{"id":63,"date":"2008-01-23T00:15:34","date_gmt":"2008-01-23T05:15:34","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.broadstreetbelievers.com\/?p=63"},"modified":"2008-01-23T00:20:16","modified_gmt":"2008-01-23T05:20:16","slug":"not-a-big-deal","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/broadstreetbelievers.com\/?p=63","title":{"rendered":"Not a Big Deal?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><em>[NOTE:\u00a0 Okay, I am going to try and clean up some old &#8220;drafts&#8221; that I have been meaning to write for a while now.]<\/em><\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" border=\"0\" align=\"right\" width=\"1\" src=\"http:\/\/www.flickr.com\/photos\/gajdam1\/473709161\/\" height=\"1\" \/><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" border=\"0\" align=\"right\" width=\"1\" src=\"http:\/\/www.flickr.com\/photos\/gajdam1\/473709161\/\" height=\"1\" \/>For us Phillie fans, this baseball offseason has been a rather\u00a0uninteresting one for our team.\u00a0 There were no impact free agents (all apologies to Geoff Jenkins).\u00a0 There were no big trades, other than the mildly impactful addition of Brad Lidge in the very early going.\u00a0 Chase Utley and Jimmy Rollins are about to enjoy another year of their big contracts and Ryan Howard may become the highest arbitration case of all-time, but none of this is expected to really affect the 2008 Phillies roster or said roster&#8217;s performance.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>If you ask anyone outside of Philly, however, the sentiment is probably clear that the biggest roster change for the Phils from 2007 to 2008 is the loss of high-dollar centerfielder Aaron Rowand.\u00a0 Is it just me who doesn&#8217;t care or is this not a big deal\u00a0to most Phillie fans?<\/p>\n<p>\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" border=\"0\" align=\"middle\" width=\"412\" src=\"http:\/\/espn-att.starwave.com\/photo\/2006\/0620\/mlb_a_rowand_412.jpg\" height=\"232\" \/>\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>I am not saying that there should be a city-wide feeling like the one following the\u00a0departures of Sir Charles Barkley or the great Allen Iverson.\u00a0 It will never come close to the feeling of loss from Mike Schmidt&#8217;s midseason retirement or the possibly impending departure of one Donovan F. McNabb.\u00a0 But, Aaron Rowand was&#8211;both inside and outside the numbers&#8211;a phenomenal player.\u00a0 Last season Rowand hit .309, with a .374 OBP and a .515 slugging percentage.\u00a0 He hit 27 home runs, knocking in 89\u00a0and scoring 105.\u00a0 He made the All-Star team and finished 22nd in MVP voting.\u00a0 This is all not to mention his stellar defense in centerfield and his intangible leadership and winning attitude.\u00a0 He was inarguably one of the most important pieces of\u00a0first division title in 14 Phillies&#8217; seasons.\u00a0 And now he&#8217;s gone, with no real compensation (other than a couple draft picks)&#8230;and we don&#8217;t care.\u00a0 Why not?<\/p>\n<p>There are several possible reasons:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><em>Rowand\u00a0only played one and half healthy seasons for the Phils.\u00a0 <\/em>All the other &#8220;big names&#8221; that have left Philly teams were here forever.\u00a0 In fact, Barkley, Iverson, Schmidt, and McNabb (again, not saying that Rowand is in that category of player) all started their careers in Philadelphia and were each here for nearly a decade, at least, before exiting the Philly sports scene.<\/li>\n<li><em>The Phillies have an incredible nucleus of young players\u00a0among which Rowand never really was considered<\/em>.\u00a0 When you have an offense of Jimmy Rollins, Chase Utley and Ryan Howard, you are in good shape.\u00a0 When you consider the fact that they are all still under 30 years old, you are in good shape for years to come.\u00a0 Because of these three and other guys like Shane Victorino, it doesn&#8217;t seem like the Phillies really need Rowand&#8211;strange as it is to say about an All-Star in his prime.<\/li>\n<li><em>Rowand just signed an enormous contract.\u00a0 <\/em>About a month ago, the <a href=\"http:\/\/sports.espn.go.com\/mlb\/news\/story?id=3152201\">Giants signed Rowand<\/a> to a 5-year, $60 million dollar contract.\u00a0 Despite all the stats mentioned above about Rowand&#8217;s fantastic 2007, I personally think that the Giants grossly overpaid for a career .286 hitter who is on the wrong side of 30 years old.\u00a0 Furthermore, the Phillies situation,\u00a0with their offense set with big contracts for Rollins and Utley and a big contract coming for Howard, dictates that any more money that they spend should probably be done so on bolstering the pitching staff.<\/li>\n<li><em>Rowand does not seem to really be all that upset to leave Philadelphia.<\/em>\u00a0 This is the big one for me.\u00a0 As great as all his press conferences were and how well he answered questions with all the right answers, I never once got the sense that Rowand really wanted to be here.\u00a0 It seemed as if his heart was still with his ex-teammates in Chicago, where he won a World Series.\u00a0 Either that or in his native California, where he is returning now to the Giants.\u00a0 In fact, the impetus for this weblog was an interview I heard Rowand give on the Jody MacDonald show on December 13.\u00a0 You can hear the interview <a href=\"http:\/\/sr950.com\/Roster\/JodyMac\/tabid\/69\/ArticleType\/ArticleView\/ArticleID\/329\/Default.aspx\">here<\/a>.\u00a0 Now, maybe I am being hypocritical because all I ever want from anyone, especially athletes and other public figures, is honesty.\u00a0 There is no question that Rowand answered all of Jody&#8217;s questions honestly and\u00a0accurately.\u00a0 But, it just proved to me that, though Rowand does say all the right things and\u00a0surely does value his family and his contract just as much as anyone else, he never really wanted to be here and\u00a0certainly did not want to stay here.\u00a0 Maybe that, above all, is why I (we?) do not really care that he will be wearing another team&#8217;s colors next year.\u00a0 I wish him all the best.\u00a0 He is no J.D. Drew, Scott Rolen or Curt Schilling, in my mind, but I will definitely not lose any sleep over the Phillies not paying Aaron Rowand $12 million when he is 35 years old.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>[NOTE:\u00a0 Okay, I am going to try and clean up some old &#8220;drafts&#8221; that I have been meaning to write for a while now.] For us Phillie fans, this baseball offseason has been a rather\u00a0uninteresting one for our team.\u00a0 There &hellip; <a href=\"http:\/\/broadstreetbelievers.com\/?p=63\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[15,16],"class_list":["post-63","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-mlb","tag-aaron-rowand","tag-phillies"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/broadstreetbelievers.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/63","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\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/broadstreetbelievers.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=63"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/broadstreetbelievers.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/63\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/broadstreetbelievers.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=63"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/broadstreetbelievers.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=63"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/broadstreetbelievers.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=63"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}