Thumbpocalypse Now: Chase Utley To Undergo Surgery on Right Thumb

Trading from a position of desperation hardly ever makes sense

I just hope that they do not do anything stupid in their desperation to try to tape the infield back together again.

Gotta be on the list— At the same time— how many times over the course of a season do players slide head first and manage to get up and be fine? It is just yet another freak injury in a year that has been replete with them.

How about Ryan Madson kicking a chair?

If there’s one thing this team needs, it’s a little O-Dawg!

I think Punto can also play short, you know, just in case the ‘unthinkable’ happens again.

That’s really a depressing list

Oh man, what a miserable list. And it doesn’t get much better if you include the free agent third basemen.

I think Wigginton has to be the target. He’s not a particularly great defensive player, but he’s no worse than Dobbs at third, and he’s at least played second before (and, assuming Polanco comes back before Utley, you’d just shift Peanut to the keystone for the time being). He’s also a much better hitter than any of the Dobbs/Valdez/Castro trio of fill-ins, and he’s right handed to boot, which means he’d also serve a role when everyone is back healthy.

Can’t imagine the O’s would be asking for a king’s ransom for Wiggy, so I’d have MacPhail on the horn immediately and not let him off until I got something done.

The risks soooooooooo far outweigh the benefits. FEETS FIRSTIES!!

How about Micky Morandini or Manny Trillo? Any idea what they’re up to? And Mike Schmidt still seems in better shape than many major leaguers, right?

I think that is what somebody said on Tuesday.

dude, breathe.

Three all-star or MVP caliber players, along with two starters, the back end of the bullpen, and the everyday catcher have been hurt for significant periods of time, most concurrently. Very few teams survive this. The 2009 Mets say hi, for instance. Is Minaya that much of an idiot this year?

I’ll grant it exposes, and badly too, an organizational weakness in offseason bench/bullpen construction and how foolishly unnecessarily multiple year deals can hamstring you when it comes to flexibitly. Also, I figure that the next 31 days will really test Amaro’s mettle. I hope at least he learns to be more cautious on roster spots 21-40 with an aging core.

Agree also with zfg. Neither Polanco nor Utley were hurt doing something other than baseball. The only idiotic injury of the bunch is Madson’s.

While I share your frustration and disappointment with the team as it is currently composed, I disagree with your assessments on certain things.

Firstly, regarding Polanco, while the injury news is bad, and I will not take anything away from that, he has turned out to be a good third baseman (far better than I thought when they signed him), and still may be a good third baseman. Considering the other choices on the market and how they are doing now (including Feliz, who they paid to go away), I think they made a good choice. Injuries happen, and this year has been the Phillies turn to morph into a M*A*S*H unit. There is no guarantee that any free agent third baseman Amaro brought in would not have gotten hurt. So hold up on calling the deal bad— it is not even halfway through.

As for the bench, I think Amaro needs to be graded on a curve— Valdez is playing at the level that is to be expected of a replacement player, and while not great, is not atrocious either. As for the bench’s hitting— I am more concerned about the regulars hitting better.

Third: the bullpen— I am not too upset about re-signing Durbin— he is a known entity and has not performed that badly. As for Baez— right now I do not like him, but others have pointed out that to this point he has actually underperformed some of his peripherals, and thus may bounce back. However, this is the one place that I fault him the most.

Finally, I am not yet willing to scream at Amaro for running this team into the ground. This has not been the year that Phillies fans hoped for at the outset, and that is disappointing. But some of that has been due to things that are not in Amaro’s control— Nobody plans for or wants to see their regulars wind up making a revolving door of the DL, or for simultaneous serious slumpage. Both have happened this season. Good teams have bad years— look at the 2008 Yankees— they spent more money than Congress, brought in a ton of talent, and it did not work… One year later, they beat the Phillies in the World Series. So maybe, this is not our year… who knows, but I am going to give him a couple of years before I judge him too harshly.

Soon =/= 3 to 4 weeks!

What the hell!