Despite the fact that Phillies appear poised to have a very quiet off-season, it is clear that new GM Ruben Amaro is at least kicking the tires on many high level free agents. The latest appears to be hard-throwing righty A.J. Burnett.
The Baltimore Sun is reporting that Burnett has narrowed his list of suitors to 6 teams: The Orioles, Yankees, Blue Jays, Red Sox, Braves and Phillies.
It is surprising to see the Phillies on that list because of their long-standing policy to not give out long-term deals to pitchers, not to mention that Burnett’s asking price is much higher than I would expect the Phillies to pay anyway.
Burnett is a talent, but an underachiever. His stuff is up there with anyone in baseball, as evidenced by his AL leading 231 strikeouts last year. However, he can be erratic and walk too many batters, and is an injury risk. Regardless, he is a quality major league starting pitcher with a 3.81 career ERA and will single handedly win you a couple of games a year with his arm. No finances attached, I’d welcome him into our rotation, but my guess is someone will grossly overpay for his services.
I will also go out on a limb and say that team with not be the Phillies. If the Angels have indeed offered CC Sabathia a deal similar to the Yankees offer, I would expect Sabathia to take the deal and play for the Angels, followed by the Yankees over-reacting and signing Burnett to a deal he doesn’t deserve. I would then expect that the Burnett deal ends up being a lot more like the Carl Pavano signing than the Mike Mussina signing for Yankees fans.
Hot Stove Quick Hits
- It appears as though the Phillies did call the White Sox about Jermaine Dye, but the White Sox asking price was too high. Ken Rosenthal reported that they wanted a quality young pitcher (probably Carrasco) and another player for Dye.
- The Angels might be the landing place for Pat Burrell. He is on their radar if they don’t sign Mark Texeira or Manny Ramirez. However, if they sign CC Sabathia, then Tex and Manny are off the plate anyway, and Burrell might be their fall back option. Personally, I still think that Burrell might not get a contract offer he likes and will end up having to take less, and would probably prefer to take less and stay in Philly. The longer he’s on the board, the more likely it is.
- Delmon Young of the Twins is another name that has surfaced. Young was once the top prospect in baseball, and at 23, is not exactly over the hill. He hit .290 with 10 HR and 69 RBI last year for the Twins but was considered a disappointment. There have also been rumors of attitude problems, which could be another reason he is on the block. Needless to say, I don’t think the Rays regret the Young for Matt Garza and Jason Bartlett deal.
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{ 9 comments… read them below or add one }
Yeah, the next Carl Pavano sounds about right to me too, Pete. If we could sign him short-term and for not a lot of money, I’d be willing to take a chance. However, like you said, I’m sure he’ll get a big contract from somebody. That will save us from making a big mistake.
Keith Law from espn.com has Burnett at #4 on his list of the top 50 free agents. Here’s what Law has to say about Burnett:
“Burnett might have the best raw stuff of any starter in baseball. When he’s good, he’s unhittable. The problem is that when he’s not good, or not motivated, he’s ordinary and prone to the big inning. Burnett will show three above-average pitches on his best days: a 92-98 mph fastball, all with good life, some with sink; a plus-plus downward-breaking curveball that is unusually hard; and an above-average changeup, his worst pitch but one he sells well enough to fool many left-handed hitters. His command and control are average at best; he gets by on pure stuff as much as on feel or his pitching plan. The bigger concern with Burnett is what version of Burnett you’re actually getting. He threw a career-high 221 1/3 innings and started a career-high 34 games this season. The only two times he topped 200 innings before 2008 resulted in follow-up seasons that were abbreviated because of arm trouble. Two of his three 200-inning seasons came in walk years. He performs better when the pressure is off, going on tears in the second halves of the past two seasons when the Jays were largely irrelevant. He’s an upside play, a rarity in this end of the pitching market because he can beat any team at any time with his stuff, and if he does it a few more times a year, he’ll get Cy Young votes. He is one of only two players in the top 10 of these rankings — the other being Oliver Perez — who could end up a bargain for the signing team. But a repeat of what he provided for Toronto would make him a disappointment.” (emphasis mine)
I don’t see how you can feel that way about a player and still have him at #4 on your list, but whatever. I do not want to see the Phils overextend themselves to get Burnett because I really think it will come back to bite them.
Not sure their is any substance to these trades talks, just pure rumors at this point. Amaro will most likely fall into the traditional Phils mold like stated above and not take too many risks.
What is the latest on Manny? We discussed that he may be on the Phils radar based on Uncle Chahlie’s history with the guy, but nothing has surfaced. Is Manny hot in talks with any other teams at this point? I will again state that I DO NOT want Manny Ramirez in a Phillies uniform, ever.
I would love to get Delmon Young. Put him on a team of tough Vets and Charlie as the manager and I bet this kid changes his tune. He could be a heck of a bargain.
I guarantee the Phillies are not going to sign A.J. Burnett. I think Amaro is taking a page from the way the GMs operate in the Red Sox-Yankees rivalry and is in the conversation as due diligence but mostly to help drive up the price that the Braves, for example, might wind up paying. Going after Derek Lowe makes more sense, but I’d rather the Phillies focus on getting right-handed power in LF and/or 3B and worry about signing a starter later (remember the Reds and Kyle Lohse last off-season) or trading for one during the season.
By now we all know that Utley’s surgery went well and there was nothing unforeseen. Now we wait to see if he will be out closer to 4 months or 6 months. Joe DelGrippo has an article on dugoutcentral.com about how the Phils should go about replacing Utley and Feliz. Nothing revelatory. Just thought I’d pass it along.
We can’t forget about Feliz. He had successful back surgery on Nov. 20th and his recovery is still pegged at 8-12 weeks. Gotta be concerned though about how this will affect him throughout next season. We’ve already seen close up what a 3rd baseman with lingering back issues plays like (anybody miss David Bell?) and I really don’t want to see us have to deal with that again.
About Jermaine Dye, I forgot to mention this yesterday. According to mlbtraderumors.com:
“ Ken Rosenthal says Dye’s no-trade clause mostly covers teams in the northeast. ”
“ MLB.com’s Scott Merkin notes that the Mets and Phillies are two of the six teams on Dye’s no-trade list.”
Looks like we can cross Dye off our list of potential replacements for Burrell.
I’m with you, Pete. I think the longer this goes, the more likely it is that Burrell stays with us.
Victorino, a good player, sentimental favorite and a heartbeat of the team, is probably at (or near) peak value now. It takes talent to get talent. Phillies might be wise to use him as enticement to acquire a #2 starting pitcher. Outfielders, even the good ones, are more easily replaced than strong pitching is procured.
Yesterday I posted Keith Law’s evaluation of Burnett, who is #4 on his list of the top 50 free agents. Today I’ll post Law’s evaluation of Derek Lowe, who is #5 on the same list.
“Lowe entered free agency after the 2004 season on the heels of his worst year as a starter. He had capped it off with some great work in October that made the four-year deal given to him by the Dodgers and then-GM Paul DePodesta seem irrationally exuberant. But since the deal, Lowe has posted four straight seasons with ERAs under 3.90 and at least 199 innings pitched. The big difference between now and then, other than the move to an easier league and park, is Lowe’s control: Typically stingy with the long ball, Lowe also has become a miser with the free pass, issuing a career-low (as a starter) 38 unintentional walks in 211 innings this season. Lowe works primarily off a sinker with average velocity but hard late sink; only Brandon Webb was better at generating ground balls and preventing line drives this season. He pairs it with a short-breaking slider to keep hitters honest and miss the occasional bat. At 36, Lowe probably is headed for a decline, but he has shown no sign of it to date and probably has a good two — or even three — seasons left at something close to his level of 2006-2008.”
How Lowe is ranked below Burnett, I can’t understand. Be that as it may, Lowe is definitely worth making a run at. He is looking for 5 years at $15 million per. 5 years is much too long of a commitment to make to him. Maybe we’ll get lucky and nobody else will offer him a 5 year deal. I’d love to see us get him here with a 3 year deal.
bski, I just can’t write about the Sixers. Nothing is coming to mind. I just don’t like the team this year. It was really easy for me to just watch a quarter or two then walk away. Do you remember our conversation here? There’s something the Sixers’ brass did wrong, but I can’t quite put a finger on it. But I linked to that old conversation and posted under here for a reason…
I don’t remember where I heard it, but some talking head was talking about Tampa Bay’s achievement this year and how much harder it is to make the playoffs than to actually win the World Series. Do you agree? A lot of the recent WS winners weren’t considered the best teams in their year’s playoff field. If there was a perfect correlation between talent and championships, then Tampa Bay should’ve won this year (oh no he didn’t, he did not just say that); we should’ve beaten Colorado last year; the Angels should have won more than one WS, and you could make the case that their championsip team wasn’t as talented as some of their most recent playoff teams.
But what talent does get you is the CHANCE to to win the championship. My argument in that old conversation is that you don’t need to be a big-spending organization to win a championship. But it helps a lot in that in getting you into the playoffs, where, seemingly, once you’re in you’ve got as good a shot as anyone.
So, let’s break down the talking point “buying championships” into “buying regular season success” and “buying playoff success”. I think that, more often than not, if you spend money on free agents and shell out to keep your players, you will make the playoffs, assuming a minimum level of organizational competencey. But that’s as far as the money will take you. I think that in the playoffs, how much you spent on free agent X in the offseason becomes a smaller factor in you surviving series after series.
What do you need for playoff success? An ace and a closer, that’s for sure, but beyond that I don’t know. So I guess if you did shell out big free agent money, it should be for one of those guys. But then again, you have to get the right ace and the right closer. Hamels or Sabathia? Lidge or K-Rod?
I could write more, but I need to get to some things. Give me something to respond to, some indication of where you’d like to take this, if you’re interested. But knowing you, you’ll probably give me a lot to digest, so give me some time to respond!