Well – I think it’s officially safe to say that the Ruben Amaro era will not be boring.
ESPN’s Buster Olney is reporting that:
According to sources, an idea has been kicked around the Phillies‘ organization internally, with discussions about proposing a swap of slugger Ryan Howard for St. Louis superstar Albert Pujols.
Let’s get a couple things straight…
- This isn’t happening. Not this year at least. Maybe in the off-season.
- Front offices probably have a million theoretical discussions like this a day – why this one was leaked, I have no idea.
- Amaro denied the report (of course) and the report also indicated that the Phillies haven’t, you know, run this by the Cardinals yet.
It’s a deal I would do in a mili-second, but also one that I would say has 0.00001% chance of happening.
But then again, that’s what we all though about the Cliff Lee / Roy Halladay deal as well…
WHAT!? Great fodder, but it will never happen.
Pujols means to St Louis what Stan Musial meant many decades ago and still. Provided signs an extension in St Louis, he will retire a Cardinal. I could see Howard wanting to play at home before he retires. Right now, Pujols means more to the Cards success than Howard to the Phillies.
It makes perfect sense that the front office would toss this idea around. We’ve got three power-hitting lefties in Utley, Howard, and Ibanez. Werth is the only righthanded bat who can break up the lefties, and he’s probably getting a better deal elsewhere as a free agent next year. Michael Taylor is in Oakland. Domonic Brown has tons of potential but is yet another lefthanded bat (likewise for other up-and-coming outfield prospects). Oh, and last Fall the Yankees owned Howard with a steady stream of slop-throwing lefthanded relievers.
Only problem with this deal is St. Louis would turn it down in a heartbeat. Our best option right now is for Howard to keep working on getting his 2006 swing back. Nice article in the Inquirer today about him working on standing closer to the plate and going to the opposite field with the breaking ball.
this trade would solve a lot of problems for the phillies. keeps the balance of lefties and righties in the lineup and you could let werth go after this season and move on to dominic brown if he’s ready. the only problem is you’d basically be paying pujols what werth and howard are going to make combined (take about 3-5 mil depending on performance this year). that would make a pretty huge dent in the bill with Utley, Holliday, and Pujols.
But to see Pujols and Utley on the right side of the infield? that might be the best combination of a 1B and 2B ever. Not to mention open up those “greatest infield ever” talks again!
I’d say go for it if they can get it done without giving up Brown. Maybe flip Gilles or Aumont to Stl? Maybe both? Do we have the prospects to get this done? J.A Hap? I don’t even know. I feel like if the Cardinals KNEW they were losing Pujols they would do it because it would guarantee them a cleanup hitter and a hometown kid.
I’m getting ahead of myself.
I….uh……ah, I got nothing.
I just saw this headline on ESPN.com and immediately jumped over to the Recliner. I didn’t even bother reading the story. Its bound to be one of those articles that makes me want to punch Buster Olney in the neck for wasting my time.
“You know, I actually like this deal from the blah blah blah perspective, because of bullshit bullshit bullshit.”
Thanks Buster, real insightful.
never happening.
While strictly on the stat sheet the deal looks good for the PHils I would not do it. People are way too enamored with Puljos. Here is why:
1. Remember Puljos’s numbers have seriously declined the last two years in the second half of the season. Rumor has it it is attributable to a arthritic left elbow that he previously injured (I forget which year – 2007?). Basically this is like a running back with an arthritic knee. It will worsen each season as the year progresses with the the wear and tear and reduces his effectiveness when you need him most – for the late season and playoffs. Remember, as incredible a year as Puljos had last year to win an MVP, Howard’s very average year for him still had some mentioning him in the MVP discussion.
2. On the other hand, howard has basically been injury-free his entire career and will likely cause him to have more quality years left than Puljos. Even though Howard is a bit older, it is probable he has more highly productive years in a healthy frame.
3. This would drastically change the character of the team without Howard’s reliable monster August and September, which is necessary to offset Utley reliable fade as he is wearing down. Do we want to go into the second half of each season with the two most depended upon offensive weapons bound to experience offensive slumps or tail offs?
4. Clubhouse – yeah this can be overdone but there is something about a chemistry this team has had that surrounds Utley, Rollins, and howard – They define Philly baseball in this era – the homegrown boys. It is lunchpale confident cocky-but-not-arrogant ethos. I don’t think Puljos would be a bad influence but I am not sure we need to inject the personality of a superstar who knows he is a superstar into the clubhouse. He is kinda a loner from what I understand.
5. Two more years of Howard is just too much possibility to pass up. Remember, he has yet to put together truly a full season. I think there is a .280; 60, 165 lurking in that frame. .320; 35; 125 is nice, but don’t we want to have a chance to be a part of the former. This team is good enough to win a title as is on offense. Don’t mess with it.
And let me just add one thing. If I have to read one more comment from fans comparing Ryan Howard to Dave Kingman I am going to puke: Just take a look at the below and tell me if this looks like the resume of a Dave Kingman:
Accomplishments: 2005 National League rookie of the year, 2006 NL MVP, 2009 NLCS MVP, two-time all-star, two-time NL home run leader, three-time NL RBI leader, 2008 World Series champion. (from today’s inquirer).
To characterize Howard is “just” a home-run hitter is ludicrous.
And one more thing. We are also hearing alot of press about how the Yankees suddenly “solved” Howard by throwing him slop. What most people conveniently forget is that Howard see’s slop all year every year. AND, as many of you posted here last year during the World Series, many of the strikes were slop that was well outside the strikezone (off the outer part of the plate), that were called strikes (Howard correctly did not swing), and that were clearly not strikes. Nobody would hit those pitches, or should swing at them for that matter. AND, most of those were called at yankee stadium. Just saying that we should keep it real.
phillyfan-
you’ve got to educate yourself on Pujols. There is no argument that can be made that Howard is a better player than Pujols. None. By every conceivable measure, Pujols is the best player in baseball, and has been for most of his career, by a pretty large margin.
1. This is 100% factually incorrect. Over the last 2 years, Pujols’ OPS in the first half of the year is 1.128, for the 2nd half, it’s 1.082. He might have some nagging injury, but it’s not affecting him at all.
2. Players of Howard’s size are historically far more likely to regress quickly. With a swing as long as his, once he loses a little physically, he’s going to lose a lot production wise.
3. Pujols is consistent the whole year, has a MUCH higher BA, and MUCH higher OBP than Howard. The only thing he doesn’t do it hit HRs. You don’t need streaks when you’ve got Pujols.
4. Pujols is one a nicest human beings in the league – replacing Howard with him would have no negative effect.
5. Howard put together a full season in 2006 – he will not eclipse that season again – pitchers have adjusted to his weaknesses.
Pujols is moving towards being one of the top 5 hitters in MLB history along with Ruth, Williams, Mays and Musial. Howard will be remembered, at best, in the 2nd tier of players of McCovey and Stargell.
I think there is a .280; 60, 165 lurking in that frame. >>
Didn’t Howard hit .279 last year, or an I wrong? I have a very hard time envisioning him hitting 60 homers in a season at this point. I’d say you’ll see 35 before you see 55. That’s based on hunch as much as anything. Just talk. If you told me that a guy would strike out 200 times, and hit cleanup, and asked what the maximum number of ribbies he might get, I’d say something lower than 145. But that’s what Howard does. The 165 seems high, even though I think with his reported work ethic, and effort to become a complete player, he may have a chance to see if fewer Ks gets it done.
Kyle Kendrick is on fire.
Jayson Werth is not.
Pujols is moving towards being one of the top 5 hitters in MLB history along with Ruth, Williams, Mays and Musial. Howard will be remembered, at best, in the 2nd tier of players of McCovey and Stargell.>>
Aaron and Frank Robinson are tweeners maybe?
this is soul food for idiots. the result of two extremely bored and idle General Managers at best. maybe they were smoking some dope. sounds like something i would do on Triple Play 2006 for the PS2 or something. people need to remember that you dont just trade players cos you can. cant believe ESPN or whoever is carrying this nonsense.
I heard a rumor that we’re trading Halladay for Carpenter. Any truth to that one???
KB -
and Gehrig and maybe Cobb and maybe Bonds depending on how you feel about him.
and Gehrig and maybe Cobb and maybe Bonds depending on how you feel about him. >>
and Jimmie Foxx. Everytime you looked up, he was at 50 homers, 170 ribbies.
Borrowing JKay’s recipie for soul food above, in accusing the General manager population of being dope driven, MLBTradeRumors.com ran a poll of unnamed baseball execs surveying the field on the best offseason moves.
Here’s what they wrote about the Roy Halladay trade…
<<One exec noted that the Mariners “didn’t trade anyone that can hurt them in the next couple of years” for Lee, while another believed that “trading Lee and Kyle Drabek in the Roy Halladay deal will hurt [the Phillies] in the long run.”>>
The second portion of that is probably absurd. Chances are that unnamed exec hasn’t seen Aumont or Gillies (guess). I hope Doc 2 hits whoever said that’s club 6 times over each of the next 3 years. And I hope Kyle Drabek has a career at least the equal of his dad, which would be nice, and even so, I expect that deal to be easily justifiable as the future reveals itself. Even if Gillies and Aumont don’t pan out nicely, Doc by himself the next 3 years might carry a lot of weight offsetting Drabek’s best days. That exac is more worried about Drabek than Michael Taylor. Taylor seems to me to be the one that could be “the one that got away”.
Finally, a programming prediction. Lter today, one should expect Buster “So I changed my clock ahead to April Fool’s Day” Olney to make an appearance on ESPN Classic. He’ll be breaking the story that the Dodgers have had internal discussions about trading Sandy Koufax for Juan Marichal. That trade would be good for the Dodgers enabling them to surround lefty Claude Osteen with righthanders Marichal and Drysdale.
From Phillyfan
<<If I have to read one more comment from fans comparing Ryan Howard to Dave Kingman I am going to puke>>
Kong Kingman apparently is a popular barometer…
Mike Stanton, OF, Marlins — A National League scout described him as having Dave Kingman-like power. “Not as accomplished as [Atlanta’s Jason] Heyward,” said the scout, “and he needs to improve his swing, but one of those guys you’re on the edge of your seat every time he comes up, just to see how far he can hit it.” — Boston Globe
As Howard discussed the rumor with reporters this morning, Shane Victorino walked through the clubhouse and chanted, “Albert! Albert! Albert!”
Gotta love Shane…
And I do!
This love-affair with Puljos is crazy. I like him. Great player. But no way Puljos belongs with the names you mentioned. And if you are going to say “heading towards’ which means he needs to do it for 4-5 more years and you put 4-5 more years on Howards number too. McCovey or Stargell is the worst-case comparison for Howard. Howard is a HOFer with 4 more years of 45-135. But since you are so dependent on stats lets take a good look at the last three years. Note that this excludes howards monster 2006 but includes Puljos monster 2009. In some ways Howards monster 2006 has worked to his detriment. People now yawn at 45-135, although there are historic numbers to do it year after year. Puljos can’t – that is clear. Now if I try to say the 2007 and 2008 Puljos is more the norm like everybody seems to discount Howard’s 2006, for some reason that doesn’t seem to make sense to anybody even though that is a large body of recent work than 2009. Not sure why. To me, Puljos 2009 seems a bit of an aberation. But on the stats 2007-2009.
Homers go to Howard 130-116 (again just normal Howard versus a Puljos with a huge 2009 (for him) and Howard still walks away with it.
RBIs - Puljos has 354 RBIs over the last three years – Howard 423. That’s a huge difference! Again – not including Howards monster 2006 season. Those are just his normal production that everybody whines about – still blowing away Puljos in two offensive categories.
Runs – Puljos beats Howard by 6 runs per season on average. Close to a wash. I would have expected with Puljos batting average and glorious OBP that we would see a much higher advantage on his part - hmmm.
OK, so that leaves average. Clearly, Puljos is the better hitter.
So in the for main hitting categories – Howard clearly wins 2, Puljos 1, and the other one a wash.
So Puljos gets alot more hits/walks, but doesn’t score many more runs and doesn’t produce nearly what Howard does. What is that telling you? It tells me we focus way too much on meaningless hitting secondary stats.
Phillyfan-
First of all, let’s spell PUJOLS’ name correctly! you’re killin’ me.
Second of all, making the argument that there are 3 main hitting categories and they are HR, RBI and Runs is beyond ridiculous. Let’s do an actual assessment of these 2 players across all categories, including the 3 that best measure a players ability: BA/OBP/SLG.
A note on RBI: While an important stat, it is also very misleading. RBI’s are determined as much by how many baserunners are on for a hitter than anything else. 2 examples (of thousands). Barry Bonds had 90 RBI in 2003, but was indisputably the best player in baseball. He only had 90 because the top of his order sucked, and when they did get on, no one would pitch to him. Also, Chase Utley has never come close Howard’s RBI total, but is unanimously thought of as a better baseball player.
Let’s look at the stats on a 162-game average.
BA: Pujols (.332), Howard (.279)
OBP: Pujols (.427), Howard (.376)
SLG%: Pujols (.628), Howard (.586)
HR: Pujols (42), Howard (49)
RBI: Pujols (129), Howard (142)
Runs: Pujols (123), Howard (102) – (not exactly a difference of 6, by the way)
Stolen Bases: Pujols (7), Howard (2)
Strikeouts: Pujols (66), Howard (192)
Defense: Pujols (1 GG, above-average fielder), Howard (0 GG, below-average fielder)
Baserunning: Pujols (-0.4 EqBRR), Howard (-3.6 EqBRR)
That’s Pujols 8, Howard 2 – with Pujols having a significant edge in BA/OBP/SLG, runs and strikeouts.
As to why most experts have him as an all-time great, here is the list of players with career .330/.420/.600 lines:
Babe Ruth
Ted Williams
Lou Gehrig
Albert Pujols
Even if you assume a decline in his numbers (which he’s shown NO signs of doing anytime soon), if he finished his career at .320/.400/.600 the only name added to that list is Jimmie Foxx.
I think it’s clear you don’t get how good those numbers are, and how much better they are than Howard’s. The difference between Pujols’ career OPS (1.055) and Howard career OPS (.962) is the same as the gap between Howard and guys like Ryan Klesko (.870) and Scott Rolen (.868). So having this argument is about as fruitful as arguing that Ryan Klesko is/was better than Ryan Howard.
If Barry Bonds hadn’t taken steroids, Pujols would have five MVP’s right now, the most in MLB history.
Why do people pronounce it pull-hose then? Or is it just me?
He is better. BUT he isn’t 8-2 better. He isn’t Howard to Klesko better – that hurts your argument when you said that. You lose a bit of credibility.
It is your opinion that those stats you chose to highlight are the most meaningful stats. I guess I am an old fashioned traditional guy. I mean – baserunning? You are going to compare these two guys on that? That is like comparing DeSean Jackson to Randy Moss based on blocking ability. That is creating a stat that is truly meaningless between these two to build a position. I can tell you they both move decent for big guys. How often do you hear baseball guys marvel at Howard’s speed? pretty often I think. He certianly is not a liability on the basepaths for his size.
I think you are mixing up the whole argument about this idea that Pujos’s power stats don’t match Howard’s because of those around him. Pujos should have many more homers and hits for a better average BECAUSE he sees more good pitches than Howard. As was well documented lately, Howard sees much more slop than any other player. Howard puts up those numbers off of slop. Why does he see hundreds of less fastballs than Puljos if they aren’t pitching around him? Your argument leads to Pujos actually gets more good pitches to hit because the bases are more often empty in front of him. Pitchers are much more willing to give up a solo homer that a 2-3 run homer.
Puljos is to Howard is to Ryan Klesko – mercy me!
Am more apt analogy would be if Pujos is a 22-inch trout, then Howard is a 20-inch trout and Klesko is a 12-inch trout.
Point being Pujos and Howard are both trophy fish. Pujos is a bit bigger of a trophy fish. Klesko is just another fish.
phillyfan-
you need to back up your arguments with data, not just say random stuff.
and I wouldn’t question my credibility when you are trying to argue that Howard is better than Pujols while quite literally making up stats like “Pujols is much worse in the 2nd half of the year” and “Pujols only scored 6 more runs per year than Howard.” At least my Klesko comparison was based in fact.
i can’t believe this is even an argument. no one’s saying howard isn’t an awesome player…one of the best around today. pujol’s just happens to be the best of the decade. no disrespect to howard, he’s exciting and talented, pujols is simply better though.
Pete, I didn’t say Howard was better. I just think you overdo his edge by creating stats comparisons.
To make it 8-2 versus 6-2 by including Pujos’ 7-2 edge in stolen bases over a 3-year period and then another category on baserunning is exactly what I mean. Neither will get paid a dime more or less in their next contract for those categories. Not a single HOF or MVP voters looks at either of those when submitting their vote for either player. But “8-2″ allows one to do the Klesko kind of comparison. Wouldn’t it be more realistic to ask what are they getting paid,and what are they getting paid to do, then calculate their value accordingly? Then guide your stats accordingly?
Pete, if the Phillies steal Pujols away from us, I’m not coming to your wedding. I don’t care if you throw in Utley and Hamels with Howard.
phillyfan-
Just stop it. I seriously wish I could put Albert in the Phillies lineup this upcoming season. I bet he would end up with 160-170 RBI’s. Not to mention scoring more runs and having the advantage of playing in CBP. I bet he would hit at least 5 more HRS on a yearly average. I can’t believe that you’re arguing that he’s not going to end up as one of the GOAT. Just wait until he fills out the stat sheet for another 10 years, even if he does decline a little bit. He even admitted to being injured in his elbow in the years past, but this year after having bone chips removed he’s going to put up even more monster numbers. You honestly just need to stop.
Plus you’ve spelled his name right a grand total of ZERO TIMES. How much can you possibly know about baseball?
Okay, here’s what may well be a really stupid question.
Charlie hasn’t named his opening day starter yet. I know it will be Doc, and I don’t disagree at all.
But Cole pitched well again today, and we all know how loyal Charlie his to his players.
So the question is simply whether anyone thinks Charlie is entertaining the possibility of rewarding Cole for all his hard work this winter that appears to be paying off? Charlie is Charlie.
Roy knows his place. As does Cole. And Charlie double knows.
phillyfan: Jose, Juan, Guadalajara – hispanic names with the enlgish alphabetic ‘j’ pronounced phonetically as /h/. common knowledge i should think.
the whole Pujols love fest nauseates me too. I was tremendously pleased when he was a non factor in that LAD series. but hater… not, he is what he is. where i would differ from the rest is selling Howard’s worth as a player short when comparing them. they’re similar in offensive production only. Howard is a unique explosive player. Pujols is a phenomenal baseball player, in every aspect, who has constantly produced for more years than Howard has spent in the Majors.