Evaluating the Phillies' offseason
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Evaluating the Phillies' offseason
David Murphy, Daily News Staff Writer
Few of the decisions that the Phillies have made during this quickly-fading offseason should have come as a surprise. Ruben Amaro Jr.'s philosophy fit his track record: prioritize pitching and defense, strike early, and open the check book aggressively. Throughout the latter stages of the 2011 season, the Phillies did not try to hide the fact that they would prioritize the closer position, and their decision to hand a four-year, $50 million contract to Jonathan Papelbon reinforced the value they place on a veteran power arm at the back of the bullpen.
But the question remains: was giving a contract worth an average annual value of $12.5 million to a player who probably won't log more than 70 innings the right move?
Now that the vast majority of poker chips have been exchanged, we can look at the Papelbon contract in more definite terms, at least with regard to the opportunity costs for this season. We are operating under the assumption that the Phillies do not have unlimited resources, which means that every move they make comes at the expense of another move. In other words, when they decided to pay Papelbon $11 million, or roughly 6.2 percent of the payroll for 2012, they also decided not to spend that $11 million, or 6.2 percent, elsewhere.
When Papelbon signed, we spent plenty of ink and bandwidth examining what the Phillies gained. Now that we know how the free agent and trade markets unfolded, let's take a look at what they sacrificed, at least hypothetically.
After the Phillies' loss to the Cardinals in the NLDS, we identified the bullpen, short stop, left field and third base as the three positions the club needed to address. The Phillies ended up signing six players -- Papelbon, SS Jimmy Rollins, OF Laynce Nix, 1B/DH Jim Thome, LHP Dontrelle Willis and C Brian Schneider -- to contracts totaling $93.4 million over 12 years for an average annual value (AAV) of $7.8 million. They also traded for Ty Wigginton, who will earn $2 million from the club in 2012.
For the sake of this analysis, let's take Rollins and Schneider out of the equation and focus on the five new players and their price tags. We'll use AAV as the price tage (Papelbon will actually make $11 million this year and $13 in 2013-15:
Jonathan Papelbon: $12.5 million
Ty Wigginton: $2.0 million
Laynce Nix: $1.25 million
Jim Thome: $1.25 million
Dontrelle Willis: .850 million
The Phillies made two big philosophical decisions this offseason. The first was to dedicate a big chunk of payroll to a closer. The second was to supplement their existing options in left field and at third base with low-cost veterans rather than spending big on players who could replace the oft-injured Placido Polanco at third base or the inexperienced John Mayberry Jr. in left field.
When the Phillies bucked the recent national trend of bullpen austerity and announced the Papelbon deal, many pundits wondered whether they were ushering in a return to an era of big spending on relievers. But few other teams followed their lead. Rather than tying up large chunks of payroll space in one pitcher, most general managers opted to cobble together bullpens on the cheap.
Below are the relievers who were acquired either via free agency or trade this offseason:
Now, let's take a look at the third basemen and outfielder who were acquired:
For what the Phillies will pay Papelbon, they theoretically could have signed Matt Capps, Octavio Dotel, and Jon Rauch. Or they could have signed Joe Nathan and Matt Capps. Or they could have signed Heath Bell and Dotel or Rauch or Fernando Rodney. Or they could have signed Jonathan Broxton, LaTroy Hawkins, Fernando Rodney and Takashi Saito while hoping at least two them would have a bounce-back year.
They also could have attempted to take the Boston Red Sox approach and fortify the bullpen by trading for young, cheap options. Swinging a deal for a Sergio Santos or an Andrew Bailey might have enabled them to make a play for a Michael Cuddyer or Carlos Beltran or Aramis Ramirez or David DeJesus or Jason Kubel.
For what the Phillies will pay Papelbon, they theoretically could have signed Matt Capps, Octavio Dotel, and Jon Rauch. Or they could have signed Joe Nathan and Matt Capps. Or they could have signed Heath Bell and Dotel or Rauch or Fernando Rodney. Or they could have signed Jonathan Broxton, LaTroy Hawkins, Fernando Rodney and Takashi Saito while hoping at least two them would have a bounce-back year.
They also could have attempted to take the Boston Red Sox approach and fortify the bullpen by trading for young, cheap options. Swinging a deal for a Sergio Santos or an Andrew Bailey might have enabled them to make a play for a Michael Cuddyer or Carlos Beltran or Aramis Ramirez or David DeJesus or Jason Kubel.
Obviously, the free agent market is not like a grocery store, so there is no telling whether the Phillies would have been able to sign or trade for the aforementioned players at their aforementioned prices. And we won't know whether they made the optimal decisions until at least the end of 2012, and probably not until the final year of Papelbon's deal. Still, it is worth thinking about.
They definitely bought themselves as much certainty for 2012 as a team can hope for by signing Papelbon, whose track record is virtually unblemished. But in doing so, they took three big leaps of faith: one, that veteran Jose Contreras and young relievers Michael Stutes and Antonio Bastardo will provide enough depth behind their star closer; two, that John Mayberry Jr. and Laynce Nix will provide enough offense in left field; three, that Placido Polanco, Jimmy Rollins, Chase Utley and Ryan Howard will be healthy and productive enough to justify their decision not to add another significant hitter to the mix.
So what's the grade??!!— SOFTFOAMEARPLUGS.COM- That's in tomorrow's installment of "Murphy's Manifesto." — PhightinPhil
- Hoping is how losers put teams together.— Ron
- i just want one philly sports media personality to have the balls to ask amaro, "why have the phils taken a step backward in the postseason EVERY year that you have been GM?" i mean, forget about any illusion we might have had of stringing together 2 or 3 world series wins before the window of opportunity closes on this group of core players, that fantasy is long gone. i just want to know why amaro hasnt made the adjustments necessary to keep us from going backwards in the postseason, and i hope monty is beginning to look at amaro's performance with a critical eye. — zwarte piet
- MontCo cares about phannies in seats, hotdogs sold, and fan appreciation day. He wants to be sure the 'product' is 'fan friendly' and Phillie Phanatic worthy. So, RAJ is the least of his worries, especially after a 102 win season. He does worry about things like: is Big Man coming back after tearing up his ankle; Utley's baby; and whether or not LHValley is up to Philly standards.
You guys, especially you ZP, are focused on the trees when the forest is what matters. Like all GM's, and managers, he get his comeuppance, eventually, but it will be based on truly poor results, not on 'virtually' poor results which most posters, without facts and data, attempt to attack (him, and CM) with.
Failure is profound. At this point 102 wins, 3M+ fans, revenue streams overflowing, are not profound failures.
What are profound failures, however, are many of the posters on these comment sheets. They need to step it up or we'll have to trade them for posters to be named later.— 24sDad - 24, you are right about one thing - monty cares about the bottom line, and as long as fans like you with low expectations will keep the cash machine flowing for a team proving over and over again that it has no idea how to get back to the world series, monty has no reason to shake things up.. i think many fans look at things the way i do instead: we had to wait 28 years for a world series championship after 1980, we had an opportunity to create something special with the core of players from 2008 - a dynasty - a string of world series wins. unfortunately, the gm who put together the 2008 team retired. monty then had a choice: hire amaro or mike arbuckle. he chose amaro. under amaro's leadership, the team personnel, the team culture, the field management has added up to a withering postseason performance in every year after 08. how is that for 'facts and data'? it is indisputable. i dont want to wait another 28 years for a world series win. amaro has given me no confidence that this will not happen. save your patronizing comments for some other board - they are not welcome here by me or the multitude of fans who share my point of view. — zwarte piet
- How come there are colors for the relievers, but black and white for the position players?— mikemaddog
Comment removed.- Comment removed.
- awful article— FABER
- Ron, there is ALWAYS hope, no matter how much you spend. Hope they don't slump, hope they don't break an ankle, hope the other teams in the division don't have one of those years where everything falls in place at once, etc.— schmenkman
- You lay it out and then don't actually make a comment as to your opinion on the matter. What is that? The Phillies overpaid for Pap. I wish they would of tried to get Aramis to play third and made Polanco the super sub. that would have gotten the most bang for the buck and they would probably be looking at being able to sign Madson at dollar amount that is more in lie with what closers should get paid. The only lamer signing in terms of dollars is Beltran. Paying a washed up hitter with almost no real pop left at 13 mil is a ripoff.— UncleStosh
- It's "would've" not "would of". It's called a contraction and it's short for "would have". This has been the Tonner's grammatical minute sponsored by Hooked on Phonics. Tune in tomorrow for "Lurie or Laurie? What's the name of the cat who owns the Eagles?"
- The Tonner's beer-addled brain has trouble remembering things but if the Tonner recalls correctly, the bats went to sleep the last couple of offseasons and it doesn't seem like the lineup improved all that much. Hopefully Doc, Lee and Hamels pitch shutouts every time out in the playoffs. Also, if he Tonner has the choice of watching Howard take a pitch to end the season or crumpling like a cheap suit going down the first base line, the Tonner will choose the former.
- The Tonner seems to have forgotten that Cliff Lee didn't have to pitch a shutout in the post-season. All he had to do was hold onto the FOUR-run lead the offense staked him to in Game 2 and the Phils would have won the series. The Tonner seems not to have noticed that the ERA of Phillies starters not named Halladay or Hamels in the Cardinals series was 7.50, which is awful. And the Tonner seems to be unaware that Cliff Lee's ERA in his last three post-season appearances is 7.13, which is also awful. — phillyl0
