Lunch Time Link Dump

This is the first installment of what will hopefully become a semi-regular series of lunch time links I've rounded up from the internets...

• From GCobb.com, it seems as though I'm not the only one who thinks Lastings Milledge is a good fit for the Phillies. I'd love to take credit and say that I'm the first one to come up with this idea, but I'm probably not. Cobb credits The Good Phight, though I haven't read their article. It's nice to see someone else compare him to Jason Werth and stress that Milledge is still a very young 26 years old.

• From Jayson Stark, an article on workhorse starters. It's amazing to think that the Phillies could potentially have only the second rotation in the last decade to feature 4 guys who pitch 200 innings or more. It's even more amazing if you factor in the possibility that Joe Blanton has 200 inning potential too. 1000+ innings from only 5 pitchers? It's only happened three other times. 

• Courtesy of Bleacher Report, I've found an article that talks about Jimmy Rollins' fantasy baseball value. I've gone back and forth a few times already on whether I think the "real" Jimmy is what we've seen the last two years, or the guy we saw from 2005-2008. In the end, I think his spot in the lineup will be the biggest factor in his fantasy value. 30 steals from Jimmy is a lot more important than 30 HRs.

• Tom Verducci from SI.com writes about how an AL All-Star from last season has been replaced. Personally, I think it was a foolish move for the Rangers to pursue Adrian Beltre so hard. Young had a tough 2nd half last season, but he's still one of the most consistent players in the game. He's Chase Utley light. 
  

• Jeff Passan from Yahoo! Sports gives his early bird preseason Phillies report. There isn't any "news" in the article, but like most writers who try to play devils advocate, he points out the plethora of 30 somethings this team will throw out there. Who cares if the ride is over in 3-4 years... it sure is fun right now! From the same article:
  

Phillies in haiku

Inhaling cheesesteaks
And watching Doc, Cliff, Cole, Roy
Is heaven on earth

LOLMets

Having purchased 30 some tickets from the Mets last season, I was added to their email list. While the Phillies can't find enough seats to sell, the Mets can't give them away. I've gotten dozens of emails from them offering up 2 for 1 deals, free key chains, and other lame promotions. I chuckle at most of them, but no email was more entertaining than yesterdays...

For those unfamiliar with the situation, Mets owner Fred Wilpon was a close friend of Bernie Madoff. It is alleged that while Madoff robbed hundreds of millions of dollars from most of his clients, the Mets actually earned money in his Ponzi scheme, possibly as much as $48.1M! Well, the lawyers hired to collect false earnings on behalf of the Madoff victims are now suing the Mets and their ownership group for somewhere between $300M and $1Billion dollars!

It's a somewhat sad situation, but it certainly explains why the Mets made only a few minor splashes this offseason. Now their looking for partners willing to buy into their product for an infusion of cash. If I was David Wright, I'd be looking for the first train out of Flushing so I could bail from that sinking ship. This franchise can't seem to get out of it's own way. From their Epic Collapse in 2007 to their wife beating closer, The Mets have the worst luck. No team in the past decade has done less with all the talent they had. Think of the potential hall of famers that have worn the blue and orange in the past ten years: Mike Piazza, Billy Wagner, Johan Santana, Pedro Martinez, Roberto Alomar, Tom Glavine, Gary Sheffield, David Wright, Jose Reyes, Carlos Beltran, Mo Vaughn (okay, maybe not HOF)... And what do they have to show for it? A World Series loss in 2000 and one playoff appearance since. Pretty sad for a team that has to share a city with the Yankees.

So with that said, I pour out a little bit of my beer to express my condolences for what appears to be another year of Mets failure.

Full story over at ESPN

Low Risk/High Reward

Every offseason yields a handful of players signing contracts for far more money than they deserve (*cough*Rafael Soriano/Jayson Werth/Carlos Pena*cough*). But for every five guys who have a Brinks truck back up to their front door, there’s a guy who slipped through the cracks and just might be able to help a team in a big way for pennies on the dollar. The following guys could very well be diamonds in the rough…

Manny Ramirez

The guy’s a head case and everyone knows it. But the Rays may very well be his last shot at a 3^rd World Series Ring. Despite being in the toughest division in baseball, and having a payroll a small fraction of their nearest competitor, the Rays have been able to compete in recent years due to their development of high round draft picks. Guys like Evan Longoria, Carl Crawford, and BJ Upton are All Stars capable of carrying any team. But with Crawford leaving town, and Longoria and Upton just hitting their prime, The Rays are looking at an influx of new highly touted prospects. Desmond Jennings and Jeremy Helickson are predicted to be two of the front runners for AL ROY this coming season. Add to that mix post season veterans like Johnny Damon and Manny Ramirez and you have a team primed to compete with the best in the division. And for a base salary of $2M? Manny has made over $240M in his career so you have to assume he’s not hard up for cash. Maybe he’s actually interested in winning? If he can project his .298/.409/.460 over a full season, you could be looking at 20 HRs and 85 RBI… for 1/8^th what the Mets are paying Jason Bay.

Jim Thome

Why more teams weren’t in the race for this guy amazes me. Assumed to be a bench player past his prime coming into the season, Thome forced Ron Gardenhire to play him every day with a BA of .283 and 25 HRs (lead the team!). An OPS of 1.039 from a 40 year old is nothing to turn your nose up at, either. It’s very likely that this soft spoken guy from Illinois will crush his 600^th HR this coming season, a feat only accomplished by 7 other guys (2 of which will have asterisks next to their name). So what’s his reward? A measly $3M deal with offers from only one other team. Sure, he has tons of incentives loaded into the contract, but in all honesty most of them are unreachable. He won’t win and MVP and he probably won’t be an All-Star, but as a left handed bat off the bench, he’s got to be worth more than 1/4^th of what Milton Bradley makes!

Chris Young

There was a time when I had to watch my baseball on standard definition television. Chris Young would never fit on my screen. The Mets made perhaps their only decent move this offseason by taking a flyer on Chris Young. The 6’10” former Padre has been plagued by injuries the past few years, but when healthy he’s as intimidating as they come on the mound. In the three starts he made at the end of 2010, he threw 14 innings of 2 run baseball to a record of 2-0. Small sample size, but worth a $1.1M guaranteed risk. The Padres made the right move in declining his $8.5M option for 2011. He hasn’t shown he’s worth that much money anymore. But the former Princeton grad could slot in nicely in a Mets rotation that is abysmal. Mike Pelfrey, RA Dickey, Jonathan Niese, and Chris Capuano are your other 4 pitchers in that rotation until Johan Santana comes back. A team full of #4-5 starters. Chris Young fits in nicely here. Batters tend to hit a lot of fly balls on him which is well suited for Citi Field (stay away from Utleys short porch in right!).

Bartolo Colon

If you asked me a week ago that Bartolo Colon would be competing professionally again, I would have assumed you were referring to next week’s Wing Bowl. But no, the Yankees have offered him minor league deal worth $900K, which is about what the Steinbrenners spend on lunch every day. My initial reaction to this story was to laugh out loud and send text messages to Yankees fans mocking them. But upon further review, it’s really the ultimate low risk, high reward situation. This is a guy who was once so highly valued that the Indians traded him away and got Cliff Lee, Grady Sizemore, and Brandon Phillips in return (I’ll bet the Expos/Nationals would like that trade back)! Since then, he’s been tossed around a handful of organizations never really settling down in one place for too long. His last passable year was during a 7 game stint with the Red Sox at the end of 2008, but this is still a guy with Cy Young caliber stuff. Maybe a year off is just what his 250+lb frame needed. Also noteworthy, he’s only had 9 post season starts and has never seen a World Series. With a Yankees rotation that consists of CC Sabatthia, Phil Hughes, and a whole lot of question marks, Colon will probably have every opportunity to make the team coming out of spring training. If not, he’s earned the right to be released and try out with another team. There’s really nothing they can lose here.

"The Five Hole"

Yesterday, on the Mike Missanelli show on 97.5, Jayson Stark dropped a little tidbit of information about the importance of a 5 hole hitter. Of all qualified #5 hitters in the National League, Jayson Werth lead in HR, RBI, Runs, AVG, SLG, and OBP. 

How do you replace those numbers? Let me first say that Ruben did the right thing by letting Jayson Werth walk. There wasn't a more shocking move so far this offseason than the Nationals dropping $126 Million on a player that has only two years of full time playing experience and enjoys swinging at low changeups from his knees. But his departure has left a gaping hole in the lineup. The heir apparent to Werth's position appears to be a Spring Training battle between Dom Brown, Ben Fransicso, and Ross Gload, but can they bat fifth?

Brown/Francisco/Gload
We all hope that Domonic Brown improves beyond his pedestrian performance in the majors last season and his downright dreadful performance in the Dominican Winter Leagues this offseason. MLB.com still ranks Brown as the #5 prospect in all of baseball heading into 2011. Personally, I think he will become the Darryl Strawberry-esque superstar he's been compared to (without the drug problems). But... he's left handed. As was more than evident last season, the key to mowing down the heart of our lineup late in games is bringing in a left handed relief pitcher. Personally, I think a lot of baseball pundits overvalue the importance of the Lefty-Righty matchup. We're still talking professional hitters facing professional pitchers. But 4 lefties in a row followed by a switch hitter, Utley-Howard-Brown-Ibanez-Victorino. That sounds like a Johan Santana wet dream. The same argument can be made against Ross Gload. Though he has so many holes in his swing that I can't see him being anything but a once a week replacement and a pinch hitter. Ben Francisco, on the other hand, is the right handed bat that can break up the streak of lefties. He's your standard .265 hitter with some power, some speed, and some defense. He's the perfect platoon guy... Which incidentally is exactly what I think you'll see out of these three guys to start the season. Charlie is confident enough in his starting pitching (as he should be) that he knows he can get away with giving all the opportunities in the world to Brown should he struggle. But he also knows he has two above average replacement level players in the lineup. I think you'll see all three of these guys get significant playing time in the outfield this coming season with an aging Ibanez needing days off, and Victorino bound to hit the DL at some point of the season based on his aggressive style of play. All will see time in the 5 hole.


Jimmy Rollins
Charlie Manuel is loyal to a fault. I think that's why we've seen Jimmy Rollins at the top of the lineup year after year after year. And it's very likely he will be the first Phillies batter to see a regular season pitch this season as well. The problem, however is that he's probably a better fit in the 5 hole. We've heard for years that Jimmy is not the prototypical leadoff hitter. He doesn't swing to get on base, he doesn't slap the ball to the corners particularly well, and he doesn't work the count to get the pitcher off balance. He's never seen a fastball that he didn't like. His swing is the perfect neutralizer in the lineup if placed behind Ryan Howard. The problem, putting him up behind a base clogger like Ryan Howard eliminates Jimmy's speed. How much speed does Jimmy really have left, though? Eliminating last season due to injury, Jimmy stole 47 bags in 2008, then 31 in 2009. Jayson Werth managed to steal 20 bases from the five hole twice as a Phillie. I think the same can be had from Jimmy. Sure, he's not going to hit the same 30HRs as Werth. And it's likely that he won't bat .300. But if someone could finally convince Charlie that Jimmy is not a leadoff hitter, then the most suitable spot in the lineup for him would be slotted right behind the big man.

Other Possibilities
Another interesting option at the five hole is Carlos Ruiz. In a breakout season last year, Ruiz led just about every catcher not named Joe Mauer in "clutch" situations. His OBP in tie ballgames, 8-9th innings, and extra innings led all National league catchers. Is he ready to take the big step of moving up in the lineup?

What about Raul Ibanez? Can he recapture the magic of the first half of 2009? I've heard Charlie Manuel reporting that Raul is in the "best shape of his career" and already taking swings 3 times a week.

What about looking outside the organization? Charlie Manuel is a hitters coach. He loves taking a raw player and fixing his swing. During the trade deadline last season and before he signed , Charlie expressed his interest in Jeff Francoeur (former 1st round pick and once a #1 prospect). Who's to say he can't find another scrap head project to renovate ala Jayson Werth. My choice: Lastings Milledge. Before you call me crazy, think about it. He's a .270 hitter capable of 75RBI, and 15HRs... and that's before Charlie gets ahold of him. His big drawback has always been that he is a "clubhouse cancer." But I highly doubt that one guy could bring down a clubhouse full of high character guys like we have right now. If anything, Ryan Howard and Jimmy Rollins could take the 25 year old Milledge under their wing and set him straight. He's the perfect "raw tools" guy that Charlie loves to tinker with and I still think that under the right circumstances, he could be an all-star caliber player for someone.

So what are your thoughts and comments?

Opening Statements

Blog? Why a blog?
Because I have millions upon millions of comments, observations, notes, remarks, and interpretations. I have gripes, grievances, and complaints. I moan, I criticize, I object, and occasionally I insult. And what better place to let off my baseball related steam than the internets?

This site will be dedicated to my hourly/daily/weekly/monthly musings about baseball, fantasy baseball, and all things Phillies related. I'll second guess Charlie Manuel. I'll argue on behalf of Frank Thomas being a first ballot Hall of Famer. I'll convince you that Albert Pujols still isn't the best value available for the #1 overall pick of a fantasy draft. And (hopefully) you will disagree.

So feel free to comment and suggest topics for future conversation... I think this could be a lot of fun!