Ken Rosenthal of Fox Sports has a couple tidbits on the Phillies today…
- The Phillies are showing interest in both Nomar Garciaparra and Gabe Kapler as right handed bats off the bench. I would prefer Nomar since he is a better hitter (only 11K in 163 ABs last year) , can play the infield, and because it would give me excuse to break out my Garciaparra Red Sox jersey I bought a decade or so ago.
- The Phillies aren’t interested in Derek Lowe. We already knew that, but Scott Boras keeps telling press outlets otherwise.
- Why aren’t we interested? Because Ken Rosenthal speculates that after all the arbitration is said and done, our payroll could be up around $135 million. Wow. Much higher than I thought.
- It will likely be either the Braves or Mets for Derek Lowe. I really hope it’s the Braves.
- The Mets signed Phillies killer Tim Redding. I now hate Tim Redding more than I ever thought possible.
Pete…What type of contract do you think Nomar would be looking for? Would a 1 year deal in the $4-6mil range get him here in your opinion? He is a well traveled veteran that could add depth at 3rd. He actually seems to be a guy that would work in this system/clubhouse. A guy with a certain role and will give 110% to accomplish that goal. Similar to Matt Stairs last year. Stairs was a big bat that would be used off the bench to swing for the fences, period. Nomar could be a late inning right handed bat to get a good AB in, and a 3rd baseman when Feliz needs a day off.
JDubbz-
I found this rather amusing article about the phillies history of signing the wrong brother (i.e. Jeremy Giambi instead of Jason, etc..). Anyways in the article they give a mention to Nomar’s brother who is apparently in our minor league system, you learn something new everyday!
Here’s the article:
http://pabaseball.blogspot.com/2009/01/wrong-brother-syndrome.html
Here’s Nomar’s brother page on the Phillies website:
http://mlb.mlb.com/team/player.jsp?player_id=455752
Pete, a request: Can you do a preview of the Eagles-Giants game? I know that usually you do post-game write-ups, but I’d specifically like to hear your thoughts, and Dannie’s, and what would be neat-o is if Dannie’s father gave his take. This has got to be the most important Eagles game of the past several years, right? We’re all much more hopeful and optimistic after the Phils’ championship, and we’re facing the hated Giants (I hate them, not as much as I did before 18-1, but still hate them more than the Cowboys).
I know, I know – everyone and their mother has already written something about the game, but again, I’m interested in reclinergm.com’s take. IS ANYONE ELSE? It would also be great if the regular commenters on here shared their insight into the game.
About the Tim Redding signing – I don’t think it’s so bad, it means we win more games against Washington than we normally do; they’ve slowly purged their roster of Phillies-killers over the past 3 years. Plus, Tim Redding was only really good against the Phillies, right? He was still mediocre against the rest of the MLB, so more losses for the Mets.
That is a great article on We Should Be GM’s about the Phils “wrong brother syndrome”…I wrote it after all.
Pete had a post a couple weeks ago about Baseball Prospectus’ list of the Phillies top 11 prospects……and I know this isn’t it. However, I just came across a prospect Q & A interview with Kevin Goldstein from BP on phuturephillies.com that was posted on Jan 3rd. It’s a bit long, but there is some good stuff.
Zack, that’s a nice spin right there!
A couple tidbits:
1) According to the latest reports, the Braves are offering 4 years, $60 mil to Lowe. I know it was slim to none that we’d get him anyway but this seals it.
2) Interesting article on dugoutcentral.com titled The Correlation Betweem Payroll and Playoff Appearances. Here is the upshot:
Looking at the years from 1995 to 2008 (when eight teams qualified for the playoffs):
A payroll at least 80% above the average payroll for that year almost ensures that a team will make the playoffs. Only the 2008 Yankees failed with such a large payroll out of nine such teams. The nine teams were the 1999 and 2002-2008 Yankees and the 2004 Red Sox.
A payroll more than twice the Major League average appears to be wasteful, since twice the average seems to be sufficient to almost guarantee a spot in the playoffs.
A payroll 30% to 80% above average drops your playoff chances to somewhere in the range 1/2 to 2/3.
For a payroll in the range of the average to 30% above the average your chances of qualifying for the playoffs are only about 1/3 (slightly more than by random chance).
For payrolls below the average, at best 20% of teams make the playoffs.
No team with a payroll below 40% of the annual Major League average has qualified for the playoffs during that period of time.
so the old saying “You can’t buy Championships” may be true, but it seems like you CAN buy playoff appearances, huh?
Love you reasoning Zack! they got rid of Schneider and Church last season too. Luis Ayala gave us some problems too until I think Branyan hit that HR off of him that year. Now if they could only trade Ray King, that’d be hot.
I think once they hit NY the bullseye is gonna be in place and the lackadaisical attitude the Phils take to the Nats every year will vanish and Tim Redding will start to give up just more than grounball outs. Esp with our crazy lefty lineup, I’m not so worried. but good try Mets (love you for trying!!)
Sanatana is the one thing that worked, simply becuase unlike Redding that relies on consistency, grit and control to win, Johan is just a flat out star!
I learned today from a reliable source that the Braves will sign Lowe pending a Wednesday physical. The braves are tired of losing and want to make this a three horse field.
Shay Roddy – ESPN?
I hope somebody checks in down here. I am remaining vigilant, even though there is not much Phillies stuff out there. Jayson Stark has an article on espn.com today about the approaching arbitration process. I will pull out all the Phillies info and post it here. It’s a bit lengthy but, what the heck, news is slow.
RYAN HOWARD
Meet the man responsible for all this. Howard has made only one trip through the arbitration jungle. But he walked away last year with the most landscape-altering arbitration payout of all time.
He had just two-plus seasons of service time behind him back then. But he won his case and got a historic $10 million paycheck out of it. And the next sound you heard was salary structures crumbling all around baseball.
Now Howard is back for another round. And the first big mystery is: What salary will he file for? We’ve heard estimates ranging from $15 million to $17 million — for a player with three-plus seasons in the big leagues. Can you spell “cha-ching”?
Next question: What are the odds the Phillies can sign him, even for a year, without a hearing? And the answer, from virtually everyone who knows Howard and his family well, is simple: None. Zero.
Howard’s salary demands are being driven, in part, by his father’s belief that he is an unprecedented player who should collect unprecedented paychecks. So the Phillies have never come close to signing him to ANY contract, one-year or multi-year, at any point since he reached the big leagues. And while they would never say this out loud, they practically are resigned to the reality that they never will.
So that’s where the drama mounts. If that’s the case, how long will he stick around Philadelphia? And that answer easily could be: maybe only one more year.
Clubs that have spoken to the Phillies are convinced that they were gearing up this past summer to start exploring a Howard trade as early as this winter. Then they went and won the World Series. So there went that plan.
But what if the 2009 season has a different sort of ending — and Howard looks as unsignable as ever? Then get ready next winter for a barrage of Howard trade rumors, because the Phillies will have no choice but to start listening, with this guy suddenly two years from free agency.
Nevertheless, the Phillies haven’t ruled out Plan B: Hang onto Howard through 2011 (when he’ll be 32), hope they win again and then let him walk and collect his A-Rod contract elsewhere.
“It really wouldn’t shock me if that’s what they end up doing because of the age, because of the limitations defensively and because of the way his body’s going,” one general manager said. “With all that in play, I’m not sure they’ll get the kind of value for him they’d feel they have to get to move him.”
COLE HAMELS
Meet the co-star of the Phillies’ arbitration soap opera. Like Howard, Hamels has had trouble negotiating deals in his pre-arbitration years. Like Howard, Hamels erupted into stardom just before his first arbitration year arrived. And now, like Howard, he’ll be looking for record dollars.
It won’t be $10 million, because Hamels is working off the starting-pitcher pay scale, not the MVP slugger pay scale. But the buzz is Hamels’ request could top $5 million — based on the $4.6 million Chien-Ming Wang asked for last year as a first-timer in arbitration.
Wang lost his case and wound up with $4 million. But Hamels is coming off an ace-caliber season and a spectacular October for a team that won the World Series. So his leverage is off the charts.
But Hamels also appears less likely than Howard to push his negotiations all the way to a hearing. So this case has a good shot at a short-term resolution. The larger question, though, is: Can the Phillies sign this man for the long haul? And people we’ve surveyed in the industry are divided on that.
One National League GM said, “If it were me, I would sign him. I wouldn’t go beyond four years, but it’s so hard to find top-of-the-rotation starters. And he clearly defined last year that that’s what he is.”
But the other side is this: The Phillies haven’t guaranteed a contract or extension longer than three years for any starting pitcher in more than a decade. They wouldn’t do it for Curt Schilling. They wouldn’t do it for Brett Myers. And with Hamels not eligible for free agency until 2012, they’re not likely to take that step now, either.
If they wait, however, the landscape for No. 1 starters who reach free agency now has been stretched to seven years by Sabathia and to six by Johan Santana. So if Hamels just keeps doing what he’s doing, the Phillies are going to have to make a radical philosophical shift or start contemplating trading both Howard and Hamels. Yikes.
“That team,” one AL executive said, “is about to walk through a mine field.”
ALL THOSE OTHER PHILLIES
It’s tough to remember a World Series team with so many high-profile arbitration cases. Beyond Howard and Hamels, the Phillies have a half-dozen other cases hanging — including Shane Victorino, Jayson Werth, Joe Blanton and Ryan Madson. They all will get resolved. But this is a team whose total arbitration-class price tag could top $25 million. And that will take its toll on the construction of the bottom of the roster.
bski-
Yeah Pete, mixed emotions just about sums it up. You’d like to think that winning (specifically the World Series in our case) would trump everything on both sides (player and management) to the point where they could make it work and come to a reasonable agreement, maybe meet in the middle.
I have said many times that I don’t blame any player for trying to get what he can while he can (that’s the key for me, as most guys have a very small window of opportunity to collect a big check). In spite of that, it would be nice to see a player recognize that he is in a winning situation (especially since they all profess that it’s all about wanting to win, that winning a championship is their top priority, that nothing matters except a ring, etc…), appreciate it, and take it into account during contract negotiations.
On the management side, it would be nice if they would take into account that these two guys are major components of a WS winner and extend a bit beyond what they would with others.
As much as it pains me to say, in these cases I side with the Phils. Howard’s asking price, in years, is just too high. I’d pay him more money on a shorter deal, but 8 years is way to long to commit to him. Hamels just completed his first season in the Phils system without an injury. Problem is he also threw his most innings, by far, in doing so. As such, it’s much too soon to think about a long term commitment to him.
I would love to see both Howard and Hamels play their entire careers (productively) in Phillies pinstripes, but I do not want the organization to overcommit to either of them, much less both of them, and end up doing more harm than good to the ballclub.
Howard and Hamels were both key components to our championship, but they are only two guys. Lidge was key, Romero was key, Rollins was key, Utley was key, you get the point. I think management does recognize what they have built. I also believe that they are trying to do everything they can to keep it together. The thing is, they need to keep it all together. You need a whole club, not just two guys.
Every time I read that Howard wants A-Rod money, I can’t help but think that if he gets it there is a pretty good chance he will end up in the same situation that A-Rod was in with the Rangers. Then I wonder how long it would take before either the losing gets to him and he wants out or his new team realizes that that can’t build a complete, winning ballclub while paying him so much and decides to unload him.
I think the problem the Phils are facing, at least with Howard if not with Hamels as well, is that it takes two to tango and if the asking price is too high there won’t be any dancing. (Here I’ll give credit to Rollins and Utley for agreeing to reasonable long term contracts.)
I think that if Hamels stays healthy and shows he can remain one of the top starters in the league, the Phils will do everything they can to keep him, even if it means extending beyond their comfort zone. ( Starting pitching is the name of the game after all, isn’t it?)
With Howard, I think we need to resign ourselves to the fact that he will be gone at some point. I agree with Stark’s article that, unless they receive a good offer for him, they will ride him to as many wins as they can over the next few years and then let him walk.
according to FoxSports, Madson turned down a 3 year, $12 million contract from the Phils.
“according to FoxSports, Madson turned down a 3 year, $12 million contract from the Phils.”
here we go again!! the problem bout these kinds of deals is the player is somehow so sure he is gonna be that good, that he doesnt want to get short changed. wonder if they will let him go after this season or have him in their long term plans. geez a relief pitcher with a breakout year is your worst nightmare. heck more like breakout month. only players deserving to be locked up long term; OFs Victorino & Werth. we will get good value for our money the sooner we can sign ‘em before they start going Madson on us.
bski: how do we know that its his father doing this? is that common knowledge? s the media supposed to know stuff like that?
$5 years, $80 million. – thats closer money!. he’s not even better than Romero.
jkay….I didn’t say it, Jason Stark did.
Everything, except the first paragraph, in post #13 was copied and pasted from an article by Jason Stark on espn.com.
I don’t know what he knows or how he knows it, but I have read similar things numerous times in the past, dating back to before Howard’s arbitration case last year.
Whether Howard’s holding out for mega money is due to his father, his entire family, or because he’s decided this all on his own, the fact remains that he is holding out. Since, by all estimates, he is in line for an arbitration award in the $15 mil range, he obviously figures he is worth more than that. Bad news for us and our prospects of keeping him long term.
Bad news on Madson as well. Can’t go beyond 3 years. As hard as relievers are used now, no doubt he will miss at least some time and/or have periods of ineffectiveness, if not be down and out. Unless he can “let it go”, like he did in the playoffs and world series, every time out, he’s not worth that much.