FWIW, I think Ruben was right to trade Cosart. He kinda sucks, although he's been one lucky SOB so far.

I'm basing this off the two starts I've seen...

Really feel like Dubee needs to get more blame than he does for the inability to develop any of these bullpen arms

I'm mainly talking based on vague impressions, but it seems like all the good bullpen guys in mlb are either guys who were drafted as relievers or were good minor league starters who got converted at a later date out of necessity. All these Phillies guys failed at starting in the minors. Maybe if you can't start in the minors you can't relieve in the majors? Two of the better relievers in mlb this year are Trevor Rosenthal and Drew Smyly. These were decent prospects as starters who got converted to relievers because their teams needed bullpen help. The one good Phillies reliever was Madsen who was also a good starter in the minors. Maybe Rube could try that with Ethan Martin next year, or sign an old starter and convert them like Contreras, or try using fringe minor league starters as relievers instead of "prospect relievers".

Never been a fan of Dubee and I hope he's gone after this season

Also we now have 4th place to ourselves, and we're the 8th-worst record in baseball and only 2 games away from 5th-worst. Go team!

@JSalisburyCSN: Halladay said his first choice is to return to Phils in '14. acknowledged a change in pitch coach could impact decision. Likes Dubee a lot.

It's hard to reconcile how well Dubee has done with our starters (especially the fringe guys over the years) and the lack of development in the bullpen since Madson.

What's Nichols' role? Could he become the official relievers' coach? That makes more sense to me than two hitting coaches.

p.s. Nice to hear in that Halladay interview that he really likes Asche.

Gammons says MY10 is currently on waivers.

bleh wrote:I'm mainly talking based on vague impressions, but it seems like all the good bullpen guys in mlb are either guys who were drafted as relievers or were good minor league starters who got converted at a later date out of necessity. All these Phillies guys failed at starting in the minors. Maybe if you can't start in the minors you can't relieve in the majors? Two of the better relievers in mlb this year are Trevor Rosenthal and Drew Smyly. These were decent prospects as starters who got converted to relievers because their teams needed bullpen help. The one good Phillies reliever was Madsen who was also a good starter in the minors. Maybe Rube could try that with Ethan Martin next year, or sign an old starter and convert them like Contreras, or try using fringe minor league starters as relievers instead of "prospect relievers".

This is insightful - the one thing I'd say is relievers need to throw strikes, so I'd actually be more inclined to convert Pettibone and hope that his best 2-3 pitches play up out of the pen as Madson's did (by the way, any PED suspicion forMadson given that he seemed to jump his fastball from 92 to 96 in the middle of the '07 or '08 season?)

A rotation of Lee/Hamels/MAG/Halladay/Kendrik (or a FA) with a pen of Paplebon/Pettibone/Bastardo/DeFratus/LOOGY/Adams or FA might do well enough.

hard to hate on a guy with two world series rings(Dubee). i think overall he's probably pretty good but somethings gotta give with these AAA guys who did well in the minors and stunk like feet in the majors.

Kendrick, Happ, Worley and Pettibone all suggest that Dubee must have something to offer. And it seemed, at least for his first 4-5 years, that he was able to get good performance out of previously middling bullpen arms. But I agree he deserves some blame for the near total failure to develop relievers.

Bill McNeal wrote:

JFLNYC wrote:Nonsense. Rube just doesn't make mistakes. He doesn't. He took a championship core and has made the team better and better at every turn. All this planning for the future, international signings, signing impact hitters is for wusses. As long as we keep signing excellent starters we're going to continue our championship ways.

Who is saying this that you need to sarcastically post this every few days?

No one. Aparently he just enjoys saying it.

dajafi wrote:Kendrick, Happ, Worley and Pettibone all suggest that Dubee must have something to offer.

Even guys like Lopez and Cloyd were pretty effective here

Roger Dorn wrote:@JSalisburyCSN: Halladay said his first choice is to return to Phils in '14. acknowledged a change in pitch coach could impact decision. Likes Dubee a lot.

jim said this to me a few weeks ago. he mentioned that if we get rid of dubee he might go to DC and doc could follow him there. said that doc wants to stay here but think he is open to exploring other options a bit more than he was at the start of the season.

jesus calvin what else are you hiding

nycphils wrote:

bleh wrote:I'm mainly talking based on vague impressions, but it seems like all the good bullpen guys in mlb are either guys who were drafted as relievers or were good minor league starters who got converted at a later date out of necessity. All these Phillies guys failed at starting in the minors. Maybe if you can't start in the minors you can't relieve in the majors? Two of the better relievers in mlb this year are Trevor Rosenthal and Drew Smyly. These were decent prospects as starters who got converted to relievers because their teams needed bullpen help. The one good Phillies reliever was Madsen who was also a good starter in the minors. Maybe Rube could try that with Ethan Martin next year, or sign an old starter and convert them like Contreras, or try using fringe minor league starters as relievers instead of "prospect relievers".

This is insightful - the one thing I'd say is relievers need to throw strikes, so I'd actually be more inclined to convert Pettibone and hope that his best 2-3 pitches play up out of the pen as Madson's did (by the way, any PED suspicion forMadson given that he seemed to jump his fastball from 92 to 96 in the middle of the '07 or '08 season?)

I'm not sure how insightful it is. Bullpen guys don't need a third pitch, let alone a fourth pitch. Some don't even need a great second pitch if their raw stuff is good enough. Many SP prospects flame out because they can't develop that third (or even second) pitch.

Bottom line is that every case is different. I'm not sure a broad generalization about what candidates become good relievers is very helpful at all.

Grotewold wrote:

dajafi wrote:Kendrick, Happ, Worley and Pettibone all suggest that Dubee must have something to offer.

Even guys like Lopez and Cloyd were pretty effective here

he's even getting serviceable mileage out of Lannan. We can't leave out Romero, Eyre and Moyer either.

sample size with Eyre

And considering that Moyer was a mentor to Cole and was widely heralded as a second pitching coach, I'm not sure how much you can credit Dubee for Moyer.

Another way of looking at it is who has pitched poorly here and went on to success elsewhere. I can't think of a single starter. Grilli comes to mind of course, but I don't know that Dubee worked with him much

We're pretty much just talking about Aumont and Diekman, who are mercurial, and a small sample of DeFratus, I guess. Gonna give him a passing grade overall for Bastardo I think. Got some early mileage out of Stutes

I didn't realize Dubee is only 55.