Comments on: Preservation Key As Camp Nears

By: Cheap Bats

Cheap Bats — Wed, 25 Mar 2009 19:31:30 +0000

Great quality stuff.

By: Chuck P

Chuck P — Fri, 06 Feb 2009 16:15:45 +0000

Ibanez is a better fielder than Burrell… Burrell is a DH and everyone kind of knew that it was coming to that. Sure, Burrell wanted to come back here because he would have made more coin as a LF but I didn’t see many NL teams jumping to sign Burrell. Ibanez can play LF. He doesn’t have to play gold glove defense because LF defense is not that important in this park (very little ground to cover) and Victorino/Werth limit the amount of ground that he’ll have to cover anyway.

By: NJ

NJ — Thu, 05 Feb 2009 13:39:02 +0000

^If anyone’s going to bring up Burrell vs Ibanez on offense, Burrell was not going to sign for near what he signed for in Tampa. He has the ability to carry a team but his streaks can hurt. Ibanez won’t carry the Phils but he won’t need to be carried, I’m very sure the primary reason for him being here is to bring that character element into the clubhouse to teach guys like Ryan Howard how to grin and bear through those weeks their not on fire, we know he plays smart and it’s the same reason Moyer was retained.

It’s the addition by subtraction idea, it’s not about Ibanez and Moyer it’s about them making the real core of this team stretch out their success.

By: NJ

NJ — Thu, 05 Feb 2009 13:30:18 +0000

I can understand bringing up Eaton though they must be a different bunch of people working on the reports for pitchers and positional players, it’s not like Amaro’s doing the legwork. Although we certainly haven’t gotten anywhere near our moneys worth from Eaton there were a lot of stupid contracts for pitchers (Shmidt, Marquis, Silva, Lilly, Meche, Pavano) and few worked.

Without having any knowledge of advanced scouting I’d say Ibanez will better than Burrell in a reduced area of LF with Vic and Werth able to cover a lot of ground, no-one really cares to much about Gross’s D in Tampa (unless he isn’t hitting) when they have Crawford and Upton to cover most of the ground.

Apparently things aren’t looking to promising for the Rangers and Sheets because of ‘dollars and cent’s. The closer it gets to camp and edging towards opening day the more appealing Sheets gets, I’m not going to predict him being healthy but he did throw just short of 200 innings last year and that’s a flier I’d take any deal of the week.

By: Youth Baseball Parks Blog » Blog Archive » Fatal Mistake

Youth Baseball Parks Blog » Blog Archive » Fatal Mistake — Thu, 05 Feb 2009 07:42:09 +0000

[...] Malcolm argues that the Phillies should wait on Chase Utley until his hip is healed. His reasoning is poor, however: One thing the Phillies have proved is April isn’t as [...]

By: Kev

Kev — Thu, 05 Feb 2009 03:54:13 +0000

As long as Ibanez can catch the routine fly balls to Left Field, what is the big deal? Im with NJ its not like we signed Griffey to roam the outfield, their is no way he can be worse then Burrell. Burrell didnt commit many errors because he never really tried to make a tough play, he would rather let the ball drop in shallow, or whatever, and get the ball in quickly rather then try diving or something which could possibly give him an error. I believe thats the right thing to do, make the necessary play and not hurt your team.

But why does everyone think he is going to be worse? I just dont understand it, if hes been in the league for 10+ years, he can’t be that horrible. He doesnt have to cover a lot of ground towards center cause thats Victorinos area, so as long as he can make the routine plays, who cares, seems like people are just nit picking, trying to find reasons to doubt Amaro. I agree with NJ, if us ordinary people have issues with Ibanez, im sure the Front Office knows this and did some research. You can’t compare that to Eaton, cause thats a one time bust. He sucks.

By: KM

KM — Thu, 05 Feb 2009 02:33:12 +0000

I agree with your concern about the Feliz injury. With any back injury, symptoms can linger for a long time, so even if Feliz is back by April 1, he may still miss more time later in the season due to the injury.

On a side note, Phils are reportedly interested in Joe Beimel, Will Ohman and Randy Flores. I personally like all 3 guys, but Joe Beimel clearly had the best season last year, posting a 2.02 era.

By: Manny

Manny — Thu, 05 Feb 2009 02:10:27 +0000

NJ, did they research the hell out of Adam Eaton before giving him 24M? I don’t think so. It is OK to question whether the Ibanez signing will work or not. I personally think he is a good replacement for Pat, and I am happy he’s joining our team… but his defense is just as bad (maybe worse) and probably he won’t be as good against lefties as many expect him to be.

By: Griffin

Griffin — Thu, 05 Feb 2009 01:51:57 +0000

True, they look at more stats than we can imagine. I think (and I hope) that we’re in good hands with Amaro. Time will tell.

By: NJ

NJ — Thu, 05 Feb 2009 01:48:28 +0000

I doubt they think he’s a good defender but I’m sure they did all they could to idenify roughly how he’d fit into the outfield contingent. It’s not like hey made a yes/no answer, they will have researched the hell out of him before giving him $30m+.

It’s not fair for people to call you an idition (unless there doing it against Geoff in which sorry but it’s just funny) but it’s not all cut and dry, these guys do their research.