Archive for March 13th, 2010

Pictured, second from left: Danny Bonaduce, pre-steroids.

My relationship with J.A. Happ, if you will, has been an interesting one. I’ve been a fan of his since his minor-league days, telling anyone who would listen that he would eventually be a quality big-league pitcher. When he got his shot in 2008 and pitched well, I extolled the virtues of letting Jamie Moyer walk and replacing him in the rotation with Happ. I believe I was called a moron for this more than once. As it happened, Happ ended up competing with Chan Ho Park for the final spot in the rotation last spring. Park, being a veteran, a righthander, and inexplicably promised a fair shot at the rotation when he signed, only needed to pitch reasonably well in spring training to win the job. He did that and more, and Happ, who pitched well in his own right, was banished to the bullpen.

Nearly two months of Park stinking up the joint ensued before Charlie Manuel finally put Happ in the rotation where he belonged, and Happ put up one of the most impressive rookie seasons in recent Phillies history, going 12-4 with a 2.93 ERA, finishing second to Chris Coghlan in Rookie of the Year voting. A funny thing happened then: I, perhaps Happ’s most fervent supporter mere months before, found myself tempering the wild enthusiasm of casual fans, who were penciling Happ into future Cy Young ballots. As you’ll see after the jump, this is just a tiny bit ridiculous.

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You could make him a Phillie

As promised, today I’m going to be looking at trade opportunities to cut payroll in 2011.

For the purpose of this analysis, I’m going to assume the Phillies exercise buyouts on Juan Castro and JC Romero giving them 7 mil to play with over 6 roster spots.

When creating an unrealistic “let’s trade X, Y, and Z for all your base”-type discussion, it’s important to play the game with players who actually have value in trade.  This means moving them should provide us some payroll relief while their contracts shouldn’t be such that we can’t get anything in value back.  I will not condone Luis Castillo for Jason Heyward speculation.  If the following appears absolutely impossible then I didn’t do my job.

The 2011 roster has three players that fit the criteria: Cole Hamels (1 year, 9.5m with a final arb year), Shane Victorino (2 years, 17m), and Ryan Howard (1 year, 20m).

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Since apparently doing a series of posts has become the thing lately here at Long Drive I figured I should do one as well. These series of posts will have my predictions of the Phillies player’s WAR and whatever other random stats I might feel like predicting. For pitchers I will do WAR and ERA. I’ll probably drag this out a little and break it into sections so I don’t do one incredibly long post. Said sections being: starting rotation, bullpen, infield, outfield, and finally bench.

Let me also start by saying I have little to base these predictions on and these predictions are just that, predictions. First up: starting rotation, except for 5th starter because really it will probably be several people this year. So follow me after the jump for what I expect from our starting rotation  in 2010.

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I was lucky enough to score this interview with Meech from The Fightins. What he said shocked me.

Take a look: