Kuzul

Just how desperate were the Philadelphia Phillies to sign a right-handed, power hitting corner outfielder with Major League experience? Desperate enough to forget what solid defense looks like? Desperate enough to jeopardize the playing time and development of a pair of young outfielders with a lot to lose by sitting on the bench (or wasting away in Triple-A)? 

Because if the Phillies’ signing of free agent outfielder Delmon Young does anything, it reeks of desperation. After months of searching for a bona fide, middle of the order threat to fill a corner outfield vacancy, the Phillies settled on signing Young to a one-year, $750,000 deal. (h/t: Ken Rosenthal of FOX Sports). Jeff Passan adds that if all incentives are reached, Young could earn as much as $3.5 million for one season.

While it looks like the kind of “low-risk, high-reward” type deal that Phillies general manager Ruben Amaro Jr. has been pondering, take a look at the bigger picture. According to FanGraphs, Young cost the Detroit Tigers $3.2 million in value last season. That’s right. Negative value. 

That stems, first and foremost, from his inability to play the outfield. Young, who cannot play any position other than left field at this point in his career, has a weak arm, bad instincts and range that makes Darin Ruf a desirable option out there. 

The Phillies are signing Young for his bat—don’t be mistaken. But how valuable is a right-handed hitter that posted a slash line of .247 / .279 / .370 against right-handed pitching? Sure, he hit left-handed pitching well, but where is the upgrade here for the Phillies? What does Young do that John Mayberry Jr., in the same role, can’t do better? 

And while some will argue that the Phillies made a small financial commitment to a solid hitter against left-handed pitching, you have to understand that this isn’t all about money. It’s about playing time as well. For every at-bat that Young takes, that’s one less for a better hitter like Ruf or Domonic Brown, which of course leads us to the next question: What happens to the Phillies’ outfield now? 

When you look at the Phillies’ current depth chart, it isn’t difficult to see that something has to give. They now have three right-handed outfielders in Young, Mayberry and Ruf. Brown and Laynce Nix are the lefties in the outfield, while Ben Revere will play center field. 

The first thing that you need to ask yourself is this: What happens when Revere needs a day off? The only other center fielder on the roster is Mayberry, unless of course the Phillies decide to hold on to Rule 5 pick Ender Inciarte, which is a different scenario entirely. 

So we’ll assume that Mayberry is safe. Meanwhile, Brown and Nix are the only other right fielders on the roster, so they’re probably going to hang around as well. The problem here is that this likely winds up being a platoon of some sorts. 

The guy who is going to be on the outside look in, as things stand at the moment, is Ruf. The Phillies have the option of sending him to Triple-A to start the season, allowing him to play some left field and embarrass minor league pitchers. 

When the dust settles, the Phillies have to look at their depth chart now and ask themselves this: Are we any better with Delmon Young getting at-bats as the left fielder? The answer is no. If Young is nothing more than a bench bat—a right-handed slugger pinch hitting late in games a la what Matt Stairs used to do from the left side of the plate—fine. 

But we’re still likely talking about one of Mayberry and Ruf losing a roster spot, and when you look at the entire package, regardless of what they’re paying Young, you’re losing a better player for the facade of “right-handed power.” 

If Young winds up being anything more than a seldom used bench bat, the Phillies are taking the bat out of the hands of a better player. That’s not “low-risk, high-reward” in my book. 

Update, 4:44 pm: Just in case this deal wasn’t puzzling enough for you, Ruben Amaro Jr. has since met with the media and had this to say about Young’s deal: 

Amaro: Hope is Young will be everyday RF. Then says he may start year on DL.

— Matt Gelb (@magelb) January 22, 2013

That’s right. The Phillies expect Young to be their everyday right fielder—a position that he has not played, at all, since 2007. Young is also coming off of ankle surgery to remove bone spurs last November. 

This does change the logistics a bit. The Phillies seem to have their heart set on having a platoon in left field, so you can probably pencil in one of Darin Ruf and John Mayberry Jr. and Domonic Brown. Who those players will actually be is a question that will be answered in spring training.

Read more MLB news on BleacherReport.com

When owners of Major League Baseball teams give their general managers millions of dollars to spend on the free agent market, it’s kind of like giving money to a kid who wants candy. You tell them not to spend it all in one place, but know they’re going to do it anyway. 

And that’s because the free agent market is a fickle mistress. Like any good gamble, one pull of the handle could send you home with your pockets weighed to the floor or broke like a joke. 

The Philadelphia Phillies must know the feeling. The free agent market has changed since its inception. Teams no longer pay for past production. They pay for what a prospective free agent could do for them in the future. Nowadays, it’s easy to go broke. 

But one fundamental aspect of the free agent market that has never changed is that it is incredibly easy for you to spend millions of dollars on a single player and not be guaranteed that he is going to produce at the highest level. Is that the way the cookie crumbles? 

Some free agents are just “busts”—and for the sake of this slideshow—we will define a “bust” as a player who came to the city of Philadelphia with a certain level of expectations and did not perform up par. That’s it. There are no qualifiers other than that, but obviously, certain players are “busts” at different levels, so keep that in mind. 

We will pick a free agent “bust” at every position that you would normally build a 25-man roster with and hope that history doesn’t repeat itself. 

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No one is ever going to accuse a general manager of a Major League Baseball team of having an easy job, namely because when someone needs to shoulder the blame (or reap the benefits), it falls on the guy who is responsible for putting the team together. 

As with any position with an ounce of power and responsibility, when things go well, you’re a great general manager. When things go wrong, it’s all your fault. 

Ruben Amaro Jr. is a man who has experienced both ends of the spectrum as the GM of the Philadelphia Phillies. He took over following a World Series title in 2008 and missed the postseason in one of the team’s most highly anticipated seasons in 2012. 

Now, with an aging core and few prospects ready to step up as reinforcements, Amaro has his work cut out for him this offseason. With several holes to fill and limited resources, he’ll need to be both smart and savvy. 

Is he up to the task? One way to find out is to take a look back at his offseason history. Amaro has a long history of offseason moves with the Phillies and now, it’s time to slap a grade on them. 

Each move will be graded on the following attributes: Performance and contract. 

That’s it. Did Amaro get the perfect amount of bang for his buck? Let’s take a look.

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The hits just keep on coming for the Philadelphia Phillies in a season where they have been decimated by injuries. 

According to an official tweet from Major League Baseball, rookie second baseman Freddy Galvis has been suspended for 50 games after testing positive for a banned substance known as Clostebol—a performance enhancing drug. Though the suspension will begin immediately, Galvis quickly took to the media to claim his innocence through an official statement, passed along by MLB.com’s Todd Zolecki.

“A trace amount of a banned substance – 80 parts in a trillion – was detected in my urine sample. I am extremely disappointed in what has transpired. I cannot understand how even this tiny particle of a banned substance got into my body. I have not and never would knowingly use anything illegal to enhance my performance. I have always tried to follow the team’s strength and conditioning methods, listen to the trainers, work out hard and eat right. Unfortunately, the rules are the rules and I will be suspended.”

Galvis came into the season ranked as the team’s sixth-best prospect by the esteemed prospect gurus at Baseball America. After making the transition from shortstop to second base during spring training, he took over the starting job at second for the Phillies with Chase Utley still injured. 

Though Galvis posted a mediocre slash line of .226/.254/.363 at the plate, he proved to be one of the team’s more productive hitters, recording three homers, 15 doubles and 24 RBI. Most importantly, he was spectacular in the field, picking it clean with a .984 fielding percentage. 

Galvis has been out of action since June 6 with an injury known as a Pars fracture. It is a crack in the vertebra that requires a lengthy healing process. The second baseman could be in a back brace for as long as six weeks and there is currently no timetable on his return from injury.

In response to Galvis’ positive test, the Phillies released an official statement as an organization.

“The Phillies continue to believe in and endorse Major League Baseball’s drug policy.  We also support Freddy Galvis in his determination to put this matter behind him and we look forward to his return as a productive member of the Phillies as soon as possible.”

In all reality, the news could be worse for the Phillies. Galvis’ injury will keep him off the field for, at the very least, a majority of his suspension, and thanks to a loophole in the new Collective Bargaining Agreement, the suspension has minimal impact on Galvis’ outside of his reputation.

Ruben Amaro Jr.’s response to the suspension seemed to reflect that “it could be worse attitude” as he was questioned by Zolecki, among other members of the media. Amaro admitted that he was “disappointed” about the outcome of the test, but that getting him “back onto the field” was the largest concern.

“It’s disappointing,” Ruben Amaro Jr. said in the Phillies dugout before tonight’s series opener against the Rockies at Citizens Bank Park. “We fully support the program and the decision. At the same time we support the player. We just want him to get healthy and get back onto the field for us. … We believe in the kid. I believe in him. I think he’s still got a great future for us moving forward.”

Asked if he believed Galvis’ claim of innocence by mentioning only 80 parts of the banned substance in a trillion were found in his system, Amaro said, “I don’t know anything about those numbers. It’s kind of foreign to me. As I said, I support the player. I can’t really comment on it because I don’t know much about it.”

The suspension will expire on Aug. 8 when the Phillies take on the Atlanta Braves.

Read more MLB news on BleacherReport.com

There’s an old song by famous musician Jim Croce called You Don’t Mess Around With Jim where Croce warns listeners that there are certain things you just shouldn’t do, with the lyrics, “You don’t tug on Superman’s cape. You don’t spit into the wind. You don’t pull the mask off that old Lone Ranger, and you don’t mess around with Jim.”

Is it too late to add, “You don’t cross a passionate, Philadelphia Phillies fanbase,” in there somewhere?”

Philadelphia has proven, time and time again, to be a hard-working, blue-collar city, and it is certainly no secret that the fans want their players to approach their “job” in the same respect: Play hard, have fun, but most importantly, win.

Players who have dared to go against that grain have often become something akin to target practice for those same passionate fans—be it with words, or in rare cases, actual, solid objects.

The bottom line being this: As long as you love the game and treat it with respect, these fans will respect you for it.

That sentiment doesn’t apply strictly to ball players. Throughout the game of baseball, from management to whole teams to members of the media, plenty of people have rubbed the Phillies, as a whole, in the wrong way.

This organization certainly is not short on villainous characters. Let’s take a look at just a few.

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Two things are inherently true about the Philadelphia Phillies: The roster is full of talent and that talent is being paid a ton of money.

We live in an era and love a game in which getting a good deal is vastly important, and when the Phillies have nearly $200 million invested into the payroll, one can only wonder whether or not that money is being spent wisely.

Are two, possibly three by the end of this off-season, starting pitchers truly worth $20 million a season? If the Phillies were to ink Cole Hamels to a lucrative contract extension, it would be the first time in history a team housed three pitchers that expensive.

What about Ryan Howard? Was that huge contract extension worth it?

In this slideshow, we will take a look back at the 2011 season, comparing each player’s performance to the money he made, ranking who provided the biggest bang for the Phillies’ buck, and how that will be impacted on the 2012 roster.

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The Philadelphia Phillies‘ offense have been a puzzling bunch for most of the 2011 season. For a while, on Opening Day as the team struggled making contact with Houston Astros‘ starter Brett Myers, it looked like the lineup picked right up where it left off following the 2010 National League Championship Series—standing at the plate looking at strike three.

On that day though, John Mayberry Jr. delivered a clutch base hit off of the bench, where he sat next to Greg Gross, one of the greatest pinch-hitters of all time, Greg Gross, now Phillies’ hitting coach, for most of the game. From that at-bat onward, it seemed as though the offense was going to reach down inside and deliver some of that potential we had been waiting for.

A few weeks later, Phillies’ fans were demanding a trade for a legitimate offensive superstar as Chase Utley sat out with Patellar Tendinitis and the rest of the lineup sputtered through a rough patch, headlined by tremendous offensive struggles like Raul Ibanez’s 0-for-35 slump. At that moment, it became painfully clear that this offense may not live up to its potential and was going to be a very streaky team throughout the season.

So for those reasons alone, I took to Citizens’ Bank Park last week to try and get to the bottom of the Phils’ offensive struggles and how they planned on breaking free of those streaky shackles. Needless to say, from one hitter to the next, from coach to coach, the Phillies’ clubhouse echoed like a  cavernous hall about staying consistent and not trying to change their approach at the plate. (I summarized my findings in this piece earlier in the week.)

Continuing with their streaky ways, as soon as I posted that article about breaking out of the well documented slump, the Phillies’ offense caught fire. The date I posted my piece coincided with the date that the team activated its All-Star second baseman and catalyst, and even though he didn’t do much to support the cause, the Phils’ pounded Bronson Arroyo and the Cincinnati Reds for 10 runs.

As much as I would like to believe that my fingertips hold some sort of voodoo like magic and I propelled the Phillies to a big offensive night by putting a jinx on their offensive struggles, I think it’s much more likely that Utley’s return provided some sort of spark—or maybe not. Be it Utley’s return or a return to consistency, the Phils’ have certainly played better baseball since.

The Phillies as a team have scored 34 runs in five games since Utley’s return last Monday. Prior to his return, it took the Phils’ 14 games to score a total of 34 runs. There are critics out there that won’t be keen on giving Utley credit for providing a spark to a slumping offense, but the results are undeniable—with Chase Utley playing second base, the Phillies are scoring runs at a rapid pace, and that bodes well.

Heading into the season, we knew that if they could put runs on the board, they’d win games behind this rotation, and that’s been exactly the case.

After shutting things down in spring training, there is finally good news coming out of Florida in regards to Phillies’ reliever Brad Lidge. After missing close to two months of the regular season with a partial tear in his rotator cuff, Lidge is scheduled to pitch an inning in an extended spring training game. It’s a big first step for the Phils’ right-hander.

Pitching in an extended spring training game may not seem like a big deal for a major league reliever, but for Lidge, this marks the official restart of his spring training. Barring any setbacks, Lidge will probably make 10 to 12 appearances, including an official rehab assignment. If all goes well, he could rejoin the Phillies sometime in June.

Though he won’t be closing games initially upon his return, he gives the Phils’ impressive depth at the back end of the bullpen. Along with Jose Contreras and Ryan Madson, whom opponents are hitting a combined .179 against and have allowed just five earned runs, Lidge will join breakout relievers Mike Stutes and Antoino Bastardo, who’ve been better than advertised through the end of May.

With the way those four have been pitching, the rest of the bullpen is on notice upon Lidge’s return. In his role as a long reliever, Kyle Kendrick has pitched well, inspiring Charlie Manuel to use him in a couple of spot starts (one of which didn’t go very well, thanks to Jason Giambi).

He seems to be safe. Danys Baez’s stellar outing in that 19-inning marathon seems to have garnered him some respect amongst the organization, so it may very well be JC Romero, who has the worst K:BB rate of all relievers over the last three seasons, who is on the way out.

With Chase Utley’s return to the lineup, the Phillies regulars are almost, well, regular. With the infield intact in its entirety, only Shane Victorino is missing from the starting lineup and not for long. The speedy center fielder will begin his rehab assignment this weekend, and the plan is to have him test his legs in the minor leagues for about a week.

He’ll play for the Lakewood BlueClaws on Saturday and Sunday, followed by an off day on Monday. If that goes according to plan, Victorino will join the Reading Phillies on Tuesday and play there through Thursday, rejoining the big league Phillies by Friday.

With a full lineup finally intact, I’m somewhat curious as to what Charlie Manuel plans on doing with his lineup. He seems to be comfortable with the duo of Chase Utley and Placido Polanco anchoring the 2- and 3-spots in his order, and Raul Ibanez is hot enough to hit fifth.

The real question may be who becomes the right fielder when Victorino is activated. Team officials seem to be infatuated with Michael Martinez’s skill set, though he hasn’t contributed much to the team yet, and Domonic Brown, Ben Francisco and John Mayberry Jr. all have at least one minor league option.

From a baseball perspective, cutting ties with Martinez may be most beneficial for a team that is trying to win now, but from a gut feeling, we may be seeing the last of Mayberry for a while.

Read more MLB news on BleacherReport.com

In more ways than one, waiting for the 2011 regular season to begin was especially taxing for guys like myself.

After the Philadelphia Phillies nabbed Cliff Lee from the clutches of the Texas Rangers and New York Yankees, the flurry of headlines began to develop. That echoed throughout the offseason, and Lee joined a rotation filled with Cy Young winners, backed by a lineup filled with All-Stars.

As we patiently waited for Opening Day and the 161 games that would follow, fans, ball scribes and former players alike wondered whether the 2011 version of the Phils’ would be the greatest team in the history of the franchise.

Though the team is, technically, off to one of the hottest starts in baseball, that is yet to be determined. However, it does open the door for an interesting question. What exactly was the greatest team in the history of the Phillies?

Before we break those team downs into an order, I think it’s important that we establish what exactly constitutes a “great” team.

Obviously, every team breaks camp with the hopes of winning the World Series, and a couple of championship teams will appear on the list, but does that automatically make them numbers one and two?

Not on my list. I’ve been pretty vocal about the postseason being a crap-shoot for sometime now, and I think there is a growing voice for this argument. A lot of times, the “best” team is outdone by the “hottest” team.

With a number of variables going into the postseason, it isn’t fair to automatically call one franchise’s team the best because they’ve won a World Series, and I won’t.

At the same time, however, winning a championship is the greatest accomplishment, and surely, will not go unnoticed.

Yet there’s much more to a “team” than the caliber of names on it’s roster. I think we can all think of a number of star-studded teams that have underperformed, and in the lengthy history of the Phils’, there are a couple of those as well.

So what is a great “team?”

In relevance to this slide show, the best teams will be the guys who came together and left everything they had on the field.

A team consists of every guy playing his role the right way, and thus, an excellent, consistent effort will put certain teams ahead of other ones, as we count down the greatest Philadelphia Phillies teams of all time.

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For a team that has mashed the cover off of the baseball in recent memory, you would think at first glance that the Philadelphia Phillies‘ organization hasn’t been built around solid defensive players, but around offensive juggernauts.

Not so fast. That isn’t even close to being the case.

While the Phillies have had their good times, and very, very bad times in their history, they have always held one philosophy as golden—defense rules the day. Though that philosophy may not have been as clear as the “pitching and defense wins championships” motto that current general manager Ruben Amaro Jr. uses, the citizens of Philadelphia have always respected a team that plays a gritty, hard style of baseball, and those players just so happened to be of an elite defensive caliber.

Though I’ve done a few slide shows like this before, most notably the Greatest Phillies’ in Team History, this one is going to be a bit different. I’ve taken a look at what made a player great during his tenure with the Phils’, but never held the one thing that turns a great player into a fan favorite in Philadelphia—defense—in such a high regard.

With that in mind, we have to turn on the blinders a bit here. Sometimes, when a great player is mentioned, people tend to believe that his defense was stellar, but that isn’t always the truth. I’ll be looking at a number of criteria, including consistent, above average defensive play, to determine who comes out on time.

So here we go! Here are the best defensive players in Phillies’ history, position by position.

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If you ask me, the Philadelphia Phillies got off to a pretty good start this weekend at home. Three games. Three wins.

That good start went way beyond simply getting three wins, however, as the team answered several imposing questions that people around the game held against them heading into the season. As Roy Halladay, Cliff Lee and Roy Oswalt toed the hill, people questioned whether or not they would be able to live up to the hype. They responded by walking just one hitter, striking out 23 more and allowing just six earned runs in 19 innings pitched.

Starting the season without Jayson Werth and Chase Utley in the lineup was going to be a problem for the Phils’. The offense looks weak and won’t provide any run support. Those critics were silenced by the likes of Jimmy Rollins, Ryan Howard and Ben Francisco, who are all off to hot starts, as well as some timely hitting from the bottom of the order and bench.

Three games into the season, the Phillies look like they have something to prove this season, and by all means, they do. The way they played this weekend, it’s hard to believe that they can only get better this season, as I was reminded by a fellow fan this weekend. “We just swept the [Houston] Astros with Wilson Valdez starting at second base, Jose Contreras closing games and some Minor League guy [Michael Martinez, who was starting for Shane Victorino]. It’s only going to get better when Chase [Utley] and Brad [Lidge] come back.”

Indeed, the Phillies had an encouraging series, but let’s not get ahead of ourselves, Philadelphia. There are 159 games left to play, and as last season proved, anything can happen. Let’s take this thing one game (or series, in this case) at a time. After all, the New York Mets are coming to town.

The Mets’ struggles off the field were well documented this winter, but the lineup they’ll field poses more of a challenge than the one the Astros boasted this weekend. With the Mets struggles last season, the rivalry with the Phillies sort of died out, but a healthy Mets team and a Phils’ team high off of a sweep to start the season would like nothing more than to renew a once bitter rivalry.

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