well this kinda came out of nowhere didn't it?

I will get back to rube knob slobbery when he trades Howard to wade for the astros just before the trade deadline.

The Savior wrote: i mean, for those complaining, if they're not spending properly on howard, what makes you confident they'll spend appropriately on other players?

I'm not sure you're looking at this sensibly

as in, "as if you were born longer ago than yesterday"

until this deal, there was reason to have some confidence "they" - Rubes- were making "appropriate" personnel decisions.

Now, it's "what the hell"?

Wheels Tupay wrote:

Bucky wrote:Love it.

What other choice is there? It happened. Nothing we can do about it. Might as well hope for the best for the Big Guy.

We could have not resigned him or traded him.

no, "we" couldn't have.

Grotewold wrote:

The Savior wrote:and am i the only one that thinks this increases the odds of keeping werth?

Nope

Can you guys please explain?

ryho and werth are lovers and he'll do anything to stay now

joe table wrote:It does is eat up a large portion of the presumed budget for those 2012 and onward years, which leaves less room there for a potential Werth extension

True, but Ibanez and Lidge will be gone. Probably Victorino as well.

I for one think it's helpful to know we will pencil Howard into the cleanup spot for the next four years at a reasonable price. Thereafter, there's risk, yeah, but welcome to the big kids' table.

Fuck me. This is really, really bad.

Ibanez better just be slumping, and Dom Brown better be ready to hit the ground, uh, hitting. Cause Werth is gone.

Utley's hip better stay 2B-worthy, because there's no where for him to go if it's not.

In what year of Howard's deal will Heyward be out-producing him at 1/10th or less the cost?

Werth for $12MM in 2011, $13MM in 2012, $18MM in 2013, and $19MM in 2014.

Also a two-picture development deal from Jeff Lurie

Also, having not read this thread yet, I'm going to assume the consensus is a lot of "wtf why?"

Heyman about to go on with Eskin

:warning radio may self destruct from douche overload:

Grotewold wrote:

The Eeming Tree wrote:I'm going to continue enjoying the next four years of this team and then worry about the 2014 payroll when this team looks entirely different in three years.

Really. This basically guarantees us a bad-ass team for at least four more years.

I totally understand the risk, but see it as the cost of a killer run producer for the rest of the Halladay era.

I see it as, along with the Vic and Blanton extensions, realistically making the 2012 a lot stronger looking than it had in the past

2010 will be the strongest team we will have most likely, with Werth still around

2011 will still be extremely strong, with only Werth and some scuttlebut leaving, and an in-house replacement in Brown

2012 still looks formidable with the top 4 starters, Howard, Utley, Polanco, Vic, Chooch, Francisco, Brown making the minimum, and some plausible internal bullpen replacements

2013 will be rough though. Then you lose Hamels, Blanton, Vic. Still have Utley, Roy, Howard, Happ, Chooch, Francisco, but that's a significantly weaker team. More money to play with, though

It's fine if they want to extend Howard. He should be a Phillie forever. But why now? And why so much? What was Howard's side's leverage in this negotiation? He's already signed through next season. Why not at least wait until this off-season? Was Amaro just terrified of the open market bidding without thinking it all through? There are only a finite number of teams that can blow $20MM on a first baseman/future DH.

I just don't see the upside of doing this now, at such huge and unprecedented numbers. It definitely looks like Amaro got bent over on this one, and the buyout was just shoved in there at the last minute to serve as the ball gag

Wheels Tupay wrote:

Grotewold wrote:

The Savior wrote:and am i the only one that thinks this increases the odds of keeping werth?

Nope

Can you guys please explain?

rube has always publicly said that they wanted to sign howard long-term. and building a team while projecting his salary for the years to come would be difficult, especially in the case of signing jayson. it's something he said last year and all off-season. essentially, rube wanted howard long-term and jayson could be a guy that fit in if the numbers worked (read between the lines: we'll sign howard long-term, see how the team looks financially going forward from a payroll perspective, then decide on whether fitting jayson in there is possible).

we don't know what the figure is going forward from a budgetary standpoint. but the phillies now have locked up their main cogs, sans werth. they know, give or take, how much they'll have in future years to work with now that howard is locked in. it will be intersting to see if knowing this, as amaro alluded to in the past, will yield a means to sign werth. i didn't think the odds of signing werth long-term were that good after seeing bay get paid, but i think this could help the phillies find ways to get creative as they're no longer saddled with the burden of projecting what howard may cost, especially with fielder and pujols and adrian on the verge of FA in the near future.

I don't like to look at those future projections too much. This time in 2008, we were being carried by Burrell in the last year of his deal and were not yet WFC, expecting we may have a Geoff Jenkins/Vic/Werth outfield in 2009, and we were in despair about it.

At that point, Werth was not yet WERTZ, and Ibanez wasn't even on the radar. Lots of things can happen in just a couple of months, let alone years.

Woody wrote:It's fine if they want to extend Howard. He should be a Phillie forever. But why now? And why so much? What was Howard's side's leverage in this negotiation? He's already signed through next season. Why not at least wait until this off-season? Was Amaro just terrified of the open market bidding without thinking it all through? There are only a finite number of teams that can blow $20MM on a first baseman/future DH.

I just don't see the upside of doing this now, at such huge and unprecedented numbers. It definitely looks like Amaro got bent over on this one, and the buyout was just shoved in there at the last minute to serve as the ball gag

I dont get it either. He did the same thing with the Rollins option.

2012 FIRSTBASEMEN FREE AGENCY

PUJOLS
GONZALEZ
FIELDER
HOWARD

was howard really going to get the second highest contract of the 4?

Speaking of Rollins, remember when everyone hated that extension?

The Savior wrote:

Wheels Tupay wrote:

Grotewold wrote:

The Savior wrote:and am i the only one that thinks this increases the odds of keeping werth?

Nope

Can you guys please explain?

rube has always publicly said that they wanted to sign howard long-term. and building a team while projecting his salary for the years to come would be difficult, especially in the case of signing jayson. it's something he said last year and all off-season. essentially, rube wanted howard long-term and jayson could be a guy that fit in if the numbers worked (read between the lines: we'll sign howard long-term, see how the team looks financially going forward from a payroll perspective, then decide on whether fitting jayson in there is possible).

we don't know what the figure is going forward from a budgetary standpoint. but the phillies now have locked up their main cogs, sans werth. they know, give or take, how much they'll have in future years to work with now that howard is locked in. it will be intersting to see if knowing this, as amaro alluded to in the past, will yield a means to sign werth. i didn't think the odds of signing werth long-term were that good after seeing bay get paid, but i think this could help the phillies find ways to get creative as they're no longer saddled with the burden of projecting what howard may cost, especially with fielder and pujols and adrian on the verge of FA in the near future.

The way they would have been able to keep Werth is the sign a deal that is backloaded in 2012-2014. The Howard deal makes that unworkable. He's gone.

Trent Steele wrote:The way they would have been able to keep Werth is the sign a deal that is backloaded in 2012-2014. The Howard deal makes that unworkable. He's gone.

Why? Ibanez ($11MM), Lidge ($12MM), and probably Victorino ($8MM) will be gone by then and probably replaced on the cheap.

Also, wouldn't it have cost a lot more than $20MM in 2012 and 2013 to have Howard or someone like him batting cleanup without this extension? That's some Werth loot.