thephan wrote:

Jimmy Rollins, Ryan Howard, Roy Halladay and Kyle Kendrick are among the Phillies players already working out regularly in the greater Tampa-Clearwater area.

Seems like good news.

dajafi wrote:Anybody care to dig up the BP Phils top 10 list from a decade ago?

phorever wrote:i do see the the mlb.com prospect rankings agree with you guys. walker at 4, biddle at 75.
sickles seems to have them a bit closer, at 7 and 24 in his list of pitchers and rated a- and b+.

702 wrote:Franco higher than Asche yet Cody is the "next 3B of the future" ?

BigEd76 wrote:

dajafi wrote:Anybody care to dig up the BP Phils top 10 list from a decade ago?

Here's BA's 2004 list:
1 = Hamels
2 = Floyd
3 = Howard
4 = Madson
5 = Keith Bucktrot
6 = Alfredo Simon
7 = Bourn
8 = Elizardo Ramirez
9 = Juan Richardson
10 = Terry Jones

kruker wrote:

phorever wrote:

ReadingPhilly wrote:

phorever wrote:furbush = diekman (maybe bastardo), pryor = aumont (maybe defrastus or stutes), walker = pettibone (maybe cloyd, mabye morgan, maybe but hopefully/probably not biddle).

walker would be our best prospect by a wide margin.

really? yes, he was 19 in aa-ball last year and had eye-popping numbers the year before, but he had a couple of ugly months last year and his k-rate declined quite a bit. i was wrong in putting pettibone in as his match (because i remembered pettibone's nice aaa era, but forgot to check his k/9, k/bb, and hr/9, which show that his success there was mostly babip and hr/fb luck), but i don't see walker as better than biddle. biddle was a year younger and a level lower, but is left-handed and had a much better season in 2012. i'm willing to give up biddle for upton because tinstaapp, and we would still have lee and hamels and morgan and wright.

A few ugly months are excusable when a 19 year old jumps from low A to AA.

phorever wrote:so, we now know pretty much exactly what it takes to get justin upton, assuming that the phils still aren't
on his no-trade list. the mariners were on the list and he just nixed a deal in which they were sending to the dbacks nick franklin, charlie furbush, stephen pryor, and taijun walker.

furbush = diekman (maybe bastardo), pryor = aumont (maybe defrastus or stutes), walker = pettibone (maybe cloyd, mabye morgan, maybe but hopefully/probably not biddle).

the toughest to match is franklin, a 21 year old switch-hitting middle infielder who put up a 725 ops in aaa last year and a more eye-popping 890 ops in aa in 2012 and 2011 combined. the phils closest match is asche, but the phils might need to add galvis or cesar hendandez to provide equal perceived value. but that really seems to me to be an even or better offer than that of the mariners, and, again, this is now known to be the actual price.

such a package seems to me an obviously affordable price to pay if that means having ruf and brown in left and upton in right for the next three years, and still having all sorts of young bullpen and starting pitching talent in the system.

i really really hope rube pulls off such a deal and will be very disappointed if he doesn't at least try, though i will be forgiving if he does try and gets beat by something like a rangers offer that includes olt or one of their other hot infield prospects, or the padres giving them gyorko or headley, or the braves sending one of pastornicky or simmons. the rangers are reportedly already out anyway, the orioles are said to be looking to add pitching rather than trade it, and if the padres offered gyorko or headley the deal would be done. mets are supposedly interested as well, but they probably have nothing good left to trade (i'm not bothering to look).

that leaves the braves and their shortstops, and phillies, which are the only one of the teams mentioned above who have not been listed at mlbtr as still interested in the last week. if the braves end up with both uptons and the phillies with wells, or soriano, or crappy corner platoons, i might send rubes name and address to the ceo of tactical response.