Fourth year vesting option based on IP with a $5 mil buyout

Cooney on CBS3 with the host that thinks "Giles" is still president of the team

this time my only complaint about shore's numbers is that he bothered to put time into demonstrating that frenchy is horrible. next time someone posts something so evidently wrong as a suggestion that frenchy might have positive value, i recommend just telling them to look up the relevant stats and get back to you.

the stats i just looked up are the fangraps wrc+ and war positional rankings of some phils "regulars".
be it babip luck or career years or whatever, the phils actually have four guys who could pass for average major league regulars at their primary positions: franco, freddy, cesar, and ben.
using 100 pa's as a cutoff, and looking as the "playing as ..." splits rather than the "listed as" splits...

franco ranks 10 of 37 3bs in wrc+, and 20th of 37 in war (would be in the 10-15 range if he produced at the same rate for the whole 1st half). he's on pace for about 2.5 war for the season, or about 3.5 over a full season.
freddy ranks 17th and 14th of 34 among ss, on pace for about 2.1 war.
cesar ranks 7th and 18th among 33 2b, on pace for about 2.0 war in his performance at that position.
revere ranks 71st and 32nd among 117 outfielders (30 and 14 of 40 lf, 16 and 19 of 37 cf) and is on pace for 2.3 war. well above average for a team's 2nd best outfielder.

a couple more are somewhere in the fuzzy zone between good backup and fringy starter.
odubel sorta qualifies as median for a 3rd-best outfielder (77th and 78th out of 117 outfielders). only about 2/3 of a war over a full season, though... a median 3rd outfielder is a below average outfielder.
if rupp had produced value at his rate so far while getting typical primary catcher pa numbers, he would be around 10th among catchers in war, despite being in the lower third in wrc+. over a full season, about 1.7 war.

of course, all of this non-terribleness has been completely swamped by the collapse of utley and ruiz towards the bottom of their positional lists, the neverending tragedy of howard playing in a non-dh league being allowed to push ruf into a doomed-to-fail role, and the unspeakable horror of having a bunch of sub-replacement guys sucking value out through the black hole of the missing #1 outfielder.

given that it is patently obvious that Brown and Asche and Ruf and Frenchy aren't going to improve upon their now negative trade value no matter how much more time the get to show off, and given that altherr and dugan are not young enough that there should be any option-year reason not to give them a look, it's way beyong time to try something else in the outfield. even danks and bogus would have a better chance of morphing temporarily into trade chips than the hapless hopelessness of B.A.R.F. in the outfield.

I think people are responding to a report that the Pirates had interest. I doubt anyone is saying Frenchy is good or that we should keep him. If the Pirates want to give us something for him, then I say we should listen and then immediately make the trade if they offer anything at all of positive value.

Seidman did an article on CSN.com about the upcoming deadline and predicts Hamels+Papelbon+$$$$ to Toronto, Revere to the Angels, Frenchy to Pittsburgh, Harang to someone in August and Howard stays

It's amazing to me that we probably won't get anything for Ryan Howard or Cliff Lee. Unbelievable.

on pace for a 52-110 record as it is. Seems hard to imagine - but could we not even win 50 after all the trades? Probably not, just because that would be historically awful and statistically improbable.

Papelbon has spent the NL media session begging to be traded.

this is why they introduced the 2nd wild card.

57-14 rest of the way would do it i think

Remember when they won 6 games in a row?

Doll Is Mine wrote:It's amazing to me that we probably won't get anything for Ryan Howard or Cliff Lee. Unbelievable.

Probably?

I think a team who is need of a RH PH with some pop could use him. Sorta Matt Stairs light.

Monkeyboy wrote:I think people are responding to a report that the Pirates had interest. I doubt anyone is saying Frenchy is good or that we should keep him. If the Pirates want to give us something for him, then I say we should listen and then immediately make the trade if they offer anything at all of positive value.

By Jove. I think you've got it.

Wheels Tupay wrote:Remember when they won 6 games in a row?

I wonder if it has ever happened for a team to win 6 games in a row in a season and lose 100.

heyeaglefn wrote:

Wheels Tupay wrote:Remember when they won 6 games in a row?

I wonder if it has ever happened for a team to win 6 games in a row in a season and lose 100.

I would assume so, baseball is a funny game i have been told

phorever wrote:....my only complaint about shore's numbers is that he bothered to put time into demonstrating that frenchy is horrible....

.....

.... it is patently obvious that Brown and Asche and Ruf and Frenchy aren't going to improve upon their now negative trade value no matter how much more time the get to show off....the hapless hopelessness of B.A.R.F. in the outfield.

Phorever, you sure know how to set up a punchline

Wheels Tupay wrote:Remember when they won 6 games in a row?

Remember when they won 2 outta 3 at Yankee Stadium?

BigEd76 wrote:

Wheels Tupay wrote:Remember when they won 6 games in a row?

Remember when they won 2 outta 3 at Yankee Stadium?

No, the thorough beating on the 3rd day made me forget the other two.

Seidman with a good piece about how bad the Phillies are.

http://www.csnphilly.com/baseball-phila ... acceptable

Lots of interesting points in here.

it's a good feeling knowing they aren't going to lose until friday at the very earliest.