Philadelphia Phillies

Cliff Lee: Crunching the Numbers

I can’t go to bed without at least re-visiting this one more time.  I can’t find any exact numbers for what the Rangers offered Cliff Lee following the 2010 season. The Best I can do is find that late in the bidding, the Yankees reportedly offered him $23 million a year for five years. I know we beat that, but Lee took a similar deal in a place he felt he had a better chance to get back to the dance. Of course we know how that turned out. (sorry my new Philly readers)

Here’s the deal we had on the table:

MLB.com reported the Rangers offered six years and $138 million plus a seventh-year option. Yahoo! Sports reported that option could have pushed the value of the contract to $161 million. 

That works out to about $23 million a year. No idea of the details of the seventh year. But Lee would have been 39 with OUR deal. Everybody suddenly has heartburn over his age on the Philly deal. Doesn’t compute.

Here’s where Lee is in his Philadelphia contract (and feel free to comment if I am way off the mark here):

2012: $21.5 million 
2013: $25 million 
2014: $25 million 
2015: $25 million 
2016: $12.5 million buyout or $27.5 million option (the option vests at 200 innings pitched in 2015 or 400 innings pitched in 2014 and 2015 combined) 

So we’re talking about $6 mil. My thinking is, instead of asking the Phillies to pickup a large portion of that, why not just ask for $6-10 million. The extra four – for additional wear and tear.

Now I know we took that money and a year later and gave much of that to Yu Darvish but we didn’t anticipate the learning curve being what it is for Darvish. We get lee who can HELP Darvish, Holland and Harrison. For longer than just the rental time he spent with us in 2010. It’s a win-win.

When Nolan said we were slightly over budget to start the year, I have to believe that there is a budget part two. For the trade deadline. It’s time to tap into it. Let’s do this.

 

Trade Possibilities

Fans love to speculate about trades. At the beginning of the year it looked like this might be one of the first years we wouldn’t be looking for an arm at the deadline. Now things are a little different. We have Feliz and Holland on the DL. Oswalt is working back into shape and will provide some help. The fact that the two pitchers who are on the DL are young would probably hold us back a little in looking for anyone to help us out. I know a lot of this also depends on their long-term prognosis. Both have arm problems and I have to wonder when the outcry about our “no pitch count” philosophy will come into question. I hope not.

There are some arms that might be available. We never want to leverage the farm in a win-now scenario and I have no idea what the cost would be. With no place for Mile Olt (unless he plays more first base soon), he might be the biggest chip we have to offer. Scott Feldman too, but he hasn’t exactly helped his trade value. Neither of those would be enough to get these pitchers. BUT, that said, I would like to ask about (and I don’t know that we haven’t) Matt Garza and Ryan Dempster from the Cubs and Cole Hamels from the Phillies. Hamels will be a free agent after the season. With the new free agent compensation setup, it would make signing him after the season imperative. That would just add to our list of players needing big money to continue with the Rangers. So as much as I would like him, I doubt it will happen.  Garza would be costly I’m sure and Dempster’s name just hit the market today.  Zack Greinke is a free agent after this season too.

Lots of talk about another bat and one player that has been mentioned going to the Rangers is Kevin Youklis. I don’t see it. We have Michael Young doing the same thing Youk does plus more (2nd base).  We probably would consider adding a bat, but more than likely an outfielder.  Possible first base. Carlos Lee might be available from the Astros. He had one stint with the Rangers already (he didn’t like it). Shane Victorino, who is not having a stellar year with the Phils, might be an option. Carlos Quinton, who recently returned from the DL in San Diego is probably available too.

At the beginning of the year, it looked like the last paragraph was all we needed to look at to finish out the roster. After the last month with the pitching causalities, I can’t help but wonder what we might have to do.

Cool Day in Baseball

While it wasn’t so great for the Rangers today, some interesting things took place around the league. First, in Boston, former Ranger first baseman Chris Davis pitched two scoreless innings in a 17 inning marathon affair. Davis, who was 0-8 playing DH, was glad to try something different. He held the BoSox to 1 hit, walked one and struck out two while dazzling with his 80+ MPH fastball. That reminded me of a Ranger moment in 1987. We were thrashing the Yankees (final 20-3) when Yankee skipper Lou Pinella sent catcher Rick Cerone to the mound to pitch. How did Bobby Valentine counter? He sent pitcher Bobby Witt in to hit for LF Pete Incaviglia. Now Bobby eventually struck out, but not before sending a long drive that just went foul. So close to being a home run. We were there. We were laughing. Here’s the box score for that game.

19-year-old snot nose Bryce Harper faced Cole Hamels as the Nationals took on the Phillies and Hamels went all old school on the kid. Hamels hit him in the back  in the first inning then totally fessed up to it after the game. He said:

“I was trying to hit him. I’m not going to deny it. It’s something I grew up watching. That’s what happened. I’m just trying to continue the old baseball. Some people get away from it. I remember when I was a rookie, the strike zone was really, really small and you didn’t say anything. That’s the way baseball is. Sometimes the league is protecting certain players. It’s that old-school prestigious way of baseball.

“I’m not going to injure a guy. They’re probably not going to like me for it but I’m not going to lie and say I wasn’t trying to do it. I think they understood the message and they threw it right back. That’s the way, and I respect it. They can say whatever they want.”

I don’t like Harper. Somewhere on my other blog I posted as much a couple of years ago. That’s right. I didn’t like him when he was 17. But keeping the theme for the day, that it was “different”, later that first inning Harper stole home on Hamels.  That is also sort of old school.  One last unusual thing for the day? Albert Pujols hit his first home run for the Angels. Will wonders ever cease?