phdave wrote:

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.

Wheels Tupay wrote: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.

JFLNYC wrote:Looks like Santa put coal in somebody's stocking.

Monkeyboy wrote:

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.

Monkeyboy wrote:

JFLNYC wrote:Looks like Santa put coal in somebody's stocking.

Nah, I'm just trying to be matter of fact and non-emotional. If it comes off as being in a bad mood, that's really not the case.

I do think it's funny, however, that I now have some kind of reputation for being emo, a reputation that I've jokingly embraced as not an insult. I spent years being one the more relentlessly positive posters in terms of our chances for success. But one series of posts seems to have erased all that positive will. It's stupid, really.

I don't think RAJ has done a good job this offseason, but I will rally by the time pitchers and catchers report and convince myself that we will make the rest of the NL East our bitchez because that's what I always try to do.

Monkeyboy wrote:Holy cow, this team has gotten depressing in a big damn hurry.

Remember when this team could take a walk? What the hell happened? It wasn't losing Jimmy because he never could take one. I'm inclined to partly blame Polanco in the #2 spot setting a bad tone, but he wasn't that bad to start the season. If it really was just the injuries making other players feel like they needed to be more aggressive, then that could be fixed almost overnight, if they relaxed and started being patient. Maybe it's just a bunch of guys having bad years at the same time combined with a slew of injuries. In any case, I'm glad I've missed the past 3 weeks.

I can't see how we can trade werth and hope to make the playoffs. He's one of the few guys that can get hot and carry the team for a while. I know the pitching is a nightmare, but they still need to score runs. It's highly unlikely Brown is going to come up and set the world on fire. It just doesn't work that way very often. Translation: either you trade minor leaguers for a starter or two and hope things turn around or you give up on the season and trade werth or Victorino, bring up Brown, and reload for next year. Either way, you don't trade for an aging starter like Oswalt or a 2nd half dud like Haren. If Amaro trades for Oswalt, I'll consider my initial opinion of him to be true -- he's a complete hack and I'll send a big laugh to those who thought he had been playing opossum under Wade and Gillick.

Monkeyboy wrote:I just moved my grade for Amaro from a C to a C-. Ryan Franklin was promised an opportunity to win a starting job, too, but Gillick was smart enough not to give it to him. Even if Park is decent this year, he's no more likely (and I would argue less likely) to be good than Happ and Happ is a much better long term option. The guy deserves credit for pitching well, but he came into camp in great shape and threw the ball like it was Game 7 all spring long. The league will catch up to him by mid-May, possibly earlier, and if they don't, he'll tire in the second half and be even harder to move to the pen.

I can see giving it to him if he was head and shoulders above everyone else, but Happ was also very solid. The tie should go to the cheap prospect with the long term upside, especially when the veteran has experience as the long man in the pen. This veteran stuff is exactly the type of thing that worries me most about Amaro.

FAIL.

Monkeyboy wrote:I think a lot of people think that a great offense is a given, but that's not the case at all. If Howard puts up the same numbers as last year, but happens to hit closer his average with RISP (very likely), the offense looks very different. Add in the losses of Rowand (he was pretty good in 2007) and Burrell, and suddenly the offense looks a little above average, continuing the slide from 2007's high point. And if Werth's 2008 proves to be an illusion, the offense becomes very average, especially if Utley doesn't come back fast and in game shape. Maybe the pitching will stay healthy again by the grace of the baseball gods, but I don't think we can count on it.

They need to add a legitimate offensive player for LF or 3B or they're playing with fire. I'm sure the MainLine millionaires are worried about the economy and protecting all the money they didn't earn, but given the record sales and playoff revenues, there's really no excuse for not adding that bat, either by resigning Burrell or going after someone else. I really don't think Amaro is the guy for the job because I think he's going to try to fill the roster with guys like himself (gritty and unable to hit a baseball).

If not for the world championship they just won, I would be much more anxious about it all.

Amaro = Clueless



He got scared, panicked, and crapped the bed. Once again the Phillies misread the market. It's a yearly occurrence.

Baumann...oops I mean Monkeyboy wrote:Amaro is starting to remind me of one of those guys who know baseball from a certain year or three and then have that time's version of the game (hitters, pitchers, etc) locked into their mind. Amaro has probably been playing GM in his head for years and can't let go of the players he wanted to get years ago, you know, when those players actually had some value. The game changes, Ruben. Players get old. Their skill sets change once they get in their late 20's, usually for the worse.

I think everyone knows casual fans that think this way -- still hung up on some player that was good and had value 5 years ago. I'm starting to think our new GM is like one of these casual fans.

pacino wrote:Law is railing against Ruf on twitter right now

keithlaw ‏@keithlaw
Platoon 1B vs LHP. Not much call for that kind of player. RT @ModsOnModsOnMod: @keithlaw whats ruf's ceiling iyo?

keithlaw ‏@keithlaw
No clue. It is insanity, though. RT @maxdank420: @keithlaw where did all this "ruf is going to be a impact mlb regular" insanity come from?

phdave 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.

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.

Warszawa wrote:

unfortunately the younger players we are plugging in the OF aren't really phenoms. I would much rather allocate money to the Of instead of a closer in the Phillies situation.

BigEd76 wrote:Didn't see it on CSNPhilly.com yet (c'mon cballs) but Gudel did an interview with Sandberg where half the questions were about being the manager in 2014

CalvinBall wrote:

BigEd76 wrote:Didn't see it on CSNPhilly.com yet (c'mon cballs) but Gudel did an interview with Sandberg where half the questions were about being the manager in 2014

I saw this on TV. It was kinda weird. Ask it once and move in.