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Tuesday, July 27, 2010

Phillies management look lost at the plate; Dan Haren signs with another red-and-white team

If you look back at my critique of the Phils' offseason moves, you can see that I've proven to know more than Phillies management when it comes to assembling a baseball team. I'll return to this subject in more detail in a future post, but here's a quick review of my knowing-better:
  • The Phillies should have gone after Adrian Beltre instead of Placido Polanco.
  • The Phillies should have kept Cliff Lee.
  • The Phillies paid Ryan Howard more money than he's worth and more than he'd probably fetch on the open market.
Also, here are some things I would have written had I started this blog only a few months earlier:
  • If the Phillies were going to make an ill-advised trade of Cliff Lee, they should have shopped him around and gotten more for him (You may think the trade was Roy Halladay for Cliff Lee, but it wasn't: The Phillies traded minor leaguers Kyle Drabek, Michael Taylor and Travis d'Arnaud to Toronto for Roy Halladay. They then traded Cliff Lee to the Mariners for some minor league scrubs who you will never see at Citizens Bank Park- Phillippe Aumont, Juan Ramirez and Tyson Gillies.)
  • The Phillies spent too much on, and gave too many years to Raul Ibanez.
  • The Phillies should have matched the Astros' paltry one year offer to Brett Myers.

I'm not saying that the Phillies would win the World Series this year had they followed my advice, but I will say that the team would be in better shape right now and for years to come. Thus, I know more about assembling a good baseball team than Phillies management. The blunders by Phillies brass have had a trickle-down effect this season, and will for seasons to come.

Let's take the Polanco example. Polanco may be falling apart, and they've already invested in him for the next two years. Meanwhile, Beltre is batting .332 with 16 home runs with 63 RBI, and is slugging .547 (Polanco is hitting a respectable .316 but only has 6 jacks). Beltre is 4th in the league in batting average, 6th in hits, 7th in OPS, and has as many homers as A-Rod. And here's a trickle-down effect you won't find on the stat sheet: With Beltre on the Phillies, Shane Victorino would be batting 2nd, where he could go back to his comfort zone of slap hitting and stealing bases. Shane wouldn't be swinging for the fences as he thinks he needs to do now, and he'd probably be hitting closer to his career average of .280.

More trickle down: Raul Ibanez has been a classy and consistent baseball player throughout his career. But he is now 38 years old and you have to wonder how much chaw is left in his cheek. His current hot streak aside, he has been miserable at the plate this season and for the latter half of last season (he hit 12 home runs post-all star break 2009, but his batting average was .232). We're looking at an aging leftfielder who swings a declining left-handed bat in a left-handed lineup, and who plays a slow left field. The Phillies are on the books for 11.5 million next season for Raul, and even if they could find a sucker to take him in a trade, Raul has a full no-trade clause. The Phillies are stuck with Raul this year and next, and he's eating up payroll the Phillies could use on a better quality player (or players!).

More trickle down: Think the Phillies could use Brett Myers' 3.24 ERA in their starting rotation? Might his 6.68 strikeouts per nine innings be worth 3.1 million dollars? The Phillies didn't think so, but former Phillies GM and current Astros GM Ed Wade did. And, in case you don't remember this, Ed Wade is a moron. What does that say about current Philies management? The Phils wouldn't need to look for starting pitching right now if they'd have re-signed Brett Myers. They could focus their resources to other team needs.

But here's the trickiest trickle: After parting with Cliff Lee for nothing, and refusing to spare some chump change for Myers, the Phillies are now desperately searching for starting pitching. They halfheartedly tried to get Cliff Lee back, but his price had gone up (Seattle flipped him to Texas for more than they gave up in the Phils trade) and it's doubtful Phillies brass could have stood the embarrassment of admitting they should have kept Lee when all of Philadelphia had condemned them for letting him go in the first place.

After all this trickling, the Phillies are in a tight spot. Their playoff hopes are slim, and their world series chances are nil. Still, they seem to want to salvage this season (and be competitive in next season) by acquiring a starting pitcher that they wouldn't need if they listened to me (and all of Philadelphia).

To fill their pitching need, the Phillies braintrust zeroed in on two targets, one good (Dan Haren) and one that will only cause more trickling sadness (Roy Oswalt).

The good one got dealt today to a team in red and white, but it wasn't the Phillies.

No, The California Angels in Anaheim picked up Dan for a big bucket of nothing. According to Christopher Harris of ESPN, the prospects the Angels gave up for Haren "are not expected to be elite players," and the only major leaguer they included in the deal is "a lucky win artist." Keith Law calls said major league player "a mediocre, back-end starter"and the minor league prospects "three bodies." Are you telling me the Phillies couldn't have tried harder to get one of the top major league pitchers, a top-of-the-rotation-talent, a player who has 3 1/2 years left on his contract at a reasonable price (he'll make less than Ibanez this year, and slightly more thereafter), who is only 29 years old, who would have made the Phillies rotation dominant... and they didn't? What the hell, Phillies??? YOU SHOULD HAVE NABBED DAN HAREN, YOU IDIOTS!

**** Note, just after I wrote this, Dan Haren was smote by a line drive while pitching for the Angels and had to leave the game after pitching 4 2/3 innings and striking out 8(!) batters. That ball was my divine wrath, but I must say I wish it hit one of the bumbling fools who make decisions for the Philiies, instead.****

The Phillies will, sadly, focus their efforts on trading for Roy Oswalt. Oswalt is a good pitcher, don't get me wrong. But he isn't the answer for the Phillies, especially not like Haren could have been. Oswalt's ERA and strikeout rate are very good, but they are trending down from the elite level they peaked at from 2001-2006. He is not currently Dan Haren level, but Roy Oswalt is a good pitcher. The thing is, he isn't a good fit for the Phillies. Why? I present the trickling of Roy Oswalt, which will settle upon the Philadelphia Phillies if they trade for him-
  • Roy Oswalt does not want to play in Philadelphia. He is an confirmed country boy and wants to live near his home in Weir, Mississippi. Oswalt has admitted that he'd rather be on one of his ranches than traveling from town to town with his current baseball team, which makes me question his dedication to baseball. If Oswalt is traded to Philadelphia, he'd be even farther from his coveted country real estate, and you have to wonder if living in a big city is going to affect Oswalt's already compromised focus. Unfocused pitchers ruin games.
  • Roy has played on a lousy Astros team for too long, and he is habituated to losing. Losing attitudes are contagious.
  • Roy demands that the Phillies pick up his 2012 option for $16 million. This, along with his $16 million pricetag for 2011 will further hamstring the Phillies payroll and make the team less competitive.
  • Roy has had recent health problems, most notably a bad disc in his back for which he has already received 3 cortisone injections. Investing $16 million a year in a pitcher with a time bomb in his back is bad business
  • The Bleacher Report has a nice article about why the Phillies are better off keeping JA Happ and not trading for Oswalt; The Phillies have much more payroll flexibility if they keep JA Happ.

Dear Phillies, heed my call. Do not go after Oswalt. And appoint me GM before it's too late. Sheesh. How could you blow landing Dan Haren?!

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