The Savior wrote:glad to have howard forever. don't give a $#@! how bad he's gonna be in 4 years. love the dude.

Easy to say now.

you will be pissed when it prevents us from signing tim lincecum

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

$#@! off

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

With all due respect, that's really stupid. BUt I think you know that.

maybe Daulton has gotten to Rube

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

$#@! off

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

Yes, but unlike you, us pussies are able to realize that you can love Ryan Howard and be happy to have him while simultaneously recognizing a poor business decision for what it is

Rube clearly believes in all that 2012 end of the world stuff

couldn't he have just said so

:drunkathlete.com:

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....

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

$#@! off

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

you remind me of the guy, who in june of 2009 said, "i don't care how he does the next 2 years, Ibanez has earned every cent of his contract already"

yay

I guess JRoll is next

This is stupid.

The window is closing and I'm pretty sure we are gonna suck in a few years, but we really had a chance to do some damage until probably 2013 and this will really handcuff us. Even though fangraphs will want to fight me there is no way Howard is worth 20 and 25 million and he's pretty likely to have big man drop off well within that contrat. Stupid stupid stupid.

I love the idea of Howard, Utley, and Halladay for five (or more) years.

The price for that is taking a big risk on Howard post-2013.

We'll see about Werth.

I'm just starting to comprehend how absolutely awful this is.

Did Rube put some numbers in a hat and pick out the AAV? Seems like it.

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?

If this means Werth won't be coming back next year, does that mean they would try to move him for players at positions of need right now?

Look, in 3 years, right after Obama's re-election, there's going to be a devaluation of the dollar. Howard will be playing for the 2010 equivalent of 40 grand.

The Nightman Cometh wrote:This is stupid.

The window is closing and I'm pretty sure we are gonna suck in a few years, but we really had a chance to do some damage until probably 2013 and this will really handcuff us. Even though fangraphs will want to fight me there is no way Howard is worth 20 and 25 million and he's pretty likely to have big man drop off well within that contrat. Stupid stupid stupid.

How does this handcuff us if the window goes to 2013. The problem years are presumably 2014-16 on this deal.

So to recap, basically the consensus here is that this "move" defies each and every impulse of reason expressed since Descartes was a pup?