Phils add three veteran arms
The Phillies may be a little slim on the corner outfield spots as spring training nears, but they should have plenty of pitching depth.
Phils add three veteran arms
Ryan Lawrence, Daily News Staff Writer
The Phillies may be a little slim on the corner outfield spots as spring training nears, but they should have plenty of pitching depth.
The front office, which has been mostly quiet since the holidays, added to the pitching staff’s inventory in the last week by reining in three veterans.
The Phils have reached deals with right-handers Juan Cruz, Aaron Cook and Rodrigo Lopez. All three will be in camp as non-roster invitees on minor league contracts.
Cruz, 34, is 38-36 with a 4.05 ERA in 447 major league games in 12 seasons. He went 1-1 with a 2.78 ERA in 43 games with Pittsburgh last season, striking out 33 while walking 19 in 35 2/3 innings.
The 33-year-old Cook, who has spent the majority of his career with Colorado, went 4-11 with a 5.65 ERA in 19 games (all starts) with Boston in 2012. According to a foxports.com report, Cook will earn $1.625 if he’s on the Phillies major league roster.
Over the weekend, the Phils also added Lopez.
The 37-year-old Lopez went 3-1 with a 3.62 ERA in five starts for the Phillies in 2009. He made just four appearances with the Cubs last season, spending the majority of the year at Triple-A Iowa (2-5 with a 5.28 ERA in 18 games, 15 starts).
This is business as usual for the Phillies. In recent years they’ve added the likes of Dontrelle Willis, Joel Pineiro, Brian Sanches, Gary Majewski, Raul Valdes, Dave Bush, Kris Benson and Scott Elarton before spring training.
Some were released before the end of camp, some stuck around to help Triple-A Lehigh Valley and some have even managed to make the big league club at some point during the year.
Of course, some have also been Ryan Vogelsong and Jason Grilli, two former Camp Clearwater attendees who didn’t get the chance to graduate to the big league with the Phillies but went on to have a great deal of success elsewhere.
I wish more comments came from warbiscuit. He is one of the few people on here who have even half a brain.— Dan in Holmesburg- I notice that perhaps 25% of the posts are baseball-related (whether "nasty", as mine have tended to gravitate in past few years, or moderate in tone, like I noticed "s" tries to do) but all the rest are exclusively devoted to attacking other posters and have nothing to do with baseball (like dwp66, 1980, and dogbiscuitthedope above, and many many many others)... while i have gotten tired of the personal attacks and the "stalkers" and have taken to striking back at the nasty ones probably more than necessary, just to show I can dish it out as well as take it, I do share the "moderates" frustration at the tone here ,,,yes I am as guilty as anyone but it is simply in response to the ad hominem attacks and stalkers here .... and as for my "ad hominem" attacks on the g.m., the manager and the closer (the vast majority of my attacks are directed there), they aren't personal, I document them with facts and stats, and they're simply "public" figures doing poor jobs whom I continue to call out their errors, as a baseball-related discussion should do— warbiscuit
- "My attacks aren't personal" - says the guy who constantly calls the GM "Clueless Rube". You have no understanding of baseball, you are a doomsayer, whatever is currently in front of you is the worst thing in the history of the world. You constantly attack Amaro and praise Gillick, as if the two didn't work directly together all those years when Gillick was GM -- and STILL work together now that Gillick is Amaro's most trusted adviser. You want to complain about the tone and general inanity of the comments here, warbiscuit, you have nowhere to look but in the shiny reflection of your monitor.— Dante1138
- sorebiscuit actually saves his postings from a year ago so he can quote himself? LMAO. Maybe when his mom starts letting him date he'll get some other interests and spend less time trying to convince others that he's sane.— inky93
- @dante --do you have a single intelligent baseball-related thought or are you here to prove my point that most posters here simply scream and shout at other posters and don't have a single intelligent argument, except to assert something that is completely impossinble to prove or rebut ("Gillick is Amaro's most trusted adviser" --says who? prove it.."..."two didn't work directly together all those years when Gillick was GM " ... says who? prove it...)
Gillick is in the HoF for winning 3 World Championships and building 4 orgamizations into elite franchises; last I checked Rube, in 4 years, has won zero championships and has a middling mediocre team with one of the highest budgets in baseball and one of the worst farm systems.. can you substantiate a single thing you have to say or are you engaged in the following ad hominem attacks: "You have no understanding of baseball [sic], you are a doomsayer [sic], whatever is currently in front of you is the worst thing in the history of the world [sic]..."
you just proved my point— warbiscuit - @inky -the mom in basement jokes were old a decade ago— warbiscuit
- dante: substantiate your assertions -- you need practice in debating and logic --
"You have no understanding of baseball ..." Prove it --expand, present some examples of "lack of understanding"
" you are a doomsayer .." Prove it --expand, present examples of predictions of "doom" that were inaccurate...
"whatever is currently in front of you is the worst thing in the history of the world ..." Prove it --expand, present examples of something in present that was deemed to be "worst thing in history of world" ...
otherwise you display a very limited ability to communicate effectively— warbiscuit - phillies are better off playing bingo,,— hardball
- warbiscuit actually uses logic and facts to back up his claims. The people who bash him are either too lazy or too stupid to intelligently counter-argue, so they resort to name calling and put downs.— Bradley85
- @warbiscuit you prove MY point every time you post another comment. How is it impossible to prove that Gillick and Amaro work together? Amaro was the assistant GM under Gillick - he wasn't fetching coffee. And Gillick is officially an adviser to the team, and he and Amaro consult regularly. This is all on the record, it's not conjecture. Gillick was a great GM, but he made some awful moves here, too, lest we forget Freddy Garcia and Adam Eaton. And no GM hits a home run every year. No one operates in a vacuum. By your standards there is only one smartly run team in baseball, and that's whoever happened to get hot in the playoffs and win the WS in any given year. All one needs to do is look at all of your collective posts (one assumes you have them all saved) to see that you are constantly contradicting yourself. Basically, anything Amaro does that does not result in a Phillies' World Series championship every single year is tantamount to proving that the Phils are the worst run team in baseball, in your mind. Has he made some bad deals? Sure. He's also made good ones. He set up the team from '09-'11 to be in the best possible position to contend for a championship. The chips didn't fall where we'd all like them to, and now there is a lot of scrambling to eke something out of the last crack of this roster's contending window, but that's what happens in baseball - otherwise the Yankees would be winning every single year, and the 80 win Cardinals teams would never sniff the WS. I don't mind complaining when the team does something ill-advised, but when all your "solutions" are in hindsight and exist in a vacuum where the Phils don't need to contend with other teams with constantly evolving economics, you reveal yourself to be just another Chicken Little who will never be satisfied.— Dante1138
- @dante -- see there you wrote abut 20 lines and didn't even need to engage in ad hominem attacks until the very end ("just another Chicken Little who will never be satisfied")..as for your basic rebuttal it's specious -- bottom line is that neither you nor I truly know what role Rube may or may not have had in Philly success pre-2009 but the facts are incontrovertible that Phils have declined precipitously as a franchise since Rube took over .. but at least you tried ...you failed --like Rube -- but you tried— warbiscuit
- WOW !!!! BROAD STREET HERE WE COME.— lefty27
- @warbis: i would like to be on your side. a lot of the things you write i agree with. but, brother, you are like the elastic waistband on a favorite pair of very old underpants: you have stretched yourself beyond the point of being useful and keep sliding down to where you're an embarrassment. try clicking on some george carlin routines on youtube. george was highly opinionated, extremely negative and foul-mouthed. and brilliantly effective. this coz he was he was succinct. said his spiel, got his laughs, moved on. self-editing, warby: give it a try.— bubba church & granny hamner
- Nice analogy. I'm thinking a pair of old underwear offers endless possibilities for analogies in these forums -- beyond the elastic waistband and in into every aspect of the garment. The possibilities are endless ...
Your commenter prize is in the mail. Just send us your size and it will be on its way.— s - Juan Cruz racked up a lot of strike outs per inning in his heyday and still averages about one an inning the last two seasons.— escapedcamden4monterey
