{"id":315,"date":"2009-05-30T09:20:57","date_gmt":"2009-05-30T14:20:57","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.broadstreetbelievers.com\/?p=315"},"modified":"2009-05-30T09:22:37","modified_gmt":"2009-05-30T14:22:37","slug":"myers-goes-down-phils-need-an-even-better-replacement","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/broadstreetbelievers.com\/?p=315","title":{"rendered":"Myers Goes Down; Phils Need an Even Better Replacement"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"myers\"In late-April, Bry asked a Question of the Day<\/a>\u00a0here on the blog:\u00a0 How early is too early to be concerned about the Phillies pitching staff?.\u00a0 My answer at the time was late-May.\u00a0 Little did I know at the time, that on May 29th news would break that Brett Myers is most likely done for the season<\/a>\u00a0with a torn labrum in his hip.\u00a0 So, Phillies fans, it’s officially time to start worrying about your 2009 rotation.<\/p>\n

Even though the Phils won a title with this same staff last year, it was still seen as “Hamels and some question marks”.\u00a0 Let’s take a quick look at how those question marks have turned out, two months into the season.\u00a0 Myers?\u00a0 Done for the year with an injury.\u00a0 Jamie Moyer?\u00a0 He’s given up\u00a0at least four runs\u00a0in 7 of his 9 starts, hasn’t pitched more than 6 innings in any of them, and has an ERA north of 7.\u00a0 Joe Blanton?\u00a0 Despite a great outing this week, his ERA\u00a0is still hovering over 6 and he certainly hasn’t done anything to show that\u00a0he’s anything more than a\u00a0#4 starter.\u00a0 Chan Ho Park?\u00a0 He may not have been any worse than Moyer or Blanton, but let’s just say I’m hoping not\u00a0to see him listed as the Phils’ probable starter any time soon.<\/p>\n

This is obviously not a group that the Phillies can move forward with and legitimately hope to win the division again, let alone the World Series.\u00a0 I mean, J.A. Happ is basically the #2 starter right now.\u00a0 They need at least one more starter and it needs to be a front-of-the-rotation guy.\u00a0 Calling up Carlos Carrasco may\u00a0make sense, but\u00a0he’s not the answer right now.<\/p>\n

Todd Zolecki had an interesting interview<\/a>\u00a0with Ruben Amaro a couple days ago, just BEFORE the Myers injury news \"peavy\"broke.\u00a0 Amaro was very candid in discussing the team’s interest in trading for starting pitching and acknowledging the\u00a0budget concerns they have with a payroll that already sits at\u00a0$132 million.\u00a0 As noted in the article, Jake Peavy and Roy Oswalt are attractive options that can probably be had, and the Phils have plenty of minor-league talent\u00a0to offer.<\/p>\n

Frankly, I don’t really care what it costs in prospects, I woud LOVE to see the Phils\u00a0go and get either one of those guys.\u00a0 They’re both\u00a0already signed to long-term deals, and while it’s a ton of money to commit to, at least you know what the number is and you’re not wondering how much it might cost to re-sign the guy.\u00a0 The Phillies have sold 99.6% of their tickets so far this season, a number only really approached by the Red Sox (who are somehow over 100%?).\u00a0 I know they’ve raised payroll since last year, but the\u00a0increase\u00a0in profits they’ve seen\u00a0thanks to winning the title must be staggering.\u00a0 I’m not saying they can go out and be the Yankees or Red Sox, but if you add this one piece, a Peavy or an Oswalt, you put yourself in great position to win another title.\u00a0 Imagine\u00a0having\u00a0a Hamels-Peavy 1-2 combination, with this line-up supporting them?\u00a0 If just one\u00a0guy from the group of Moyer, Blanton, and Happ can step up and be a solid #3, that is a team that NO ONE wants to play in October.\u00a0 Granted, the payroll would be sky-high, but\u00a0they would hardly have to add anything for the next two years beyond 2009 and know that\u00a0they have a legit title\u00a0contender each season.<\/p>\n

Amaro’s main job over the\u00a0next month or so is to\u00a0make this case to the front-office, and convince\u00a0them to shell out the money.\u00a0 Ruben has to say: Let’s not grab a stop-gap “solid veteran”.\u00a0 Let’s approach this like Matt Stairs does at the plate, let’s try to hit a home run, bring another ace to the team, and then have another parade down Broad Street this fall.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In late-April, Bry asked a Question of the Day\u00a0here on the blog:\u00a0 How early is too early to be concerned about the Phillies pitching staff?.\u00a0 My answer at the time was late-May.\u00a0 Little did I know at the time, that … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[28,590,222,606,605,327,308,16,322,395],"class_list":["post-315","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-mlb","tag-brett-myers","tag-chan-ho-park","tag-cole-hamels","tag-ja-happ","tag-jake-peavy","tag-jamie-moyer","tag-joe-blanton","tag-phillies","tag-roy-oswalt","tag-ruben-amaro"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/broadstreetbelievers.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/315","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/broadstreetbelievers.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/broadstreetbelievers.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/broadstreetbelievers.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/broadstreetbelievers.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=315"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/broadstreetbelievers.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/315\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/broadstreetbelievers.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=315"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/broadstreetbelievers.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=315"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/broadstreetbelievers.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=315"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}