I’m with Pete on this. For now, I would have to put Rollins on the untouchable list, along with Utley and Hamels. I couldn’t go for trading Rollins unless we had a bona fide replacement to take his place and we got at least equal, major young talent in return.

Based on our recent past, we don’t do well when trading our top players. We got Omar Daal, Vicente Padilla, Nelson Figeuroa, and Travis Lee for Curt Schilling. Padilla was by far the best of that bunch, but we certainly didn’t get equal value in return. For Scott Rolen we got Bud Smith, Mike Timlin, and Placido Polanco. Polanco was solid but we traded him for Ugueth Urbina. Again, not close to equal value.

I think the Rolen example is particularly instructive, because we are still looking for a third baseman of his caliber six years after the trade. I would expect similar problems at shortstop if we traded Rollins.

to answer your first point – if you are trading an MVP, who is only 29, and under contract for a couple more years – you had better get a young pitcher with the potential to be a #1 starter. With Byrd, you are getting a 37-year old with a 5+ ERA who might pitch one more year. With Westbrook, you get a 30-year old who will get you around a 4.00 ERA. Not bad. With Peralta, you get the definition of an average SS. .250, 15-20 HR, 70 RBI.

IF you were to go about trading a player like Rollins, you would want the Indians youngest talents. First of all because you would get them for their prime years and second of all because you wouldn’t have to pay them any money until they were on your team for 3 years. If we were trading Rollins? I’d ask for Westbrook, their top pitching prospect and a good hitting prospect.

To answer your next point: In Philadelphia? Abso-frickin-lutely. You could almost say that team leadership is MORE important than what happens on the field in this town. Example 1A would be Donovan McNabb – easily the best QB in eagles history, who has led us to more playoff victories than the other QBs combined. Yet – he gets killed by the media, and is even HATED by many fans, because they don’t think he is enough of a leader. If you want Phillies examples, look no further than the very productive career of Bobby Abreu. Abreu was phenomenal for the Phillies, but was hated by many fans, in part, because he was passive and not a team leader.

and yes – you absolutely have to take leadership, popularity and many other off-the-field qualities into account. Would the Yankees trade an older Derek Jeter? absolutely not. Would the Red Sox trade Varitek?

as for King Felix. There aren’t 2 pitchers in ANY minor league system that have his upside. he’ll get traded when LeBron gets traded.

Let’s see what we’ve got:
1) I have been hoping for a lineup change for quite a while, so it’s about darn time as far as I’m concerned. The degree of change smacks of desperation, but I’ll take it. It’s a funny thing. For as much micro-managing as Manuel does late in games with all of his situational pitching, pinch hitting, pinch running, and defensive replacements, he doesn’t do much macro-managing. He just keeps putting the same guys in the same spots in the lineup day after day. While I agree with not making knee-jerk decisions and constantly moving guys all over the place, there is a middle ground. Manuel says all the time that baseball is a “relax” game. He says you can’t perform well if there is too much tension or pressure. I can agree to a point, but it seems like we go beyond relaxed and into complacent pretty regularly. I think a little pressure is good. There is nothing wrong with sending messages and having guys worrying about their jobs a bit. Again, if you can bench Rollins for a lack of hustle, you certainly can drop a guy in the batting order if he’s not producing, or bench him if he is consistently hurting your chances to win.

2) As far as Manuel not being able to get us out of our hitting funk, I will go back to what Jeff Van Gundy said during the Spurs-Suns series. The Suns were down 0-3 at home and played like a house on fire in game 4. Either Breen or Jackson asked why the Suns couldn’t play like this all the time. Van Gundy said that you really can’t change players. In the short-term you might make an impact but overall they are what they are and they do what they do. He said a coach really can’t make any lasting, long-term changes. This is nothing new for us. We have been doing the same thing for years. When we hit home runs, we score. When we don’t, it’s slim pickings. Last night’s win was great, but no home runs=only 4 runs scored. Kendrick won the game, not the offense. I’m sure Manuel knows what to do to help the hitters and is telling the players. He just can’t get them to change. He’s got to be telling Ryan Howard to stay on the ball better, not to pull off, and to hit the outside pitch the opposite way. Ryan Howard is not doing it. He certainly can. We’ve seen him do it with devastating effectiveness in 2006. Players get comfortable doing things the same way. If it works, that’s great. If it doesn’t, they need to change. As a manager, if a player who is just not hitting tells me he doesn’t want to change because it’s not comfortable for him, I would have to tell him that I’m not comfortable with him not hitting. This goes back to point #1 about sending a message. The manager can say, “You’re not comfortable with changing your approach at the plate, fine. Then I will drop you in the lineup if you struggle and I will bench you if you don’t produce for a long stretch”. Still, I’m putting this more on the players being resistant to change than on Manuel for not getting them to change.

3) I would much prefer to have a steady stream of good young arms coming up through our system so we can stay well stocked with quality pitching. Why we don’t have that is a topic for a long debate. Because we don’t have that, we are in our current situation of needing to overpay for pitching help from outside. The whole thing for me, with regard to “promising youngsters” as you call them, comes down to two questions: 1) How long do I have to wait? 2) Who am I waiting for? If your answers are three years, Brandon Duckworth, I’ll pass, thank you very much. You’ve got to admit that we don’t have a good track record for drafting and developing young pitchers, so I don’t know how promising our youngsters truly are. For years, we have waited and waited. For years, we have heard about all the promising young pitchers who were going to come to Philly and be mainstays in our rotation for years. Aside from Hamels, where are they? If Carrasco is going to be a #1 or #2 starter for us beginning next year, we would be foolish to trade him. If, on the other hand, he will be a #3 or #4 starter in two or three years, why should we worry so much about trading him for help right now?

As far as going the less costly route, I don’t care about that. As a fan, my concern is getting the best possible pitcher out there, regardless of the cost. The Phils have a team that can possibly win it all now. They’ve got to do what is necessary to give us our best shot now. As far as I’m concerned, the Phils backed us into this corner by not doing a good enough job drafting and developing young pitchers and by not signing other free agent pitchers when they were available. Like the saying goes, you can pay me now or you can pay me later. At some point, if we are going to have any shot at a title, the Phils are going to have to pay.

Second, do you have any insights into pitchers’ upsides, and how much that should be valued over what’s actually been achieved?

About J-Roll, how valuable is team leadership and popularity amongst fans? Modell’s will be pissed because they’ll have to discount all those J-Roll shirts, that’s for sure. But you’re basically saying we need to add those two characteristics to J-Roll’s value when trying to decide what he could fetch, because the other team will also get that leadership and popularity?

because you’ve had so many insightful posts on our blog, i’m going to go ahead an ignore the fact that you just proposed we trade our team leader, 2nd most popular player, reigning NL MVP and a player who might have his number retired, for 2 mediocre pitchers with no upside and Johnny Peralta.

1. What do you think of the Phils changing their lineup?

2. Isn’t embarassing that our manager is a hitting guru but he hasn’t been able to get our guys out of their hitting funk, and his solution is to change the lineup?

3. It’s not that I don’t think pitching is important, it’s that we’re giving up promising youngsters for unproven pitchers – what have Sabathia, Bedard or Burnett done? I’m especially leery of Sabathia, he STUNK STUNK STUNK against the Red Sox in the 2007 ALCS. And why are we targeting the starting pitcher from last year’s AL playoffs with the worst ERA?

Sabathia 8.80
Carmona 7.20
Westbrook 5.60
Byrd 3.60

Don’t you think getting Westbrook or Byrd would be less costly than the Sabathia or Carmona? Maybe it’s Sabathia’s exotic name, if he was C.C. Eaton people wouldn’t be falling over themselves to try and get the guy. I’d love to trade J-Roll for Byrd/Westbrook + Peralta, I think that improves our chances in the postseason more than trading our top prospects for C.C. Eaton.

We definitely need to add a top of the line starter. In the playoffs, teams only go with their top three starters. The problem is, only one of our top three(Hamels) is a playoff caliber pitcher. Moyer could possibly get the job done as our third starter, but that still leaves us one short. Again, to put it in Sixers terms, we need at least one Elton Brand level starting pitcher. The question is where is he going to come from?

Like you, I’m not thrilled with trading for starting pitching during the season, either. It is way overpriced. Plus, we will have a lot of question marks next year. Will Moyer be back? Can we re-sign Lidge? Will Myers still be in the rotation or will he be in the pen, and what will he give us? How about Eaton? When I look at it that way, I really start to question the wisdom of trading our two most major league ready pitchers away. If we are looking at that many potential pitching holes to fill, we are going to need these guys next year and beyond.

For me, the decision of whether to trade or to keep our young arms comes down to two questions:
1) Will they be ready to help us next year? We always hear how close our prospects are and how they will be helping us soon, but that day never seems to arrive.
2) Will they be major contributors to our success? I mean, are they really going to be difference makers, or are they just fillers we will be using to plug holes? If the realistic expectations for these guys is that they will be decent pitchers to round out a staff, then I say we should trade them to get a major impact, top quality starter, because that is what we really need. If these guys are truly going to make a difference beginning next year, then I say we should keep them and just go as far as we can this year with the pitching we’ve got.

This all goes back to our discussion last week under “Phillies Ramblings”. For me, Plan A would be to get more pitching so we can win in the playoffs. My plan B has two parts. Part one would be to keep our young arms, since they will be helping us starting next year, and go as far as we can with the pitching we’ve got. Part two would be to add a bat or two. The first reason I would add hitting is because if we are in a situation where we can’t outpitch the other team, then our only shot for this year is to outscore them. The second reason is that an overload of bats will help for next year as well. It can help fill a hole if we don’t re-sign Burrell. It can also help free up some of our major league players to use in off season trades to fill other needs, instead of wiping out our farm system. We could free ourselves up to use Howard, Victorino, Werth, Jenkins, Dobbs, Ruiz, maybe even Feliz, depending on who we add now. Those players that you mentioned from the Indians would be fantastic additions.

This really could be the way to go. Remaking our offense now and then adding the young arms into the mix next year certainly could be the recipe for success. It sure sounds better than wiping out our farm system and sticking with the same inconsistent offense, doesn’t it?

I think, with pitching prospects having tremendous value right now, we should try and get hitting with our prospects instead, we’d get more in return. Instead of Sabathia we take Grady Sizemore and Casey Blake/Jhonny Peralta. What do you think?

This is the same way I feel about the Sixers organization, and a lot of organizations in general – why only fire the head guy, when the final product is actually a sum of many contributions. The head guy gets blamed for any bad “contribution” even though it’s not his (Billy King: So Tony, Courtney, Mr. Financial Analyst, let me try and understand you guys – Willie Green at $4M/yr for 4 years is a sound investment?) If Billy King was allowed to make that decision all by himself, then… I don’t even want to think about it.