Grotewold wrote:

Monkeyboy wrote:I think what people are more concerned about is that next year we'll be saying "The worst that happens is player X sucks for 2016 and 2017." I'm more concerned about the approach and the players they're targeting than I am about being sucky/mediocre next year. The latter is a temporary problem; the former may create problems in the long term.

Right but what would you have actually done? Would you feel better with Rupp and John Buck?

$150M to Ellsbury?

One or the other, yes.

The point you've made in the past is that once they chose to keep Utley, they were committed to a win-now track. The point I've made in the past is that, much as I love Chase, this was a bad idea and they should have moved to tear it all down at the deadline last summer. I don't think it would be wise to keep digging that hole of long-term commitment to vets, but at least it would show there *is* a plan.

I guess it's possible that they're looking at trading vets and just not finding good deals, and/or looking at signing guys and finding the prices unpalatable. As we endlessly point out, each of these decisions is defensible in isolation. But they shouldn't be thinking about them in isolation! If you're committed to win-now, accept that you'll overpay for results in the first year or two. If you want to clear payroll obligation and stockpile prospect inventory, do that. But the road to baseball hell--or, worse, purgatory--is paved with mid-market contracts to guys in their mid-30s.

dajafi wrote:The point you've made in the past is that once they chose to keep Utley, they were committed to a win-now track. The point I've made in the past is that, much as I love Chase, this was a bad idea and they should have moved to tear it all down at the deadline last summer. I don't think it would be wise to keep digging that hole of long-term commitment to vets, but at least it would show there *is* a plan.

I think there's a plan, it's just that most of us don't like it. They want to spend enough to give the team a puncher's chance if things break right with no harm to the future in terms of picks and prospects. But even I'm saying they need another All-Star caliber player, unless things really break right.

But again, they can still do the tear down people want, and it doesn't sound like there was a bounty to be had last July. Or maybe they hang around until the All-Star break (as they almost did even last year, even if it was partly lucky) and add then

I believe The Plan goes by the code name: "Put Lipstick on the Pig for the TV Deal and Pray for a Miracle."

the team was mediocre in 2012, sucked in 2013 and doesn't look to be any better in 2014. i still have a hard time envisioning the makeup of the team having any effect on the tv deal.

You think if they'd traded Lee, not re-signed Utley and started the rebuilding in earnest, that Comcast might not have been more than a bit concerned about ratings in the short term? I would, if I were them. The names they've kept around are the lipstick.

Grotewold wrote:

dajafi wrote:The point you've made in the past is that once they chose to keep Utley, they were committed to a win-now track. The point I've made in the past is that, much as I love Chase, this was a bad idea and they should have moved to tear it all down at the deadline last summer. I don't think it would be wise to keep digging that hole of long-term commitment to vets, but at least it would show there *is* a plan.

I think there's a plan, it's just that most of us don't like it. They want to spend enough to give the team a puncher's chance if things break right with no harm to the future in terms of picks and prospects. But even I'm saying they need another All-Star caliber player, unless things really break right.

But again, they can still do the tear down people want, and it doesn't sound like there was a bounty to be had last July. Or maybe they hang around until the All-Star break (as they almost did even last year, even if it was partly lucky) and add then

Mike Trout doesn't put us in the playoffs. He puts us in the mix for the last wildcard, but it take a LOT of things to go right, and Trout, for us to be a playoff team.

We aren't getting Trout, and there is literally no combination of upgrades that we can (or are willing to) make to add that same number of wins to the team.

What no one can explain to me about "the plan" is why our future, post-2015, that we're trying not to sacrifice, looks better than today? Ruiz Howard Utley Rollins Lee are gone. Fantastic. Wonderful. Who do we have in their places? How do we spend the money saved?

What makes you think Rube won't bring them back?

JFLNYC wrote:What makes you think Rube won't bring them back?

I'm wearing rose-colored glasses for this exercise. I wish to be convinced that if we weather the next 2 years, the following several will be better.

Grotewold wrote:
As for the Bill Giles 1980s stuff let's take a deep breath. I would have given my left nut to watch guys like Lee and Hamels and Utley back then. And the team could still reap a pretty good return from trades if it goes south again. Even guys like Ruiz and Byrd that are supposedly such bad deals

FFS they were like 2 years old in 1980 hamels wasn't even born

Why do we assume that the media company that will be handing the Phillies a kajillion dollars in the TV contract is flat our stupid about baseball? They know lipstick on a pig when they see it just as much as we do.

Let me put it another way: I wouldn't want to be the guy walking into the room with Comcast having gotten rid of 2 or 3 of our biggest names while insisting the relatively obscure prospects I got for them were going to turn the team into a ratings powerhouse. That's a really tough sell.

dajafi wrote:

Werthless wrote:

pacino wrote:this thread is some depressing #$!&@, i need to avoid it

Better to lose with a plan one agrees with (ie. Sixers) than to do whatever it is the Phillies are doing. I enjoy reading the Sixers thread and reading articles on how bad the Sixers are, but how good they could be set-up for the future.

This. What I think fans seek above all else is hope. Right now the Phillies offer, pretty much, none. They're selling familiarity, I guess, with some Fun at the Old Ballpark--you know they'll be dusting off/updating all Bill Giles' trademark wacky '80s-era promotions this year, and probably for the next few.

A team always should be maximizing its chances to win either near-term or long-term. The Phillies are doing neither, and so the future looks like .450 baseball as far out as one cares to project. It's infuriating and sad in roughly equal measure.

Exactly. We should either be trading assets for youth and potential -- eating salary if necessary -- to reload for 2015 and beyond, or signing players that should help us get into the playoffs. Amaro is signing players to get us to .450, which does nothing. Either we should try to make the playoffs or try to reload. I don't see us committing to either.

(Note: I think, given our current talent, it's probably wiser to pass on the expensive free agents and try to re-load. However, so many young and decent players have been traded this offseason that it wouldn't have necessarily been an either/or proposition. For example, trading for Fowler would have been a win-now trade that doesn't mortgage the future.)

i would think that the duration of TV deals being done nowadays that the biddors are looking at the long haul and the typical ebb and tide of a team, and not focusing on the here and now.

but then again, modern executives are really not rational about much, so why should i expect that here

What drives ratings/ad revenues over the long term is team success. The YES Network is attractive based on the idea that the Yankees will do what it takes to win. So too NESN.

As a tv rights bidder, what I'd be solving for is team ownership and executive cohort with a fucking clue. I think what Werthless and I are suggesting is that choosing a clear course of action would signal some strategic sense. That in turn, along with size of market and demonstrated commitment to support a winning team, would give me confidence that the balance of the contract would be a winner.

Shore wrote:What no one can explain to me about "the plan" is why our future, post-2015, that we're trying not to sacrifice, looks better than today? Ruiz Howard Utley Rollins Lee are gone. Fantastic. Wonderful. Who do we have in their places? How do we spend the money saved?

We need our current prospects to develop, to obtain more of them, and to make some shrewd trades/signings. Just like any other team would.

I can put that question right back at you, though -- would we have been golden post-2015 with the returns on Lee and Utley and Ruiz last July, and/or are those or other moves impossible this July? Would not spending any money on Byrd and Ruiz this year have helped post-2015?

Guys, Ryan Howard is going to come back and hit home runs. Everything will fall into place!

that would be cool if he did that

The Nightman Cometh wrote:Guys, Ryan Howard is going to come back and hit home runs. Everything will fall into place!

If he does what he did vs RHP for a full season, that would really help, yeah

Honestly, what they must be counting on is Howard. If he regains 2011 form, this offense at least has a heartbeat. At that point you might be able to get rid of him if you eat a modest amount of $.

dajafi wrote:They're selling familiarity, I guess, with some Fun at the Old Ballpark--you know they'll be dusting off/updating all Bill Giles' trademark wacky '80s-era promotions this year, and probably for the next few.

PleasePleasePlease NO Morganna the Kissing Bandit, she's gotta be around 70 years old now and gravity is no friend.