A look at the latest blog post from ESPN's Buster Olney…
- Olney believes the Phillies could have and should have kept Cliff Lee. He points out that they could've traded Joe Blanton and taken draft picks for Lee after the season, resulting in a similar prospect package to the one they received from the Mariners. It's not the exact same, partly since Blanton could yet net draft picks for the Phils, but I agree with Olney's point. The Phillies' decision to move Lee in tandem with the Roy Halladay trade just seems weird.
- Consequences of the Angels' Joel Pineiro deal: the Mets could sign Jon Garland or Ben Sheets, and the Dodgers could bring Vicente Padilla back. Newsday's Ken Davidoff gets the sense the Mets "have prioritized Sheets over Garland."
- Olney says the Orioles "are very comfortable letting the field of free-agent corner guys come to them, at their price." On a related note, O's second baseman Brian Roberts said to MASN's Roch Kubatko that he'd love to have Miguel Tejada back in Baltimore.
The Mets need to do something. Does anyone want to play for them…
Sheets IMO will sign with the Rangers
Not a huge Olney fan, but I agree with him here. The Phillies could have had an amazing rotation if they kept Lee and traded away Blanton (even if they had to eat a bit of Blanton’s contract, and came out a couple mil behind). They still have a good rotation, but it would have been top notch.
As for the Mets, they *should* sign both Garland and Sheets. It would cost ~$15MM guaranteed (maybe a bit less), which is exactly what I expect the team to spend over the rest of the offseason. Gives depth to the rotation, and if Sheets get injured, the rotation isn’t completely ripped apart. It would leave the team lacking on offense until Beltran comes back, but if Sheets remains healthy until then, they can survive.
i could not agree more i was not thinking like that but lets be honest Sheets is going to the Texas Rangers. but i do like your thinking.
I feel as if, in general, there’s been more GM muscle-flexing than there has been GM sense-making this offseason. Trade away Cliff Lee while trading for Roy Halladay? Essentially trade a career-year Javier Vazquez for a 59-year old Billy Wagner? Whatever, man.
If the phils would have kept Lee they would have had the best 1-2 punch in baseball…..hands down
Must we go over this again. The Phillies tried to dump Blanton but nobody would give them prospects in return for Blanton. The Phillies did not want to put all their chips in for 1 season when they already have a W.S.
Yes Lee and Halladay would have been great but there is no gurantee that would have guranteed a W.S. How many W.S did the Braves did of the 90’s win with Maddux, Smoltz and Glavine? The best 1-2 in baseball Carp/Wain did not even win a playoff game.
If the Phillies kept Lee and came up short, they would get to top draft picks in June of 2011. That means those prospects would not even crack the majors at least until 2013 at the earliest. Problem is the Phillies need players to fill in roles for Werth, Ibanez etc..after 2010.
So is it worth putting all you eggs in one basket and having a questionable future? No.
As a Phillies fan I would much rather have a legitimate shot at winning the W.S the next 3-4 years than a almost certain shot at winning for 1 year.
At this point the Mets just need to blow Sheets out of the water with an offer, which I’m fine with as long as it’s a 1 year deal. I don’t see any repercussions to doing this unless you think Jon Garland is the missing piece to a World Championship, or there is some huge trade that you think Omar is close to pulling off that he wouldn’t have the money to pull off if they signed Sheets. If he doesn’t work out, he’s off the payroll next year and they’ll have plenty of money to sign a 2010 free agent starter, a class of starters that right now looks a lot better than the 2009 class.
But it sure does look like he’s going to the Rangers at this point, even though I think it makes no sense. If you’re the Rangers, I don’t get why you’d want your 1-2 punch to be two incredibly brittle pitchers. And if you’re Sheets, a career NL pitcher coming off a major injury, I don’t know why you would want to build up your value by moving to the AL and playing in a tiny ball park that is not at all suited to your strengths.
Cliff Lee would have been/will be a free agent after 2010. The Phillies wouldn’t be able to get anything for him at the end of the year. And nobody was going after a #3/4 starter in Blanton – especially not for the kind of prospects the Phillies needed to replenish.
they did what they had to do – now they have an ace locked up for a few years and don’t have to worry about signing Cliff Lee to a longer contract.
they really couldnt no one would take blanton and whoever made an offer didnt give them anything decent, i like blanton he’s consistent and stuff but the Phillies tried that and it didnt work and if they did do that they wouldnt be able to maintain the core of our team…….Rollins, Howard Werth and so on
Maybe it is time to reevaluate GM Amaro. He was blasted last year for the Ibanez signing (too much $, too soon in the offseason). The highly praised Burrell signing by Tampa did not work out so well. He was blasted again this off season for the Polanco deal and the C Lee transaction.
The Phillies have been to the World Series twice in a row. Maybe Amaro has been lucky but also maybe he has a good staff behind him and maybe their criteria (including the undefinable “clubhouse presence”) is an accurate guideline.
Maybe the Halladay/C Lee issue really was an either/or but not both. Maybe there was a fixed dollar amount that couldn’t be exceeded or maybe the management didn’t want to deal with free agent Lee next year. My point is we probably can’t know all the inner workings of the Phillie front office but they sure have been successful lately and give the appearance they know what they are doing. Until there is clear failure on their part I would tone down the criticism.
Who says the Phillies didn’t try to shop Blanton? If they did, obviously he couldn’t net them the high-upside prospects Lee could. When all the arb cases are settled, the Phillies will be very close to their $140M payroll Opening Day ceiling. The objective here was to get Halladay locked up for five years (effectively) at a below-market rate. Mission accomplished. The Halladay-Lee tandem dream is attractive, sure, but it’s Fantasy League stuff.
No it’s not…the Lee trade was a horrible, horrible move. Here’s a team going all in for 2010 suddenly deciding they should ditch an ace so they’ll have a few decent prospects for the future. WHAT??? Hell, they could’ve non-tendered Blanton or traded him for junk just to keep Lee. Olney would know better than us: they could’ve gotten a decent prospect for Blanton. He asked officials from other teams about this. Did you?
I hate the argument that Lee had to have been traded in order for the Phils to make their other moves. Even if true – don’t make the other moves then (Polanco, Baez).
I agree with Joe. The Phillies are not going “all in” for 2010, they’re looking to sustain a winning franchise. And the moves that played out are the best way for that to happen. The Phillies have a core group of guys that are signed into 2011 and beyond – after there time is up – they need to have prospects in place to sustain a winning team.
Your argument is “Olney would know better than us” ? Let me ask you this would you have traded prospects for Blanton. It wasn’t a payroll decision – Amaro didn’t want to leave the farm dry.
You were leaving the farm dry, they were going to get players for Blanton plus the picks for Lee at the end of the year.
what kind of “players” could they have gotten for Blanton? Certainly not the types to replace Drabek and Taylor…
And how would they have gotten picks for Lee at the end of the year? He’s a free agent at the end of 2010.
That’s the point Olney was making. If they offered Lee arbitration and he signed elsewhere, they would get a 1st round pick and supplemental pick as compensation. This would help replenish their system, as would whatever they got for Blanton. Edit- This is assuming he’s a Type A FA of course.
1st round picks that wouldn’t even be ready (if ever) for the majors until at least 2013, probably 2014.
That leave a few ‘what ifs’ for the future – and this way the Phillies got at least a couple of proven guys that look to be on track for the near future.
I realize that, but they could get a young player with more upside than what they got from the Mariners. The point is not that their farm system would be better with the draft picks than it is now, but that they could have possibly had Lee and Halladay in the same rotation and not take as big of a hit to the farm as most people think.
The problem is that the Phillies didn’t get players like Drabek or Taylor from the M’s. Their haul was extremely underwhelming.
Blanton being moved would net you very little outside of salary relief. That salary relief is basically Lee’s 2010 salary. You could have easily made the numbers work out.
If the Phillies aren’t in it then you flip Lee for prospects at the trade deadline. If the Phillies keep Lee they are assured at least of a supplemental round pick with a high probability for a late first rounder or early second rounder.
why does everyone think that trades for each team happen in a vacuum? The reason they had to trade Cliff Lee is because the MARINERS DON’T DO THE TRADE UNLESS THEY GET CLIFF LEE. If the Mariners don’t do the trade, then it doesn’t happen…end of story.
Why am I the only person who realizes this?
The Phillies could have traded their prospects for Halladay and that would have been it. Everybody called it a three team deal, but it really wasn’t exactly a three team deal. There were two totally separate trades going on.
If the Mariners didn’t get Cliff Lee then the Phillies wouldn’t have gotten the Mariners prospects – but the Phils/Jays trade still could’ve gotten done.
But I see what you’re saying – the Mariners didn’t want Blanton, they wanted Lee.
But, they could have traded Blanton to another team, it didn’t have to be the M’s only
Philles and Mariners trade were a separate trade.
At this point the Mets just need to blow Sheets out of the water with an offer, which I’m fine with as long as it’s a 1 year deal. I don’t see any repercussions to doing this unless you think Jon Garland is the missing piece to a World Championship, or there is some huge trade that you think Omar is close to pulling off that he wouldn’t have the money to pull off if they signed Sheets.
————————-
Completely agree. Signing Sheets, even if you have to overpay, is as much of a risk — perhaps even less — than trusting the rest of the rotation to question marks like Pelfrey, Maine, Perez (geez). I’d actually like to see Sheets and a trade but wouldn’t have a problem with signing both Sheets and Garland. Unlike the Santana and Bay signings, this is going to be competitive and the Mets have usually been a non-factor in these situations. But with four big question marks behind arguably the best pitcher in baseball, it’s time to man up.
B-Rob wants Miggy to return to Baltimore, eh? I guess he (B-Rob) is outta B-12.
Go O’s!
Wish Tim, Olney and the rest understood the Phillies’ situation better. The logic behind the Lee deal is pretty clear, and compelling. The Phillies are not (and have never stated that they were) all in on 2010. They’re going to chase rings in 2010, 2011, 2012, and however long they can afford to sustain their core players. That’s the rub of course, as anyone can see that the Phillies payroll situation is soon going to be untenable, given all the raises they’re going to be giving out in 2011. That’s why RAJ and the Phillies brass want and need cheap, legit talent in the minor league pipeline, because they’re going to have to make tough decisions on replacing certain players (one of the OFs for sure) to keep their payroll manageable, and they need decent milb players to come up and take their place. After rolling the dice on Holliday, the Phils had one guy – Dom Brown – that *could* realistically be counted on to take a roster spot in a year or two. Everyone else that looks promising is low minors, so who knows if they can continue to progress as they move through the system. And who knows if Brown will even work out at the MLB level? In order to give the Phils a more reliable pool of close to ready milb talent, the Phils traded the only guy that satisfied 2 conditions: a) they could spare him, and b) they could get multiple, worthwhile picks for him. Phils got 3 players who will begin the year in AA, which puts them on course to be MLB ready at exactly the point when the Phils will need them to step in. One of them is a former number 1 pick himself. The idea that this is meaninglessly different from getting 2 picks for Lee at the end of the 2010 season – two picks who wouldn’t be drafted until 2011, and wouldn’t realistically be ready to start in the majors until at best 2013 – is crazy. Olney and others haven’t thought it through.
i say we trade for B WEBB
but i bet we cant and i do know he might be a concern after not playing. but ben sheets didnt play at all in 09 either
Look for the Yankees gunning for Cliff Lee after the 2010 season. If the Mariners didn’t sign Cliff Lee long term, Brian Cashman will aggressively go after him.