philliesphhan wrote:

Philly the Kid wrote:

Bakestar wrote:Anyone else want Happ to win ROY because it just enhances his "sell high" status?


Flip side, it could render him untradeable for P.R. purposes... but even for Halladay?

The question is, couild Happ get even better? Did we see the best he'll ever be? If so, then yeah, I hope we can "sell high", if not, given the more likely realities of this offseason I like his youth and confidence... and hope he can improve

He had a 2.93 ERA. I'm not sure even the biggest Happ supporter could spin it that he could get even better. I mean, that's a 145 ERA+. Even Carlton only did better than that in non-strike season 4 times.

TenuredVulture wrote:It's sure fun to dream. And anyway, it's quite possible that Happ could improve and yet his ERA goes up a bit.

Bakestar wrote:Anyone else want Happ to win ROY because it just enhances his "sell high" status?


Flip side, it could render him untradeable for P.R. purposes... but even for Halladay?

jeff2sf wrote:

MattS wrote:

Bakestar wrote:So now we're flying off the handle about Lee and the apparently 100%itude that he's not going to re-sign in Philly.

i'm enjoying the fact that lee wanting cc sabathia money somehow changed the story. as though his contract desires have a bigger effect on his contract than his actual value. he wasn't signing a deal with the phillies to be nice to all of us any more than the owners are being nice to us if they sign him.

his value is not 7/$161 but it could be a 4/$80 extension or a 5/$95 if they wait. it's like the scott boras thing whereby people think that players who sign with scott boras are being convinced to want more money that was somehow always available to them, rather than boras signs the guys who are going to make the most money in the first place more often.

Matt, I just don't believe that all players sign for all the money available to them. The people who sign for all the money available are not bad people (per se). However, their "risk neutrality" in not valuing security highly, or comfort level of their current situation, or even occasionally not wanting to seem greedy makes a deal harder to strike because you don't have any inherent advantage over the market.

As for signing with Boras, actually I think that DOES say something about what you think is important (money). There are plenty of agents that can strike a pretty reasonable deal - Boras seems to want to make it acrimonious (at least with the amateurs).

MattS wrote:

jeff2sf wrote:

MattS wrote:

Bakestar wrote:So now we're flying off the handle about Lee and the apparently 100%itude that he's not going to re-sign in Philly.

i'm enjoying the fact that lee wanting cc sabathia money somehow changed the story. as though his contract desires have a bigger effect on his contract than his actual value. he wasn't signing a deal with the phillies to be nice to all of us any more than the owners are being nice to us if they sign him.

his value is not 7/$161 but it could be a 4/$80 extension or a 5/$95 if they wait. it's like the scott boras thing whereby people think that players who sign with scott boras are being convinced to want more money that was somehow always available to them, rather than boras signs the guys who are going to make the most money in the first place more often.

Matt, I just don't believe that all players sign for all the money available to them. The people who sign for all the money available are not bad people (per se). However, their "risk neutrality" in not valuing security highly, or comfort level of their current situation, or even occasionally not wanting to seem greedy makes a deal harder to strike because you don't have any inherent advantage over the market.

As for signing with Boras, actually I think that DOES say something about what you think is important (money). There are plenty of agents that can strike a pretty reasonable deal - Boras seems to want to make it acrimonious (at least with the amateurs).

I'm sure plenty of players don't sign for the highest bid. I do think that they almost always try to get the best offer that they can from their teams. Obviously risk-neutrality plays a factor and location plays a factor and all these things are part of it, but I think that the majority sign pretty close to their market value.

I'm not sure what a "pretty reasonable deal" is. Baseball transfers millions of dollars earned by players to owners every year from everybody who has less than six years service time. Reasonable to me is getting paid what you add to revenue, and I think that's usually pretty close to what happens (in expectation) for free agents. Boras is ballsier with his player's wealth and probably more so than they would want him to be if they had all the information he did. I don't like him because I think he screws over players half the time to get the big deal the other half of the time. He comes out ahead, but his players would probably prefer more security I suspect.

Regardless, I just don't buy the argument that Lee wanting a lot of money has anything to do with things. Some players pull a Wakefield but most players seem to try to get their market value. For Lee, that's less than Sabathia money. But the Phillies would probably be better off spending $4.5MM/win on Lee as the market dictates, and figure it would take signing him through 2014 if they try it now and through 2015 if they wait a year.

nycphils wrote:Cliff Lee is 31 years old - his career earnings are $14 million. That's a lot of money, but when you factor in taxes and the like it won't last a lifetime. This contract is his one best shot - if he can get $110 million, who can blame him for taking it? That will last a lifetime. If he can get $105 million in Philly, he might take it instead, but why should he accept, say $70 million and leave $30m or $40m on the table?

Grow up to all those who think he should do you a favor.

lightsout54 wrote:Just useless wondering here, but which pitcher between Lee and Roy is more prone to bad stretches? I know this is insane nitpicking, but just questioning because Lee has been very good for 2 years now after being sent to the minors to get "Myers-ed". I've seen enough of Halladay to know how dominant he is , but to be honest I'm not real sure if he is prone to bad stretches. I was worried about Lee going into the playoffs because he was getting hit pretty hard.Thankfully he removed that doubt.

I think the best part of getting Halladay is that no matter how streaky or cold your team may be going into a series, you almost always are guaranteed on 1 of that top three playing the role of stopper.

smitty wrote:

lightsout54 wrote:Just useless wondering here, but which pitcher between Lee and Roy is more prone to bad stretches? I know this is insane nitpicking, but just questioning because Lee has been very good for 2 years now after being sent to the minors to get "Myers-ed". I've seen enough of Halladay to know how dominant he is , but to be honest I'm not real sure if he is prone to bad stretches. I was worried about Lee going into the playoffs because he was getting hit pretty hard.Thankfully he removed that doubt.

I think the best part of getting Halladay is that no matter how streaky or cold your team may be going into a series, you almost always are guaranteed on 1 of that top three playing the role of stopper.

Halladay did have a three start stretch in late August las season in which he gave up 18 ERs in 17 IP. This contributed to a 2-4 record and a 4.71 ERA in August. I'm not sure how much of a bad stretch you'd consider that though since he was pretty awesome nearly all year.

S2D wrote:

smitty wrote:

lightsout54 wrote:Just useless wondering here, but which pitcher between Lee and Roy is more prone to bad stretches? I know this is insane nitpicking, but just questioning because Lee has been very good for 2 years now after being sent to the minors to get "Myers-ed". I've seen enough of Halladay to know how dominant he is , but to be honest I'm not real sure if he is prone to bad stretches. I was worried about Lee going into the playoffs because he was getting hit pretty hard.Thankfully he removed that doubt.

I think the best part of getting Halladay is that no matter how streaky or cold your team may be going into a series, you almost always are guaranteed on 1 of that top three playing the role of stopper.

Halladay did have a three start stretch in late August las season in which he gave up 18 ERs in 17 IP. This contributed to a 2-4 record and a 4.71 ERA in August. I'm not sure how much of a bad stretch you'd consider that though since he was pretty awesome nearly all year.

He was upset he wasn't traded to the Phillies.

Monkeyboy wrote:

S2D wrote:

smitty wrote:

lightsout54 wrote:

I think the best part of getting Halladay is that no matter how streaky or cold your team may be going into a series, you almost always are guaranteed on 1 of that top three playing the role of stopper.

Halladay did have a three start stretch in late August las season in which he gave up 18 ERs in 17 IP. This contributed to a 2-4 record and a 4.71 ERA in August. I'm not sure how much of a bad stretch you'd consider that though since he was pretty awesome nearly all year.

He was upset he wasn't traded to the Phillies.

Can you blame him? The phils are the awesome!!

NYY- no real need. Can't see them dumping the farm when they didn't for Santana
LAA- do they have a deep enough farm system? plus, correct me if I'm wrong, but doesn't LAA tend to groom their home-grown talent themselves? I can't remember a major farm trade in recent history
PHI- i can't see them dealing Drabek to be honest. they have Lee now so the need isn't as pressing as last year, and I'm pretty sure everyone is expecting some kind of improvement from Hamels. either way, i'm not going to rule PHI out
NYM- should be in total rebuild mode, IMHO. they have more than enough talent (not necessarily in the farm but they still have some solid young talent on the team), but going for Doc at this point is pointless.
TEX- definitely have the farm, but you raise a valid point about new ownership. at the same time though, who knows? they might want to bring halladay in to generate publicity
CHC- as far as i know, their farm system is pretty much non-existent (correct me if i'm wrong)
DET- same as CHC. dealt pretty much all of their big pieces in the Miggy trade, but they still have some real solid young players (Jackson, Granderson)

trying to be realistic, that leaves Boston and potentially Philly. Boston definitely has enough talent in the farm system and on the ML squad to pull the deal off, they definitely have the money to sign Doc to an extension, and they definitely could use Halladay in the rotation. but at this point, i'd rather trade the pieces likely needed in the Halladay deal for AGonz instead. at this point both the rotation and the lineup, IMO, could use one more powerhouse. trading in the division would drive Halladay's price up, and even if the two players require an equal talent in return, i'd rather have Gonzalez than Halladay. he's younger, cheaper (in both cash and likely in prospects), and even though we're talking about Halladay, less likely to get hurt. so all in all, if one is going to the Sox, i'd rather it be Gonzalez. then we could just sign some SP depth because our starting 5 is really solid. we just need to prepare for injuries.

VFB wrote:3-way trade with howard going to boston and us keeping taylor and drabek and moving ibanez to 1B could work. think outside the box, rube!

etched Chaos wrote:

VFB wrote:3-way trade with howard going to boston and us keeping taylor and drabek and moving ibanez to 1B could work. think outside the box, rube!

I'd be very angry if we lost RyHo in any trade not for Pujols.