Phillies Offseason Thread

[shag773]

I don't get why the Phillies are prioritizing closer over shortstop given their relative importance and relative scarcity, but hey it is not my team. You want to overpay for Papelbon or Madson, be my guest.

I can't see why they don't bring back Rollins though, how many decent shortstops are there?

I don't think it's a question of priorities. Right now Rollins is holding out for a 5year deal, which the Phillies don't seem to be willing to do. I think they are letting him test the free agent market to see if he can get that deal. If he can't, which I'm fairly sure he won't, he'll sign here, but it would take time.

But I don't think the Rollins deal is affected by the Paps deal at all IMO.

[Chrispy]

Have fun with him...

[Blade]

Why are we overpaying for Papelbon and not madson?

[Mogriffjr]

Four years and 50 million. Ha!

I'd rather give that to Paps, then spend 44 mill on Madson tbh...

[FedEx227]

I'd rather give that to Paps, then spend 44 mill on Madson tbh...

I'd rather not give any closer that type of money, Madson or Papelbon.

[Blade]

And we lose a 1st round pick over this....would we have lost that if we had resigned Madson?

[Obst]

And we lose a 1st round pick over this....would we have lost that if we had resigned Madson?

We get two picks when Madson signs somewhere else. A first round pick which will be higher than what we had (Had the last pick) and a compensation pick.

[Mogriffjr]

We get two picks when Madson signs somewhere else. A first round pick which will be higher than what we had (Had the last pick) and a compensation pick.

Maybe it's me...maybe because Madson never got a true shot to close in Philly but I just don't see him as a closer who's worth that coin (and yes I know JP ain't worth that much too)

[NAHSTE]

The Phillies, as a team, threw 1,477 innings in 2011 and are now going to pay, on average, $12.5 million per year to Papelbon to throw maybe 4.5 percent of those. If they maintained that per-inning rate across their entire staff, they'd spend about $277 million on pitching alone.

[Warner2BruceTD]

I'd rather not give any closer that type of money, Madson or Papelbon.

I agree, but when it comes to the Yankees or Phillies it doesn't really matter. I can't really kill the Phillies here, they can afford to toss a few extra dollars at a guy and it doesn't make a difference.

[kyhadley]

Enjoy!

[NAHSTE]

A fangraphs commenter put it best:

Sign Lidge to a 3-year, $36MM deal. Learn nothing from the experience. Sign Papelbon to a richer deal for more years.

[Obst]

Ken Rosenthal of FOX Sports says the Papelbon signing "is classic Philadelphia 21st century stuff: a quick strike, a big name and a lot of money." It's a major commitment to a closer, but Rosenthal points out that Papelbon's numbers are comparable to the first six years of Mariano Rivera's career.

[Obst]

I really think our next priority should be Jimmy Rollins. I think this team would make a huge mistake if they let him go. After Jimmy, we should work on the bench, a good utility guy and backup catcher. After that we are done and get ready for next year. We don't need to waste our money on Cuddyer. Since 2003 fangraphs posts that Jimmy Rollins has been worth $151.9MM, Jose Reyes in the same amount of time has been worth $134.5MM. This should prove to the Rollins haters how valuable he has been to us. Sure he isn't the perfect leadoff hitter but losing Rollins and plugging in Galvis would really weaken this team.

[Obst]

The Phillies want to sign Michael Cuddyer and re-sign Jimmy Rollins but the club finds both players' asking prices to be too high, tweets Danny Knobler of CBSSports.com.