Chad Durbin's time in Philadelphia may have come to a close, based on comments made by Ruben Amaro Jr. to MLB.com's Todd Zolecki. "I would say that we're probably not going to re-sign [Durbin]," Amaro said, and he also noted the club may be done with its winter shopping altogether.
Durbin and the Phillies exchanged offers a few weeks ago, but Durbin is looking for both a raise and a two-year contract. Philadelphia already passed on offering Durbin arbitration back in November since they didn't want to risk paying him much more than the $2.125MM he earned last season, so it's probably no surprise the two sides are at an impasse. As Zolecki notes, the Phillies' crowded rotation means that Kyle Kendrick could take over Durbin's right-handed relief spot.
In three years with Philadelphia, Durbin has a 3.62 ERA, a 7.5 K/9 rate, and a team-leading 194 games pitched. We heard earlier this winter that Durbin had drawn some interest from teams looking at him as a starter, though Durbin's last start came in 2007.
Amaro said the Phillies aren't looking for middle relief or a right-handed hitter at this point, and don't have any outstanding offers to free agents. The GM said the team may re-examine their needs during Spring Training, but for now, Philadelphia looks to have finished its offseason moves.
"Right now, like I've said before, I think we're pretty comfortable with where we are coming into spring," Amaro said. "We have some decisions to make. But I think that we're — I never like to say we're pretty well set — but I think we kind of have to go with what we've got and start to make assessments as to what we may need as we go through the spring."
They said that about Cliff Lee too… although this situation may be a little different
Possibly the worse thing they could of done this offseason. I understand we got Cliff Lee and I love the signing I mean who wouldn’t but don’t tell me that we will not use the bullpen. Durbin was a terrific bullpen pitcher and people bashed him to much. He was one of the most reliable relievers we had and could eat inning after inning. If the Phillies don’t sign Durbin they will regret it.
I think you’re being a tab bit pessimistic…..
Durbin is solid, but the Phillies don’t ‘need’ him. The best rotation in baseball and one of the better offenses in the game……Durbin or no Durbin, it doesn’t matter all that much. This is a bullpen arm we’re talking about here, and not a set-up man or a closer.
You don’t really need him with Kyle Kendrick and Vance Worley in your system.
Who is ur back up if they don’t work out?
Justin Defratus, Michael Schwimmer, etc. Maybe even a Scott Mathieson? Chad Durbin is probably the most replaceable guy in the BP. Not to say he didn’t do a good job… arguably he was one of our most consistent guys… I’m just saying for over 2 million dollars why pay for what you could probably produce at the league minimum.
Nice post. At some point you have to bring up young arms to fill out the staff. You can’t keep paying big dollars to guys with little impact to the overall team. The Phillies need to find talent in the minors and this is the best year to do so. Payroll is going to sky rocket over the next few years and we need minimum salary guys to contribute.
It might not be the case that the Phillies feel like they should move on from Durbin and his demands. They are likely tapped out in payroll for the winter. They’re taking a huge gamble with their pen next season, especially with all the question marks already in their pen.
I just feel like the Phillies need a reliable arm in the pen. Best rotation or not you will go to the pen. God forbid Madson, Lidge (depending on success), or Contreras go down with injuries who do we turn to. I’m assuming like every other Phillies fan knowing the bullpen and how easily it fell apart from 08 form to 09 form we don’t want to bring inexperienced guys like Zagurski into a average bullpen.
If Madson, Lidge or Contreras go down, it’s no problem. We have livelier arms in the waiting. If all three go down, Durbin wouldn’t have been a savior anyway.
False. Durbin could not be more replaceable (WAR of 0.3 last year). Look, I like the guy, but let’s not freak out here. BB/9 was 3.54 in 2010. BABIP was .296. Trust me, the Phillies will find someone to replicate or improve upon those numbers.
Probably correct I just hope the young arms can fill out for the Phillies. I’m not a fan who likes to rely to much on young arm but who knows I hope they will be able to make an impact like Chad Durbins past success.
Again, just trade the entire pen for a right-handed platoon partner. That way Brown can be eased into his role and Ibanez can be, well…..not as relevant?
Raul hit over .300 after the AS break, he’ll be a fine number 7 hitter
He also hit .243 with a .724 OPS in the first half…..
But I was mainly referring to his abysmal defense and the toll a full-season of playing the outfield is going to take on his offensive numbers. He posted a .721 OPS against lefties last year, so platooning him shields him from lefties as well as reduces injury risk. Oh, and his away OPS was .721, although I’m just posting that for little reason.
While recovering fom off-season abdominal surgery that slowed his off-season training regimen.
Maybe they will just sell Kyle Kendrick to Japan for real this time.
Nah, he’s their 5th starter as soon as they move Blanton. Amaro said he won’t trade Blanton, which means he’s as good as gone. I’m seeing some AWFUL trade proposals featuring Blanton from Phillies fans, one guy said that the Phillies should hold onto him if teams won’t budge from including ‘at least two A prospects’, as well as taking on all of his salary because, and I quote, ‘He’s the best 5th starter in baseball.’
If they were going to trade him to Japan, they wouldn’t have just given him $2.4 million for 2011.
It was clearly a joke.
And I clearly got the joke, just wanted to share the trade proposals I’ve heard recently and found a good excuse to do so.
Oh geez, some fans came up with unrealistic trade proposals on some online forums? Glad you got it off your chest.
Seems like little news value but I think its incredibly important the Phillies get some low-cost controllable players up the majors (instead of older expensive avg RP) given how expensive their cost structure is going forward. Someone on the roster has got to produce below premium expense or they’ll run themselves out of the playoffs after a few years.
Which coincidentally will be around the same time when the Braves will boast a rotation of:
Hanson
Teheran
Delgado
Vizcaino
Minor
And to compliment them, they’ll have Jason Heyward, Freddie Freeman, Edward Salcedo, Martin Prado, Dan Uggla, Craig Kimbrel, Jonny Venters, Kris Medlen, Brandon Beachy, and quite possibly Greg Norton.
It’s gonna be fun being a Braves fan from this point forward.
Does it bother anyone that in 2013, which I hear a lot of Braves’ fans mentioning, the Phillies will still have Roy Halladay and Cliff Lee, most likely, Cole Hamels, and young arms including Vance Worley, Jarred Cosart, Brody Colvin and Trevor May, among others? Matched with a mammoth payroll and an expiring TV contract in 2015, and the Phillies aren’t going anywhere for a long time, my friend.
That payroll is mammoth probably because the Phillies do not anticipate spending any good amount for the next few years to come. The Phillies have bloated themselves with huge contracts and have limited themselves from making any big additions to their roster should a prospect of theirs turns to be a bust. I wouldn’t anticipate them raising their payroll anymore than they already have and enter Yankee territory, either. Not even the Red Sox will match them within the next decade.
The Phillies have gutted their system (every system has its B-prospects with high upside, don’t get too excited about what’s in their farm) and future funds to win now and for the next 2-3 more years. We’re more likely to see the Nats or Marlins at the top of the NL East in 4 or 5 years.
Singleton, Cosart, Colvin, Brown, and May are hardly b prospects my friend. And yes, there is plenty to get excited aboutnif you are a Phillies fan.
Just checked for a refresher:
minorleagueball.com/2011/1/2/1908325/philadelphia-…
That’s just one list, but after Brown, you guys don’t have to be too optimist about the next few years. Just your run of the mill prospects that even the Mets or Yankees can look forward to.
You seriously can’t expect any team to trade for Lee, Halladay, and Oswalt in back-to-back-to-back years and still have an intact farm. Not even the Royals could manage that (other than the fact that they don’t have the payroll).
Phils still have a top 10 farm system…Keith law rated no. 5. They are loaded with young arms and upside bats in A ball, which they will be up in 3 to 4 years, if not earlier….They only prospects of value the Phils traded are Drabek and maybe D’arnaud or Taylor. The rest are B prospects.
So, yeah, I expect them to still have a good farm. They don’t have anyone within a year to arrival besides Brown, but they have a ton of 19 and 20 year olds that are projected to be major leaguers.
Yeah, their farm isn’t as bad as many think. But it’s not exactly a real deep one, most of it’s value is coming from the lower levels.
It all really depends where you look toc heckout prospects. Scouting the Sally has catcher Sebastian Valle as their top prospect ever viewed above Singleton who has been very highly regarded. John Sickel projects our 2b C. Hernandez to be decent. Most of our top prospects are either Of’s which we will need soon or RHP’s. We have needed a 3b for a while now and J-Roll will be looking for an extension. Chase Utley isn’t getting any younger. The Brett Wallace trade shows we can trade from a position of strength there and as always our farm system should be used to address needs as it has done in the past. We have traded for three aces and a Blanton since 2008. Show me another team with a trade track record near ours and let me see their farm system. I think the Brewers may have one of the worst farm systems after Greinke and Marcum arrived and Sabathia left. We also had the teams pay 17 million of Halladay’s and Oswalt’s salary when they arrived via trade. Rather remarkable in my opinion.
No it’s mammoth because the Phillies generate the revenue to support it and as long as they are winning that’s going to continue, also, they play in one of the top 5 markets in baseball.
Yes, they do generate large-scale revenue, but they won’t see the kind that will allow them to sustain a $175-185 million payroll, which is awfully close to the Yankee payrolls (and Phillies revenue will never even come close to matching Yankee revenue during our lifetime).
The Red Sox, Cubs, Dodgers and Mets have all had higher revenues than the Phillies the past few years but have had smaller payrolls. The Phillies jump-started their payroll in 2011, but at the cost of making any major acquisitions in the few years to come.
I don’t understand the misconception about the Phillies payroll. Reading the comments here, one could easily get the impression that the entire team is under contract until 2020 or someting. In fact only four players are signed past 2012 (Halladay, Howard, Utley, Lee), and two (Utley, Halladay) are in their final year during 2013.
As of right now the Phillies payroll obligations drop by almost $50M next year, and another $40M in 2013, before dipping below $50M in total after that.
I’m not a huge fan of each and every move Amaro has made, but the policy of not going more than three years on any pitcher (not named Cliff Lee) has managed to keep them out of long term payroll pain.
You’re right, their 3-year policy is a sound one, but look at their payroll this way. Say a big name team typically has $150 million to spend per year (around what the Phillies, Red Sox, Mets are typically at) over the period of 3 years. So for those three years, they have a total of $450 million to spend.
Instead of spending those $450 million evenly throughout each year (at $150 million), however, they chose to spend $175 million during their first year and have less to spend the next two years.
This perspective makes it much easier to understand how the Phillies payroll will be not as “mammoth” and payroll flexible as people think, even though they spent so much this year.
I have to hand it to them; the Phillies have put themselves in a real position to be a WS caliber team for the next 2-3 years, but after that, they’ve put themselves in a real bind. Their farm talent is only spread throughout A-ball and if Halladay, Utley, Rollins, and Hamels are gone after all that, they’ll be in a desperate situation to fill those holes while paying bloated contracts for an aging Lee and Howard.
I can’t agree with much of this.
I mean for starters, who recieves $450M in revenue in year one, with none in years two or three? Teams generally budget themselves from year to year because ticket prices change, TV/Radio deals come up, advertising rates in the stadium change, etc….. Not to mention, if the economy sours, $150M goes much further. Look at 2009, and the impact the 2008 crisis had on free agency following the World Series.
I am not a fan of the Howard contract, nor the Lidge or Ibanez deals for that matter. And considering the way that Lee’s contract escalates in the later years, that could present a problem as well.
That said, Halladay is well below market value, so is Utley, Rollins, Hamels (for now), Oswalt, Madson, RUIZ BY FAR, and you could make a case for Polanco.
it’s all about balance. Any team that is not the Yankees that loads up on long-term deals for aging players will have problems, look at the Cubs or the Mets. But if you can strike a balance between present and future, you can enjoy sustained success, you just have to be very good, and more than a bit lucky if you aren’t the Red Sox or Yankees.
Everytime someone doubts the Phillies’ payroll, we go and up it. I’m not saying we’re the Yankees, because we’re obviously not. But I think it’s safe to say that we’re at a level that all this MAX PAYROLL talk needs to end. We’re not going to sign Cliff Lee every year, but we clearly have enough money to do what we need to do.
Agreed, If you have $150M or more to spend every year, which the Phillies are spending more than right now, you have no excuses in terms of not having the resources to put a winner on the field.
Hey, the Yankees are a money making machine, but even with a $200M payroll, they still have only one World Series in the past 10 years. I think money (payroll) can buy your way into October, but once you get there, its all irrelevant.
This shows that you know absolutely nothing about the state of the Phillies’ farm system. A lot of guys covered some of the points you made below, but just to reitterate, the Phillies’ have not blocked any of their young talents. The top two prospects in their system, accoring to Baseball America (one of the most respected minor league / prospect evaluators around), the Phils’ top two prospects are Domonic Brown and Jonathan Singleton, BOTH of which were ranked in MLB.com’s Top 50 Prospects. (Brown was 4; Singleton was 30.) Then, you expand that a little bit, and Jarred Cosart makes the list. (Ranked 4th in the Phils’ system by BA; 51st overall by MLB.com).
When some of those top prospects graduate into the major leagues, the Phils’ will have no problem inserting several prospects, including Singleton, Cosart and Brody Colvin, among others like Justin De Fratus and Trevor May, into or close to the Top 50. According to some scouts, “no team has more talent in A-ball than the Phillies.”
Some people have turned that into “the Phillies gutted their farm system.” While that’s true—they don’t have much talent in the upper minors—they don’t necessarily NEED it. In the next few seasons, their only holes will be in both corner outfield positions, possibly shortstop… and that’s it. The Phillies have a ton of payroll coming off the books (Ibanez and Lidge make up about $22 million in payroll alone), and will use that money to re-sign integral roster pieces like Cole Hamels and Ryan Madson. Outside of that, they have several top prospects that could be ready to fill potential areas of needs as early as next season.
What you anticipate hardly matters. The Phillies are in a situation where as long as they are under the luxury tax, the have the payroll to make huge additions, and they’ve been doing so. They generate a ton of revenue, and as I pointed out, will get another huge boost after the 2015 season, when their television contract expires, and they’ll likely add their own network.
Please, at least try and know what you’re talking about. The Phils’ system has a lot more than “B-prospects with upside,” though, they have a ton of those as well.
To be clear, that entire post wasn’t meant to be taken seriously. It was a ‘best-case’ scenario thing…
And come on, guys. I added Greg Norton to the end up the post……I thought I laid it on relatively thick….
No, that doesn’t bother me personally. I’m sure it bothers other people though…
do you think in 2013 they will say something like well just wait til 2015 , then name one time former super prospects. Then they will surely anoint them HOF ers like they did with frenchie and langerhands
Remember when Mark Prior, Kerry Wood, Carlos Zambrano, Felix Pie, Mike Fontenot, Angel Guzman, Brian Dopirak, and Kosuke Fukudome were supposed to be the “next big thing” to bring them to the promise land?
Yeah, it must be fun to be a Cubs fan right now.
Again, it was a joke my friend….
I was just following it up with another joke. I’m no Phillie fan- just thought the two statements would make a humorous comparison.
That COULD be a he’ll of a staff….or they could just be average pitchers…you never know. Either way, Braves have a ton of young, live arms in their system.
Ding, ding, ding!
So do the Phillies.
Gotta love these Braves fans and their 2014 projected teams.
It’s kind of sad that they already have conceded 2011 and 2012.
“It’s gonna be fun being a Braves fan from this point forward.” That defense is going to be more fun to watch from a Phillies fan perspective.
Top prospects are great but unproven and your lucky if 1/3 of them work out. There is something to be said for expensive certainty. Chase Utley will be great, if declining, for quite a few years to come.
In regards to prospects, don’t sleep on Cosart, Colvin, Singleton etc in the Phillies system. Their lakewood staff (A-ball) looks real strong and real deep.
Overall, I’d take the Phillies position for now and the future. Great MLB talent, good low-level talent and the resources to acquire what they need to get from today to tomorrow to 5 years from now.
Mike Sweeney
Mike Sweeney is the man! I wish they’d bring him back….even if he can’t play, make him Charlie’s bench coach.
they should be done for the offseason, this is how 3 or 4 out of every 5 games are going to go:
1-0 Phillies HR Howard
Durbin was a solid pitcher for us, but he’s replaceable. Time to give some of the younger arms a shot in the pen. Also, we already have Kendrick, and barring injury, there’s no spot for him in the rotation….he can be the right handed arm to replace Durbin, probably with similar results.
What would be a bigger dissapointment, the Phillies or the Sox not winning the series this year? As good as they are Halladay and Lee have never won the series. Last year I thought the Phillies were a shoe in. This year with 4 #1s they even look better, they almost have to win to have a good season.
I say sign Vladdy Guerrero and platoon him with Brown, while Fransisco platoons with Ibanez…
Vs Lefties:
1) Rollins
2) Polanco
3) Utley
4) Howard
5) Guerrero
6) Victorino
7) Fransisco
8) Ruiz
Vs Righties
1) Rollins
2) Victorino
3) Utley
4) Howard
5) Ibanez
6) Brown
7) Polanco
8) Ruiz / Schneider