OT: Philadelphia Phillies (MLB): Offseason edition

[DrinkFightFlyers]

Lee and Halladay had some pretty notable durability and longevity. I think the only time Halladay ever missed was an emergency appendectomy and a fractured leg from taking a line drive off of it.

It sucks, because later in their careers, they both fell off a cliff and just couldn't pitch anymore. I think Halladay seriously went from a Cy Young winner to a #6 starter in a year.

They were both definitely worth getting. Roy was my favorite player not on the Phillies when he was on the Jays, so getting him was probably my favorite move the Phillies ever made.

Oh yeah. Lee and Halladay are two of my all time favorites. Would never look back on those deals. My thinking is the poster to whom I was referring is saying that Lee and Halladay got injured and DIDN'T have an injury history so we shouldn't risk a guy that DOES have an injury history. Which I understand, but I would take the risk, at least at this point in time. If he has a ****** season or blows out his elbow again and needs to miss a year for another TJ surgery...now we are talking about something else. But if he throws 200 innings of lights out baseball, I'll roll the dice and hope he doesn't get injured again.

 

[sobrien]

Speaking of Lee

@Ken_Rosenthal
Sounds like Cliff Lee’s career is over. His agent, Darek Braunecker, told me, “We don’t anticipate him playing at this point.”


edit: can't figure out embedding tweets.

 

[DrinkFightFlyers]

Speaking of Lee

@Ken_Rosenthal
Sounds like Cliff Lee’s career is over. His agent, Darek Braunecker, told me, “We don’t anticipate him playing at this point.â€


edit: can't figure out embedding tweets.

Bummer. One of my all time faves. Big part of the reason:

 

[CHIP72]

Oh yeah. Lee and Halladay are two of my all time favorites. Would never look back on those deals. My thinking is the poster to whom I was referring is saying that Lee and Halladay got injured and DIDN'T have an injury history so we shouldn't risk a guy that DOES have an injury history. Which I understand, but I would take the risk, at least at this point in time. If he has a ****** season or blows out his elbow again and needs to miss a year for another TJ surgery...now we are talking about something else. But if he throws 200 innings of lights out baseball, I'll roll the dice and hope he doesn't get injured again.

You got it.

Here's the thing - when you pay a guy big bucks to play for your team, you want to minimize the likelihood that player becomes a wasted asset, or more accurately a non-asset. An injured player is a non-asset; he's not helping you in any way. A frequently injured player is a feast or famine player; it's obviously good when he's healthy and playing well but you can't rely on him because he's often injured and you don't know when he'll get injured. Now Stephen Strasburg may be able to pitch injury-free for the next 5 years, but based on his injury history it is relatively likely he'll get injured at some point. I'd personally rather have a guy who is a slightly above average pitcher who is very durable - a known quantity - than a guy like Strasburg who can help you more 75% of the time but helps you a lot less the other 25% of the time because you need to replace him with (likely) a below average pitcher. There's no guarantee the durable, less impressive pitcher stays healthy either, but the odds are higher he will and you can plan your roster with a lot more confidence.

I admittedly increasingly look at players in sports in business commodity terms. The really tough thing for businesses isn't high prices, even though they aren't good. The tough thing is actually highly variable or fluctuating prices, because you can't make projections about how much things will cost and you either leave profit on the table or expose yourself to greater financial risk. Injured players are sort of like highly variable prices; you can't accurately predict how much that player will help you in a given year, or over the course of multiple years (i.e. multi-year contract).

 

[DrinkFightFlyers]

You got it.

Here's the thing - when you pay a guy big bucks to play for your team, you want to minimize the likelihood that player becomes a wasted asset, or more accurately a non-asset. An injured player is a non-asset; he's not helping you in any way. A frequently injured player is a feast or famine player; it's obviously good when he's healthy and playing well but you can't rely on him because he's often injured and you don't know when he'll get injured. Now Stephen Strasburg may be able to pitch injury-free for the next 5 years, but based on his injury history it is relatively likely he'll get injured at some point. I'd personally rather have a guy who is a slightly above average pitcher who is very durable - a known quantity - than a guy like Strasburg who can help you more 75% of the time but helps you a lot less the other 25% of the time because you need to replace him with (likely) a below average pitcher. There's no guarantee the durable, less impressive pitcher stays healthy either, but the odds are higher he will and you can plan your roster with a lot more confidence.

I admittedly increasingly look at players in sports in business commodity terms. The really tough thing for businesses isn't high prices, even though they aren't good. The tough thing is actually highly variable or fluctuating prices, because you can't make projections about how much things will cost and you either leave profit on the table or expose yourself to greater financial risk. Injured players are sort of like highly variable prices; you can't accurately predict how much that player will help you in a given year, or over the course of multiple years (i.e. multi-year contract).

I understand this line of thinking and it certainly would play a role in pursuing him or any other player, but again I think the risk with Strasburg is worth it. We aren't talking about giving big bucks to the middle of the rotation guy who may miss a lot of time, we are talking about giving it to a top of the rotation guy. Definitely would suck if he got injured, but the negative is far outweighed by the positive. His injury (whether it is every year he misses time or a career ending injury or some intermittent stuff), will potentially impact the Phillies ability to sign players and could cause them to make a trade mid-season depending on the circumstances.

Those are the only downsides and are not necessarily guaranteed even if he does get hurt for an extended period, and both of those downsides could turn in to upsides depending on how things shakeout (i.e., if they make a trade that helps get them a WS title to fill Strasburg's place, or if they decide not to go after a big time FA who turns out would not have been a good fit). The upside is we get a Cy Young caliber pitcher. There's obvious some in between in there, but the reward outweighs the risk by a lot. There's no salary in baseball and the Phillies have a lot of money coming off the books in the coming years and should have some affordable young players in the majors at that time as well, giving them the ability to take this type of risk.

Plus, don't you want to stick it to Washington?

 

[deadhead]

There's a soft cap in baseball, even the Yankees have reined in their spending due to penalties.
I'm not sold on Strasberg, not sure he's reliable.
I'd point out the 2012 Phillies had four aces and went nowhere.
#1 starters are grossly overrated.

You want to win a WS?
Build a solid team and a deep bullpen, then put together a stable of solid young pitchers and hope a couple get hot each season.

 

[FLYguy3911]

Yeah those 4 aces only set the franchise record for wins in a season and were the best team in baseball. There's a reason Price and Greinke got the contracts they did.

 

[Hiesenberg]

If Darvish comes back in Tex, they'll have an insane rotation too.

 

[Hurricane28]

There's a soft cap in baseball, even the Yankees have reined in their spending due to penalties.
I'm not sold on Strasberg, not sure he's reliable.
I'd point out the 2012 Phillies had four aces and went nowhere.
#1 starters are grossly overrated.

You want to win a WS?
Build a solid team and a deep bullpen, then put together a stable of solid young pitchers and hope a couple get hot each season.

You need an ace, just look at how Bumgarner carried the Giants in 2014

 

[Hiesenberg]

Yea, an ace is a different animal in the playoffs, with days off and short rotation they can pitch more often, best of 7 series, if you lead off with your ace, you might be able to get 3 starts out of him. That's huge.

 

[zarley zelepukin]

There's a soft cap in baseball, even the Yankees have reined in their spending due to penalties.
I'm not sold on Strasberg, not sure he's reliable.
I'd point out the 2012 Phillies had four aces and went nowhere.
#1 starters are grossly overrated.

You want to win a WS?
Build a solid team and a deep bullpen, then put together a stable of solid young pitchers and hope a couple get hot each season.

The MLB playoffs are probably the biggest crapshoot among the 4 major sports. There's more than one way to build a WS winner because all you really need to have a shot is to get into the playoffs.

 

[CHIP72]

Plus, don't you want to stick it to Washington?

I always want to stick it to the Natinals. (I do live in the DC area after all, and in fact work less than 3 blocks from Nationals Park.) I can't wait for the day when the Phillies again sell out Nationals Park and fill it with 80-85% Phillies fans, like they did for a Saturday night game in August 2011.

I will note the Phillies were able to stick it to the Natinals when they were able to trade Jonathan Papelcrap to DC. I'm getting my popcorn ready to see what kind of antics Papelcrap pulls this year after doing his best pro wrestling move and choking Bryce Harper late last season.

 

[DrinkFightFlyers]

There's a soft cap in baseball, even the Yankees have reined in their spending due to penalties.
I'm not sold on Strasberg, not sure he's reliable.
I'd point out the 2012 Phillies had four aces and went nowhere.
#1 starters are grossly overrated.

You want to win a WS?
Build a solid team and a deep bullpen, then put together a stable of solid young pitchers and hope a couple get hot each season.

It's not really a salary cap, its a luxury tax. You can over it as much as you want, you just have to pay the "competitive balance" penalties or whatever they call it. I don't know how much it really impacts team spending because insane contracts are given out every offseason and there's four teams that are over the limit as it stands this season (LAD, NYY, Boston, DET). Did the Giants , Angels, and the Cubs (who are closest) refrain from big signings because of the tax? I don't think so, pretty sure they were all involved in discussions with some big name players and signed a couple as well. I don't think they stopped because they were too close to the tax. Bringing in Stras, even at a huge contract is not going hurt the Phillies ability to spend. They are $100 million under that threshold as it stands right now with big bucks coming off the books after next season and a team of young, cost-controlled players, and I'm pretty sure that threshold goes up every year or so. Translation: taking a risk on Strasburg makes sense if he wants to sign here. ****, they could sign Harper and Strasburg and not be close to the tax (AND the Phillies can afford to pay the tax and I believe they would if it meant fielding a championship caliber team).

 

[Hiesenberg]

I think they only have like 30MM committed next year and the luxury cap is probably around 220

 

[zarley zelepukin]

It's not really a salary cap, its a luxury tax. You can over it as much as you want, you just have to pay the "competitive balance" penalties or whatever they call it. I don't know how much it really impacts team spending because insane contracts are given out every offseason and there's four teams that are over the limit as it stands this season (LAD, NYY, Boston, DET). Did the Giants , Angels, and the Cubs (who are closest) refrain from big signings because of the tax? I don't think so, pretty sure they were all involved in discussions with some big name players and signed a couple as well. I don't think they stopped because they were too close to the tax. Bringing in Stras, even at a huge contract is not going hurt the Phillies ability to spend. They are $100 million under that threshold as it stands right now with big bucks coming off the books after next season and a team of young, cost-controlled players, and I'm pretty sure that threshold goes up every year or so. Translation: taking a risk on Strasburg makes sense if he wants to sign here. ****, they could sign Harper and Strasburg and not be close to the tax (AND the Phillies can afford to pay the tax and I believe they would if it meant fielding a championship caliber team).

Arte Moreno basically said that the luxury tax was a deterrent to signing players this offseason, but they would exceed it in the right situation. The Giants and Cubs spent big money this offseason already, so they might not have wanted to spend more whether the tax was there or not.

So, I think the tax is a deterrent but most teams who get close to it would probably go over in certain situations. I'm guessing that will include the Phillies when their payroll goes back up in the future.

 

[JDinkalage Morgoone]

Dom Brown to the Blue Jays.

 

[Hollywood Cannon]

Victorino signs a minor league deal with the Cubs.

That poor, poor 2008 team.

 

[DrinkFightFlyers]

Dom Brown to the Blue Jays.

Watch him hit .325 and go 30-30.

 

[Hiesenberg]

Watch him hit .325 and go 30-30.

I was thinking that. lol

 

[DrinkFightFlyers]

I was thinking that. lol

I seriously would not be surprised if that happened. He's on my list of most hated former Phillies. Not only did he just suck, he acted like he didn't and made such dumb comments about how god he was. Ugh.

 

[JDinkalage Morgoone]

I don't care if he's good in Toronto. He was never gonna be good here. With his seemingly blase attitude I doubt he'll be any good.

 

[Hollywood Cannon]

If only they traded Brown to the Blue Jays way back when instead of refusing to trade him.

 

[FLYguy3911]

If you can't hit in Toronto that might be a wrap.

 

[Hurricane28]

If only they traded Brown to the Blue Jays way back when instead of refusing to trade him.

Its actually pretty interesting, I don't think anyone in that trade turned out to be any good

 

[Hiesenberg]

Its actually pretty interesting, I don't think anyone in that trade turned out to be any good

D'arnaud is the starting catcher for the Mets, isn't he? I mean he's not in TO anymore, they stupidly traded him for a gimmicky pitcher.