. Even with Burrell, Thome and Gordon off the books, enough players are getting raises that the Phillies payroll is already just under $100 million next year. See below for the salary breakdown (players with no guaranteed contract for next year have estimates in italics). The only thing I’m not sure about on here is Chad Durbin. I don’t know what the rules are in terms of arbitration and player rights when a player gets released as Durbin did from the Tigers. Also, as a side-note, I have a breakdown like this for every year until 2013 (with projected Minor Leaguers coming up, etc…) but I’m having trouble making it look decent enough to post.
|
Pos. |
2009 |
Projected Salary |
|
SP |
Cole Hamels, 25 |
$1,500,000 |
|
SP |
Joe Blanton, 28 |
$5,000,000 |
|
SP |
Kyle Kendrick, 24 |
$500,000 |
|
SP |
Brett Myers, 28 |
$12,000,000 |
|
SP |
J.A. Happ, 26 |
$250,000 |
|
C |
Carlos Ruiz, 30 |
$500,000 |
|
1B |
Ryan Howard, 29 |
$11,000,000 |
|
2B |
Chase Utley, 30 |
$11,000,000 |
|
3B |
Pedro Feliz, 34 |
$5,000,000 |
|
SS |
Jimmy Rollins, 30 |
$8,500,000 |
|
LF |
Jayson Werth, 29 |
$2,000,000 |
|
RF |
Geoff Jenkins, 35 |
$6,700,000 |
|
CF |
Shane Victorino, 28 |
$2,000,000 |
|
BN |
Eric Bruntlett, 31 |
$750,000 |
|
BN |
Chris Coste, 36 |
$500,000 |
|
BN |
Greg Dobbs, 30 |
$750,000 |
|
BN |
Minimum player |
$250,000 |
|
BN |
Minimum player |
$250,000 |
|
RP |
Minimum player |
$250,000 |
|
RP |
Clay Condrey, 33 |
$500,000 |
|
RP |
Adam Eaton, undead |
$8,500,000 |
|
RP |
Ryan Madson, 29 |
$2,000,000 |
|
RP |
ChadDurbin, 31 |
$1,500,000 |
|
RP |
J.C. Romero, 33 |
$4,000,000 |
|
CL |
Brad Lidge, 32 |
$11,500,000 |
|
OTH |
T. Gordon buy-out |
$1,000,000 |
|
TOTAL |
|
$97,700,000 |
- Quick Minor League note: Joe Savery, the Phillies #1 pick last year, had been struggling mightily this season, with an ERA well over 5.00. However, his last 5 starts (one rain-shortened) have turned his season around. In those 5 starts, he is 2-0 with a 1.19 ERA, 1.09 WHIP and 28 K in 30.1 IP. This has dropped his ERA to 3.90 and certainly is a welcome sign to those in the organization expecting him to contribute sooner rather than later.
I agree about trading Howard. It’s pretty clear to me that they won’t sign him long term. I don’t know any of their prospects but I would think they should be able to get Lincicum. Cain is good but is he good enough to trade for an MVP? The only batter as good as Howard being traded that comes to mind is Arod. They got Soriano who was already established.
Hitters generally have a higher trade value because it seems like most GMs think they impact more games than a pitcher. If they were willing to get Lincicum AND Cain I would do it in a second but I don’t think SF will do that. Similarly I don’t think We would trade Howard unless we got both.
Unfortunately it seems like teams always overvalue their own players.
Nice post. Wouldn’t be entirely opposed to trading Howard to SF, but Cain wouldn’t be enough. Lincecum and Bengie Molina would get the job done for me.
Also, if the Phils had any consideration of trading Howard they probably wouldn’t have moved Cardenis, since (long term) Utley could have shifted to first with Cardenis playing second.
Although they could always resign Pat the Bat to play first. He’d be better defensively there with his foot problems and loss of speed
NO MATTER WHAT THEY DO DON’T FORGET WHAT I HAVE ALWAYS SAID-MY PHILLIES WILL BE THE 2008 WORLD CHAMPIONS. I HAVE BEEN A PHILLIES FAN FOR 48 YEARS.
how you gonna trade ryan howard and he is the only guy on the team that produces runs–without him this team wouldnt score…say what you want about his .240 average…but look at his average with runners in scoring position..about .340—
you cannot get rid of ryan howard—especially with utley playin the way he is..and anyway you slice it, jroll is a 275 hitter–although how arrogant he has been acting the last three months you would think he was a 330 hitter—huge fan of jroll but he needs to get his act together and go back to being a philly blue collar player–
how’s the great “joe blanton” making out in philly??
mole -
i think you meant to put “great” in quotes. I’m pretty sure Joe Blanton is his real name. And he’s made 1 start.
Utley is playing the way he is because he is injured.
In the playoffs you win with pitching, not hitting. Find me a rotation that won the WS with the caliber of starters we have.
I love Howard, I would love to keep Howard. But if we aren’t going to sign him, trade him while his value is the highest and get a young #1 caliber pitcher in return.
If you were going to trade Ryan Howard, nothing less than Timmy Lincecum is sufficient for him. IMO Lincecum is the best pitcher in the game right now besides Peavy and Rich Harden. He’s better than Hamels and Zambrano and Verlander and Santana. He is lights out, and his throwing style is such that he can pitch for a long, long time with minimum wear and tear (he throws with his legs and puts minimum torque on his shoulder and elbow). Matt Cain is a poor man’s Josh Beckett – trading Howard for Cain is a terrible deal. Lincecum and Molina I’m doing in a heartbeat.
pete last week you wrote a post on how our rotation with blanton could win in the post season and you even went through the last 8 world series champs—last week you were totally confident—you flip flop like our presidential candidates…
mole-
ha! you’re right, I almost completely contradicted myself. should have worded it differentely.
my point in the previous post was that you don’t NEED two #1 starters to win a WS. I was more focused on the top 2 starters than the bottom 3.
this post i was talking more about the rotation as a whole, but i’m sure, in trying to make a point, i contradicted myself before.
either way – you may not NEED two #1s to win a WS, but it doesn’t mean I wouldn’t feel a whole lot better if we had them.
keep in mind – my #1 option would be to re-sign Howard for a reasonable price. I just don’t see that happening. If that’s the case, I say we take a lesson from the A’s and Twins and sell high.
MOLE: The Mets made their run, just like you said they would. Jerry Manuel has them playing better and, without a doubt, they will make a move to try to get stronger for the stretch run. I busted your chops a while back when Randolph got fired, so I thought that now I should point out that you were right.
pete: i agree they dont need two #1′s to win the series, but they do need soemthing other than hamels–and when there are guys available like burnett (up until last nite), bedard, harden, and sabathia who is 4-0 and the brewers were tied for first on sunday, the phils in my opinion need to make that happen—after last season we knew pitching was an issue and we stood pat in the offseason while the mets go out and get the best in the game–and now at the deadline we go get joe blanton while the brewers and cubs get sabathia and harden…it makes no sense to me—i put the eagles and phillies in the same breath–as long as they are selling tickets, filling those seats, and being just competitive enuff to keep people coming back, ownership could care less if this city ever wins a title again…
in addition, looking around the league and the rotations, this may be one of those years where you need two number ones to come out of the NL when you have, sheets/sabathia, zambrano/harden, webb/haren, santana/???..you get the point..in other years it may have been okay to have 1 and 2…looks like this year you need 1 and 1a.
bski: surprised you remembered—but again its a long season and the phils can turn it around…i hope they do but im a realist and i cant see them doing any better than 2nd place with this pitching staff and the inconsistent bats…they have done nothing to get better with starting pitching when there was a glaring weakness at the end of last year…i know myers was suppose to be the answer to that, but how bout the last month when other teams are acquiring the best in the game for peanuts…
I found this on espn.com:
Mahay going to Phillies?
Tuesday, July 29, 2008
Posted by Jayson Stark
Left-handed reliever Ron Mahay could be on the verge of heading to the Phillies.
According to clubs that have been speaking with the Royals, they’ve been having extensive conversations with the Phillies about a trade that would send Mahay to Philadelphia for shortstop prospect Jason Donald, a member of the U.S. Olympic baseball team.
It’s believed that as many as 10 teams have contacted the Royals about Mahay, who is signed for next year at $4 million. Most of them have come away with the impression that the Royals aren’t motivated to trade him. But in Donald, the Phillies have a commodity for which Kansas City has been searching aggressively. So the fit appears better with the Phillies than with any of the other teams on the Royals’ list.
If this happens, it’s a good pickup and it means that, with Donald going to K.C., Rollins isn’t going anywhere.(for all of you “trade Rollins” guys)
MOLE: I very rarely forget. I am strong in my opinions, but I am open to other points of view as well. Also, I will give credit and admit that I am wrong, IF you can convince me of it.
What about Myers trip down through the minors makes people think he his “fixed”? Becouse he ONLY gave up 3 runs in under 7 innings of Class A ball? If he is fixed he is dominating those 18-19 year olds, not giving up the winning run in the 7th. It seems like they kept sending him to a lower minor league effort and each start was only mediocore at best. I think they may finally give in and stick him in the pen, where he wants to be and may pitch better. Give Happ more chances, he looked alot better than Myers did against triple A hitters (no hitter for a suspended game)
The Phils should consider trading Howard to Atlanta for Mark Texeira. Tex is a Gold Glove Fielder and a switch hitter with power who also hits for average (I believe he is a 285 lifetime hitter). The Phils could even consider expanding the trade to try and include Tim Hudson. Sure, we’d have to give up a couple of prospects in the deal, but so what? We’ve won one championship in 127 years—why should we wait even longer? The farm system needs to be completely overhauled anyway. The Phillies are the only team that year in and year out complains about not having enough talent in the minors. Fine. If that’s forever going to be a problem anyway (because the organization is second-rate) then we should do whatebeer is necessary to win now. The core group (Rollins, Utley, Victorino) isn’t getting any younger and who knows if the Phils’ alleged prized prospects will even be decent major leaugers. Fans have waited long enough. Trade Howard now while he still has value. He is an old 28 with a weight problem; he is a terrible fielder. His average has dropped literally ninety points in the past two seasons and his strikeouts last year and this year are breaking all-time records. If the team waits too long they’ll be stuck with another overpriced albatross for whom they’ll get very little in a trade. So what the Braves are in the same division? Intra-divisional and inter-league trades have been made for over a century if both teams agree.
@Chris
Hudson’s on the DL and Teixera was traded to the Angels today.