–I’m gonna go with anonymous on this one

 No time to look backwards, 15 days of free agency filing have begun. And credit to SFM, whose format I now steal

GM: Ruben Amaro, Jr.

Mgr: Charlie Manuel

Bench Coaches of note: Jimy Williams, Davey Lopes, Rich Dubee

Not a lot to say here. Amaro has been waiting around a long time for this job, he suffered under both Ed Wade and Pat Gillick, so hopefully has learned about both building and polishing. Manuel might occasionally mess up some double switches, but apparently he can teach anyone to hit and the team loves him. Granted, winning teams always say this, but even when struggling, they always had clubhouse harmony, only the fans were griping. Williams appears to handle the strategy anyway. Lopes has made taught everyone how to never get caught stealing, if only he can teach them to never bunt.

For whatever reason, Dubee has a pitching staff which finished 4^th in league ERA (a shade off 2^nd) despite the ballpark and having only 2 pitchers with any trade value (one who was traded for Michael Bourn, mostly straight-up, so Dubee should get some credit for fixing that). They shaved nearly a run off the 2007 ERA with some change to personnel, but going into 2008 the new staff didn’t seem any better on paper than last year. Who knows what’s in store here.

Pitching

2009 rotation:

Hamels

Myers

Moyer

Blanton

Happ

Hamels seems to be pretty squarely in the “there are no Madduxes or Pedro’s in baseball right now, instead a short list of about 10 guys with Santana and Halladay towards the top based on track record.” The next three, I accept any statement in this space _______. Myers is irritating because his starts range from ace to Lima. For a team that can score, probably better off with the Moyer-Blanton everyday 3 R in 6 IP = 4.50 ERA.

Happ is a decent prospect who took a little longer than expected, but seems to be benefiting from being a crafty lefty with Hamels and Moyer on the team. Eaton (eyes closed) and Kendrick (mostly closed, he’s only 24) are still technically on the team. If things go terribly wrong, Carlos Carrasco is the only guy close to MLB ready, and he’s considered high-ceiling but unlikely to reach it.

Pen:

Lidge

Romero

Madson

Durbin

Condrey

Top two are locked up for three years, each having shaken off bad years. Bullpen is bullpen, who knows what you’re getting, but those two are as good a bet as any to start a year. No Phillie fan likes Madson half as much as Joe Buck does, but the last three were solid enough through the year at various times to be the righty setup. Rested Condrey should have replaced a tired Durbin for meaningful playoff innings. They get to shed Gordon, Seanez, and a silly Scott Eyre salary and will have to get another lefty, no real minor league prospects here.

Lineup

Infield

Howard

Rollins

Utley

Feliz

None of these guys had their best year, and it’s still probably the best infield in baseball. None of them even had their second-best year. They’re all around 30, Feliz is 33 and his badness is hopefully not age because they’ve got another year of him and an option, David Bell redux. Gloves are fine, I’d have to say 2-2-3-4, no one is showing signs of breaking down yet. Rollins bounced back from a foot injury which could have hurt his game, then stole 47/50. Utley only has the Dave Hollins risk of injury since he stands on top of the plate. Howard played every game this year, but probably starting this year falls into the risk of the Fat Black HR King Doctrine.

[note: HR Melvin sent me an email which I’ll summarize here, I’ll let him comment on his own. He basically checked to see if there were any fat white champs in recent history, but most of the bigger white guys are steroid issues, not fatness. I looked back a little bit further and seem to recall Darrell Evans being kind of round, which supports the theory because he was still productive at 40. Gorman Thomas sure sounds like a fat guy, but I don’t know]

Outfield

Victorino

Werth

???

Good gloves and still young, Victorino should put up the same numbers. Werth is a wildcard, he always looks terrible at the plate but obliterates lefties. He’s only gotten better each year, and if he hits another 24 HR in 418 AB’s, with walks and speed, that’s fine. They’re stuck with Jenkins for another year, maybe they can give him some AB’s against righties in RF. The ??? are a problem.

Catchers

Ruiz

Marson

Coste

Ruiz can’t contribute any less. Marson had a .433 OBP in AA and played some Olympics, still 22, his callup will depend on Ruiz returning to his stellar 2007 form (.259 with 6 HR). Ruiz is 29, so doubtful they’ll commit to him. Coste faded, they could go bargain basement to round this out. They only carried 2 catchers in 2008, so OF holes could mean they can’t keep 3 catchers, unless Marson can play the field. I have no idea. This spot bats eighth no matter what, so anything that comes out of it is a bonus.

Bench

Dobbs

Jenkins

Stairs

Bruntlett

Golson

Snelling

Dobbs will get his AB’s somehow in LF/3B. Bench is a pretty small deal since there’s no platoons if Werth can hang in against righties and Feliz can stay healthy. Opponents are likely to overreact and throw more lefties once Burrell is gone, even though 2008 team was +.044 OPS against lefties (that has to be Werth almost by himself). This means even less need for non-pitcher PH, since the bottom of the order is righthanded. LF by committee here, Golson and Snelling probably don’t make it since they’ll need a roster slot for a lefty reliever. But injuries will open up playing time for these guys. Stairs is under contract, but he’ll have to hit well to justify keeping him around all year.

To do

Recent World Series history should make clear that having a 90 win team that happens to go 11-3 in the postseason did not mean you had the best team to begin with, and thus should not expect a repeat performance because you bring back the same guys. White Sox, Rockies and Tigers definitely learned this, although the Phillies break that mold a little bit because they had spent a few years building up a winning team, rather than a one-year wonder. Cardinals and Astros were kind of old, Bosox victimized by age and injuries. A healthy Bosox team is probably the 2009 favorite, but if Lowell and Ortiz are done (see FBHRK doctrine), they’ve got nothing.

So standing pat shouldn’t be an option. To review, the lineup produced far less than in 2007 with only Werth having what might have been a peak year. Even losing Burrell, probably no need to panic there. Bullpen should also be fine, at least as much as bullpens can be predicted. But that starting pitching aggregate success just seems suspect going into 2009, even though only Moyer is coming off the “career” year.

Let’s knock out the financial situation, to see what we’re working with, because this is going to get ugly:

2008 payroll: $98M. This number was basically unchanged over the last five years, and was generally just outside the top ten in all baseball. I don’t know what the new budget is for next year, but let’s say they have $110M to play with from victory bonus. Sour economy is disregarded, since it hits all teams proportionally (I’m sure there are calculable costs/benefits here, but I will ignore them). They have under contract

Myers  $12M (last year of backloaded deal, not as ugly as it seems)

Eaton    $9M (including inevitable 2010 buyout. Jesus)

Utley   $11M (then 4 more years at $15M each, which seems fair)

Rollins $7.5M (and two more similar years, which seems pretty good)

Lidge  $11.5M (plus 2 more years and an option)

Gordon $1M buyout

Jenkins $8M (including inevitable 2010 buyout, ouch)

Romero $4M (then 2 more fair years)

Feliz $5M (another option in 2010)

Stairs $1M (Worth it for the one swing)

That’s $70M to start. The good news is Jenkins, Eaton, and if necessary Feliz come off after 2009, and at most they need a third baseman to replace all of them. That’s $22M for practically nothing, so they might be able to stretch 2009 knowing they lose this dead weight in 2010. More good news is they only have 2 long tails in Utley and Lidge. I could see Lidge being a problem down the line, but not Utley. I could also see tearing up Myers’ contract to save money this year and giving him a long term deal which won’t work out, but if they need the cash it’s an option.

To the existing contracts I’ll add Moyer at 2 years, $5M per, about what he made last year. He’s a free agent, but he’s a local and will come back at a fair price, and any way you paint it he went 16-7, 3.71, 1.3 whip. It’s not like they have a stable of young arms ready to go, and they’ll have to pay more to replace those numbers (granted, he’s not doing that again) So they’ve got $75M under contract.

Which unfortunately is a lot because they’re going to get hammered by arbitration:

(with service years)

Joe Blanton rhp 4.016

Eric Bruntlett inf 4.102

Craig Condrey rhp 3.012

Greg Dobbs 3b 3.035

Chad Durbin rhp 4.102

Cole Hamels lhp 2.143

Ryan Howard 1b 3.145

Ryan Madson rhp 5.027

Shane Victorino of 3.092

Jayson Werth of 5.102

The length of this list is comparable to young craptastic squads like Pittsburgh and KC. Even Tampa is better off. But the Phillies have to pay their 1 and 3 starters, 4 of their top 6 bats (including Dobbs here), and their 3,4,5 bullpen arms. This is by far the best arbitration-eligible team out there. Maybe Florida has a comparable list.

Howard got a record $10M last year, and Hamels has the same service time now that Howard had last year, and was upset when he got the standard deal last year. At best (from management perspective) Hamels will get $8M and Howard $14. With the early-signing trend, Howard is likely to get many years, but the Phils may be wary of his age and shape (FBHRK doctrine) and give him fewer years and more dollars. I’m not aware of many teams locking up good young pitchers due to injury risk. But at these figures, we’re already up to $97M.

I’m not well versed on what kind of deals players get when a few years closer to free agency. They got Blanton because they’d have him locked up for a couple of years. Nate Robertson and Oliver Perez had similar experience and performance and got $6-7M. They’ll probably have to overpay Werth now on the chance he has a big year and they can’t afford him. The only comparable time/talent guy I could find from last year was Orlando Hudson at $6M, so let’s say that. Victorino probably gets $3M, which seems like the going rate for 3 years, quality starter.

They might as well keep Condrey, Madson, and Durbin; I think they can get all three in at $5M total, and then they’ll lose Madson at the end of the year. Unless they plan on making him a starter, I’m not seeing a third long-term deal in the bullpen.

Bruntlett and Dobbs should be back for $2M total. Or just let Bruntlett go, doesn’t matter.

This list of non-awesome arbitration players adds up to $22M and brings the payroll to $119M. I’m already $10M over budget. And there’s still the list of crap after that:

Kendrick, Ruiz, Coste, Zagurski, Golson, Carpenter, Happ, Mathieson, are all in the mix and add up to another $3M. There’s some sludge after that and I don’t know how they count the guys who bounce up and down, and on and off the DL. Ruiz could get a raise, and maybe Kendrick or Coste, so lets just say there’s $7M more out there, bringing the total to $126M.

That moves them to the 5^th highest payroll based on last year’s numbers, behind only Mets, Yankees, Bosox and Tigers. Even with some customary inflation, only the White Sox move up. And I don’t know where Detroit got its money, I’m guessing they start to unload soon. Who knows how inflation plays, how terrible economy plays, but I’ve already made an allowance for World Series “bonus” and they’re at least $25M poorer than last year. It’s possible they know something I don’t since they gave Lidge a huge deal in the middle of the year, when they knew they’d be paying Howard and Hamels. But at the time they didn’t yet know all the arbitration guys would be better than expected, and due more cash.

The good news is, there’s no way Burrell comes back. The bad news is, there’s no way they bring in a big bat or extra starter. For awhile I had the dream that Burrell’s $14M came off the books and they could apply that to a run at Manny, but obviously they need it to pay their own guys. Which means scouring the free agent list is worthless, since they’re only going to get a couple of bullpen arms and a righthanded bat, and maybe a backup catcher (although this now seems silly, just keep Coste).

They’re even a little handcuffed on the trade market. They have Eaton/Jenkins bad contracts, but those guys have no value at all and you’d have to pay their salary even if you could dump them. Everyone else is appropriately paid and sitting in the middle of their career; you would only trade them to maneuver around position gaps. The only guy who might be movable for a MLB ready player is Feliz, but you’re not getting much back and not clearing very much salary.

If their payroll were lower, then Werth or Victorino at their salaries could bring back a big expensive player, but they can’t afford a big expensive player. Victorino is the one valuable chip they have, because he’s cheap enough and still years away from arbitration, so he could be unloaded to any team in baseball for a good package of prospects (the Twins like to pick up guys like this).

Werth is a free agent next year (assuming they can’t lock him up), so doesn’t have the value of Victorino. But if, for whatever reason, the Phils are out of contention next year, he’s the first to go.

Free Agents

But this would be no fun if we didn’t look at the free agent list. After all, the window on the infield is probably about 3 more seasons (the pitching window is pretty good, but who knows with pitchers). So why not make a run and expect to go Marlins in 2012? Let’s say they can free up $15M by some combination of restructuring Myers and backloading Hamels/Howard deals, and maybe dumping Madson (the last probably hurts the team and is of minimal value).

They probably can’t sign Manny since someone would give him a 3 year deal, but if the market turns out to be 2 years $40M, why not? I assume the Mets will just get him, but could be swayed by attitude/oh-my-god-are-we-making-the-burnitz-alomar-teams-again? Adam Dunn is there, but I thought he re-upped, and if not, he’s going to want 5 years plus, and should get it. And Abreu will get overpaid by someone like Texas.

Well, unfortunately, the rest of this list sucks, as the next best bat is probably Pat Burrell. This reminds me of a fine Eagles off-season when fans were begging to release rapidly-aging Michael Lewis (the former pro-bowl safety, not the writer) only to discover that the best available free agent safety was Michael Lewis. Looking at these names makes it easier to figure out why some contracts are not renewed.

Baldelli is interesting, and since the Phils already have a lot of bodies, they could risk a decrepit one. Brian Giles could have a year left, but he’s a lefty. Millar would be the dopey RH fit. Everyone else they can just wait on and get cheap and maybe Charlie Manuel can squeeze something out of them. So maybe LF isn’t the way to go.

Check out the minor league free agent list. Fun. Gookie Dawkins!

http://www.baseballamerica.com/blog/prospects/?p=644

There is a lot of solid if unspectacular pitching out there. Randy Johnson would be fun, but I don’t know why he’d come here. Derek Lowe will be a Yankee, but if you’re going to blow cash on a shorter deal, why not? Available infield is quite poor.

So it looks like the plan is to hope Jenkins can find a swing or that some prospect can do something. Or bring Burrell back for a comically low number. (Maybe the economy does suck enough that no one is giving out cash and lots of guys will take one year deals?)

It looks like I could have skipped this section.

Outlook

The pitching seems like it was too good to be true this year, although player by player, only Moyer seems unlikely to repeat his 2008 performance. Lidge probably won’t nail down every save, but his stats were allstar-closer, not Eck, thus repeatable. The middle relief will probably slip. Kendrick and Eaton are still on the team and burned 263 innings at 5.60 ERA, and can’t really get any worse, so if June innings need to be eaten up, they’ve got the bodies. (Blanton replaces a lot of those innings this year) Myers has a contract year, and though I don’t believe in that crap, his post-demotion performance was just short of Sabathia, so its possible he could have a big year. Blanton looks like he’s headed to 10 more years of 12-10, 4.44, which is fine. More good news is the Phils seem to have shed a 20 year tradition of pitcher injuries; no one in their top 12 is DL-addicted.

The lineup lost some pop in 2008 after losing a big Rowand year, but that was probably due more to everyone doing a little worse since Werth stepped in pretty well. Losing Burrell could hurt. This means a full year of Dobbs/Jenkins/unnamed RH-bat in left. That bat could be Golson (a crazy fast guy), but he’s only been OK in the minors. It is possible that Burrell’s glove and speed were so terrible that they were neutralizing his sometimes .900 OPS and that Golson could replace him.

There aren’t any A-list guys in the minors, but the scout sites seem to think the Phils have a healthy stack of B-list guys. And they can always sign some late bloomers, that’s how they found Werth. Chris Snelling was supposed to be this year’s Werth, but he got hurt. Considering that they’re only audtioning for an 8-hole part-time catcher, a platoon LF, a 4/5 starter, and 2 guys in the deep pen, this is probably a good thing: plug guys into a good clubhouse, no pressure, and maybe one or two pan out.

Though this stuff isn’t supposed to matter, the Phillies now have a nice history of playing better in September than everyone else, but spent the Lieberthal years digging holes that were too deep to get out of. With the rotation a little more stable, this shouldn’t be an issue in 2009. The arbitration issue could cut either way: the Phillies are notoriously cheap with young players and there will be some hurt feelings; to be determined whether this leads to pouting or to guys putting up numbers to get paid elsewhere.

Beyond 2009:

It looks like the Jenkins/Eaton slush fund will go towards Hamels/Howard contracts. If there’s any left over, hopefully it’s going to reward Werth, Blanton, Victorino and Myers. Realistically, if all these guys continue to perform the Phillies can’t afford to keep them. They just have too many guys ages 25-30. Aside from Moyer and the Eaton/Jenkins atrocities, they don’t have anyone else scheduled for a career-slide/salary downgrade/release. The only way they can keep afford them is if they suck, which doesn’t accomplish very much.

So while it’s not likely that they would have to move someone in 2009, this year will probably serve as a “reverse audition” since not everyone can be around long term and they’ll look to dump someone for prospects. Inevitable injury will also narrow the field.

 vnueva

vnueva

Not sure how I missed the Jorg Haider was gay story. I guess he fell so far out of the limelight that it didn’t trump the financial news.

But this got me wondering about the comparable liberal hypocrisy to the Haiders, Larry Craigs, and Bill Bennetts (chronic gambler). I guess the environment is the main one, aside from a few eco-freaks, nobody does anything unless there’s a tax break or risk of being fined. It could also be voluntary taxing: if you believe the government should have more funding, you should be willing to pay more on your own, and not feel gyped that someone else isn’t paying their share. (I know that you can give a gift to the United States and they get around $2M a year, but this might be only for paying off the debt.) But it’s possible that the liberal agenda is for better distribution only, not necessarily more taxation.

There’s also a problem here of passive vs. active violation. 

Ideas welcome.

HR Melvin

E.H.

One would hope there’s a douchebag at MLB who will get fired over the fact that it took 17 minutes to figure out how to replace an injured umpire.

One would also hope (at least for the folks who work at Tropicana Orange Juice) that there’s a douchebag at Tropicana Field who will get fired for failing to notice that the “o”-light is out in the 100-foot-tall rightfield sign bearing the name of the sponsor.

I’ll leave it to Hector to explain the foolishness of citing won-loss records when so-and-so scores a run.

What’s with these pansy necklaces the Sox are wearing? Did they spend the summer at 10-year-old-girl Jew camp?

HR Melvin

Count the number of ESPN experts, out of 19, who, at the outset of the playoffs, had the Phils going to the World Series.

As there was a gripe about Arbiters content from an unknown source, I shall raise the bar. Alas, only part way as I shall gripe about politics, albeit with spin as the title might suggest. Since the rest of the world suffers the same malaise as baseball criticism ($700B: geez, that’s a lot of cash :: 62 : geez, that’s a lot of saves) I deem it appropriate

John McCain apparently proposed, to save some dough, that he would freeze spending on all government budgets to pay for our various shortfalls, with the exception of the Military, Veterans, and entitlement programs (Social Security and Medicare). Here are the 2008 estimates for what the United States spends its money on according to, well, the White House. (They’re reasonable expectations considering the 2007 final numbers):

$billions

Defense                                                670.5

Veterans                                               87.9

Health & Human Services                     717.1

Social Security Administration               658.5

Treasury                                               522.5

Fuzzy Math Line                                 -285.6

Everything else                                     642.2

Total                                                   3013.1

First some disclaimers so the truth squad doesn’t get me:

1)      I’m pretty sure the fuzzy math line is the Social Security Trust Fund contribution, this is basically fake money, but since it’s a negative, it’s helping the Everything else line

2)      Health (presumably) and Social Security (I am confident), include something in the neighborhood of 10% administration cost for their handouts, which are kept separately. Health might also have some minor grant programs which are not considered entitlements

3)      Treasury is always ignored, that’s just paying off the debt on old bonds. McCain didn’t mention this, but you’re not really a productive saver if your method of saving money is avoiding paying debt on money already spent. Treasury probably has a minor administrative cost.

But, to the point, John McCain expects to pay the banks $700 billion, not freeze the listed programs, add whatever his latest tax cuts are, and pay for it all by freezing spending on the Everything Else line, which is only $642.2 to begin with. Also, since you didn’t ask, money in for 2008 will be $2,521 (about the same as last year), which means we’re half a trillion in deficit which we’re not bothering to make up.

Lets make a ridiculously high assumption and assume 5% expected growth on the everything else (it’s been a pretty solid 2-3% for the last 20 years). He just saved $32.1. Good work.

Appendix:

Since you didn’t ask, here’s some highlights of Everything Else:

Agriculture       92.2

Education         66.6

Transportation  63.4

Personnel Mgmt  (basically federal employee payroll)  66.5

Things between 10 and 40 are, in no particular order, Energy, Interior, Justice, Labor, State, Foreign Aid, NASA.

Things between 2 and 10 are Legislative, Judiciary, Commerce, Corps of Engineers, EPA, NSF

Anything not mentioned is not worth mentioning (literally, although perhaps a stretch on use of literal) .

vnueva