I thought you said we had a truce. Saying I am trying to help you out here is not a violation of the truce.

5 million is too much, even smitty said that. Smitty only wanted him for 1 million. He's going to be 35. Shore posted the facts on 35 year old catchers. They are glum.

If we are worse at catcher, which we likely won't be because half the catchers this year have been better, and he'll be 35 so he'll likely get worse, we'll still have 5 million to put towards other causes.

Why is $5 million too much? Weren't you ranting about WAR a few weeks back? He's up to 2 WAR. You're certain he's going to fall off exactly next year? By the way Pierzynski just got $7.5M at a higher age.

And your last sentence makes no sense since few if any of those 15-16 catchers are available. Obviously McCann is an interesting alternative, and I'm certainly not ruling out that adding a combination of players that doesn't include Ruiz would be in the team's best interest. I'm mainly just saying it's dumb to rule out that a combination with Ruiz could be.

What's so damn depressing about this team--and this is absolutely relevant to the Ruiz discussion--is that we have no grounds whatsoever to believe that Amaro can do what would need to be done to reconstruct along the lines Jeff suggests.

He's not going to get next year's Francisco Liriano or trade for next year's Chris Johnson. He'll do one of two things: overpay for a name guy who soon will go into decline, or pay seemingly modest dollars for someone who turns out to be a net negative.

Papelbon or the Youngs: those are Amaro's two moves. About one of every five tries, he gets modestly lucky with a Juan Pierre. Usually it's Roger Bernadina. When he does dig up something of value--a Schierholz or a Grilli--he's likely to toss it aside.

So your probable options are overpaying for McCann--which probably isn't an option anyway unless you *really* want to overpay for McCann--confining a position to sub-mediocrity as Kratz, Rupp and a Henry Blanco type "glove first" guy share the time, or brining back Ruiz for something like his deal this year. Doesn't Chooch suddenly look ok?

also, if they're better than ruiz, they will get more money than him. and we're not even talking much better, outside of mccann

dajafi wrote:What's so damn depressing about this team--and this is absolutely relevant to the Ruiz discussion--is that we have no grounds whatsoever to believe that Amaro can do what would need to be done to reconstruct along the lines Jeff suggests.

He's not going to get next year's Francisco Liriano or trade for next year's Chris Johnson. He'll do one of two things: overpay for a name guy who soon will go into decline, or pay seemingly modest dollars for someone who turns out to be a net negative.

Papelbon or the Youngs: those are Amaro's two moves. About one of every five tries, he gets modestly lucky with a Juan Pierre. Usually it's Roger Bernadina. When he does dig up something of value--a Schierholz or a Grilli--he's likely to toss it aside.

So your probable options are overpaying for McCann--which probably isn't an option anyway unless you *really* want to overpay for McCann--confining a position to sub-mediocrity as Kratz, Rupp and a Henry Blanco type "glove first" guy share the time, or brining back Ruiz for something like his deal this year. Doesn't Chooch suddenly look ok?

That's pretty fair to this point. But this is the first time in a while that he's had legitimate young guys vying for starting positions. There's not really room for Youngs and Bernadinas.

Let's say he has $30M to spend. I'm just saying something like Ruiz and Beltran and a $7-9M pitcher could be better than McCann and a pitcher. And on much shorter commitments.

But isn't that also an Amaro's specialty, daj? Sign phillies that are on the downside (Howard, Rollins... sort of Utley)

Anyway, I'm looking at the stats, I'm not convinced McCann is set for the major payday I originally thought he was. Hell I'm not convinced he'll cost the draft pick because they may roll with Gattis.

The Braves would be foolish not to offer arb

sydnor wrote:But isn't that also an Amaro's specialty, daj? Sign phillies that are on the downside (Howard, Rollins... sort of Utley)

Anyway, I'm looking at the stats, I'm not convinced McCann is set for the major payday I originally thought he was. Hell I'm not convinced he'll cost the draft pick because they may roll with Gattis.

If he doesn't cost the pick, that's a much bigger contract.

You're right of course about the signing of old Phillies. But even if those were mistakes, and at least one or two surely were, I'm not confident the guy wouldn't have made worse alternative mistakes. If we didn't have Rollins and Utley, you could say we'd have Galvis and Hernandez. But I don't think that's true. Amaro would have signed the Michael Young equivalent at those positions, on some bullshit grounds like "it's unfair to ask young players to replace franchise icons."

The Montgomery interview was just such a colossal bummer. He doesn't even have the framework to understand that his employee is doing a bad job, and will continue to do a bad job. Whatever skills Amaro has--and he did make some good moves in his first couple years--are not a fit for this team given where it is right now.

I think your catcher choices next year are Ruiz or John Buck, unless you punt the position with the in-house guys.

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

I'm not trying to be a dick (it comes naturally), but I was under the impression that you were comfortable with Ruiz, Howard, Utley, Rollins, Asche, Brown, and Revere, as well as Hamels, Lee, Halladay, Kendrick and the young bullpen guys. Which, to me, looks like the same team.

This is a 95-loss team. We're the luckiest team in baseball, I believe, by actual record vs. "earned" record by runs scored and allowed. We've PERFORMED at a 95-loss level, though we'll probably only lose 88 or 89. To compete, we need to plan on 25 more wins (NOT WAR, WINS) somehow. Even if we add a stud RF and a stud P (how?), unless they're Mantle and Gibson, we still have about 15 wins to get.

Ruiz, I think we can agree, will NOT be better next year. Some think he'll be the same, some think he'll be worse (me! me!). But we need to improve, and prior Amaro decisions (Howard, Rollins, Utley) means we are limited in opportunities in which to do it. Ruiz is A) the guy whose contract is up, and B) a 35-year-old catcher, and C) not particularly great offensively, anyway. Were Howard or Rollins not under contract, I'd be more than thrilled to start with them. But they are, and we can't.

A 95-loss, old team needs to make changes. We can't walk into next year with 2 new contributors, and 5 sets of crossed fingers.

Rod Barajas is a free agent!

So is Yogi Berra

phatj wrote:So is Yogi Berra

Finally some creativity

it amazes me how much you enjoy reveling in losses and that we have no hope, shore. how dare someone enjoy watching baseball or appearing a little positive about something once in a while. as the team has changed over, they've gone 16-14 over the past 30. that's not great, but it's better than a 95 loss team. but i'm sure they've been super lucky over that, in fact the luckiest team in baseball. sorry if this is a little antagonistic, i just keep reading how much everything sucks and, even when someone does well and shows they still have it that it actually is a bad sign because they may be back next year.

what are these changes that should be made, or could be made, that will be easier than just going with the guys that have been at AAA?

Shore wrote:I'm not trying to be a dick (it comes naturally), but I was under the impression that you were comfortable with Ruiz, Howard, Utley, Rollins, Asche, Brown, and Revere, as well as Hamels, Lee, Halladay, Kendrick and the young bullpen guys. Which, to me, looks like the same team.

First off, Ruiz, Asche, Howard, Revere, and Brown figure to play more -- in some cases a lot more -- than they did this year. There's also a full season of Ruf (or a good free agent or trade acquisition) in RF the whole year instead of Delmon Young.

I'm not sold on Halladay or Kendrick, necessarily. I'm guessing one of those guys is back along with Gonzalez and a new starter. Perhaps someone much better than the Lannan/Cloyd #5 we ran out this year. And then the bullpen almost has to be better, even if they did nothing, but I expect them to add at least one arm likely to be competent.

If it turns out there are no good arms or bats to target, and/or we feel good about our young guys in those spots, maybe McCann is the best way to improve. I'm open to that. I'm just saying it feels spiteful/irrational to close the door on Ruiz because we already committed to other guys from the 2008 core. The fact that he's older also means you're paying a lot less for him than you would McCann, which means money for an extra good player, on a much shorter commitment.

Grotewold wrote:

Shore wrote:I'm not trying to be a dick (it comes naturally), but I was under the impression that you were comfortable with Ruiz, Howard, Utley, Rollins, Asche, Brown, and Revere, as well as Hamels, Lee, Halladay, Kendrick and the young bullpen guys. Which, to me, looks like the same team.

First off, Ruiz, Asche, Howard, Revere, and Brown figure to play more -- in some cases a lot more -- than they did this year. There's also a full season of Ruf (or a good free agent or trade acquisition) in RF the whole year instead of Delmon Young.

I'm not sold on Halladay or Kendrick, necessarily. I'm guessing one of those guys is back along with Gonzalez and a new starter. Perhaps someone much better than the Lannan/Cloyd #5 we ran out this year. And the bullpen almost has to be better, even if they did nothing, but I expect them to add at least one arm likely to be competent.

If it turns out there are no great arms or bats to target, and/or we feel good about our young guys in those spots, maybe McCann is the best way to improve. I'm open to that. I'm just saying it feels spiteful/irrational to close the door on Ruiz because we already committed to other guys from the 2008 core. The fact that he's older also means you're paying a lot less for him than you would McCann, which means money for an extra good player, on a much shorter commitment.

that's also not the same team we started with, and saying it is such is misleading.

Yes but saying that, for example, Asche and Revere (.770 and .700 OPS) are going to solve much is also misleading. No one is telling you how to enjoy the game. But if you want to talk about competing next year for the playoffs, you have to have clear eyes.

sydnor wrote:Yes but saying that, for example, Asche and Revere (.770 and .700 OPS) are going to solve much is also misleading. No one is telling you how to enjoy the game. But if you want to talk about competing next year for the playoffs, you have to have clear eyes.

If Ruiz is certain to decline next year because of his age, aren't those guys decent bets to improve? But the point is a full year of them (with Frandsen and Hernandez spotting them against LHP) would be better than the long stretches of the Michaels Young and Martinez and John Mayberry we've seen. I know you think we deserve it because we're old, but the team had more than its share of injuries.

No, no injury talk. We deserve it because we're old.

I FULLY support bringing back Asche. I think he'll be a nice player for us. But in the context of the other chess pieces on the board, the improvement isn't enough for a team that's true talent is about a 90 loss team.

sydnor wrote:No, no injury talk. We deserve it because we're old.

That's dumb. Old teams are more susceptible to injuries, but they can still happen to different degrees. And I'm sorry, but losing Revere and then Brown when the team was at .500 was unlucky and really damaging, on top of the more predictable flameouts of Adams and Halladay and Howard and Utley missing a month.

And you're kind of all over the place. Last night you were saying we could contend, now it's a 90+ loss team? But we'll be fine so long as it's not Chooch behind the plate? Kratz would be fine because he's a year younger?

The last thing I'll say about Ruiz, his salary wouldn't preclude another big move that's out there. So you really are dumping him just because.

I'm not all over the place. I'm just being realistic.

1. I don't think the team is as bad as Shore (for instance I said 90 losses not 95)
2. I think some BOLD moves plus some luck can get us to contend. Signing Ruiz is not bold, it's a lack of ideas.
3.If Carlos Ruiz was willing to come back at a clearly discounted market price (Say 50% of what he could get on the market), then yes, I'd consider signing him. But you've said as much in the past - free agents are risky. Why would you sign a 35 year old catcher? You're paying for what he did this year, you're paying for what he did the year he cheated. You're not getting his best. I'm just asking you to solve the problem (the Phillies playing poorly) without the same reliance on the same players who got us into this mess. Yes they won a championship but that was 5 years ago.