Some Phillies Links for You, July 26, 2010: I, Os, You; Hard Deadline, Mr. 1,000
by WholeCamels on Jul 26, 2010 8:24 AM EDT
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PrintOswalt would refuse Yankees trade?
I honestly don't know about some of these players. I'm frankly of the mind right now to just keep Jayson Werth and let him walk for draft picks after the season.
Reading not phased by HGH testing
I would've loved this article more if they quoted one of the players saying "THIS IS TOTAL HORSE(BLEEP)!!" while he was dumping boxes of vials and syringes into a ditch behind a playground.
Barkley visits Phillies
His presence in the booth for the TBS broadcast went from funny to boring to downright aggravating until we were saved by the rain delay...
Happ throws with a purpose
Hopefully that "purpose" will come to include better command soon.
Nervous Phils await deadline
It really must be a weird time of the season.
How much of a mind game is playing for next contract? | Philadelphia Daily News | 07/26/2010
"I know there's a perception out there that players perform better. But I've found that there are three ways it can go. A lot of players play better in that situation, but a lot of players don't," he said. "We can't paint every player with the same brush. The personalities, obviously, are very different and unique."
You're going to find some players for whom the contract year is a positive motivator, you're going to find some where it's a distraction but it's just another distraction that they have to deal with and it doesn't affect their performance one way or the other, and then there's a third set of players where it becomes a real negative pressure and I think it really does hurt their performance."
So, in summary... there are no patterns at all?
Mets' season going down blank-in' drain - NYPOST.com
While the Phillies righted the ship somewhat after their awful road trip, the Mets continue to be a mess.
Howard's glove skills catch up to his offensive power
Let's not go nuts here.
(Vance Worley) became the 1,000th player to play for the Phillies since the post-war 1946 season.
I love the arbitrary cut-off date. Either way, good looking out buddy, love the goggles.
Haren trade to Angels heightens Lilly's value
But it also establishes that an ace pitcher is apparently worth one so-so big league pitcher and a few mediocre prospects.
Cosart Moves Closer To Return For 'Claws
Even if he doesn't pitch again this season, it was still a great year for Jarred Cosart.
On Baseball - Davis Holds On to Major League Dream
Interesting story on local boy Ben Davis and his attempts to reinvent himself as a pitcher.
Kershaw, Jansen Put Up Zeroes, Dodgers Win 1-0 - True Blue LA
Mets wrap up 2-9 road trip, ouch.
Fish Wrap - Marlins 5, Braves 4 - FishStripes
Wes Helms: Legend
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Cards possibly out of the Oswalt sweepstakes? Per this SI link to the St. Louis dispatch…(And scroll down…is it me or does Tom Brady look like Justin Beiber with that stupid haircut?)
http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/2010/morning-jolt/07/26/july.26/index.html?eref=sihp
Peter Gammons on Cliff Lee and the Phils:
Gammons also weighed in on the Phillies trading away Lee. “I think they overreacted to contractual demands,” Gammons said. Gammons thinks that they now regret it: “it was a hasty decision and one privately they admit they’d like to have back.”
I’d love to know who privately admits this was a screw up
I publicly admit that they screwed it up, but, then again, I don’t work in the Phillies front office.
Not sure. But If I had to speculate, his comments come in the context that Oswalt could cost them as much as $30mil over the next two years, so maybe he’s just suggesting that Lee’s demands (assuming they don’t regret just keeping him for this year) weren’t so shocking in this context. But I wish he would have explained this a bit more…
by Boundforbeach on Jul 26, 2010 10:48 AM EDT up reply actions
Only one’s who would do that are the Yankees of course. Which is almost a sure thing at this point.
by philsandthrills on Jul 26, 2010 11:01 AM EDT up reply actions
The Yankees have a budget, it’s higher than anyone elses, but they still have a budget (and reiterated it this weekend)
And if the yankees are the only team interested in signing Lee for anything other than a reasonable contract, then maybe they’ll be smart enough to use their leverage.
by SportingFanaticism on Jul 26, 2010 11:11 AM EDT up reply actions
Or not. They clearly want him, I doubt money will be much of an issue.
by philsandthrills on Jul 26, 2010 12:03 PM EDT up reply actions
The point is that they only have to pay him $1 more than the next highest bid. So if nobody else bids a crazy amount, the Yankees won’t have to bid a crazy amount either.
It was a little bit different with Sabathia, because he wanted to play in California and so the Yankees needed to blow away the next-best offer in order to get him to sign. I am not aware of Lee having such a preference. He just wants the best contract, regardless of where it is.
NY Writer
I was talking with a beat writer yesterday and it is a foregone conclusion in his mind that Cliff Lee will be a Yankee next year for similar money to CC.
He does not believe that will be going after Werth at the projected amount of 12-16 MM/yr and most likely back off of the Carl Crawford interest.
I agree with him on the first part but I don’t see them allowing either Crawford or Werth to go to Boston or another contender.
"Call me dumb, call me stupid, whatever. I block shots."
That’s great you doubt money will be an issue. While it’s higher than most teams due to their income, the yankees do have a budget (and i believe their 2010 payroll is actually lower than their 2009 payroll isn’ it?)
The Yankees have a budget, I doubt they’d break it to over pay cliff lee for too many years.
by SportingFanaticism on Jul 26, 2010 12:23 PM EDT up reply actions
I guess we’ll have to see about that then.
by philsandthrills on Jul 26, 2010 12:26 PM EDT up reply actions
Yankees payroll is 14 mil higher this year than last year.
Looking forward to the Kevin Kolb era.
5-8-10...the day the Purdue Boilermakers basketball team won the 2011 NCAA Championship!!
It seems as though most baseball people seriously underrated Haren.
A lot of stories and reports I’m seeing claim Haren is a number two pitcher and that it was a risk for the Angels to take on his contract. Also, Rosenthal tweeted that the Diamondbacks needed to get what they could for Haren before his value declined any more while Olney reports that this was the best deal out there for the D-backs. Honestly, this only makes me more pissed off that the Phillies didn’t get him while I’m also somehow happy that most of our competitors and the Yankees also didn’t appreciate his value and get him.
by phillies fan in bowie on Jul 26, 2010 11:02 AM EDT reply actions
I’d suspect that Cliff Lee is tired of moving from team to team to team and may be thinking that the difference between good money and stupid money may not be all that it’s cracked up to be.
I’d suspect he’s been hoping all along that each trade would send him to the Yankees so he could finally land where he could be paid a long term deal and could quite worrying about packing and moving over and over, but that’s the bed that he’s made, so now he gets to sleep in it.
Ken Rosenthal of FoxSports.com reports that the Indians are drawing only “mild” interest in Westbrook because of a trade bonus in his contract. The Tribe might be willing to include more in the deal to make up the difference.
by SportingFanaticism on Jul 26, 2010 11:12 AM EDT reply actions
Westbrook
I’ve seen his name thrown around a lot lately… why?
He’s not good.
Because he’s also not all that bad. He’d be an improvement over Kendrick as the #5 starter. If the price is right I wouldn’t be against picking him up as the #5.
I guess, but for me, the right price would be something very close to zero.
The Phillies’ problem right now is that they have three #5 starters. They need to turn one of them into a #2 or #3 starter to make a significant difference in their likely post-season chances. Upgrading Kendrick to Westbrook seems like it would not make enough difference to be worthwhile.
I don’t know what “#5” or any of the other “#”s means exactly. It seems to me to be entirely subjective. But if “#5” means a starting pitcher who’s somewhere between the 121st and 150th best in MLB, then Blanton is significantly better than a #5. I understand that he’s had an off-year so far, but injury, sample size, etc. His numbers for this year are not really very meaningful in the grand scheme of things.
Happ may or may not be better than the 121st best starter in MLB as well.
I think Westbrook is worth considerably more than zero, but considerably less than what we gave up for Blanton two years ago. I don’t see an advantageous trade working out for us but who knows.
Subjective, yes. Basically, what I’m saying is that 3/5s of the Phillies rotation has been mediocre to terrible, and just lost the one who was least mediocre indefinitely. In order to make a trade worthwhile you have to do more than upgrade from “mediocre to terrible” to just plain mediocre, especially when mediocrity isn’t free.
Believe me, I know Blanton isn’t really as bad as his numbers this season; I’m not sure why you even brought him up when I singled out Kendrick as the guy who Westbrook would theoretically replace.
I was assuming that when you said the Phillies have three #5 starters, you didn’t mean Halladay or Hamels. That only left Kendrick, Happ, and Blanton.
Gotcha
OK, but I still think that if you’re going to make a trade, you need to get somebody better than Westbrook, unless he’s practically free (which he isn’t, in prospects or salary).
we still need a fifth starter. I wouldn’t trade Werth for either Westbrook or Carmona and some A or AA prospects. I don’t mind parting with Happ and KK of course but I’m assuming no one’s that dumb to bite on KK.
At this point there isn’t a particularly strong basis for concluding that Westbrook is any better than Happ. Three years ago, sure, but this is 2010.
Throw in the fact that Westbrook has two months left on his contract at $11 mill/year, while Happ is under team control for four more years, and you’ve got a total ripoff of a trade.
Yeah that’d be dumb deal. Just looked – Westbrook’s 32, and a Tommy John causality – no thanks. Though I’d think Happ’s not long for a season end surgery and fear the devil has come to collect for letting him play thru elbow tendonitsis all of 2007. It definitely explains the 4.50 BB/9 in ‘07 along with the 5.02 ERA which I guess the move from AA to AAA could have concealed. Also it may explain why his progress on his off speed is so slow and why they have never looked good to begin with. And Carmona – eh, BaseBa’al has been hearing his prayers this year. Though if we need Happ as a pot sweetner in a Werth deal for a Garza caliber pitcher I’d do it.
Why even bother with Westbrook? Assuming we get to the playoffs, he wont be able to help us there, and its not like hes all that much better than Kendrick, so unless we swap him for KK, I dont see a point.
by philiafan14364 on Jul 26, 2010 12:21 PM EDT up reply actions
I actually enjoyed most of Barley’s time in the booth. Though, it would have been greatly improved if he smashed every monitor, chair, desk and Mic across the forehead of David Wells.
The TBS executive kiss-up/fellatio session was also annoying.
When that storm blew in, I was hoping that the winds would have been strong enough to blow all of those guys out of the booth. David Wells is utterly useless.
That may be giving Wells too much credit, frankly. I’d prefer if TBS fired Wells and replaced him with a box of tissues.
agreed. While there was some playful banter between the two, Wells crossed the line into ‘awkward’ with a couple of his jabs at barkley.
I can understand that Barkley isn’t for everybody, but I think he and Kenny Smith are pretty great at what they do, which is to be entertaining studio analysts. But I can also understand why Barkley would be annoying as an in-game color analyst, in basketball just as much as in baseball.
The networks that carry baseball could all use better studio analysts though. When Eduardo Perez and Harold Reynolds are the industry standards, something has gone seriously wrong.
Personally, I never thought he got enough flak for spitting on that young girl. To me, it’s almost as if his cult of personality and all the wildly popular Nike commercials (i.e., Barkley of Seville) just allowed everyone to give him a free pass. IMO, he’s still a jerk.
by Boundforbeach on Jul 26, 2010 12:14 PM EDT up reply actions
Dan Haren
It’s kinda sad that he got traded to the AL. He was of the rare “pitcher that can actually hit” species. I wonder, if he ever gets back in the NL (or during interleague), if he will still be able to hit.
Velociraptors are really good at:
a) making diving catches
b) stealing bases
c) eating people
d) all of the above --correct!
makes you wonder why the Babe didn’t go to an NL team, as he was a pitcher that could hit. 4 days in the OF one day on the mound..
oh wait….free agency wasn’t for another 50 years or so.
Well, he did some a very brief time in the NL, as a washed up player that too many people think was indicative of his entire career. Those people are ignoramuses.
by WanderingMoses on Jul 26, 2010 12:51 PM EDT up reply actions
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