Phillies Will Watch Pedro Throw

thechairman is absalutly right. or the cin. oroyyo(dont comment mi spelling please)

brewers-oroyyo,cueto

cin.-hardy

Cueto for Hardy isn't even enough for the Reds. Brewers would have to throw in another piece.

Watching Pedro pitch last year was enough for me. He is only a shadow of his former pitching excellence. There is a reason why a future HOF pitcher has remained unsigned....

The Reds aren't going to trade Johnny Cueto right now. He's shown major improvement from last season, and with his stuff, furthur development could make him into an ace, or something awfully close to it.

"Stick with an option of Lopez, Carrasco or Carpenter. We don't need ANOTHER soft tosser."

If the Phils don't give Carlos Carrasco a shot before signing Pedro or adding some other less-than-impact pitcher, then I would really like to know why.

The guy has been really good in AAA for 22 starts and 129 innings now, so I'm not really sure exactly what else he has to learn in AAA before deserving a shot in the majors.

I love how people can't even do the 4 seconds of research it takes to realize that Pedro was throwing with rougly the same velocity last year (88.5, returning from surgery), as he was in 2005 (when he was pitching with a torn rotator cuff) when he posted a 2.95 FIP. Pedro absolutely has enough stuff to be valuable. If you can't see that you are looking in all the wrong places, are a angry Met fan, or just suck at understanding the game.

I have little doubt that Pedro would be an upgrade over Moyer and Blanton, who have both stunk it up. Yes, Philly fans, come at me with stuff like...."if they stink so much, how come they both shutout the Mets?"

I am ready for it. The Mets are not a major league baseball team. If I were a Philly fan, I would be somewhat annoyed and embarrassed (moreso before the weekend series then after it) that the Phillies had not pulled away in such a terrible division.

So, the Phillies are going after a pitcher who will cost zero prospects, and the Mets, who have just as many holes in the rotation AND money to spend aren't trying to get into the bidding as well? Either to start a bidding war, or to legitimately improve.

"Moyer gets pulled from that rotation WAYYY before Blanton."

Yes. Totally agree with this. Moyer should get pulled before Blanton, and replaced with Carrasco.

scribbletone,

I don't think they bring up CC junior yet because they want to make 100% sure he's ready and here to stay. I don't think they want to yo-yo him as he's been their best pitching prospect since Hamels (which is sad).

nrmax,

any knowlegeable phils fan realizes who we beat this weekend. And yes the phils should be up by 6-10 games by now and have no one to blame but themselves that they're not. We've also had some injuries although nothing close to what you've had although if you go back to 2006 the Phils lost 4/6 of their rotation for good chunks of the season and a bunch of position players and we still ended up being just a game back at the end.

The problem with pulling Moyer now is that occasionally he shows that he can still do it and he's a huge fan favorite. Not saying its right, just the facts. Remember Adam Eaton. He sucked this bad and lasted for a while. That being said if the Phils ever got to 4-5 games back they'd absolutely pull him I think.

"The problem with pulling Moyer now is that occasionally he shows that he can still do it and he's a huge fan favorite."

He is also a huge manager favorite. He has been the worst SP in the NL this year and still at his very lowest, appeared to still have plenty of rope for Charlie, who has a ton of respect for his accomplishments and his previous ability to resurrect his stalled career

Any addition to the rotation, whether it be FA or trade, is going to go into the Lopez rotation spot. While that wouldn't solve the Moyer dilemma, it would at least likely push him out of line of a playoff rotation spot, which is probably the best solution we as fans can hope for (having realized that he won't be strictly demoted)

Pedro is probably not worth looking into unless his velo AND arm slot are better though.

In NY it wasn't just the velo...he dropped his arm slot to favor his ailing shoulder, which took the downward tilt off of his CB. Unless he is feeling healthy enough to regain the old, slightly higher arm slot, I doubt he could help any contender

scribbletone,

ya i never thought 3-5 years ago I'd be an apologist for the Phillies brass but I kind of like the way they do this now. A year ago we whined that Happ wasn't in the rotation and now he's doing pretty good. Now we whine about Carrasco vs Moyer and next year we'll whine about not having Drabek in the rotation instead of say Blanton. (Drabek had another solid outing today for Reading BTW.)

And with our offense we don't need the top line starters that the Giants have for example. We just need slightly better than average.

"Gallagher grouped in with the other two? He's not even 24 yet.

The injury history, both last year and this, is scary, but I think he'll be a #3 starter when healthy."

Yeah, I mean Veal isn't 25 yet.

Looking bad over the past few years, they've gotten almost no pitching from the minors outside of Zambrano, Marmol, Marshall and I guess, Guzman.

I still can't believe that we traded away Ricky Nolasco along with Mitre and Pinto for one year of Juan Pierre.

Nolasco would look so good in the back of that rotation right now.

"Looking bad over the past few years, they've gotten almost no pitching from the minors outside of Zambrano, Marmol, Marshall and I guess, Guzman."

"They've gotten much more pitching than hitting.

I mean, Soto, Theriot, Fontenot, Hoffpauir, Fox is pretty much it in the hitting department."

Wow, this is a depressing thread.

"Hendry has gotten absolutely nothing done with that farm system, which explains why we're paying a massive sum of money to ten players."

I really dont know what we can even do. Next season, after the 10 making 117 million, we still need someone for 2B, another platoon CFer, 2/5 of a rotation, a closer, a couple BP arms and maybe a real bench bat (no more career minor leagues for the bench please!). We can raise the payroll to 150 million and still not reach the talent level with have on this 500 club. And I know we should be better then that, but I am really beginning to question how much better then that we are.

Hendry really is trying to do it the way of the Yankees of 2003-2007. Sad thing is, he is pretty much the only team still doing it this way! Even the Yankees have seen the folly in such a plan. While Hendry just keeps chugging along as the team crumbles away.

"Hendry has gotten absolutely nothing done with that farm system, which explains why we're paying a massive sum of money to ten players."

Simple. Stop drafting guys who can't take walks or start teaching them how to walk. Coaching can change player approaches, especially at the lower levels.

Brett Jackson might be different though.

Oh. Try to do more with getting overslot guys in the draft.

“To be fair, the Cubs are not a bad pitcher development team. 3 out of 5 current starters were developed internally”

Thanks for trying to raise our spirits, but this statement isnt true. In the current rotation, only Zambrano and I guess now Randy Wells were developed by us. Lilly and Dempster were FA signings; Harden of course came by trade.

Zambrano we signed as an international FA, knowing his upside. Still didn’t stop us from trying to destroy it though. Yes, we tried to make him a reliever for like 2 years - he was starting being to be groomed to be our closer :)

Then, let’s be honest, Wells and Marshall are not exactly stud prospects. Marshall (a 6th rounder) has had years and years of injury. Wells (a 38th rounder) is, well Wells. I would love him to keep this up, I just cant imagine he will. They both have some talent, but their real ability is still unknown. And damned if we really know what to do with them.

Marmol was another international FA who’s control problems eventually moved him to the Pen. If he hadn’t of had that instant success in 07, there is a possibility he is still in AAA working out of the rotation! We have also seen a rather steady decline in all his stats since his breakout, which is not encouraging.

And of course, Samardzija was our big over-slot purchase - After falling all the way to the 5th round I might add! Can you believe it still cost us 10 million over 5 years on a ML deal?

So we basically signed 3 of the 5 and had two surprise us out of the late rounds. Meanwhile, we have none of them in the role we actually envisioned them in, or are still undecided on what part they will play. And this is the creme of our crop. Its better then our hitters, yes. But how much is that really saying?

Leading to our depression, lol

Just to throw one additional attempt at drafting one over slot they made last year (2008), was Alex Wilson in the 10th round think it was and did not sign, he was a good gamble, coming off TJ surgery and the Cubbies offered him 600K even. Boston drafted him 2nd round this year and with the reduced slotting system and his velocity even returning, he signed for 470K and cost himself money, so the Cubs are making effort to get some signabilty guys now it looks like.

What large market teams like the Cubs, LAD, Anaheim etc.. Need to really start doing that always have horrible draft picks near the bottom from finishing so well, is to put more money into the scouting areas like the NYY and Red Sox do and draft 8-10 of these signability guys year after year and get at least 1/2 of them under contract since they are "penalized" for finishing so well and usually end up with marginal at best 1st round draft choices. Offer a guy that other teams cannot afford to sign and has committed to college vast sums of $$$ to sign, or even a local kid that will not sign period with any other team and has committed to college and also wants vast amounts of cash and is a top 50-75 HS kid as in Ryan Westmoreland last year.

Cubs, Angels and LAD can afford it.