Around The Diamond

I think I'm going to make it my summer's goal to 

track down this place where rubbing mud comes from!

• Dugout Phunnies Issue #4 is a mere one week away from release! Like most things that are awesome, I was in on the ground floor when it first came out. But if the first six pages, and all the comments on Twitter are to be believed, 2012 is the season that David Jablow and Jeff Goff blow up! So buy a copy and watch Doc wrestle space snakes!    

• David Murphy's expanded explanation on the Chase Utley saga is really the best read on the piece. Despite the outrage you may hear, there are a number of caveats to this situation. It's been beaten to death over the last 24 months so I won't go into depth, but Ruben Amaro and Chase Utley are tiptoeing a three way line between lying, withholding information, and outright denial.  Any way you shake it, it's disappointing to hear about this development so late in the Spring. I can't claim to know what Utley did the last few months to prepare for spring training and as a guy who's mildly athletic but has never suffered any significant injury, I can't say what the difference between weight room workouts, and live game drills. But I can't help but wonder if something couldn't have been done differently to come to this conclusion in February, rather than the last week of March. Interestingly enough, former major leaguer David Segui seems to have the perfect solution for Utley: HGH. I could probably buy into a scenario where HGH was allowed to extend the career of guys with chronic joint pains. Maybe some sort of MLB employed doctor that can prescribe the drug? Just a thought...

• Ryne Sandberg has put his Chicago area house up for sale proving that you can only be snubbed by a city (despite being one of its alltime greats) so many times! If I said it once, I said it 100 times, I think he's your next manager for the Phillies following a retirement for Charlie Manuel. Ivan DeJesus (the guy the Phillies traded away Sandberg for), on the other hand, is bouncing around the Cubs system. Sweet irony. 

• Ken Rosenthal released his yearly kiss of death today which ranks the Phillies as the 8th best team in baseball and the 3rd best in the NL, but still predicts they'll continue the streak as NL East champs. It's tough to argue with the strength of the AL, but ranking the Giants ahead of the Phillies is a travesty worthy of a letter to your congressman. Buster Posey, Carlos Beltran, and Pablo Sandoval: three guys that a stiff breeze away from their next trip to the DL. And a rotation that while good, is still a notch behind Philadelphia. Take to the streets people! I will not rest until Ken Rosenthal apologizes (mostly just for wearing those silly ties, not his predictions)!

• Consider me fully behind the move to put Cole Hamels in the #4 slot to start the season at home. The Phillies have had a quite a bit of success with splitting their lefties and righties, Vance Worley matches up favorably with James McDonald of Pittsburgh, and Cole can handle his own with either Carlos Zambrano or Mark Buehrle depending on how the Marlins line things up. And while I'm looking at it, isn't it a little strange that the Marlins are opening up with a single game against the Cardinals on Wednesday, then hit the road for a 3 game series against the Reds? Why just one game?  
  

A Joe Blanton Blue Light Special?

Joe Blanton up on the auction block? Not surprising. An interested trade partner? Somewhat intriguing. The Blue Jays GM Alex Anthroupolos reportedly spent a few innings in Clearwater while Blanton was on the mound over the weekend. But we all know GMs and scouts flip flop around different Spring Training complexes all month long.  Why is this a deal worth noting?

• The Phillies are up against the luxury tax and selling off Blanton frees up space for any in season moves that might be necessary. With sources reporting that the Phillies are willing to eat up to $2M in salary, the savings could be in the $6.5M neighborhood. In recent years, Ruben's been able to stretch that kind of money pretty far. With the prospect farm running pretty low, any mid season wheeling and dealing done by Amaro will likely involve picking up a few more dollars worth of salary than the Phillies have had to do in years past. While like to hope that the puzzle pieces needed for a championship are the kind of guys the Phils picked up in the offseason, $6.5M is a nice luxury to have when your first baseman is in a walking boot, your second baseman hasn't played a game yet this Spring, and your third baseman is a faberge egg.

• This indicates that the Phillies have confidence in moving Kyle Kendrick back into the rotation. Initial reports (and by that I mean the stuff I read on Twitter) indicate a pretty effective cutter out of Kendrick so far this spring. Also, by picking up a whole host of veteran arms in the offseason, they even have a few experienced backups to KK. Joel Piniero (who can opt out of his contract at the end of the month if not on the big league roster), Dave Bush, Scott Elarton, Pat Misch, etc. represent a questionable, but experienced group of "Plan C's." Two weeks into Spring Training, a stockpile of well traveled arms isn't a bad problem to have. Kendrick to Blanton is still a risky swap with KK's success last year largely attributable to being the benefactor of a ridiculously low BABIP. But relying on a guy with elbow problems has inherent risks of its own. Worse case scenario, that Oswalt guy is still unemployed and quite frankly $6.5M might come close to getting it done.

• In my speculative mind, though, the biggest key here is the guy I mentioned above sitting in the stands.  Having Toronto as a somewhat interested trade partner is beneficial because they have a commodity the Phillies have already shown some interest in with Travis D'Arnaud. Now there's no reason to believe that a deal like this is remotely possible, and it would absolutely take more than Joe Blanton, but damn if the idea of having a catcher of the future once again doesn't sound appealing to me. I like cheering on Chooch as much as the next guy, but we have a33 year old starter (and that's a Panamanian 33!) and a 35 year old backup with next to nothing in the immediate pipeline. D'Arnaud is considered to be major league ready but blocked by an equally young catcher in JP Arencibia. One of the two is a luxury the Blue Jays can afford to part with and in the right system, either of them could be successful. Even is the Blue Jays decided that Arencibia was the one they'd prefer to flip, his 20 HR 80RBI power could look pretty nice in pinstripes and his caught stealing rates are very similar. His .219 BA last year... well, let me remind you that the Phillies won a World Series in 2008 with a catcher that hit .219. Not to say Ruiz is done, but a backup plan behind the plate would be nice!

The Only Time I'll Address This "Take Back The Park" Debacle

There's a natural order to how things are supposed to work in the baseball world.

• Step 1: Develop good players
• Step 2: Win baseball games
• Step 3: Draw fans
• Step 3: Profit!

It seems to me that a team who hasn't had a .500 record since their relocation and hasn't won a single post season series since their franchise was born over 40 years ago would be a little more receptive to anyone that walks in their door and hands them a stack of money. But that doesn't seem to be the case with you, Washington.

Listen Nats fan(s), I understand. It's hard enough to transplant a team to a town as disinterested as Washington DC. Considering the amount of politicians, lobbyists, and activists living in the metro area, sports are an afterthought as it is. Then, to make matters worse, your geographically nearest competitor goes on a sustained run of success.Your neighbor to the north (remember, we were the capitol first!) is winning World Series games while your team comes in last place in five out of six years. And then to top it all off, your big free agent signing is a bust (Jayson Werth), your young phenom pitcher (Stephen Strasburg) needs Tommy John surgery, and your most valuable player in 2011 ends up being a 27 year old middle reliever (Tyler Clippard with his 3.4 WAR).

But don't take it out on me. I'm the guy who bought tickets when you still played at RFK and helped you pay for some of that new stadium on the waterfront. And I'm the guy who led a bus load of fans down to your stadium two years ago, buying tickets at full face value from your website despite them being much cheaper on the secondary market. You had no problem letting me pose for pictures with Teddy, George, Abe, and Tommy when the lines were so empty, the geico gecko was off taking a nap on a concrete bench. And you had no problem charging me and 30 of my friends $7 for a beer and $4 for a hot dog when you couldn't fill your own stadium on opening day.

You're a team that has more instability than the stock market. Five managers in seven years (Phillies, just one). A front office GM that resigned as a result of a signing bonus skimming for overseas talent. And a roster that has featured some of the scurve of the baseball world in recent years (high school expellee Lastings Milledge, wife beater Elijah Dukes, notorious loudmouth Nyjer Morgan, and that Teen Wolf that plays right field).

And yet for some reason, right when you're on the precipice of success, signing Ryan Zimmerman to a long team deal, trading for a legitimate starter in Gio Gonzalez, and developing great young talent like Strasburg and Bryce Harper, you go and foul it all up. Simply put, the "Take Back the Park" campaign is putting the cart before the horse.

First of all, there is a time and a place to develop ticket sales gimmicks and for the most part that time is BEFORE money is accepted as a deposit. You can bet that the moment MLB announced the 2012 schedule on September 13, 2011, front office folks were hard at work coming up with wacky promotions to get butts into seats. That gave Naitonals COO Andy Feffer nearly 5 whole months to come up with his weasely plan to keep Phillies fans out of Nationals Park. The problem is, his team had been taking group ticket deposits for nearly three months before the plan was announced. As a matter of fact, I could go on the Nationals Group Ticket Sales page right now and place a $200 deposit without any indication that my money would later be deemed no good for the May 4-6th series against the Phillies. Instead the Nationals have offered full refunds to all groups of fans that may have been looking to make the trek to DC that weekend. Obviously that timing has repercussions for organizations that plan trips in advance like the group at IPS who were left high and dry after putting down a deposit on a bus as well. And while that story had a happy ending as the Reading Phillies offered the group complimentary tickets to their stadium on the same day, you have to imagine that many fan groups won't be so lucky.

But the bigger thing that irks me about you, Washington, is the overnight sense of entitlement you've developed. It's as if an entire organization and fan base has suddenly adopted the same snide attitude of Jayson Werth that made Phillies fans only half interested in even seeing their team make an offer for the guy to come back. Says Andy Fefferer:

"If we lock a few Phillies fans out, so be it. They can be angry all they want... look, we’re not gonna make it easy for group sales, for buses coming from Philly. I will not make it easy for those guys to buy tickets or get into this ballpark... Forget you, Philly. This is our park, this is our town, these are our fans, and it’s our time right now.”

"Your park" only holds the team's namesake because naming rights couldn't be sold and was funded with $611M in tax payer dollars that most DC residents were furious about. "Your fans" have filled that park to the rank of 13th, 13th, 14th, and 14th out of the 16 teams in the National League in attendance. And "Your Time" is after an 80-81 season in which you were 21.5 games out in the division and 9.5 out of the playoff picture. This isn't how you build a fan base. You can't shove a subpar product down their throats with "#FUPhilly" radio bits by giving away tickets in the hundreds. "Your" inferiority complex is getting out of hand!

The concept of "taking back the park" is something Jayson Werth mentioned immediately upon joining the team. It's also something that popped up on a fan forum of yours over a year ago. (Your COO jacking ideas from a FAN FORUM, think about that possibility for a minute). But it doesn't work that way! Banning Phillies fans does not create Nationals fans! Instead you end up with a handful of Nats die hards, a handful of guys that thought it'd be cool to stick it to Philly for the weekend, and a whole lot of irate Phillies fans who had to spend an extra 20-30% secondary market to get tickets (over a thousand available on Stubhub right now). I'll be there on May 5th with a group of twenty blog readers. I suspect that many area bloggers will have similar groups. And PhilsFever will still roll down I-95 in a caravan of coach buses.

A good product brings people on the bandwagon and bandwagons drive out opposing fans! See Phillies, 2007.

Utility Infielders: Who you got?

A few months back, I found myself in favor of passing on offering any sense of a contract to Jimmy Rollins and moving on without the longest tenured member of the team. When his asking price seemed to drop into fewer years and fewer dollars than initial reports indicated, it became a no brainer to bring Jimmy back. But what then do you do with 22 year old Freddy Galvis and his (by most accounts) major league ready glove? Well, thankfully, someone in Phillies management has decided to put Galvis to use elsewhere around the infield.

First of all, the Phillies future at third base is a major question mark. Placido Polanco has a mutual option for $5.5M dollars but with declining production and health concerns, the $1M buyout seems to be a smarter idea. With no significant prospects in the pipeline, the Phillies will need to look towards free agency to fill that gap at the hot corner. Looking over the 2013 free agency class at third base, and the names are frightening. David Wright, a 34 year old Kevin Youkilis and a host of replacement level players. With the 2013 budget being tight before taking care of Cole Hamels or Shane Victorino, neither of those top third basemen are even possible. Getting Galvis some reps at third base is the perfect solution for both player and team. He has the arm strength to make the long throw from third and he had a much improved approach at the plate last season. Is Galvis the next Mike Schmidt? No, but for a guy who projects as a utility guy right now, he could be a 1-2 year stop gap at third until more talent is developed or salary can be added. 

But for the more immediate future, molding Galvis into a more flexible infield option gives you a utility option that you can fall back on not named Michael Martinez! A Rule 5 pick last season that the Phillies kept on the squad for the entire season to avoid having to offer him back to the Nationals, Martinez opened his spring with a two error game on Sunday. And while he does have some competition in Pete Orr and Kevin Frandsen, Martinez seems to be the favorite for the utility role. Quite frankly, though, the Phillies are foolish to keep him around as a de facto incumbent to the utility infield job. Martinez does not hit for contact, doesn't have speed on the base paths, and has proven to be little more than average defensively. While conventional wisdom and recent history tells us that sending Galvis down to AAA for every day playing time is the most likely scenario, the fact that all four infield positions are significant injury concerns lends itself to the utility man seeing near regular playing time as it is. Should any of Rollins, Polanco, or Utley miss significant time, I'd rather see the un-proven Galvis log the 300 or so ABs that have gone to guys like Wilson Valdez and Michael Martinez the last two years. The only value in a guy like Michael Martinez is his ability to play multiple positions, so working Galvis out around the infield just makes sense.