With their 2010 season officially in the books, MLB.com's Todd Zolecki examined the Phillies' decisions regarding both free agency and arbitration this offseason. Here are some highlights:
- The Phillies and Jayson Werth will both say they have interest in working something out, and while that's probably true, Zolecki agrees with the common belief that Werth will be playing elsewhere in 2011. The Phillies already have $145MM committed to 16 players in 2011, and Werth's probable $15MM+ salary will be too much to add on.
- J.C. Romero's option will probably be declined due to the left-hander's injury problems and control issues (7.1 BB/9 the past two seasons).
- Jose Contreras could be this season's Chan Ho Park. Both pitched well out of the Philadelphia bullpen, but in doing so significantly raised their stock. Contreras could be in line for more money than Philadelphia wants to offer. Zolecki does note that Contreras' best friend and fellow Cuban, Danys Baez, is under contract for 2011, so that may help sway Contreras.
- Chad Durbin is 50-50 on whether or not he'd take less money than he could get on the open market to stay with the Phils. As Zolecki points out, this could be Durbin's only chance to secure a decent multiyear deal.
- Jamie Moyer, Mike Sweeney, and Greg Dobbs are all unlikely to be brought back.
- Ben Francisco will almost certainly be tendered a contract, and could platoon with Domonic Brown. Kyle Kendrick is due a raise and could be non-tendered and then re-signed at a more affordable price.
I wonder if a team would consider taking on Ibanez’s contract if it came with a good prospect which would allow Phillies to re-sign Werth and have Brown play LF which would the perfect scenario IMO.
The team needs bullpen help.
Ibanez has a NTC, therefore any team taking him would prob. have to tack on another year for him accept that trade. I don’t think there is a team out there interested in that…They will attempt trading Ibanez and/or Blanton this offseason, but there will be no takers in my opinion. I’m an optimistic Phillies fan, but a realist. Both will be on the team next year.
The only players that may attract interest on the Phils are Rollins, Victorino, and Madson. None of which I want to see the Phillies move.
There is one team that could have interest in Ibanez…
The Seattle Mariners of Seattle.
Doubt it….we’d have to pay his salary, but they owe us for giving them Cliff Lee and in turn Smoak, lol. I can’t honestly think of a team that Raul would benefit. He’s not a good fielder, not aweful, but not good, he’s not a great contact hitter, he lost a lot of power, does not want to be a DH, and he will be 40 soon. Despite those negatives, he is a great clubhouse guy, a good leader, and an extremely nice guy; but baseball isn’t always interested in that.
Well like I said, if you throw in a good prospect with Ibanez, I think you could get teams interested depending on how good the prospect is. You don’t want to move an elite prospects but if you can move a good prospect or two, I think teams would consider. Would be a good way for some re-building teams to speed up the re-building process.
It still wouldn’t work. Halladay’s contract alone is going up by $11M ($20M from the $9M that the Phils had to pay this year)
Durbin really needs to be going where the money is this offseason. Bless him for wanting to stay with his team but at this point in hi career he really needs to be trying to maximize his earnings potential as much as possible. The window is about to close on the short time frame where he’s going to be physically capable of earning MLB money and as far as players go in general he hasn’t earned very much ($5,838,000). As a 32-year old coming off three relatively successful years he needs to look at his next contract as “The One” that’s going to setup him up financially for the rest of his life, be it smaller and team driven or selfishly money driven. Absolutely no reason for him to give up potential future earnings at this point, he needs to start earning the most that he can while he still can.
You’re right. I say Durbin signs with the Rays.
Romero goes back to the Twins.
And gosh I hope Jamie Moyer doesn’t retire.
I heard he is going to play winter ball
Really? For which League?
Dominican. I heard he and Dom Brown will be on the Leones del Escogido.
I think the Twins should at least look at J.C. Romero. And Kyle Kendrick isn’t a good starter but at least it’s depth.
Phillies should offer Moyer something though. After he retires he’d make a damn good pitching coach.
The biggest problem/concern in Philadelphia right now is the level of offensive production being delivered by Howard and Utley. They’ve got tons of money invested in those two, and if either or both cannot return to pre-2010 performance levels, then the Phillies will have some major problems to face down the road a year or two.
Utley was great in September after getting time to get back into it after surgery.
Howard is what he is, huge power, huge Ks, declining walk rate, and struggles versus LHP.
Admittedly, as a second baseman, Utley doesn’t have to produce like a superstar to be a good player. I was surprised though to see how poorly he played second in the postseason, being aware that he tends to rate highly in advanced fielding metrics. Besides looking awful on the plays that he didn’t make, to me he also looked terrible on many of the plays that he did make.
At $15 Million a year for the next three years he better perform like a superstar. When he signed the deal I thought he would be playing much better than he is at this point. He is certainly NOT a three hole hitter anymore. Some of his swings in the playoffs were flat out terrible. He made defensive swings without having two strikes.
I really don’t know what Amaro is going to do to fix this team. Losing Werth is going to hurt badly and having 4 straight lefties isn’t good at all. They can flip Poly and Utley (which I would do). Maybe they move Raul to 7th and move Shane to 6 permanently to only have Howard and Brown together in the lineup.
They also have bullpen issues. Lot of work for Ruben and I guess we will all sit and watch helplessly. Scary offseason ahead.
Did Howard even have an RBI throughout the post-season?
is this from the john madden/joe morgan school of thought? talk about stating the obvious…
I bet that Moyer signs with the Orioles.
Mariners.
Moyer in AL = Fail
Polanco is a good contract, Victorino is still one the best CF defensivley in the league and just came off a career high in HR and RBI. Howard is still the preeminent slugger in the game, most hr and rbis since he got here. Ibanez if he can hit and stay healthy maybe able to moved by deadline, Baez and Blanton are not worth what they are paid, i wouldnt pay Blanton any more then 4 million a season.
Polanco is a good contract so far. I agree that the length may bite the Phils in the butt. I am not worried too much about next year, but 2012. I hope it ends up being a steal!
I still think that Magglio Ordonez would be an excellent fit to platoon with Domonic Brown in right field. It’s probably unlikely though, since the last thing I heard about him was that he was going to look into playing every day, and ask for 9MM a year. Still, if no one takes a chance on him as an everyday player, he might sign on to platoon.
Magglio and Reed Johnson are at the top of my offseason wishlist, right behind the bullpen.
Let me know if this makes a little sense or if I’m just being a over optimistic, the Phils have a lot of money tied into the core and will obviously try to shed some of it (most of which is tied up in bad contracts) anyway there’s a lot of talk about how they can’t and won’t be able to trade Ibanez and Blanton, I disagree there’s a very desprite team in Baltimore that I think may be willing to take both players as long as we throw in a prospect or two (for my proposal I’ll throw them two just to sweeten the pot) but the deal gets better, as Jim Salisbury suggested our old friend Aaron Rowand is no longer in the giants plans and they may be willing to eat some of his salary in the right deal, my thoughts are a 3 team deal between the phillies, orioles and giants in which:
Phillies get: Aaron Rowand and Nolan Riemold and cash
Giants get: John Mayberry Jr., Phillippe Aumount, and an Orioles prospect
Orioles get: Joe Blanton, Raul Ibanez, Matt Rizzotti and a Michael Schwimmer type
it’s big but ruben’s done bigger
are we giving up to many prospects just to cut payroll to resign werth?
Are you joking? Why the hell do you want Rowand back? He sucks! He had a career year just before FA and he cashed in. I would rather field Mayberry over him!
Everyone remembers his “Great” Defense. If he wasn’t so slow he would be getting to the ball and standing under it. Not diving or crashing into a wall. Look at his numbers since leaving and I would be shocked if you still felt the same way. His first two years after leaving he played a good amount and did nothing special AT ALL.
He wouldn’t be in an every day role, simply a platoon anywhere in the OF (he can play all three OF positions) I would rather have someone who’s proven in the past they can hit at the big league level than a guy who will never hit a breaking ball in Mayberry, it’s not that I WANT him it’s the reality of a possibility suggested by Salisbury, if we’re talking about guys I want let’s talk Torii Hunter and Josh Hamilton. Rowand did post a 7.5 UZR last year and was hobbled by injury this year, by no means does he suck he simply never lived up to the large deal the Giants gave him…he’d be a marginal player who loved his time here
He wouldn’t be in an every day role, simply a platoon anywhere in the OF (he can play all three OF positions) I would rather have someone who’s proven in the past they can hit at the big league level than a guy who will never hit a breaking ball in Mayberry, it’s not that I WANT him it’s the reality of a possibility suggested by Salisbury, if we’re talking about guys I want let’s talk Torii Hunter and Josh Hamilton. Rowand did post a 7.5 UZR last year and was hobbled by injury this year, by no means does he suck he simply never lived up to the large deal the Giants gave him…he’d be a marginal player who loved his time here