Well, it took about one day for my ‘Phillies hot stove’ post to be proven wrong, on some counts. It appears that around the same time I was writing the post on Sunday night, claiming the Phillies would not be bringing in Mike Lowell or any other 
thirdbaseman, the Phillies front-office was actually involved in serious negotiations with Lowell on a four-year deal. Yesterday, Lowell decided to stay in Boston, signing a 3 year, $37.5 million contract. The Phillies offer was for the same amount per year, but with a fourth year bringing the total amount of the contract to $50 million.
The question here is, what changed between last week, when Pat Gillick flatly denied that the Phillies would be pursuing Lowell, and Sunday night, when the Phils offered him $5o mil? I can’t imagine that Gillick was willing to leave himself with no payroll flexibility to pursue a pitcher. I think the only logical conclusion is that Phillies ownership were willing to go over their stated payroll limit of $105 million, if it meant bringing in Lowell. This is, potentially, great news. It may make all my points in that post on Sunday night moot, but I would be fine with that.
i wouldn’t be surprised if the phillies believe that the trade for lidge got them a starting pitcher–myers. they even said as much in their comments after the trade. the really positive thing, for me, is that pursuing lowell means that they’re serious about improving, instead of taking the same team to battle again next year (which they could have justified). i just hope that missing out on lowell gets them to talk seriously about cabrera or santana in a trade. probably wishful thinking, but those two are can’t miss guys and they’re definitely available for the right price
Well, Gillick and Amaro are saying every chance they get, “Our focus continues to be on pitching”. Amaro says it in the article from this post. I think they definitely wanted more than one starter going into this off-season, so Myers would count as one.
The real question is: why would Lowell turn down an extra year from the Phils to go back to Boston? If it were a question of home team loyalty/discount, then it’s a wonder he didn’t sign sooner and did nothing to quell the “Yankees have an interest for Lowell to play 1st” rumors that were going around for weeks.
I don’t think this is necessarily true –> “I think the only logical conclusion is that Phillies ownership were willing to go over their stated payroll limit of $105 million, if it meant bringing in Lowell.”
I think it’s more likely that Gillick realized that the chances to sign a free agent pitcher are real small (since there aren’t any good free agent pitchers out there) and trading for one aren’t much better (because if Santana or Dontrelle becomes available everyone and their mother, including the deep pocket Yankees, are going to be in on it). So why not use the money to improve the club now? If you’re better with Lowell and in playoff position near the trading deadline and a big time pitcher becomes available, maybe you can get ownership to sign off on jumping up the payroll then.
I guess Lowell preferred to stay in Boston but he wanted to talk to the Yankees and other teams A) to see what they were offering and B) to drive up the Sox offer.
You could be right about Gillick deciding to forget about adding more pitching, but I just think, if you look at the constant comments that he’s made, that he is dead-set on adding another pitcher, even if it means giving Kyle Lohse a $7 mil/year deal.
I kind of agree with Stri on this one, in that Gillick is probably sitting there with money to spend and would rather get a proven hitter than make another Adam Eaton mistake. He even has a built-in justification for it (see last sentence). That being said, I’m sure that they are pursuing pitching and would much prefer to spend the money on pitching. I just think that they realize that you have to overpay for pitching these days and it might be better spent on proven offense. I don’t know. The winter meetings are going to be interesting
Yeah, I mean, I guess half the battle in these situations is appeasing the fans. So, maybe their gameplan is to constantly say, “Our focus is on pitching”. So that if they end up not getting a pitcher, they can say “Well, we tried as hard as we could, that was our focus all offseason, we just didn’t want to overpay for a mediocre pitcher”. Then they’re not completely blamed when the pitching sucks again. And if that is the case, I’m sure theu would love to be able to point to a newly acquired third baseman or outfielder and say, “But we got this guy and Brad Lidge so it was a good offseason”.
-> “The question here is, what changed between last week, when Pat Gillick flatly denied that the Phillies would be pursuing Lowell, and Sunday night, when the Phils offered him $5o mil?”
Doogan- do you know who reads this blog? I’ll tell you what happened… Gillick saw my response to Bry’s question of the day about adding Lowell and the Phillies infield being the best of all time. Obviously Gillik read my response about dollar hot dog nights- and found a way to pay free agents more money- hence the increase in payroll. The truth is in the hot dogs boys… you can thank me and Harry Caray for another NL East championship.
Now lets invest this new revenue sourse in some more dingers.
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