Phillies Offseason Talk

[Wingspan]

to celebrate, he gave up 5 hits

[ice grillin you]

Wasn't a total loss, one of the Boston fans gave me a great recipe for Clam Chowder:

is it me or does that recipe not call for enough liquid/broth...only about five cups in the whole pot??...and that doesnt include reduction

[Wingspan]

igy wants some more white creamy stuff in his mouth

[BigEd76]

For those of you wondering where Ed Wade ended up:

Look for former Phils general manager Ed Wade to join the Padres soon as a consultant and major league scout. Wade will be working out of his Pennsylvania home.

So Wade will be evaluating talent... 

[MDS]

Speed never slups, San Diago. Speed never slumps.

[PhillyPhreak54]

Drinkin a little MD 20/20 last night, eh?

[ice grillin you]

On Baseball | Abreu is hurt by rampant trade rumors, friends say

By Jim Salisbury
Inquirer Columnist

Each passing day this off-season seems to have brought another trade rumor involving Bobby Abreu.

And each one has apparently cut the Phillies' rightfielder a little deeper.

"I think he's really hurt," a friend of Abreu's who asked not to be named said the other day. "He feels rejected."

The rumors started right after the World Series. Abreu has been headed to Toronto, Boston, Houston, Chicago (Cubs), Los Angeles (Dodgers) and Baltimore.

If Manchester United had a top-of-the-rotation starter it was willing to deal, Abreu might be headed there, too.

By all accounts, new general manager Pat Gillick still has a bunch of lines in the water as he fishes for a significant starting pitcher. Abreu, a valuable offensive talent whose 291 times on base last season were topped only by MVPs Alex Rodriguezand Albert Pujols, is his best piece of bait.

But five weeks from now, when spring training begins, Abreu could be right back with the Phillies.

This could leave team officials having to deal with an unhappy camper. Don't worry: It's not Abreu's nature to be disruptive, so we're not talking about anything close to a T.O. scenario here. But if there's one thing we've learned about Abreu in his eight years here (besides the fact that he has trouble catching balls at the wall), it's that he's a moody guy.

So you have to wonder what state of mind he'll be in after hearing his name tossed about like an old rosin bag all winter.

Will these rumors - some of them baseless, some well-founded - cause him to sulk and bring down his production, which tailed off markedly in the second half last season?

Or will they motivate him to reach for the kind of monster season many think has been locked inside his bat for years?

Abreu will no doubt be asked questions like this when he reports to camp next month. For now, he's lying low, and attempts to reach him have been unsuccessful.

One thing is clear, though: People who know him well say the trade rumors have hurt him and left him feeling rejected.

"That's never been expressed to us," assistant general manager Ruben Amarosaid Friday. "If Bobby does feel that way, he shouldn't. All this is conjecture and rumor. The fact of the matter is, Bobby has a no-trade clause, and we've never approached him [about waiving it]. Bobby needs to know, and he does know, that he's one of our most important players."

Abreu was the Phillies' most important player in the first half of last season. He hit .307 with 18 home runs, 58 RBIs and a .428 on-base percentage. In the second half, he slipped to .260, 6, 44 and .376. Many observers believed his performance in the all-star home-run derby hurt his swing in the second half, but educated baseball eyes have since said that it looked as if Abreu wasn't as strong, particularly in the lower half of his body, in the second half. Down the stretch, he battled shoulder and thigh ailments but stayed in the lineup.

The Phillies have never confirmed that they have discussed Abreu in potential trades, but officials from other clubs have. And the Phils haven't just pursued pitching, which is their greatest need. They talked to Toronto about a deal for outfielder Vernon Wells early in the off-season and recently to Baltimore about a deal for infielder Miguel Tejada. Both would have involved Abreu.

The Phils have long had a policy of not commenting on potential or rumored deals. In Abreu's case, not saying anything gives them plausible deniability when they finally come face-to-face with him in spring training. Don't believe those goofy writers, Bobby. Nothing was going on. We love you, man.

Amaro has deep roots in Venezuela, Abreu's home country. The two have been teammates and remain close. Amaro believes Abreu "has been in the league long enough and is professional enough" not to let the rumors affect his play.

Still, Amaro was asked if it might be necessary to meet with Abreu early in camp, just to smooth everything out.

"Do we need to sit down and talk to him about this? Probably not," Amaro said. "Will we? We might."

That is, of course, if Abreu is still with the club. The deal with Manchester United appears dead, but there are rumblings out of Liverpool that something is going on.

[PoopyfaceMcGee]

You stay classy, Ed Wade.

[rjs246]

Wah.

[MDS]

Drinkin a little MD 20/20 last night, eh?

ive felt like total shtein since 11 last night. i got 2 hours of sleep cause i was throwin up and shteinting all night. good fun.

[PhillyPhreak54]

Sounds fun.

[BigEd76]

STL Post-Dispatch

Opportunity knocks for Phillies' Howard
By Derrick Goold
ST. LOUIS POST-DISPATCH
01/15/2006

The basement walls of the Howard home in west St. Louis County still sport the bruises of a slugger's beginnings. It was down there that Ron Howard erected a tee, a soft-toss machine and a framed batting net - all to satisfy his son's hitting hunger and save the teen from plunking down $5 for six tokens at the local batting cage.

Pity the drywall.

Music on. Shoulders limber. Ryan Howard, then in his final years at Lafayette High, would cock his bat, aim to drill the ball so hard that it whipped through the overmatched net into the waiting wall, and crack!

Crack!

Crack!

The same sound would later capture a scout's attention for its "snap power," not for the head-snapping it caused by onlookers, but the sharp bark of ball hitting Howard's bat and soaring. The scout said, "Ryan's sound was different than anybody else's." His parents heard the echo early.

"You'd hear it all over the house," Ron said. "We thought it was a sweet sound."

With that sound as the catalyst, the drumbeat to his ascension, Ryan Howard swung his way from Lafayette star to college All-American to minor-league MVP to, this past summer, National League Rookie of the Year. On Monday during the 48th Annual St. Louis Baseball Writers Association of America dinner, the Philadelphia Phillies' first baseman will receive the Rookie of the Year Award, the third St. Louis-area native to win it and the first since 1950.

His is a story of pelted walls, but also of walls eclipsed. Word of his monster home runs precedes him. As do his coaches' stories of offensive binges, like the September push for the Phillies that included his 11 home runs and 27 RBIs in the crucible of a wild card race. Howard, 26, has been defined by such performances in the clutch, but also by recognizing and seizing such opportunities. Given an opening, Howard has yet to whiff. He said he was taught by his parents to practice, to be prepared, to pursue relentlessly.

To never utter the four-letter word his father literally outlawed:

Can't.

Their father "expected us and prepared us for the world, telling us, 'I will not allow you to be mediocre,'" said Ryan's older brother, Chris Howard, an associate athletic director at Louisiana State University. "The pressure we had in our home to succeed in our father's eyes, nothing can match that. Not the corporate world, not Major League Baseball. Nothing."

"My dad," Ryan Howard said, "sets the bar high for all of us."

Said Ron Howard: "Don't focus on the blockers, on the challenges, if you have a chance to be what you want to be, be the best, be the pinnacle. The door opens a little bit, you push it all the way open."

"Locked in"

After hitting a still school-record 17 career home runs at Lafayette High and graduating with his basketball-standout twin Corey in 1998, Howard found himself with several colleges courting him, but none offering what he sought. In the summer, he took another visit to Southwest Missouri State (now Missouri State). He felt right on campus, felt comfortable with the coach.

There was one catch.

"We had no money left," Bears coach Keith Guttin said last week. "I told his summer coach if I had any money, I'd be after him, I'd be offering it to him through the fence right now. . . . One thing about power, it's rare. It's hard to walk away from that kind of power. But we didn't have a (scholarship)."

What Guttin could offer was worth much more: An opportunity.

By Howard's coach's rule at Lafayette High, freshmen didn't play varsity, but the first sophomore day he could, Howard did, cranking two home runs and driving in a school-record seven RBIs. His father wouldn't allow the word "can't" and his kids didn't like hearing it. So, when colleges said he wouldn't play as a freshman, Howard looked elsewhere. Guttin said Howard would play as much as he earned.

With Howard and his parents Ron and Cheryl, Guttin then mapped out a promise that if Howard became a Bear there would be scholarships his sophomore, junior and senior years.

Howard went to work on winning at-bats first.

A rookie in a loaded lineup, Howard blasted 19 home runs that year, batted .355 with 66 RBIs, working his way into the cleanup spot and becoming a freshman All-American. Opportunity seized. The Bears visited Kansas and through the fence, KU law student Chris Howard reminded his brother that the Jayhawks didn't think he could start as a freshman.

Howard roped one over the fence.

"He's just like that," Chris Howard said. "As the challenge becomes bigger and bigger, Ryan just gets more and more locked in."

Consider this past summer. About an hour before the Phillies found out All-Star first baseman Jim Thome would have season-ending surgery, Howard, Thome's understudy, blasted his first career grand slam 453 feet and out of Dodger Stadium. As Philadelphia dueled for the wild card, Howard "wanted to be there, wanted to be the guy up there hitting when it mattered, wanted to get it done," said manager Charlie Manuel.

On Sept. 21, he entered the game in the eighth and in the 10th came up with the bases loaded, the score tied 6-6. Atlanta beckoned for a lefty. Howard hadn't hit lefties well and was called to the bench, where Manuel told him to relax, to calm down and: "I need you to hit one out because I'm out of batters."

Howard did for a 10-6 win. Opportunity crushed.

"Ryan," Chris said, "has a flair for the dramatic."

The natural

Ron Howard said he saw such a knack for hitting in a toddler Ryan, when he found the youngster watching baseball and mimicking the players by swinging a big red plastic bat. His sister, Karen, insists she started Ryan as a slugger, because it was, after all, her head he hit with the same big red plastic bat.

Jerry Lafferty, the Phillies' scout for Missouri and other Midwest states, had watched Howard since high school. He saw the "snap power" and "athletic flow" that told him Howard had "projectability." Lafferty was down in Springfield, Mo., to see other SMS players. He had them swinging wood bats and, when the upperclassmen were finished, asked Howard to take cuts.

"No offense to the other players there," Lafferty recalls, "but it was like, 'Boys step aside, little league practice is over and it's time for the big man to hit.' Ryan launched some monster shots, some monsters."

But in his junior year, Howard slumped.

He struck out a school-record 74 times in 2001, and many believed he slipped to the fifth round of that June's draft because of an off year. Lafferty encouraged the Phillies to nab him, told them Howard was a steal. In 2003, he hit 23 home runs, batted .304 and drove in 82 to win the Class A's league MVP. In 2004, he hit a franchise-record 37 home runs at Class AA Reading, and won that league's MVP.

"A lot of people, I think, gave up on me after my junior year," Howard said. "My first year in pro ball was all about me getting myself back on that track, just because a lot of people I felt backed off. It bothered me. I knew what I was capable of doing, and those first two years were about showing that."

With Thome injured, the door to the majors cracked in July, and as his dad had stressed, he pushed through. In the fashion a streaking hitter on a contending team grabs MVP attention, Howard took the Rookie of the Year Award ahead of full-season rookies with his late-season push. His 22 home runs led all rookies, 20 of his 31 September hits were for extra bases. His poise and his performance allowed the Phillies to trade Thome this winter.

Opportunity maximized.

Howard had whispered to his brother the award was a goal, and in November he dialed the man who wouldn't let him use the word "can't" to tell him he achieved it.

"Dad," Ryan said, "I'm changing my name to Roy."

"Roy? What do you mean?"

"R-O-Y. Rookie of the Year."

[stillupfront]

You stay classy, Ed Wade.

And thanks for stopping by.

[SD_Eagle5]

You stay classy, Ed Wade.

And thanks for stopping by.

But mainly, stay classy.

[BigEd76]

Eskin was on NBC10 and said he would have traded Abreu for Tejada, then Rollins for Clement/Arroyo ("both are better than Lieber") and Papelbon. He also said that if Abreu is really hurt by the trade rumors, then he needs to get over it, especially for what he's making. The Phillies have overrated him big time and he's not worth a #2 pitcher, let alone a #1.  He also said that Manuel is an idiot if he thinks Gordon is the same caliber of closer as Wagner....