PTOITWCFTPP wrote:@MattGelb: Jimmy Rollins is eulogizing 2014 Phillies. "Thank you for showing up," he tells fans. "We know it was rough. Hopefully we made you smile."

I laughed.

You put Franco at 3rd, Ashe at 2nd, Utley at 1st and ARod in LF.

Howard's happy with his season:

“It’s not necessarily where I wanted it to be,” Howard said of his season. “But at the end of the day I’m happy with it.”

Shore wrote:

smitty wrote:

Shore wrote:I wonder if the Yankees would take Howard for ARod.

It would be a clever move. I can't see anyone wanting Howard though. Could he be a decent DH only facing righties?

what's the deal with ARod. I forget. Is he eligible next year? Salary? Hell, I think it would be clever. Not up Amaro's alley though. Need to clean some front office house.

Healthy, eligible, and due $61M next 3 years, I believe.

There's also a $6M bonus if he hits six more home runs, and another $6M if he hits 60 total over the three years. But I don't think the Yanks need a DH, and I'd rather not clog 1B/3B here.

Interesting idea, though -- and much more palatable to me than just eating Howard's money. I wonder if there's a starting pitcher on a bad contract a team can no longer afford who could at least be like a fourth/fifth starter here. I bet the Sox would have loved to bail on Lackey after 2011, for instance

Grotewold wrote:

Shore wrote:

smitty wrote:

Shore wrote:I wonder if the Yankees would take Howard for ARod.

It would be a clever move. I can't see anyone wanting Howard though. Could he be a decent DH only facing righties?

what's the deal with ARod. I forget. Is he eligible next year? Salary? Hell, I think it would be clever. Not up Amaro's alley though. Need to clean some front office house.

Healthy, eligible, and due $61M next 3 years, I believe.

There's also a $6M bonus if he hits six more home runs, and another $6M if he hits 60 total over the three years. But I don't think the Yanks need a DH, and I'd rather not clog 1B/3B here.

Interesting idea, though -- and much more palatable to me than just eating Howard's money. I wonder if there's a starting pitcher on a bad contract a team can no longer afford who could at least be like a fourth/fifth starter here. I bet the Sox would have loved to bail on Lackey after 2011, for instance

I read somewhere, can't recall where, that depending on this winter's acquiisitons, ARod may DH for them.

I think, at CBP, with a chip on his shoulder, playing 1B, and job description "hit", he might pull out a couple of pretty good years. He can't WANT to be in NY anymore.

If Howard defines a "happy" season as getting through it without injury, then yea. But there's no way he can be happy with the numbers he put up

If I made $25MM I'd be happy, too.

Maybe his new house has a big sliding board into the moat

CoreySeidman
Tis official now: Ken Giles the only NL rookie in the last 51 years to finish with an ERA below 1.25 and 60+ strikeouts.

Also heard on yesterday's broadcast that DEEK is only the 3rd reliever in Phillies history to record 100+ Ks in a season, and the last to do it was Al Holland

Could Giles start?

Probably not. I'd rather him be the setup man until Pap is out of here

Ryan Lawrence with some trivia:

ryanlawrence21
If I told you 2 Phillies hitters finished in the top 20 in the National League in walks, and you had to guess without looking, who you got?

I knew that. Guys should have been driving in runs instead of waiting around for walks.

I wonder where our guys landed on the number of pitches per at bat list. Pretty well maybe? It seems they had a lot of games in which they drove the pitch count up. It will be very important to add the get some hits and walks to that and then they might score some runs.

They are gonna need some luck next year to be any good. Make that a lot of luck. But it's possible. Time to clean some house. A Boston Red Sox worst to first type thing.

BigEd76 wrote:Probably not. I'd rather him be the setup man until Pap is out of here

Ryan Lawrence with some trivia:

ryanlawrence21
If I told you 2 Phillies hitters finished in the top 20 in the National League in walks, and you had to guess without looking, who you got?

[Reveal] Spoiler:

Ryan and Jimmy

There are your leadoff and #2 hitters next year.

Has Amaro been fired yet?

smitty wrote:I knew that. Guys should have been driving in runs instead of waiting around for walks.

I wonder where our guys landed on the number of pitches per at bat list. Pretty well maybe? It seems they had a lot of games in which they drove the pitch count up. It will be very important to add the get some hits and walks to that and then they might score some runs.

They are gonna need some luck next year to be any good. Make that a lot of luck. But it's possible. Time to clean some house. A Boston Red Sox worst to first type thing.

http://espn.go.com/mlb/stats/batting/_/ ... order/true

Rollins 5th, Howard 11th, Utley 28th, Brown 42, Byrd 43, Revere 54.

Most shocking stat to me is that there were only 65 qualifiers for the batting title in the NL. I never paid attention before, but that sounded low.

http://espn.go.com/mlb/stats/batting/_/ ... /minpa/200

Used the 200 plate appearance filter. 169 qualifiers. We had three in the top 30. Some really lousy hitters in that group.

Maybe Rube is right and walks don't mean shit.

BigEd76 wrote:If Howard defines a "happy" season as getting through it without injury, then yea. But there's no way he can be happy with the numbers he put up

When you look at the context of his quote, that's really what he's saying.

He feels he's now re-acclimated to playing a full season now, and so it's onward and upward from here. He's setting aside the piece where he's now older than shit.

http://philliesminorthoughts.com/franklyn-kilome/

This guy is mentioned in the BP ten pack today. The guy who wrote the blurb, Chris King, wrote an article about him back in August. Another Dominican. This one might end up being good.

JFLNYC wrote:Maybe Rube is right and walks don't mean shit.

Or possibly no counting stat in isolation means shit.