The big one.
Well the big trade came down today. I think I’m now calm enough to write something about it without resorting to four-letter words. Probably.
I should readily admit up front that I’m probably looking at this with heavily biased views. When one of your favorite players gets traded to one of your least favorite teams, it’s hard to stay calm, dispassionate, and analytical about the situation. That said, my initial reaction and the one I still have is “That’s it?”
Yes I know they got four players, but quantity is really not the issue here, quality is. Matt Smith looks like he could be a decent reliever, but he’s not intended to be the centerpiece of the deal. C.J. Henry is clearly the centerpiece, and Jesus Sanchez I suppose could be argued is also looked at as a potential good pick up. However aside from Smith, all the players involved fall into the category of young, athletic players who are very raw and are much more potential than actual performance right now. The Phillies love that sort of player, drafting lots and lots of them over the years. They also have a very clearly established track record. They’re terrible at actually developing them as players.
Among position players, the big names the farm system has produced in recent years are Chase Utley and Ryan Howard. Both of them are outstanding players and the Phils definitely deserve credit for developing them. But they were both players who were relatively polished as baseball players coming out of college. I’m hard pressed to come up with a “toolsy” player they’ve actually developed. Jimmy Rollins probably comes closest to that description and that’s not looking so good right now.
To be honest, I’m not at all convinced that the Phils couldn’t have done better by holding onto Abreu and shopping Lidle around trying to get the best offer for him alone.
Meanwhile, this doesn’t really do anything to help the team in the immediate future. Smith is the only player we’re likely to see out of this trade before 2009 or so. Yes, they free up some payroll, but for what? The free agent market this coming year is very thin and going out and signing a bunch of players would be unwise since it would cost them draft picks which they dearly need to hold onto.
Right now I’m having flashbacks to all those mid-to-high 70s win teams of the late 80s and 90s. I think we’re in for a few more years like that.
On the plus side, I have no arguments with what they did to fill the roster spots at the major league level. I was a little surprised to see Bourn called up instead of Roberson, but as long as Bourn gets to play some, I’m curious to see what he can do. And Scott Mathieson definitely deserves his shot in the rotation that he’s getting. If we actually get to see a lot of the younger players getting a shot the rest of the way, it’ll at least be interesting to watch.
July 30th, 2006 at 11:54 pm
I’m very lukewarm on the trade right now, we’ll see how the prospects and salary headroom pan out, but it’s not looking great right now.
But the best news of the day was that “Home Run” Franklin was designated for assignment.