TenuredVulture wrote:I think in order to discuss the merits of Howard's contract, it makes sense to think of it as an 8 year deal for 175 million that started in 2010.

"I know Ryan's desire to be successful remains very strong. I know there was nobody more upset about how things ended the last couple of years than he is. And so, I think he's going to be as productive a player as he has in the past, and even more so at times.

"There are some adjustments I think that he understands," he said. "There are some things he wants to do, adjustmentwise, offensively. I think Charlie and GG [hitting coach Greg Gross] and others will influence him. I think he's open to that. He's down there with Charlie right now, discussing just that. Hopefully he gets back to the point where he's making more consistent contact and doing the things that he's done to be successful so far."

FTN wrote:

TenuredVulture wrote:I think in order to discuss the merits of Howard's contract, it makes sense to think of it as an 8 year deal for 175 million that started in 2010.

No it wouldn't.

Because the Phillies were not obligated to give him a 5 year extension at the time they did, and he was already under contract from 2009-2011 at 3/54.

FTN wrote:

"I know Ryan's desire to be successful remains very strong. I know there was nobody more upset about how things ended the last couple of years than he is. And so, I think he's going to be as productive a player as he has in the past, and even more so at times.

"There are some adjustments I think that he understands," he said. "There are some things he wants to do, adjustmentwise, offensively. I think Charlie and GG [hitting coach Greg Gross] and others will influence him. I think he's open to that. He's down there with Charlie right now, discussing just that. Hopefully he gets back to the point where he's making more consistent contact and doing the things that he's done to be successful so far."

more bunting.

JFLNYC wrote:Disagree. Rube got the chance after three years to be more cautious. He wasn't. He assumed all the risk.

Trent Steele wrote:

jamiethekiller wrote:2012 FIRSTBASEMEN FREE AGENCY

PUJOLS
GONZALEZ
FIELDER
HOWARD

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

I suppose this was the urgency. Pujols isn't going to be a FA. Neither is Gonzalez. SD will either trade him to a team that will resign him or they will resign him themselves. Fielder? Most likely shot at FA.

I assume Rube was thinking that the the Pujols/AGon deals were going to shoot up Howard's market price, so he would strike first. It's still stupid.

Woody wrote:

Jim Salisbury
@JSalisburyCSN

Ryan Howard about to sign five year extension, person close to him says

(baha Trent Steele)

joe table wrote:Dude who was giving him 5/125 on the open market even w/o the nuked Achilles

Carlos Pena just got 1-7.5

Grotewold wrote:

JFLNYC wrote:Disagree. Rube got the chance after three years to be more cautious. He wasn't. He assumed all the risk.

He also avoided a whole season of both Rollins and Howard as lame ducks, to the extent that matters, and planned their other moves for a year and half with cost certainty at 1B/cleanup.

What if Howard never hurt his ankle and had two seasons closer to his 2008/2009? What would the plan be now? The cost of re-signing him?

Trent Steele wrote:This is awful.

Woody wrote:I'd be shocked if anyone here was all: "hey, good move"

Trent Steele wrote:Really, I want to cry. Though it's not his fault, pretty much all my Phillies anger will be directed at Howard for the next 6 years.

The Savior wrote:you pussies cry when they don't resign people and cry when they do

fuck off

glad to have howard forever. don't give a fuck how bad he's gonna be in 4 years. love the dude.

Philly the Kid wrote:Is there any way they could have some conditions? Like if his weight goes over a certain threshold they can pay less -- or if he's hurt for 2 years in a row they can void the deal. Anything at all to help mitigate bad things that could happen?

I like Ryan a lot and his numbers have been excellent for a big guy, power hitting 1st basemen. I like that he slimmed down and worked on his D. But there is reality -- and reality has shown that these kind of players can really slip and have injury issues. We don't have DH. If he ends up like Thome, productive year after year -- I'll be cool. But he has like 1-2 more good years and a steep slide -- yikes...

I like emotionally the idea of wrapping up Ryan and Chase -- these guys have HOF potential and its nice to think that we can enjoy an extended era of Phillies Baseball with some homegrown stars... but geez that's a lot of money and a lot of committment? Will salaries keep going up during the next 5 so that it looks less bad toward the end? Payroll for the Phils keep going up??

If Ibanez and Moyer weren't here now sucking down over-priced contracts and I felt there was a chance Werth could stay ... JRoll? what's his future now? You know he over-values his own worth and will probably end up back on the west coast or sometihng...

I like the spiprit of taking care of your own and building fixtures like Chase and Ryan for the kids to grow up with -- but this is a really dangerous deal for all the reasons everyone else is referencing obviously...

I just hope he keeps banging 40hrs 120rbi seasons year after year after year... maybe get better on facing lefties and curve balls and sliders?!

Can only hope for the best, not bemoan what might NOT go right...

Congrats to Ryan on the pay-day dude....

Trent Steele wrote:I'm just starting to comprehend how absolutely awful this is.

joe table wrote:No one would have given him that contract on the open market.

You have FAs after this season of Pena, Lee, Konerko and Dunn. Those guys are going somewhere to fill 1B openings for considerable money.

They in 2011, you have Fielder, Adrian Gonzalez, Pujols, Berkman. Maybe Gonzalez will be traded/extended before then, but then there's one team that would be willing to play huge money to a 1B out of the mix

LA Angels, Yankees, Detroit, Cincy, Minny, Colorado (with Helton extension), Kansas City have long term 1B. Texas, Atlanta, Mets, Toronto have solid prospects at the position that are either ready or near ready.

Florida, Pitt, Tampa, Oakland, San Diego, Brewers (because if they can't sign Fielder, why would they Ryan?), don't have the finances to even consider signing him. DBacks and Indians are borderline, but also have 1B prospects of their own (Allen, LaPorta/Weglarz)

That leaves: LA Dodgers, Cubs, Cardinals, Boston, White Sox, Baltimore, Washington, San Fran, Houston, Seattle needing 1B either next year or after 2011. With Dunn, Pena, Lee, Fielder, Pujols, Gonzalez, Berkman, Konerko available in addition to Ryan

Pujols will go back to St Louis most likely. Boston will probably end up with Gonzalez, who is younger and a higher OBP guy, or perhaps sign Pena after 2010. Either way I can't see them being in the 2011 market to help raise these players' prices. So that's both NY and BOS out of the market! Can't see the SABR-friendly Mariners throwing that type of money around to a 32 year old Howard.

Where is that 25mm AAV contract coming from? Especially if a slightly better, younger player is out there on the market too in Fielder?

BigEd76 wrote:If anyone's angry it's St. Louis. Now they have to give Albert 6/$180M

Trent Steele wrote:
If Howard is 5/$125, Pujols is worth 6/$200

The Savior wrote:
with all due respect, it's a great signing. it sure is fun to brainstorm ideas of ways to let howard go or trade him for player X and Y, then sign player Z, and bam...we're still contending.

sorry, but this team was miserable for way too long and spent so much time letting their stars piss-and-moan their way out of town. they're spending now like never before. we're approaching red sox-levels of spending and marketing here.

it's one big cryfest. be happy that a dude wanted to stay here and finish out his career. and it's a dude who apparently a great teammate and darn good player.

but whatever. overanalyze the finances of the deal because i'm sure you all know what the economics of the game will be in 7 years anyway. well, you probably know more than the phillies at least.

Woody wrote:Hopefully Howard continues his trend of refusing to let opposing pitchers walk him.

Trent Steele wrote:My guess is the experts will hate the deal and Tim Kurkijan will love it.

That should tell you everything you need to know.

The Savior wrote:yeah, that part i said is probably off. what i really meant to say was "ryan fucking howard is never going to be bad and therefore stop worrying".

dajafi wrote:There's some chance this turns out to be our Vernon Wells deal. But unlike Wells, who had one really good year before the Jays made a ruinous bet on illusory upside, this guy has hit at around Hall of Fame caliber for five years. He's shown more, not less commitment to conditioning and improvement since getting paid before '09, and (the sentimental part) he's a signature player of the greatest era in club history.

It's not a great deal, certainly not a bargain. He might or might not have gotten something this good on the open market after 2011; probably depends on the state of the economy at that point, honestly. But I can't say this is a total disaster or a completely illogical move either.

(I just hope he remembers how to draw a fucking walk.)

Shore wrote: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?

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

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.

Woody wrote:PTK if you believe in trends, don't look at Howard's walk numbers since 2007

Eem wrote:He won't offer him arb because WERTZ will be sitting pretty on a shiny new four-year, $65 million deal LET'S FUCKING GO

FTN wrote:This is scary stuff.

The key to keeping Wertz is dumping Victorino, which I think they can do.

At least I hope so

ek wrote:Keith Law

"This is one of the worst extension of its kind -- it's an overpay in both years and dollars. Howard is one of the last guys in the middle of the lineup I'd give that kind of money, too. He's 30, has a bad body, is not a good defender, and has struggled to make contact to versus lefties -- he's gone backwards in that area over the past couple of years. If you were locking him up through age 31, it's not so bad. How happy are if you're Albert Pujols? If Howard is worth $25 million, Pujols is worth $50 million a year."

Trent Steele wrote:this contract makes me want to punch amaro in his vagina

FTN wrote:The easy initial reaction = this deal is terrible.

But I don't think its that easy, for a number of really simple reasons.

1. The Phillies are one of the 5 best teams in baseball, they have been over the last 4 years, and there is nothing to indicate they won't be in the next 5 years. Howard, no matter how you measure "value" has been an integral part of the lineup since he became a full time player. His faults are obvious, but he really only has one obvious fault, and that is his performance against LHP. Lots of big power hitters struggle against their same side platoon. Not many lefties kill LHP. But Howard is one of the 2 best hitters in baseball against RHP. And I see no real reason that skill will drop off. The other knocks on Howard are red herrings. His "bad body" really isn't bad. He's a big dude, but he's not fat anymore, and he runs well enough for a player his size. His defense still won't be confused with that of Keith Hernandez, but he's not a liability there, and I'm not convinced that the value of defense at 1B is as important as it is at the key up the middle positions. Howard moves well enough around the bag, he makes a fair number of running catches on popups, and he's good at digging balls out of the dirt. So the one knock against him, and its real, is his performance against lefties. The rest of the criticisms are poorly constructed at best.

2. Building on #1, the Phillies had to have figured out something if Howard left via free agency. Option 1 was trading for Adrian Gonzalez, and then paying him $25M per year. Option 2 was signing Prince Fielder on the open market. What would the market be by then? What if the Cardinals had given Pujols a 6/210M deal? Howard would have surely gotten 5/145. Fielder, because he's younger, might have gotten 8/215. There is no discount here. Its a ton of money. But there wouldn't have been a discount on the free agent market either. Agents understand that the Phillies would have had to get a marquee name to replace Howard at 1B if they let him go. There wouldn't have likely been any bargains. Maybe you can sign a good hitter at 5/85 to play 1B, but will he have produced as much as Howard?

3. I think its almost pointless to look at Howard's comparable hitters on BR or BP. His career arc is very unique, and while it seems the guys he is often compared to broke down and lost their physical shape as they aged, Howard is going in the opposite direction. The game of baseball is very different now than it was even 10 years ago, let alone 25 or 50 years ago. Guys take better care of themselves, they have more opportunities and possibilities as far as training and preparation goes, and the medical staffs are 100x better now than they were 50 years ago. If Howard turns into Mo Vaughn, and he might, it will be because of an injury or because he just let himself go. But he hasn't shown any indication that he's planning on letting himself go physically, and in fact, he looks better now than he did 4 years ago.

4. Howard's salary hurts the Phillies in 3 years if payroll stays the same. Since its generally understood that teams spend 80-90% of their revenue generated, if the Phillies continue to play well, sell out games, and raise prices of services, then there is no reason payroll will be cut, and in fact, payroll should continue to increase. It was $140M this year, but it could well be $150M next year and 160M in 2012. Obviously it still reduces the margin for error, but this team is basically assembled for the next 5 years anyway. Some of the fringe parts will need to be replaced and recycled, but the core won't. There is a bunch of salary coming off the books after 2010, and the money to sign Werth will be there, as long as his demands are reasonable. He's never stated that he didn't want to play in Philly, or that he couldn't wait to test the open market. In fact, I bet the Phillies already know exactly what the number is that he'll require to sign. And I wouldn't be shocked if they sign him in the next 3 months.

5. Make no mistake. The Phillies probably overpaid. No, they did overpay. But I don't view this as something that is going to hamstring the team down the road. If ownership suddenly tells Rube the payroll is going from $140M to $110M next year, then there will be problems. But there is no indication that the team is cutting payroll any time soon, and in fact, payroll has been steadily rising. This move doesn't hurt all that much. There won't really be any big free agent signings this winter, because there won't be many real needs. They will have $20M or so to re-sign Werth, maybe bring in a starter, and maybe bring in a reliever.

We overpaid. And I'm not sure why we did it now. But this isn't end of days stuff. The team will be fine.

yeah, that part i said is probably off. what i really meant to say was "ryan fucking howard is never going to be bad and therefore stop worrying".