Do the Phillies need a #1/#2?

by jonk on Jun 29, 2009 9:06 PM EDT Comment 11 comments

We all know the Phillies need one more pitcher. Myers filled the role perfectly last year coming back from the minors and pitching lights out. While a lights out pitcher would be great, we really don't NEED one (assuming Cole comes back around). What we need is a guy who is league average and lets our offense put up the runs. I wasn't a HUGE fan of the Blanton move last year, but he performed his role perfectly and I completely miscalled that. He was what this team needed, a guy who posts a 4.50 ERA and wins because of the offense.

There has been talk about Penny, Oswalt and now Wang, but the pitcher that I think would be the best move for the Phillies is...

Paul Maholm.

He has a career 4.30 ERA and GB/FB ratio that would make your mother blush at 1.2. He doesn't strike out a ton, but he keeps the ball down and in the park, which is perfect for CBP. He is in his 4th year making $2.5 mil, but I think the Phils could offer a decent deal to bring him over and he'd compliment this stadium and our offense very nicely.

Of course, him and Pedro would be even better...

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Maholm is an interesting choice, I don’t know if the Pirates would be willing to trade him (what am I talking about they trade EVERYBODY) and I don’t know how the Phillies feel about having another lefty. I’d take him though.
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by Phils08champs on Jun 29, 2009 9:56 PM EDT reply actions

I don’t have a strong opinion on Maholm. But on a more philosophical level:

I think it’s fundamentally unhealthy to ever go out on the trade market with the assumption that you “need” anything. The main thing that the Phillies need is to get back talent greater than or (at least roughly) equal to the talent they give up. That’s a more important priority than any specific weakness in the current team.

If a trade like that isn’t available, then I’d rather live with our current flaws and roll the dice that we can win in spite of them (which could happen). Yeah it’ll leave a need unfilled in 2009, but the 2012 Phillies are going to be my team just as much as the 2009 Phillies are. I’m ok with robbing Peter to pay Paul, so to speak, but not if we have to suffer a large net loss in the process. And if we get too fixated on filling the “needs” we see in front of us, without being conscious of the needs we’re creating in the process, then we’re more likely to make trades that do just that.

The Phillies aren’t poor, and their farm system isn’t bad. They have the capability to remain contenders indefinitely if they play their cards right. The conventional wisdom, which says they only have this short window of opportunity to ever contend, is wrong. We should act like we’re planning to be good forever, because it’s possible, and if it happened, it would be awesome.

by taco pal on Jun 29, 2009 10:23 PM EDT reply actions

I’m sympathetic to your point, and I agree with you to a large degree. But the organization’s “championship window” with this core — the best core that we’ve seen in a long time as Phillies fans, and the best we’re likely to see for quite some time — is a limited time frame. If you need to overpay a bit to bring in the missing piece to make another run at a title, then I think it’s foolish not to.

That being said, there are limits to how far you take this philosophy. I would certainly “overpay” for Roy Halladay — honestly, I’d gut the farm system for him, since the guy’s the best pitcher in baseball — but I wouldn’t give up Kyle Drabek to get someone like Maholm.

by PhillyFriar on Jun 30, 2009 12:18 AM EDT up reply actions

Oh, but as far as the Maholm idea… it’s certainly a worthwhile thought. My only issue with it is that I’m in the camp that the Phils do need a legit #2 if at all possible — Maholm would certainly help during the regular season, but I wouldn’t feel comfortable slotting him against the second best starter on many of the other possible NL playoff contenders (Kuroda from L.A., Carpenter from St. Louis, Harden from Chicago, etc.) in a short series. Let alone against any of the AL teams.

Additionally, I have a feeling the Pirates will need to be bowled over to move Maholm. He’s young, signed for the next three years at $14.5 million, and he’s the best starter they have right now. If I’m Neil Huntington, I’m asking the Phillies for a package built around Drabek and Taylor, or at worst Carrasco and Taylor, before I’m dealing Maholm.

by PhillyFriar on Jun 30, 2009 12:26 AM EDT up reply actions

Yeah, the fundamental problem is that the trade market is inflated across the board at this time of year. (There are exceptions like your Jamie Moyers and your Tad Iguchis, but they’re relatively rare.)

I think Maholm is decent, but I doubt that he’s worth a Taylor. A Cliff Lee would be worth a Taylor, but you’re not going to get Lee for Taylor – you’re going to also have to include a Drabek, a Carrasco, and on and on.

by taco pal on Jun 30, 2009 12:45 PM EDT up reply actions

I don’t know about the healthiness of “needing” anything. If you are implying it will make us have to pay, more, I guess it might matter, but it doesn’t change what we need. Look at the situation with Blanton last year. We probably paid a little too much for him, but he ended up getting us a championship. If you knew right now that not trading Outman (ignoring his Tommy John surgery) would mean no championship, would you take it back? We had been the team of the very good for like 6 years. The season was fun, but always felt like a big disappointment at the end. I still am shocked we won it last year. It is fun to be good, but the point of the game is to win it all.

For Who? My teammates.

For What? To Win.

How Much? Where do I sign?

by jonk on Jun 30, 2009 9:19 AM EDT up reply actions

I hear you on Blanton and I’ve defended that trade on other threads, but in my view the success of the Blanton deal doesn’t change the fact that you can’t repeat those types of deals on a regular basis. Even if they all work out, if you do them year after year, you’re eventually going to hurt your team pretty seriously. You’d have a continuous net outflow of talent.

So, yes, of course I would make that trade again, knowing that it led to a championship. But I can turn the question around and ask you: if you knew right now that trading Utley or Hamels in July 2003 would have gotten us a miracle championship that season (not an implausible scenario), would you go back in time and pull the trigger? I wouldn’t.

And in any event, that isn’t the right question to be asking because no deal that can possibly be made in 2009 (not even for Halladay) will guarantee a championship in 2009. We don’t have the beneift of hindsight, and there’s just as good of a chance that trading a stud prospect now will have no effect on the outcome of the season.

by taco pal on Jun 30, 2009 12:42 PM EDT up reply actions

If the Phillies didn’t win last year, then I probably go back and make that trade. The problem with that scenario is that the Phillies won with those guys anyway, which seemed fairly implausible back then. Only 1 team out of 30 can win it and right now we have that team that has a chance to win it again. This prospects could all turn into busts and we end up 72 – 90 because of that.

For Who? My teammates.

For What? To Win.

How Much? Where do I sign?

by jonk on Jun 30, 2009 2:10 PM EDT up reply actions

Nobody considered it implausible at the time. The Phillies finished only five games out of the wild card in 2003, and there were a great many people on talk radio circa 2003 furiously ripping the Phillies for their unwillingness to give up their best prospects to bring in “seasoned veterans”. They claimed at that time that the organization had foolishly failed to take advantage of their window of opportunity.

Yes it’s possible that the prospects will all turn into busts. It’s also possible that they’ll be even better than people expect (like Rollins, Utley, and Howard all are today compared to how they were viewed in the minors). It’s also possible that the veterans we get in return for dumping our prospects will have no effect on the ultimate outcome of this season, and that we will have given up our prospects for nothing. It’s also possible that our prospects will turn into very good players and that because of their absence we end up 72-90 when we otherwise would have been championship-caliber.

There’s uncertainty all around. Just because we know our team is in the hunt right now doesn’t mean we have that much more certainty that it will be more impactful for us to have talent in 2009 than in 2012. Since there’s uncertainty in every time period, the right approach is to deemphasize time as a consideration. Don’t overpay (at least not much) for present value.

What I know is that in 1982 and 1983, the Phillies felt that they only had a small window of opportunity left to win another championship. So they bet everything on the present and traded away many of their prospects. They ended up failing to win a title anyway (despite thier now-mostly forgotten 1983 pennant run). And if they had just kept all the players they had (Ryne Sandberg, Mark Davis, Keith Moreland, Lonnie Smith, Julio Franco, Mike Lavalliere), they would have remained good for years to come. Instead, we ended up with a decade of crap.

by taco pal on Jun 30, 2009 2:49 PM EDT up reply actions

I like this idea

because it is reasonable. I am not a big fan of gving up alot of prospects for 1 pitcher. I would think we could make a trade for him reasonably (don’t they owe us something more for their starting catcher?) that would save our farm system.

Forward your idea to Amaro!

by DeanH on Jun 30, 2009 12:08 AM EDT reply actions

Maholm, sure, depending on cost.

Not Pedro. Putting aside how much he might have left, the last thing we need is another 5-6 inning pitcher. I saw a number the other day that our starters have gone into the seventh only 17 times all year, and four of those were by Myers. Bullpen quality derives from rotation quantity; if they could just somehow clone Blanton, that might be ideal…

by dajafi on Jun 30, 2009 11:11 AM EDT reply actions