07/08 Phillies Offseason Thread

[BigEd76]

Lieber signed with the Cubs (1/$3.5M).  Bye.

[PoopyfaceMcGee]

I wish him nothing but the best, like Darryl Kile and Cory Lidle best.

[Rome]

Uncle Cholly was supposed to be on Baseball This Morning on XM175 this morning.  They've been promoting it all week and were talking about it until about 10 minutes before he was scheduled to go on.  I even made a point of scheduling my morning around it because I was interested in hearing how he thought the off-season was progressing.

Anyway, they came back from break and Buck Martinez announced that evidently someone at the Phillies neglected to tell Cholly that he was supposed to be near a phone this morning so the guys at the show could talk to him, so he never appeared.

Hilarious.   

[PoopyfaceMcGee]

Uncle Cholly was supposed to be on Baseball This Morning on XM175 this morning.  They've been promoting it all week and were talking about it until about 10 minutes before he was scheduled to go on.  I even made a point of scheduling my morning around it because I was interested in hearing how he thought the off-season was progressing.

Anyway, they came back from break and Buck Martinez announced that evidently someone at the Phillies neglected to tell Cholly that he was supposed to be near a phone this morning so the guys at the show could talk to him, so he never appeared.

Hilarious.   

Pathetic.

[SunMo]

well, um, like...we gon hit

[Rome]

Pathetic.

I actually had my phone out and was going to text you about his appearance when Martinez made his announcement.

I had everyone else's number punched in too, but still, you were on the list...

[PoopyfaceMcGee]

That's a dangerous precedent to set.

[Rome]

http://www.philly.com/philly/wires/ap/sports/20080118_ap_penaraysagreeto241m3yrdeal.html

Carlos Pena just struck a deal with Tampa for three years & 24 million.

Ryan Howard just shat himself with glee.


And Holliday just signed for 2 years/$23M. 

http://sports.yahoo.com/mlb/news?slug=ap-rockies-holliday&prov=ap&type=lgns

Shats galore!   

[BigEd76]

Nunez signed a minor-league deal with the Brewers with an invite to spring training.

[PhillyGirl]

Interesting stats on Howard:

The case for Howard
Go ahead. Try to find anybody who has kicked off a career with a home-run output anywhere near Ryan Howard?s. Good luck. Can't be done.

Nobody in history has hit 47 homers or more in each of his first two full seasons. Nobody. Or here's another way to look at it: After 410 games in the big leagues, Howard is already up to 129 homers. Want to know how insane that is? Here's how insane:

That's 72 more than Junior Griffey, 62 more than Barry Bonds, 54 more than Mike Schmidt, 44 more than A-Rod and 31 more than Albert Pujols at the same stage. The only player in the last half-century who was even within 25 homers of Howard, after this many games, is Bob Horner (who was exactly 25 back, at 104).

In fact, you want to know the player in history who is most comparable? It's that George H. Bambino Ruth. He dabbled in the pitching profession for a few years before finally getting his shot as a full-time hitter at age 25. Whereupon he mashed 54 and 59 homers respectively in 1920-21. Ruth, too, got kind of a late start in his career. But building around him worked out OK for the Yankees, wouldn't you say?

[Rome]

How much older as well as physically and emotionally mature was Howard than the rest of those guys when he became a starter in the Majors?

He's a four year college player who also spent three years in the Minors.  Griffey was what, 19 when he broke in at Seattle?  How about Bonds?  I know he was a college player, but still, he hit the Majors at a young age too (21, I believe).

You can twist the numbers any way you want in favor of Howard, but the bottom line for him is, he's still only entitled to whatever the Phillies are willing to give him or what the arbitrator is willing to award him.  That's the way the system is set up, and occasionally players of rare ability get screwed by it.  Well, boo hoo.  He'll still get his dough so all this nonsense being written about by the hacks in Philly is nothing more than noise.

He can either agree to an incredibly lucrative extension (and let's not kid ourselves - it will be lucrative, maybe not as lucrative as he'd like but it would still be more money than he could ever spend in his life) or he can spend the next four years fighting it out with the Phillies at the arbitration table.  Either way, he's a Phillie and for a good long time too.

[Wingspan]

Imagine if he didnt come to spring training a complete fatass?

[Sgt PSN]

His uniform would be huge. 

[MDS]

Imagine if he didn't play his home games in a little league park.

[PhillyGirl]

Only the iceholes in this town would talk such crap about a player like Howard.

Pathetic.