Monkeyboy wrote:

phdave wrote:What is this #$!&@'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.

I really haven't read his past articles, I don't think, but is that really what he's saying here? Is he saying we should get our payroll way down or is he saying that maybe we could have gotten a few pieces from the Dodgers and then added some other pieces with the money we saved from Lee/Howard/Papelbon, and that combination may make us better off than we are right now (younger and possibly better in the short term). I think it would have depended on who we got from the Dodgers and who we may have gotten from FA or trades.

I keep seeing a false dichotomy here, the idea that the choice was go for it with guys like Young and punchless Revere OR blow it up and not be good for a number of years. I don't think those were the only two options, but maybe I'm getting old and senile.

I really doubt that giving them Lee would be enough to dump Howard's contract (and Papelbon's, since I guess many writers and posters consider him a minus player with his contract) and get major league players/prospects headed to the majors.

Still don't understand why Pap's deal is so bad. Lidge was making that three seasons ago (before our payroll nearly doubled) and Brandon League just got $8M

This really is just stupid

Well you are comparing it to a deal that ended up being terrible and another that seems batshit insane, so not exactly confidence-inspiring data points

There are always gonna be people opposed to paying 4-60 for any closer, and I think they have a valid point in a vacuum. But we've talked at length about how it made sense given Phils roster going into last season

4/50, I thought, and he's still elite. The notion of a max-payroll contender giving him up for free is idiotic

Nice of the pundits to be OK with us not dumping Hamels, though

Top 5 xFIP
Kimbrel
Chapman
Jake McGee (who?)
Sean Marshal
Joe Nathan

Papelbon = 12th

Top 5 SIERA
Kimbrel
Chapman
Jansen
McGee
Grilli

Papelbon = 7th

Top 5 k/9
Kimbrel
Chapman
Bastardo
Grilli
Jansen

Papelbon = 14th

He was good, he was not elite.

smh

Houshphandzadeh wrote:

Monkeyboy wrote:

phdave wrote:What is this #$!&@'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.

I really haven't read his past articles, I don't think, but is that really what he's saying here? Is he saying we should get our payroll way down or is he saying that maybe we could have gotten a few pieces from the Dodgers and then added some other pieces with the money we saved from Lee/Howard/Papelbon, and that combination may make us better off than we are right now (younger and possibly better in the short term). I think it would have depended on who we got from the Dodgers and who we may have gotten from FA or trades.

I keep seeing a false dichotomy here, the idea that the choice was go for it with guys like Young and punchless Revere OR blow it up and not be good for a number of years. I don't think those were the only two options, but maybe I'm getting old and senile.

I really doubt that giving them Lee would be enough to dump Howard's contract (and Papelbon's, since I guess many writers and posters consider him a minus player with his contract) and get major league players/prospects headed to the majors.

Maybe not, I don't know because I didn't talk to the dodgers. But maybe they'd give us a few good prospects that could be used in trade. Or not.

I wasn't defending his position, just pointing out that I thought his position was being misrepresented.

Soren wrote:Top 5 xFIP
Kimbrel
Chapman
Jake McGee (who?)
Sean Marshal
Joe Nathan

Papelbon = 12th

Top 5 SIERA
Kimbrel
Chapman
Jansen
McGee
Grilli

Papelbon = 7th

Top 5 k/9
Kimbrel
Chapman
Bastardo
Grilli
Jansen

Papelbon = 14th

He was good, he was not elite.

Those guys would have gotten paid if they were FA.

Grotewold wrote:4/50, I thought, and he's still elite. The notion of a max-payroll contender giving him up for free is idiotic

Nice of the pundits to be OK with us not dumping Hamels, though

I don't think I'd give him away for free, but relievers who rely on cavemanning it with huge stuff can fall off fast (though Papelbon has more of an idea how to pitch/change speeds on FB than other relivers), and that's a lot of cash to pay on a guy who is gonna throw 70 innings and can be susceptible to some randomness (ie all the blown tie games last year)

I hear you, I was kind of conflating arguments

Go Phillies

A couple of quick thoughts on Papelbon:

It may just be part of a cycle, but it seems that more and more the elite closers tend to be 20-somethings. Papelbon's WAR fell by half in 2012 and it's been up and down with regularity over his career. His velocity fell to the lowest of his career last year.

Given his history and age, there's a real question whether he'll be worth what he's being paid over the course of his contract. My guess is he'll fall short and perhaps significantly short if he keeps losing velocity.

As things stand now, our five OF are going to make a combined total of less than $3.5MM in 2013 and our highest paid OF is currently Laynce Nix at $1.35MM. Papelbon might be "worth" $13MM per year in isolation. Whether a team with championship aspirations should allocate to its closer almost four (4) times the salary it's paying to its entire OF combined strikes me as an entirely legitimate question.

Monkeyboy wrote:

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.

I really haven't read his past articles, I don't think, but is that really what he's saying here? Is he saying we should get our payroll way down or is he saying that maybe we could have gotten a few pieces from the Dodgers and then added some other pieces with the money we saved from Lee/Howard/Papelbon, and that combination may make us better off than we are right now (younger and possibly better in the short term). I think it would have depended on who we got from the Dodgers and who we may have gotten from FA or trades.

I keep seeing a false dichotomy here, the idea that the choice was go for it with guys like Young and punchless Revere OR blow it up and not be good for a number of years. I don't think those were the only two options, but maybe I'm getting old and senile.

I don't see any combination where trading Lee to shed bad contracts makes us better in the short term.

The pieces we would've gotten from the Dodgers certainly wouldn't have made us better in the short term though. Howard has only been a negative value player once, and it was last year coming off a major injury. I'd be shocked if he wasn't better this year, at the very least a positive value player. Let's assume it's the same pieces from the Red Sox trade, since that's the model we're working with. The only guy they got that I could see as someone that would've made the 2013 roster would've been Jerry Sands. De La Rosa and Webster might have been in the 5th starter derby, but even that's a stretch.

And then, the only thing we've gained from that trade is payroll flexibility in a free agent market where players were absurdly overvalued, so even if we used that flexibility to sign Greinke, Hamilton, and Napoli to fill those holes and gain back that short term value, any short term gain is negated by the fact that we're in the exact same position we started in, except now for a longer period of time, with no marginal benefit at all.

JFLNYC wrote:Whether a team with championship aspirations should allocate to its closer almost four (4) times the salary it's paying to its entire OF combined strikes me as an entirely legitimate question.

But, with all due respect, that's not the question that was asked. It was more about whether they should give him away for free (and/or as a throw in to get rid of Howard or whoever).

Very few guys signed in recent years will prove "worth" their contracts. To me it's more is the guy good or not

And why are we the only team prodded to give good players away

Grotewold wrote:

JFLNYC wrote:Whether a team with championship aspirations should allocate to its closer almost four (4) times the salary it's paying to its entire OF combined strikes me as an entirely legitimate question.

But, with all due respect, that's not the question that was asked. It was more about whether they should give him away for free (and/or as a throw in to get rid of Howard or whoever).

Certainly you see that those questions are related. I'm happy we have him to start the season. But, given the team's realistic chances this year, the fact that he may be declining and the need to rebuild in the very near future, if the 2013 edition of our heroes falls out of it by the deadline, I'd be delighted to see the rest of Papelbon's contract off the books before 2014 and the resources allocated elsewhere.

JFLNYC wrote:if the 2013 edition of our heroes falls out of it by the deadline, I'd be delighted to see the rest of Papelbon's contract off the books before 2014 and the resources allocated elsewhere.

In that case I'd find the notion much more reasonable (bringing actual players/prospects our way)

But now? gtfo

I really feel like no matter how bad the offense is on paper, as long as we have cliff lee, Hamels and Halladay, we could win it all. I know Halladay is a question mark going into 2013, but he's been elite for so long and in my uneducated opinion doesn't seem like the sort of starter that is just going to fall off a cliff. If Halladay were healthy last season, even with the shit bullpen and terrible offense we might of snagged a wild card spot. Going into 2013 I think the offense has a good chance to be even to a little better than last year and the pen has a chance to be somewhere between solid and great. On paper we aren't as good as the nats, but I like our chances next year. So what I'm saying is, I'm glad we didn't give cliff away for nothing.

Monkeyboy wrote:

Houshphandzadeh wrote:

Monkeyboy wrote:

phdave wrote:What is this #$!&@'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.

I really haven't read his past articles, I don't think, but is that really what he's saying here? Is he saying we should get our payroll way down or is he saying that maybe we could have gotten a few pieces from the Dodgers and then added some other pieces with the money we saved from Lee/Howard/Papelbon, and that combination may make us better off than we are right now (younger and possibly better in the short term). I think it would have depended on who we got from the Dodgers and who we may have gotten from FA or trades.

I keep seeing a false dichotomy here, the idea that the choice was go for it with guys like Young and punchless Revere OR blow it up and not be good for a number of years. I don't think those were the only two options, but maybe I'm getting old and senile.

I really doubt that giving them Lee would be enough to dump Howard's contract (and Papelbon's, since I guess many writers and posters consider him a minus player with his contract) and get major league players/prospects headed to the majors.

Maybe not, I don't know because I didn't talk to the dodgers. But maybe they'd give us a few good prospects that could be used in trade. Or not.

I wasn't defending his position, just pointing out that I thought his position was being misrepresented.

Olney makes no mention of any valuable pieces the Phillies would get in return for giving up Lee +. The articles that you can't remember if you read or not were adamant that the Phillies should have dumped his contract on the Dodgers after they claimed him on waivers (i.e. give him away for free without getting anything back). Now you are imagining some unstated argument that they should get something back of value for these three players. I don't know why you are imagining a position that he never states and then defending this imaginary position against misrepresentation...but that is what you are doing.

If we gave away CLIFF LEE we could have signed 2.5 Cody Ross' for this year or 3 Cody Ross' for the duration of the CLIFF LEE deal. Blown opportunity indeed.

mcare89 wrote:

Monkeyboy wrote:

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.

I really haven't read his past articles, I don't think, but is that really what he's saying here? Is he saying we should get our payroll way down or is he saying that maybe we could have gotten a few pieces from the Dodgers and then added some other pieces with the money we saved from Lee/Howard/Papelbon, and that combination may make us better off than we are right now (younger and possibly better in the short term). I think it would have depended on who we got from the Dodgers and who we may have gotten from FA or trades.

I keep seeing a false dichotomy here, the idea that the choice was go for it with guys like Young and punchless Revere OR blow it up and not be good for a number of years. I don't think those were the only two options, but maybe I'm getting old and senile.

I don't see any combination where trading Lee to shed bad contracts makes us better in the short term.

The pieces we would've gotten from the Dodgers certainly wouldn't have made us better in the short term though. Howard has only been a negative value player once, and it was last year coming off a major injury. I'd be shocked if he wasn't better this year, at the very least a positive value player. Let's assume it's the same pieces from the Red Sox trade, since that's the model we're working with. The only guy they got that I could see as someone that would've made the 2013 roster would've been Jerry Sands. De La Rosa and Webster might have been in the 5th starter derby, but even that's a stretch.

And then, the only thing we've gained from that trade is payroll flexibility in a free agent market where players were absurdly overvalued, so even if we used that flexibility to sign Greinke, Hamilton, and Napoli to fill those holes and gain back that short term value, any short term gain is negated by the fact that we're in the exact same position we started in, except now for a longer period of time, with no marginal benefit at all.

well. like I said, I wasn't supporting his theory, merely stating that I don't think his position was being fairly represented.

JFLNYC wrote:Whether a team with championship aspirations should allocate to its closer almost four (4) times the salary it's paying to its entire OF combined strikes me as an entirely legitimate question.

I don't get why you keep bringing this up or what the Phillies should have done about it. It's just a fluke. Who cares if the outfielders make a lot less relative to other people on the team? I wasn't aware that there should be some balance in who gets paid what on a team. I have no idea what the implications are for making sure the imbalance does not exist. Should they have signed an expensive FA outfielder just to make it more balanced? Should they trade an expensive player or two just because several of their outfielders are young and cheap? Should they not have signed Cole in order to have money to give to Pence or Victorino? Seems like if you have an older team and you start trying to add in younger players, you are going to have to have these kinds of imbalances. It just so happens that we have three outfield positions open up and this is where we are replacing older with younger players. It's just a coincidence.