JFLNYC wrote:Check the record. Here are some ERA+ figures from others on the staff besides Hamels, Lidge and Madson: 117, 104, 152, 134, 159, 124, 119 and 236. That's for guys who combined to pitch more than 40% of all IP that year for the Phils.

In any event, by focusing on exceptions you're missing the point. You'll never get to the point where all 25 players yield an unequivocal "yes" to the question. Every team has weaknesses. The goal is to strive towards as many "yeses" as possible by being rigorously honest in evaluating each position and doing everything reasonably possible to move towards at least a plausible "yes" at each spot on the roster. When you reach a critical mass of "yeses," you've got a chance.

I took td's point more to mean we wouldn't have answered "yes" to Moyer or a Blanton type or Eaton/Kendrick or the rest of the bullpen before they actually started pitching well. And those types of guys are always available, though it takes skill to hit more than you miss.

Stacking as many yesses as possible is an interesting concept but also kind of obvious, I think. What else would a GM with resources be doing

If only we hadda gotten Huff or Nixon we might have won a playoff game some year.

drsmooth wrote:

dajafi wrote:per Gelb yesterday, there's a chance they extend Amaro.

why, he's earned an extension....

We've always strived to be an organization that provides family-friendly entertainment. Winning really got in the way of--and crowded out--our opportunities for theme nights. Amaro changed this.

Grotewold wrote:Stacking as many yesses as possible is an interesting concept but also kind of obvious, I think. What else would a GM with resources be doing

Apparently not obvious to all GM's.

JFLNYC wrote:

Grotewold wrote:Stacking as many yesses as possible is an interesting concept but also kind of obvious, I think. What else would a GM with resources be doing

Apparently not obvious to all GM's.

Ours has sucked obviously, but what would you have done differently the past two years or so? I can certainly see the argument for trading Utley and Lee (especially) last year, but beyond that it's just been spending money at no cost to prospects. I don't take Amaro's recent actions as a yes to Revere or Asche or anyone really. But anyway I would bet on him being gone soon

What we need is for Hamels to stay elite and for three or four studs to emerge from the farm over the next few years, then to fill in wisely with some trades and signings. Not easy by any means, but teams do it all the time

The Phils have a $180 million payroll. I know we're used to wasting that all on garbage, but the payroll is basically clear for 2017. The A's have less than half the Phils payroll and their farm system hasn't been much more productive than ours. They only have 3 players on their team who they drafted. You can build a good team through free agency and trades with a competent GM. If they can also have Crawford/Nola/Franco and others like that contribute then it could easily be a contending team in 2017.

Grotewold wrote:

JFLNYC wrote:

Grotewold wrote:Stacking as many yesses as possible is an interesting concept but also kind of obvious, I think. What else would a GM with resources be doing

Apparently not obvious to all GM's.

Ours has sucked obviously, but what would you have done differently the past two years or so? I can certainly see the argument for trading Utley and Lee (especially) last year, but beyond that it's just been spending money at no cost to prospects. I don't take Amaro's recent actions as a yes to Revere or Asche or anyone really

I think my record is pretty clear going back some years now, for better or worse. Like most here there's no way I would have extended Howard. Before the 2011 season I would have taken a chance on signing Lance Berkman to play RF since the idea that Ben Francisco could replace our most productive offensive player was ludicrous to me. I would not have re-signed Rollins, using that money instead to sign Cuddyer and trading for Marco Scutaro (who was available and eventually traded) to fill in at SS until Galvis or someone else was ready. I would have traded both Lee and Utley at the deadline last year and not have re-signed Utley, nor would I have re-signed Chooch for more than a year.

My preferences came at different times under changing circumstances and for different reasons and they were by no means all good ideas (e.g., I'd have re-signed Madson for 4 years because I thought he'd age better than Papelbon!). And some moves (e.g., Berkman) have no relevance whatever to the current point about finding future Phillies because that was a time when we were still legitimate contenders.

But, if there's a more or less common thread, it's that, when it's time to move on, it's time to move on, even if it means moving on from iconic and wildly popular, homegrown players and that the failure to do so in a timely way can have disastrous long-term effects, such as those we're seeing now. It's not just that this team stinks, the harder part is that there's little if no hope because the process for building another contender has been delayed by a couple of years thanks to Amaro's blindness about the decline of his core. With youth and prospects playing there would be hope, even if that hope turned out to be false hope. But there's no hope that a roster full of aging, declining vets is going to develop into a better team in a year or two.

And, just an important, I disagree strongly that "it's just been spending money at no cost to prospects." There are also the opportunity costs of not auditioning future replacements, but instead continuing to give the bulk of playing time to players, no matter how iconic, who have no future with Phillies championship teams to come. That's what I meant when I said that playing the vets is worse than pointless, it's counterproductive. If Cesar had played regular 2B this year we'd have some idea as to whether he's our 2B of the future. Even if he'd totally flopped, that would be valuable information. Instead we now know nothing more about our future plans for 2B than we did a year ago. That's a real cost.

I hear ya, and Cesar is a good example. I don't know that there are many others, though.

Just out of curiosity, and back to the spark of this discussion, what were your thoughts on where the team was, in, say mid-2006?

I'd be lying if I said I recalled what my thoughts were in mid-2006, but I was probably vehemently arguing for something stupid like breaking up the core of that team.

I thought it would have been good for the club to annex the Sudatenland in 2006 if I remember right.

My guess is every championship team has at least 3-4 lousy players, or at least guys not producing up to their compensation. The '08 club had Jenkins, Eaton and Taguchi. The first two were $8m players or thereabouts. But they also had Utley, Rollins and Myers at reasonable market prices, Howard and Hamels and Victorino under pre-arb or early arb, Werth and Romero and others on bargain deals. The key is to have more guys out-producing their compensation than vice-versa. We used to have bunches every year doing that. Now it's Giles and I guess Buchanan.

Gillick's genius was that he could maneuver past his mistakes because his eye for free/cheap talent was superb. His worst deal--Garcia for Floyd and Gio--probably was a bigger mistake than any one move Amaro has made, other than the Howard extension. But he just kept going, and overcame it with the trades for Lohse, Blanton, Eyre, etc.

Almost everyone was gothing out, especially after they dumped Abreu.

We definitely started rebuilding too late, but I really do feel the landscape can change quickly. Alderson hasn't exactly been a wizard but even the freaking Mets could have been interesting this year with Harvey and one or two "overpay" hitters. We're behind them on the rebuild, obviously, but not by five years, and we have stronger resources

Abreu deal turned out Ok I because we replaced him with better players.

Grotewold wrote:Almost everyone was gothing out, especially after they dumped Abreu.

We definitely started rebuilding too late, but I really do feel the landscape can change quickly. Alderson hasn't exactly been a wizard but even the freaking Mets could have been interesting this year with Harvey and one or two "overpay" hitters. We're behind them on the rebuild, obviously, but not by five years, and we have stronger resources

I think the Abreu thing was more the fact that we all loved Abreu so much. At least it was for me.

Trent Steele wrote:

Grotewold wrote:Almost everyone was gothing out, especially after they dumped Abreu.

We definitely started rebuilding too late, but I really do feel the landscape can change quickly. Alderson hasn't exactly been a wizard but even the freaking Mets could have been interesting this year with Harvey and one or two "overpay" hitters. We're behind them on the rebuild, obviously, but not by five years, and we have stronger resources

I think the Abreu thing was more the fact that we all loved Abreu so much. At least it was for me.

Yep, toward the end of a horrid first season for Gillick

But the funny part was the team immediately got hot and then Howard went off

2006 was a really weird season. Madson was a disaster in the rotation, Gordon was great closing until he wasn't. The Abreu trade was horrible in part because of the circumstances--I think Burrell vetoed a trade to Baltimore, and the clear sense was that Gillick would have preferred to keep Bobby. Charlie seemed totally overmatched. Cole came up and the talent was obvious--it seemed like he was always taking a no-hitter into the fifth inning--but he didn't really know how to pitch yet. I think that was the year Myers beat the crap out of his wife on a sidewalk in Boston. Just not a fun summer… until it was. They went crazy, the Moyer trade was brilliant, and they actually were up for the WC going into the last week IIRC.

If you think about it, whether or not they made the playoffs was a coin flip basically for four straight years, '05 to '08. I guess in '08 they might have taken the wild card even if the Mets hadn't gone cold and lost the division. But they were so great at home that fall that it's kind of hard to imagine the WFC if they hadn't won the division.

Wow, I had completely forgotten about Madson as a starter. Yikes, thanks for bringing back those memories, dajafi.

Chase does the ice challenge the MANLY way....by bathing in the ice water first

(DiM alert: shirtless)

Looks like Murph is doing PBP tonight.

CFP wrote:Looks like Murph is doing PBP tonight.

must see tv