mcare89 wrote:

JFLNYC wrote:It would be an extremely bold and risky move for the Phils. A joint venture with Fox would result in lower guaranteed money for the Phils with a higher potential upside. The new channel would start with no major-team programming other than the Phils and Comcast would make carriage deals on their systems a nightmare to negotiate. I wouldn't be shocked to see the Phils go in that direction, but I'd be surprised.

It's interesting because it'd be a purely Phillies channel. Obviously the Flyers rights aren't for sale, and the Sixers rights are on CSN through 2029. I like that they're not just rolling over on this, because it's a franchise-changer for the long-term.

Tons of college sports and soccer and whatnot out there.

A Phillies channel in a lot of ways will carry more weight than a Flyers/Sixers channel, no? Similar amount of games, but Flyers and Sixers games will overlap in a way that Phils games obviously cannot. Dependent a bit on the Phillies being WATCHABLE in 2015 and beyond, but as a TV property, I think it's pretty clear that Phillies >>> Flyers+Sixers.

The real hurdle is the dominance of Comcast of the Philly market, and what would be their obvious reluctance to carry a Phillies station paying anything close to fair market value for the station. Hopefully the Phillies have a bounceback season next year to strengthen their negotiating position. I'd really love to see them make the move for their own network though. Team up with Big East basketball and ACC basketball and ACC football and AAC football and some random Big 10 games if available and whatnot.

If they do a deal with Fox, I wonder if that could influence some type of Eagles tie-in as well. Supplement the Phillies content with Eagles "non-game+post game" content, Comcast would have no choice but to carry them.

Rollins with 19 BB in 21 starts under Sandberg, fwiw

Grotewold wrote:Rollins with 19 BB in 21 starts under Sandberg, fwiw

Are BBs on the back of baseball cards because that's all the phillies ever look at that and napkins.

Chooch is OPSing .845 in his last 41 games.

smitty wrote:Chooch is OPSing .845 in his last 41 games.

The Venezuelan benjamin button

Grotewold wrote:

smitty wrote:Chooch is OPSing .845 in his last 41 games.

The Venezuelan benjamin button

Panamanian. Whatever.

GrizzledVeteran wrote:

Grotewold wrote:

smitty wrote:Chooch is OPSing .845 in his last 41 games.

The Venezuelan benjamin button

Panamanian. Whatever.

His friends call him Venezuelan.

GrizzledVeteran wrote:

Grotewold wrote:

smitty wrote:Chooch is OPSing .845 in his last 41 games.

The Venezuelan benjamin button

Panamanian. Whatever.

(Pretty sure he's Venezuelan. Tim mccarver said so.)

1 wrote:

GrizzledVeteran wrote:

Grotewold wrote:

smitty wrote:Chooch is OPSing .845 in his last 41 games.

The Venezuelan benjamin button

Panamanian. Whatever.

(Pretty sure he's Venezuelan. Tim mccarver said so.)

Yes he did. He was some Venezuelan's fellow countryman.

One of my Scouty insiders went to a Reading-New Britain game recently to focus on our man Franco and the Twins Miguel Sano.

He liked both guys' arms but was concerned about their ability to stick at third. Wrote both were kinda robotic and Franco is really slow.

Thinks Franco can hit .275-280 with 20-25 homers if things go well. He hits inside pitches real well but has trouble with stuff away. He's pretty aggressive and my man thinks he may have trouble with advanced pitchers. Curves and stuff.

Ruiz still can't be signed. He's just inflating his price to be more overpaid.

sydnor wrote:Ruiz still can't be signed. He's just inflating his price to be more overpaid.

This line if thinking is probably true. I would not want to sign him on a long term deal. I was hoping he'd be somewhat bad the rest of the year and then be available on a one year deal next year and then play like this next year. Oh well.

So his age-34 season -- which correlates closely with his age-32 season -- is some weird outlier we should dismiss because he's gonna be 35? No one is arguing for big or long-term deal, but absolutes are wack imo.

Especially if they use the McCann money (or whatever) on a stud pitcher or Beltran

There aren't any stud pitchers (no, not Matt Garza) available. Catchers at his age (that aren't cheating) don't get better. They get worse. Sign somebody else better. There are plenty to choose from. Or sign someone worse and then use the money you would waste on Ruiz on Beltran and someone else. Or promote Kratz, Or sign Choo, or trade for a better catcher or do something besides bring back fundamentally the same freaking team that's 2nd to last in run differential. Lack of ideas. Lack of creativity. zOMG.

sydnor wrote:There aren't any stud pitchers (no, not Matt Garza) available. Catchers at his age (that aren't cheating) don't get better. They get worse. Sign somebody else better. There are plenty to choose from. Or sign someone worse and then use the money you would waste on Ruiz on Beltran and someone else. Or promote Kratz, Or sign Choo, or trade for a better catcher or do something besides bring back fundamentally the same freaking team that's 2nd to last in run differential. Lack of ideas. Lack of creativity. zOMG.

There aren't any stud pitchers available, but there are "plenty" of superior catchers to choose from?

No one said Ruiz would get better. On a reasonable one-year deal (which is the furthest anyone here has gone), we wouldn't need him to. Would McCann, who will cost a ton of money and our #1 pick, get better through this 30s?

I get it, you hate this team and want to shake things up. But it's irrational to draw the line exactly at Carlos Ruiz

Keith Law and Mike Ashmore (Trenton Thunder blogger) briefly discussed Biddle on this week's podcast. They said he projected to a back end of the rotation starter. They both were concerned about his curveball. http://espn.go.com/espnradio/play?id=9662448

Here's Ashmore's previous analysis of Biddle. http://thunderbaseball.wordpress.com/20 ... iddle-711/ and http://thunderbaseball.wordpress.com/20 ... iddle-531/

Grotewold wrote:

sydnor wrote:There aren't any stud pitchers (no, not Matt Garza) available. Catchers at his age (that aren't cheating) don't get better. They get worse. Sign somebody else better. There are plenty to choose from. Or sign someone worse and then use the money you would waste on Ruiz on Beltran and someone else. Or promote Kratz, Or sign Choo, or trade for a better catcher or do something besides bring back fundamentally the same freaking team that's 2nd to last in run differential. Lack of ideas. Lack of creativity. zOMG.

There aren't any stud pitchers available, but there are "plenty" of superior catchers to choose from?

No one said Ruiz would get better. On a reasonable one-year deal (which is the furthest anyone here has gone), we wouldn't need him to. Would McCann, who will cost a ton of money and our #1 pick, get better through this 30s?

I get it, you hate this team and want to shake things up. But it's irrational to draw the line exactly at Carlos Ruiz

Why are you confusing me with trent/shore? I don't hate this team at all. I'm the one who thinks we can be in the playoffs next year. But we can not be in the playoffs next year if we bring the same team back. What is "a reasonable one year deal"?

I'm trying to help you out here, I just need you to have a very clear eye towards the true talent of this team. It's not as high as you think. It can be fixed, but not in rolling out the same crew. What exactly is the worst thing that could happen if we don't bring Chooch back? We miss a .740 OPS with average to slightly above average defense?

First, we won't be bringing the same team back.

I would consider something like $5-7M next year reasonable, but I don't know what the market will be for him. If it's high, see ya later.

"I'm trying to help you out here" -- well that's not douchey at all...

The worst thing that can happen if we don't bring back Chooch is we would be worse at catcher than we could be, just because.

Other than that, good post.