Doll Is Mine wrote:

JFLNYC wrote:I'm sure I'm in the minority (maybe a minority of one), but I'd rather have Bastardo than Porcello.

From a baseball standpoint?

JFLNYC wrote:

Doll Is Mine wrote:

JFLNYC wrote:I'm sure I'm in the minority (maybe a minority of one), but I'd rather have Bastardo than Porcello.

From a baseball standpoint?

Gotta be so careful how you say things around here.

Kubel and many of the other options still available would be best-suited to platoon roles. Scott Hairston, a free agent, hits left-handed pitching quite well. But that’s about it. The Phillies are also reportedly considering a trade for the Angels’ Vernon Wells, but I won’t touch on that much. Mainly because it would be a nonsensical pickup. Wells is aging, has put up awful numbers the last two seasons and wouldn’t merit something in return, even if the Angels picked up most of his colossal salary.

So your 2013 Phillies lineup will likely include some combination of Domonic Brown, Darin Ruf, Laynce Nix, John Mayberry Jr. and possibly a late offseason addition. But don’t expect an everyday outfielder to fall into Amaro’s lap.

And that, actually, might be the best thing for the Phillies.

LongDrive wrote:Isn't Delmon Young a creep?

FTN wrote:the phillies should call the blue jays and ask what they'd want for bonifacio. right now, it appears he'll just be a bench player for them and won't play much. he was hurt for most of last year, so his numbers look bad, but he hit .296/.360/.393 in 2011 in 641 PA and he can adequately play SS, 2B, 3B, CF, and LF. hes been a little better against lefties in his career (hes a switch hitter, which im sure you already know) and he has great speed.

Today in the Philadelphia Daily News, Ryan Lawrence takes stock of Ruben Amaro's offseason moves.

The Philadelphia Phillies are kind of in an odd place on the baseball landscape right now. It would've been a mistake for Amaro to throw some pricey older free agents onto a roster that's already older and too expensive. But at the same time, Philadelphia has too many good players -- Roy Halladay, Cliff Lee and Cole Hamels, in particular -- to completely retreat.

So Amaro has worked within the parameters defined by the team's budget limitations. Because of the salary obligations to Lee (owed at least $87.5 million over the next three seasons), Ryan Howard (owed at least $105 million over the next four seasons), Hamels (who will make about $24 million annually over the next six seasons) and Chase Utley (who is entering the final year of his contract, and will make $15 million), the Phillies went for more modest upgrades.

Amaro traded for Michael Young to play third base (most of his salary will be paid by the Texas Rangers), traded for center fielder Ben Revere and signed reliever Mike Adams. So they look something like this:

1B: Ryan Howard
2B: Chase Utley
3B: Michael Young
SS: Jimmy Rollins
OF: John Mayberry Jr. (the Phillies could add a lefty-hitting complement)
CF: Ben Revere
OF: Domonic Brown/Darin Ruf
C: Carlos Ruiz (who will open 2013 with a 25-game suspension.)
SP: Roy Halladay
SP: Cliff Lee
SP: Cole Hamels
SP: Kyle Kendrick/Tyler Cloyd
SP: John Lannan
SU: Mike Adams
CL: Jonathan Papelbon

It's a roster good enough for success; on paper, they aren't as good as the Washington Nationals or the Atlanta Braves. The Phillies were at one of the most interesting crossroads in baseball last August, and you do wonder, with the benefit of 20-20 hindsight, how different Philadelphia would be if the Phillies had found a way to take advantage of the Los Angeles Dodgers' hyper aggression.

Remember the first weekend after the trade deadline -- a few weeks before the blockbuster deal that L.A. made with Boston for Adrian Gonzalez, Carl Crawford and Josh Beckett -- when the Dodgers placed a waiver claim on Cliff Lee? The Phillies never seriously considered the idea of allowing Lee to go to the Dodgers, choosing to pull the left-hander back from waivers.

But what if the Phillies had taken that opportunity, as the Red Sox later did, to reduce their salary obligations?

What if the Phillies had told the Dodgers: Look, you can have Cliff Lee, but you'll also have to take Howard and maybe Papelbon as well.

Which is what the Red Sox effectively did with Gonzalez: Yes, you can have him, but you also have to take Crawford and Beckett.

For Howard, 2012 was the first year of the five-year, $125 million extension he had signed with Philadelphia. If the Phillies had been able to shed all or most of that contract, as well as that of Lee and Papelbon (who is the game's highest-paid closer now, at $13 million annually, through 2015), it would have given them an immediate and incredible opportunity to remake the roster. Whether the Phillies had been able to package Howard with Lee, or Howard and Papelbon with Lee, Philadelphia might have gained payroll flexibility and set itself to move ahead with a younger roster.

There's no telling what the Dodgers' response would've been, of course. They valued Gonzalez partly because of his Mexican heritage and his Southern California roots, and perhaps they were more aggressive in the Red Sox deal than they ever would've been with the Phillies.

But they had been turned down by the Red Sox just before the July 31 trade deadline, and the Dodgers' ownership was devoted to the idea of making the team better, whatever the cost -- and they clearly had targeted Lee, repeatedly, and they did so again once his name popped up on waivers in early August.

At the time, some rival executives thought the Phillies' best play would've been to simply dump Lee's contract -- "A no-brainer," said one -- and that was before the industry was fully aware of how much money the Dodgers were willing to take on.

Maybe it would have been possible for the Phillies to move Lee, Howard and Papelbon; maybe not. There's really no way of knowing, because those decisions are made in real time.

The Phillies didn't really explore the Dodgers' interest in Lee after he was claimed on waivers, choosing to keep the pitcher. The Dodgers moved in another direction a few weeks later, in a big way, leaving the Lee claim as one of the great what-ifs lingering from the 2012 season.

phdave wrote:What is this fucker's obsession with getting the Phillies to a $0 payroll? I would much rather have Lee and Pap's contracts than have to compete for FAs to replace them given the way this off season signings went. I seriously doubt anyone would have just taken Howard's contract without us giving a lot back. I don't get why Olney is so obsessed with this.

phdave wrote:What is this fucker's obsession with getting the Phillies to a $0 payroll? I would much rather have Lee and Pap's contracts than have to compete for FAs to replace them given the way this off season signings went. I seriously doubt anyone would have just taken Howard's contract without us giving a lot back. I don't get why Olney is so obsessed with this.