phdave wrote:Herndog

Grotewold wrote:How in the hell did the Jays "claim" him!?

I claim Bautista and that sky box sex lady

ryanhoward
Just finished shooting subway spot with Ndamukong Suh. Too much fun great guy.

joe table wrote:I'd trade Kendirk and a mediocre prospect or two for Plouffe. He has pop and though his defensive stats are poor, the fact that he can back up all IF positions and stand in a corner OF spot is useful. Could give him all the starts at 3B vs lefties, plus an occasional OF and 2B start

Kendirk is the type of generic righty strike thrower than teh Twins seem to like

Phillies ‏@philaphillies
Ruben Amaro, Jr will be guest analyst on @MLBNetwork on October 29 & October 3

Q: There are two big trades obviously in the last few years, CC and Cliff, that did not seem to bring a great return.

A: CC brought a much better return than if we had let him go to free agency. And the fact that we've got one player who's a core player on our team (Michael Brantley) contributing from that and another guy (Matt LaPorta) who's been obviously somewhat of a disappointment, that's better than a lot of trades.

Again, give me the context. Give me another trade. What did (the Twins) get for Johan Santana? You've got to ask instead of just criticizing a trade at any one moment in time. You've got to have a context for saying what should we have gotten? What were the alternatives?

There is a reality that when you trade for players you should be better than when you draft because you're going to have more information on a guy. But still you're not going to hit on everything.
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Q: [After discussing how CC didn't fit into the team's future plans and how they traded him to Milwaukee before he hit free agency] Was there a similar thing with the Cliff decision? Or was that purely financial?

A: The Cliff decision was again, you're looking at the different junctures you could potentially trade him. You're looking at the history of trades that were made with a guy like him and saying that the return we got was as good as we were going to get, and better than we were going to get at any juncture in time.

Look at the history of trades that were done, the number of teams out there that were interested in him. And again, what I would say is look at the two times he was traded after he left here. And look at what the return was. List those players off. And look at the players we got. [Editor's note: In 2008, the Phillies traded Lee to Seattle for J.C. Ramirez, Phillippe Aumont and Tyson Gillies; in 2010, Seattle traded him to Texas for Matthew Lawson, Blake Beavan, Josh Lueke and Justin Smoak.]

Obviously, the guy with the biggest upside (Jason Knapp) got injured and never came back again. I don't view injuries to be just chance; it means we we did a bad job. We identified a guy who was a high-risk guy in Knapp. Carrasco, we have to wait and see. That's why you can't evaluate the end of that trade yet. Jason Donald, it still remains to be seen what he is, whether he's a utility guy. He's certainly a big leaguer, without a doubt. And Lou Marson, again probably a backup catcher, but maybe a starting catcher. We clearly have three major leaguers out of the deal in Carrasco, Marson and Donald.

Would you like to have more? I have a hard time saying the draft picks we'd have got for him would be better than those three guys.

Q: Really?

A: Oh yeah. We would have gotten two draft picks out of him. When you go to the draft and you look at the history of the draft and you look at the picks we would have gotten for him, it's maybe a 28th pick or a 26th pick and a 32nd pick. Look at the expected return on those picks. By any draft analysis those are not superstar players. Unless you get lucky.

Q: From my point of view the perception that the team may be fighting is created as much by trading Cy Young winners two years in a row. That generates feelings of, "Geez they can't keep these guys, they can't compete." More so than almost the ‘90s thing

A: We're not going to be able to sign these guys to extensions. We're not trying to hide from that. That creates circumstances where we have to make decisions about when the right juncture is to either let them walk away or to trade them. It doesn't mean we won't continue to try to sign guys. Periodically it doesn't mean that occasionally we won't be able to do it. It's going to take always some sharing of the risk and some desire for a guy to want to be here and placing a premium on that. If a guy places a premium on wanting to be here and we feel it's the right kind of guy, it's still a possibility. But as a general premise when guys reach free agent years it's going to be a challenge. We're not running from that. We're going to have him for six years at a minimum, maybe longer, and we have to have more talent coming up.

Q: So you're facing the same decision with Choo coming up?

A: Yeah. It's very similar set of circumstances.

BigEd76 wrote:From an interview with Mark Shapiro, where the topic of trading CLIFF came up:

[Editor's note: In 2008, the Phillies traded Lee to Seattle for J.C. Ramirez, Phillippe Aumont and Tyson Gillies