The Phillies have called around to determine trade interest in Joe Blanton, ESPN.com's Jayson Stark reports (all Twitter links). Moving Blanton and part of his $8.5MM salary would create payroll room for Roy Oswalt, but GM Ruben Amaro Jr. doesn't expect to be able to free up money to sign the right-hander. Though the Phillies have had dialogue about bringing Oswalt back to Philadelphia, a deal seems unlikely.
We heard yesterday that there's no traction between the Red Sox and Oswalt, that the Reds haven't had serious talks with him, and that he doesn't want to play in Pittsburgh. Oswalt, the top free agent pitcher remaining, is likely to sign a one-year deal for 2012. I doubt teams would commit $8.5MM to Blanton, who pitched just 41 1/3 innings last year.
dylanp5030
They would have to package a prosoect like Schwimer, Hyatt, or James to make Blanton worth 5million.
Ray DeRousse
C’mon, Roy. Lower your price. You don’t really want to spend the season sitting at home, do you?
FillyPhan
I dont get the point of shipping one injury for another. Blanton has had more time to recover and Oswalt went down twice with back problems. I would rather stick with blanton, then doing all this shuffle for an oft injured Oswalt.
bayareabeast
upside with oswalt is a lot higher
JPH_GSG
Oswalt’s injury history over his career is actually very limited. Sure he’s a bit of a risk right now as his back was never quite right last season, but GiantWilson is right that Oswalt has much more upside. And starting pitching with the Phillies is very deep right now. An injury in the starting five can be replaced with Kendrick or Pierno.
JWill
O man, could you imagine Oswalt on the Phillies? That rotation would be nuts!!!!
Kingoftherhoads
::slowclap::
karkat
I bet if they put Halladay, Hamels, Lee AND Oswalt together they’d make the World Series every year.
jhfdssdaf
If only there was a way to spot sarcasm in the comments section.
Phillies_Aces35
Think of the user name possibilities.
Guest 4783
If Phili can some how find a team that would be willing to trade for Texas Joe, signing Oswalt would seem very likely. I personally don’t believe Oswalt will sign with BeaneTown or Texas so either Phili or St. Louis seems like a great fit for his home team for 2012
Chillin_in_California
Its kentucky joe blanton not texas joe
Leonard Washington
Sign with the Sox already. Geez.
karkat
Come on Ben. Come on, buddy. He’s a pitcher with no market. Get im.
JacksTigers
Oswalt has the option of two perfect fits. Detroit and Boston. He isn’t interested in either.
karkat
Watch him retire and just troll all of us.
Kara
Blanton + Cash to Pirates for Jones.
Then Phillies sign Oswalt for 7.5 + incentives
Guest 4782
Jones is their starting 1B, Blanton wouldn’t even make their rotation. This deal would make no sense at all
Phillibuster
Blanton wouldn’t make the rotation of a team that still lists Kevin Correia in its top 4?
JPH_GSG
The Phillies want to trade Blanton to free up money. It’s more likely that they would include a relief prospect to get a team to take Blanton’s full contract. $7.5 would probably also be a bit much for them to go for Oswalt as they’re right up against – if not over – the luxury tax.
Phillies_Aces35
Ruben needs to work his magic… I have absolutely no confidence in Joe Blanton this season and Vance Worley is going to regress to a mid-high 3.00 ERA.
PhreshPhillies
I agree. If some team is dumb enough to eat Blanton’s salary, allowing us to resign Oswalt… that would be amazing. Oswalt’s season last year was a fluke. His head wasn’t in the game at all because of personal reasons, and he had an unfortunate back injury. If we can get this done, that’s a huge move. Huge.
karkat
That’s a pretty good “regression” for your number 4 starter
Phillies_Aces35
I’m thinking that’s the best case. His numbers spiked late in the season and a lot of his success comes from the fact that he lead the league in called strike %.
I’m expecting 3.50-3.90ish but its really hard to tell… he completely over achieved talent wise that it’s hard to know who he really is.
Robert
Yeah, if only the Phils can get a team to take Blanton’s entire $8.5M salary for a guy coming off elbow surgery and had an ERA over 5.00 last season. That’s all.
jhfdssdaf
Especially given that Oswalt is looking to sign for just a little bit more than that.
Phillies_Aces35
He didn’t have surgery… they actually don’t know what was wrong with him.
I think they need to shoot for $5 million. If they can do Blanton + C prospect for Cash + D prospect Ruben should jump on it. Blanton might put up decent numbers in a pitchers park. He might be worth a shot for somebody like Pittsburgh to come in and pitch at the back end of their rotation. For $5 million dollars and a C prospect he’s worth some kind of risk, isn’t he? He was pitching well out of the bullpen and reports on him in the Instructional League were positive.
Boston’s not giving him much more than $5 million and we’re technically already paying him $2-$3 million because of the buyout… which equates to about a $8 million dollar one year deal.
JacksTigers
Roy, it’s time to pick. The Red Sox and Tigers are the only teams interested in you. You could have had $10MM from Detroit, but with your lack of interest, it appears that you will only make $6MM-$7MM next year.
FillyPhan
Back problems and cold weather DO NOT mix. He doesn’t need the money anymore.
PhreshPhillies
Trading the injury-prone Joe Blanton and re-signing Oswalt would be great. Who wouldn’t want to see the Phour Horsemen re-united?
Phillibuster
Oswalt has missed more games due to injury than Blanton has – by quite a lot.
Phillies_Aces35
When Oswalt’s healthy he’s a much, much, much, much, much better than Joe Blanton.
Phillibuster
Totally true.
The question is, do you consider it more worthwhile to have a guy with a 3.60 ERA (I think that’s a reasonable expectation for Oswalt at this point) who can last 7-8 innings/start, but only starts 24 games (meaning you have to supplement his absences with other “back-up” starters who would be worse than Blanton), or to have a guy who will give you 30+ starts of 4.30-4.50 ERA ball through 6-7 innings?
Given our bullpen and starting rotation, I think the latter is a better fit for what we can handle at present.
Phillies_Aces35
Depends on if Joe Blanton’s healthy and in shape. If 2010 Joe Blanton shows up the Phillies are in trouble. He was in terrible shape and his conditioning is questionable at best. He struggled every time he was kept in longer than 6 innings.
Hopefully they get 2009 Joe Blanton but he hasn’t been that guy in a while.
I think Joe might have a season closer to 2009 but potentially, this is the last year the 3 horses are going to be together. If that’s the case, I’d like to sure up the back end of the rotation with Oswalt given the fact that we know Worley will regress.
I think they’ll be ok if they go into the season with Blanton but if they can dump him on somebody and sign Oswalt, I’d jump on the chance.
Phillibuster
Blanton in 2010 was not great, but he also wasn’t as horrendous as his ERA would seem to indicate. Remember that he’s always been a “2nd half” pitcher (for better or worse), and he posted a 2.81 in August and a 3.19 in September. Considering he’d be our #4 guy, 6 innings is all we would really need out of him (in fact, it would probably help keep our bullpen in better shape to actually use them more than once/week). Also, he’s not exactly injury-prone, if you look at his record – he only has one year (other than 2011) where he tossed fewer than 30 starts, and that year he had 28.
If Oswalt is healthy, I’d be perfectly happy with him riding the 4-spot… But I don’t really think he is. I think we saw major indications in 2011 that his back is not going to miraculously recover (although maybe he asked somebody to use a Taser on it?) and refrain from bothering him again.
I would rather have the consistency of the same, serviceable, guy every 5 games (even if it’s not at the same level) for all or the majority of the season than have a (potentially) significantly better guy who will probably miss at least 10 starts due to chronic injury issues that could flare up at any time, without warning.
alan104
As the world turns…..
myname_989
Said it yesterday, but I’ll say it again today… The Pirates seem to make a good bit of sense for Joe Blanton, like Kara said. The only correction should be that the Phillies don’t need Garret Jones and the Pirates have no incentive to trade him.
If the Phillies were able to eat about half of Blanton’s contract and include a prospect (maybe a guy like Mike Schwimer or Mike Stutes, who could help the Bucs out right away) I find it hard to imagine the Pirates wouldn’t be interested, especially considering they even asked the Yankees about AJ Burnett.
I know people like to bash Blanton, but one a one-year deal at about, say, $5 million, he’s not a bad option to have in your rotation.
johnsonpeterson
Thoughts:
1) oswalt apparently does not want to pitch in pittsburgh
2) oswalt apparently does want ot pitch in st louis
3) pittsburgh wants a playoff spot
therefore to increase #3 odds and overcome #’s 2 &3:
4) pittsburgh would acquire blanton in a deal from philadelphia
5) philadelphia clears salary and signs oswalt
6) pittsburgh keeps oswalt out of st louis rotation
7) philadelphia keeps it’s four ace staff
8) pittsbugh stays within the divison crown or wildcard hunt.
johnsonpeterson
Speculation:
1) Oswalt apparently does not want to pitch in Pittsburgh
2) Oswalt apparently does want to ptch in St Louis.
Fact:
3) Pittsburgh obviously wants a playoff spot.
Solution:
4) Pittsburgh would acquire Blanton from Philadelphia.
Results:
5) Keeps Oswalt off of St Louis staff.
6) Allows Philadelphia to clear salary to sign Oswalt.
7) Increases Pittsburgh odds of attaining divison crown or wildcard.
Thoughts??
Phillibuster
Ehhhh… While I have no doubt that the Pirates would be interested in keeping Oswalt off the Cardinals’ staff, taking on a new contract that would be close to 20% of the entire team’s salary in 2011 just to do so is generally not a great business move.
The more of Blanton’s salary that the Pirates need Philly to eat, the less likely it is that they’d have any interest in making the trade (because the main reason for trading him in the first place is financial).
johnsonpeterson
why not – reports states pitts/ny in talks for burnett?
Kara
As for the Phillies, we are talking about trading our #5 starter (Blanton) to re-sign our #4 starter.. (Oswalt) – Phillies are Deep in relievers, so Blanton and say Shwimmer for cash (5 million) to the Pirates so we can resign Oswalt would make sense for both teams. Blanton is a #2 or 3 on the Pirates. I’d give them kendrick too if they then added OF Presley in the deal.