Blow up the Phillies? It was worth it!

Jonah Keri is a damn good baseball writer, whose opinion I take seriously.  So to say it was disappointing to read the headline “Blow up the Phillies,” would be an understatement. 

But reading the piece made me think of two different conversations I had.

Bill Simmons or: how I realized Grantland is terrible for other reasons

I DID IT!!!!!!

After years of contemplation, and checking in on it multiple times a day, I finally figured it out…

I know why Grantland sucks!

An ode to Wingbowl

February is a special time of year

A time for football, fun and cheer

Yes, Wingbowl is at long last back

A tournament where chickens come under attack

A game where hero’s come to eat

A game where skinny people end in defeat

A spectacle like the world has never seen

Where you’re bound to see something obscene

I remember my first Yuengling in the parking lot

And watching Coop shit that was left to rot

49ers vs. Ravens or "Worst Superbowl Ever"

I’ve never seen Casablanca, but there is a line in the movie that I’ve heard and cannot wait for the moment I’ll get to use it on some poor unsuspecting foe. 

A guy leans over to Humphrey Bogart and says “You despise me, don’t you?”

Bogart replies, “Well, if I gave you any thought I probably would.”

It’s a great line and perfectly sums up my feeling for this years Super Bowl.

 Seriously the last time I was this non excited about a Super Bowl was probably Steelers, Cardinals in 2009.  And I know that wasn’t very long ago, but c’mon, it was the Cardinals.  A team so historically bad that at least that was at least a little bit interesting.

Eagles drinking game:

This is the worst season in Eagles history since the Ray Rhodes era.  But that doesn't mean we still can't enjoy this season.  I present to you my new rules for an Eagles Drinking Game.  This is far from a completed list as our incompetence seemingly knows no bounds; so I'm asking you-- my idiots-- to come up with more suggestions so we can make this horrid season at least tolerable.

Here are my rules:

My Phillies Off-Season Plan

Following a season that saw the Phillies fall from the class of the National League back to the middle of the pack, the team's off-season decisions will go a long way to determining whether they will be a contender or a pretender next season.  As has been well detailed throughout the off-season, if the Phillies maintain their payroll at the luxury tax threshold, they should have about $25-30 million to work with with major needs to fill in the outfield, the bullpen, and at third base.  Without further ado, my plan for the offseason:

1. Sign Josh Hamilton.  Crazy?  I don't think so.  Hamilton is one of the top hitters in baseball and is hands down the best hitter on the free agent market.  He is coming off a 43 homer, 128 RBI season and is only a few years removed from a MVP season that saw him capture a batting title.  Though he is left-handed and there has been talk of the Phillies wanting to add a right handed power bat to make up for Hunter Pence's departure, Hamilton's production against lefties throughout his career has been more than adequate as he has hit .280 with an OPS of .808.  By comparison, Hunter Pence is a CAREER 285 hitter with an OPS of .814.     Even better, he can play center field, a clear area of need for the Phils.  Of course, Hamilton's personal baggage is well documented.  However, he has not missed any legitimate time do to drug use.  Additionally and just as importantly from a baseball standpoint, there has never been any indication that he is a bad teammate - his Rangers teammates even showed how much they care for him when the celebrated their playoff series victory a couple a years ago with soda, not champagne.  He was a central member of back to back pennant winning teams, demonstrating he was far from a distraction from his team.  There has been concern about his durability, but I would consider this to be overplayed.  Since 2008, his first full year with the Rangers, Hamilton has played in at least 120 games and gotten at least 487 at bats in 4 of his 5 seasons.  Last year, Hamilton played in 148 games and got 562 at bats.  It may be a stretch for Hamilton to reach the 624 at bats he got in 2008, but seems 500 at bats per season from him is more than likely.  Consider also that though Hamilton has abused his body with substances, he does not have the normal amount of baseball under his belt as someone his age.  Speaking of his age Hamilton is 31 years old.  While not a spry youngster, he is still clearly in his prime and should remain there for at least another season or two, if not longer.  Coming off a year in which he made nearly $14 million, Hamilton is in line for a raise, but considering the questions surrounding his drug use and his durability, he will struggle to get the money he deserves for his on the field performance.  Additionally, rumors are already flying that the Rangers are looking elsewhere.  I would guess that a 4-5 year deal with an average salary in the $18-20 million dollar range would get this deal done.  While the Phillies would probably get bitten on the back end of this deal, the reward is high enough to justify the risk for a team that has world series aspirations right now and no clear answer for center field on the team or in the minor league system (Tyson Gillies has baggage and injury issues of his own and is not ready to take over in the majors).  Signing Hamilton would easily make the Phillies a top notch offensive team on paper and would make the middle of their order frightening, even with the potential continued decline of Howard and Ultey.

2. Re-Sign Placido Polanco.  If there is an immediate negative of signing Josh Hamilton, it is that the Phillies will instantly have only about $10 million left to spend.  Currently, 3rd base is being filled by Kevin "speed" Frandsen and apparently Freddy "roids" Galvis.  Frandson was excellent at the plate last year hitting .338.  What is critical to remember however is that he has a whopping 195 at bats.  Additionally, his career average of .269 and whopping OBP of .322 suggest that his .338 average is not sustainable.  Further more, he has never amassed so much as 300 at bats in a season and is already 30.  Unless he is the late bloomer to top all late bloomers, he will be no more than a fill in next year at the plate.  His defense, will solid, as not great, and could over a full season prove detrimental.  Galvis, while flashing great leather, is a black hole at the plate as I don't need to remind anyone and has never actually played 3rd base.  Peanut Head on the other hand, if used in a platoon role, should come cheaply (1-2 million) and with ample rest, could very well sustain a .300 average at the plate.  He will provide defense better than any Galvis in theory might possess and will outhit both Galvis and Frandsen.  He would also allow for the 3 players to rotate and take bench spots that will help both the aging Rollins and Utley rest.  I'd love to take a shot in the dark and sign Kevin Youkilus, but doing so would empty the treasury before other moves could be made.

3. Bring back Ryan Madson.  One of my all time favorite Phillies, Madson should be fully rehabbed from Tommy John surgery and ready to open the season.  While he has said he wants a closing job, he may have a hard time finding a team that will hand him the reigns.  What better way to rebuild his value then coming back to the only place he has every thrown a major league pitch - Philadelphia.  I am not a big believer in spending money on the bullpen, considering the heavy volatility of relievers, but the Phillies clearly need a reliable veteran arm to set up Papelbon.  A 1 year deal for 4-5 million plus incentives should get this done.  And if Papelbon falters, Madson can step right in to the closers role.

4. Sign Wilson Valdez to a minor league deal with an invite to spring training.  Why the hell not?  Wilson is available and will be had cheap after last years performance.  Stash him at AAA and when Frandson or Galvis inevitably struggles, you have a fan favorite to come to the rescue.

5. Non-tender Nate Schierhotz.  With Nix and Mayberry taking bench roles, Schierholtz becomes useless.

6. Start Brown and Ruf in the corners.  With Hamilton plus hopefully a full year of Utley and Howard, it is time to start the youth movement.  See what these guys have to offer.  If things backfire, work mayberry and Nix in as platoon players.

All Streaks Must End

My favorite Eagles-related streak came to an end this weekend. Andy Reid lost a game after a bye week. It's the first time. Whether the extra rest was just enough for his generally better team to overcome their opponents each week was happenstance, or he truly was a superior coach that used that extra time to exploit teams flaws, the loss of this week's game to a clearly superior Falcons team signals far more than such a loss should. It is time for Andy Reid to go, and the end of this streak is the signal of that end of an era.

I have never called for Reid to leave before, being one of his defenders to the end, but with Eagles Owner Jeffrey Lurie's proclamation before the season that essentially boiled down to "Playoffs or bust", even a mediocre season that sees the Eagles limp into the playoffs with 8 or 9 wins (unlikely) should not save Reid's job. He has demonstrated significant skill in player scouting and development, and I would love to see him remain with the organization in these capacities, though I doubt his ego would allow for it; he can certainly land a coach gig, if not another coach/GM combined position like he enjoys here, elsewhere in the NFL.

Knowing that, I would still be okay with cutting ties and letting Reid walk; if not now, with the evidence on the wall, at least at season's end. One streak ending begets another's beginning.

Castillo mistake finally fixed; Could Reid be next?

Well, the great Juan Castillo experiment has finally come to a bitter end, after 22 regular-season games in which the defense slowly improved but could never quite put it all together.

Last year, the team couldn't stop the run. Then, they were helpless against the pass despite boasting three star-caliber cornerbacks. This year, the pass defense has tightened up but the Eagles have been helpless at putting pressure on the quarterback, recording nary a single sack in weeks four through six despite leading the league with 50 sacks last season.

The switch from Castillo to Todd Bowles comes at an interesting time, midway through a season in which the defense has hardly been the team's Achilles heel. What can we glean from Reid's decision? A couple of observations:

Phillies Make Right Call with Joyner

When the Phillies first announced their coaching changes, I couldn't have been more ecstatic that Greg Gross was fired.  At the same time, I couldn't have been more dismayed that Steve Henderson was hired.  As the Phillies bats have struggled over the last few years, it has been evident that someone from outside the organization needed to come in to do the coaching.  In the perfect world, that someone would have been Barry Bonds.  What better way to teach your hitters how to be patient than to bring in the best hitter of his generation?  Bonds was probably a pipe dream.  Joyner on the other hand was a successful major league hitter, sporting a career average of near .300, while hitting 200 homers and having more walks than strikeouts.  Gregg Gross, who clearly was no better than Milt Thompson, who clearly was no better than Hal McRae, etc... needed to take the fall.  Hopefully Joyner can teach the Phillies how to be selective and improve their woeful OBP.

Andy Reid and the Eagles' organizational demise

In press conferences, Andy Reid has long held that any failure on the part of his team is really a failure of his own doing--to prepare, to scheme, to motivate. Any post-game interview following a loss is sure to start with the words, "I take responsibility."

That response was often laughable, when individual players' deficiencies or mistakes had clearly been the culprit for this or that particular play that contributed heavily to a loss. But now, those words ring much truer. Andy Reid has finally uttered them so many times that they've become reality.

Andy Reid has become the problem.

The book on Andy Reid is out, and has been for a while. He can't balance the run with the pass. He can't control the use of his timeouts. He can't manage the clock to save his life, particularly at the end of a close game. But the issues have progressed beyond those that we've learned to deal with on a day-to-day basis. Andy Reid, who has been the Eagles' coach since 1999 and in charge of their football operations (read: general manager) since 2001, has presided over a slow organizational slide from elite team to mediocre team. Let's explore how we got there.

Pipe dreams: NHL needs to seriously consider contraction

Kent Wilson at NHL Numbers posted a great article on what ails the NHL, and why player salary rollbacks aren't going to fix it. Ultimately, Wilson arrives at the hard truth for owners: the only real solutions are aggressive revenue-sharing via the ability to trade cap space, or, even more simply, contracting or relocating teams that have no real hope of breaking even.

Revenue sharing is great, and it's probably going to be incorporated into the next CBA on some level. But it's a cover-up for the league's real problem, which is that the gap between teams that generate the most and least revenue is extremely wide and irreversible. The hard salary cap implemented in the last CBA was supposed to do two things: create cost-certainty by limiting player salaries, and ensure competitive balance by guaranteeing that teams would be spending relatively similar amounts of money.

Instituting revenue sharing within the hard cap maintains cost certainty, but eliminates the competitive balance element, since it allows big-market teams to spend more and actively incentivizes small-market teams to spend less in the name of turning a profit. That's kind of Wilson's point: that the pursuits of profits and parity are often at odds with each other.

That's why the league's only real solutions to its problems are relocation and contraction.

The Panel of Ineptitude

The last NHL lockout happened 8 years ago.  Labor and management were so far apart rather than, you know make money, the two sides thought it would be better to shut the doors and lose a full season than negotiate.  After more than a year of grueling negotiations the two sides agreed to a deal.

And then something happened…

The scabs strike again, and this time it's for real

Three weeks into the NFL season, the replacement referee issue has spiraled completely out of hand. After an optimistic start to the season, the reaction has progressed something like this:

Week 1: "That was a little sloppier than usual, but hey, that wasn't so bad!"

Week 2: "Hmm, there sure were a lot of fights and stuff on the field this week. Plus that whole St. Louis-Washington game? I wonder if the real refs will be back soon."

Week 3: "WHAT THE F*CK?!"

It was easy to speculate, during the first 47 regular season games, that a blown call here or a phantom penalty there might have affected the outcome of a game. It was just as easy to say that the regular referees make mistakes, and that one play rarely directly decides the winner of a game.

And then came Monday, September 24th. On national television. On the final play of a one-possession game. Featuring one of the league's golden teams.

Kevin Kolb? Seriously? What is this, 2011?

They are who we thought they were. Or, at least, they are who I thought they were.

Maybe that's a bit harsh. The Baltimore game was a genuinely strong performance, even with the turnovers. But it turns out the ghost of seasons past had a few more reminders to dole out about a team that changed very little about its makeup following an abysmal 2011 season.

And so we got lousy pass protection, a couple of turnovers, a secondary that couldn't cover a folding chair, sloppy run defense, and ohmygodicouldkeepgoingforever.

On the bright side, Fat Andy did manage to hang on to all his timeouts in the first half. That would have come in handy, had we been able to complete a pass on any of the three plays we ran from the one-yard line.

Where to start with this one? There are so many fun things to rant about, I might just have to go to a bullet format here, first the offense and then the defense. Let's begin with a fun photo!

LA Dodgers/Red Sox

If the Dodgers don't win the World Series this year or next year, and they won't due to their massive lack of pitching depth, they will live to regret today's blockbuster with the Sox.  The Sox on the other hand will be able to invest their money, go young, and will come back strong.

Steve Van Buren

Just feel it is necessary to note his passing as he was quite possibly the greatest player to put on a Philadelphia Eagles uniform.

Sign Juan Cruz

Juan Cruz, the holder of an era under 3.00, was released by the Pirates and is now a free agent.  He is a strikeout pitcher who would come cheap and seems like the kind of bullpen arm the Phillies are looking for.  Obviously I am not a proponent on spending money for relievers, so getting Cruz now on the cheap seems like a good call.

Is it the Nick Foles era yet?

As promised, we'll follow last week's quick-hit analysis of the Eagles first preseason game with another breakdown of Monday's match-up against the Patriots.

Rather than stay with last week's up/down drill, I want to do a couple of bullet point observations and then get into something that is, right now, going to seem over-reactive. It's also something that, by the end of the season, I guarantee will gain a lot of traction among this fan base:

The new most important thing we will learn about the Eagles this season is whether Nick Foles is the quarterback of the future. Mike Vick's near-guaranteed injury will almost certainly give Foles a chance to showcase his stuff during a couple of regular season games, and if he shows the Eagles anything, the front office should use it as an opportunity to unload Vick for what would surely be a nice haul of draft picks next offseason.

I'm not kidding, and I'm not overreaching. But we'll get there. First, the bullets.

Why you shouldn't pay for relief pitching

The Phillies trade of Shane Victorino for Josh Lindblom and a prospect was supposed to help fix a beleaguered and underachieving bullpen.  Just 2 weeks later, Lindblom has already been responsible for at least two losses and looks to be no better, if not in fact worse, then the Phillies previous options.  For any longtime Phillies fan, Lindblom's poor results should be no surprise.  The Phillies have traded for and signed relief pitchers year after year, and year after year, these relief pitchers have failed to put up consistently good performances.  To be arbitrary, let's go back to one of my favorite relief pitching deals, the Turk Wendell/Dennis Cook extravaganza, and evaluate the Phillies higher profile relief moves/performances since then:

Turk Wendell/Dennis Cook - Wendell and Cook were brought in as mid-season acquisitions from the Mets to fortify the bullpen for a playoff run.  Problem was, Wendell went from a workhorse who put up a sub-4 ERA over 4 seasons with the Mets, to an albatross who put up an ERA over 7 following his acquisition by the Phillies in 2001, then missed the entire 2002 season injured before actually putting together a decent season in 03.  It appears the Phillies paid him about 7-8 million $ for his efforts.  Like Wendell, Cook put together a sub-4 ERA in 4 years with the Mets.  Cook then pitched a whopping 19 games for the Phillies compiling an ERA well north of 5.  Another multi-million dollar player, the Phillies likely only had to fork over about $1 million to Cook.  

Where do the Sixers rank in the East?

Some of you may recall my extreme disdain for the Sixers' roster as previously constructed, and the complaints I laid out in extremely bitter fashion only recently.

Well, one inexplicably incredible trade later, the Sixers have placated me. The gift of a trade that the Sixers miraculously stumbled into, in which they essentially packaged a guy (Iguodala) who would be the third-best player on any real contender for the best true low-post offensive center and second-best center in the league overall (Bynum), and managed to pick up a real outside shooter (Richardson) to boot, has undoubtedly moved the Sixers up the ranks of Eastern Conference contenders. The question is, how far?