jebus muther****ing tapdancing muther****ing christ on a god-forsaken, shit stained, muther****ing cheese cracker

**** THIS SHIT!!!

LMAO

By "untradeable", I refer to untradeable for 95% of MLB players. Yeah if James Shields or Cliff Lee is available then we'll put our top guys out there. We'll kick the tires and, in the case of Shields, pull the trigger. If the Phils make Lee available we'll look for sure although his salary would make any deal a nonstarter. If Stanton is made availabe sure - Zimmer is put on the table. You get the point.


Teams generally don't put decent (let alone good) vets on the table for A or AA ball semi-prospects. Sam Selman or Brickhouse might excite you but these guys rarely return anyone decent. It's a catch 22 as it is: if Utley is healthy & hitting then he won't be cheap. If he's not, then you don't really want him anyway.

Utley would be a half-year, 7.5 million dollar rental - and he's 34. Sure, he's a great player and a left-handed bat with pop that this lineup could really use. But surely his prospect price would not be as substantial as many are making it out to be if the Phillies were in a selling/rebuilding mode, right?

Then the trade becomes tough for Philly to justify. Do you jettison a fan favorite, guy who you brought up, played his whole career there, loves the city, face of the franchise - for Brian Brickhouse? Seems like it's not even worth it for Philly or their fans really. Besides they don't care about money anyway so that won't be a factor.

Utley is 34 and a free agent next year.

Nobody is giving up much for him. If the Phillies are sellers and can't/won't extend Utley, then they will take a B-level prospect for him, or they'll get nothing at all.

Looking at our stats, we have 3 great hitters, 1 decent, and 5 horrendous. Cain-Gordon-Butler have 130 ops+ numbers which is great, Alcides at 107+ but he brings speed and of course great defense. There isn't much balance in our lineup. I can't believe Sal has 1 walk this year in 93 PA. Seriously Sal - that's embarrassing. By comparison Frenchy has 3 walks in 96 PA. When you're walking at 1/3 the rate Frenchy is, that's a problem.


It pains me to say it but it might be time to start platooning Sal a bit more. His career splits are drastic and heavily tilted towards hitting LHP. (81 ops+ vs 153+) Kottaras is about league average vs RHP. So it might be worth it to start sitting Sal to rest him whenever a tough RH is on the mound.

I completely disagree. Salvador, Hosmer and Moose playing must be a priority. They need as many ABs as they can get. They are on the verge of being 23/24. Getting them up to speed will directly impact our chances of winning after we must part ways with Gordon and/or Butler.

Platoon salvy, who's an amazing defender and good with the bat?

Jesus, dude. You are wrong on almost everything. Entering CoMo status here.

Platoon Salvy? ROFL

His defense alone makes up for whatever lack of offense there is.

Is there a stat to most games postponed in a season? We have to be well on pace to break it.

I had to re-read the benching Salvy a few times because I thought I read it wrong.

You can't be serious. :facepalm:

Bench Salvy for George KottarasLMAOLMAO

I read an article today on baseball prospectus that indicated that "(Jose) Molina had a heck of a week, saving the Rays nine net strikes in only 22 innings." Maybe that's because the umpire was giving Alex Cobb strikes that were damn near four inches off the zone. Catcher framing seems like a giant crock of shit to me. It has as much to do with shitty umpiring as it does with the catcher's performance. Somebody, please explain to me how this is not a crock.

Fair enough on 'untradeable.' You're right ... we're not going to see Dayton Moore do something as astronomically stupid as trading a blue-chip prospect for a mediocre or slightly above-average player. No Zambrano for Kazmir trades here.

Selman or Brickhouse would be throw-ins for Philadelphia in an Utley deal. Neither would be the headliner. They would be lottery ticket pieces that help you get to the deal (See: Patrick Leonard in the Shields/Myers deal).

Look at what Philadelphia got in return for a very similar player in terms of value just a year ago. The Pence deal can be used at least for a ballpark figure on what Utley would cost. Yeah, Utley is a better player, but he's also older and riskier because of his health issue (and controlled for one full season less).

The catcher the Phillies got, Tommy Joseph, is the biggest piece. He's never sniffed a top 100/101 list, and he slots somewhere around 5 in the Phillies prospect rankings (which is not hard to do). He'd MAYBE be a top 15 guy in the Royals system.

The pitcher, Seth Rosin, is also someone who never has sniffed a top 100/101/whatever.

If the Phillies want a limited upside guy who is close, the Royals have plenty of those (Gio, Colon could be pieces of a deal). Heck, even Chris Dwyer - who has cut his career walk rate of 4.5 by 50 percent this year - would be a useful piece of a deal.

The key piece or exciting piece of the deal would have to be a lower minors guys. Someone like Calixte or Cuthbert or Bonifacio.

The Royals certainly have tradeable pieces, and more than enough to make a reasonable deal for Utley (whose value you're severely overrating).