Repercussions of Hamilton becoming an Angel
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Repercussions of Hamilton becoming an Angel
Sure, the Phillies were intrigued by Josh Hamilton. But the sense from front office officials was his price would never sink to a level with which they were comfortable. That sentiment was vindicated Thursday when the Los Angeles Angels reportedly agreed to a five-year, $125 million contract with Hamilton.
The aftershocks will rattle throughout baseball, and Philadelphia is included. The top corner outfielder is off the market; Nick Swisher and Cody Ross could soon follow. The Phillies are wary of offering more than three guaranteed years to any player above 30. Both Swisher and Ross are fits on paper, but not yet in reality.
Now, with Texas scorned by Hamilton and needing some sort of offensive addition, they could enter the market for Swisher or Ross. That would drive their prices up. They could also pursue first baseman Adam LaRoche, formerly of the Nationals, to fill a hole.
The Angels have a surplus of offensive pieces, which could lead to a trade of Peter Bourjos or Mark Trumbo. The timing is not great for the Phillies, who have long coveted Bourjos and may have had him valued above Ben Revere. ESPN.com reported Trumbo will not be made available in trade talks.
Even if there was a possible match there, the Phllies have already exercised almost all of their trade chips. Catcher Sebastian Valle is one remaining piece. There is some pitching depth, but it is slimmer after Vance Worley and Trevor May were dealt.
If the Rangers bid for Swisher or Ross, that could drive Ruben Amaro Jr. to improve his club through pitching additions because the offensive market is prohibitive. The GM has said he wants a "low-risk, high-reward" pitcher to be his fifth starter. There are better options out there and Amaro has money to spend.
Ryan Dempster is off the board after signing a two-year, $26.5 million contract with Boston. Anibal Sanchez, Kyle Lohse, Edwin Jackson and Shaun Marcum are the top available starters.
Hamilton was the white whale, the one "difference-maker" on the market, as Ruben Amaro Jr. said. But with so much money tied into long-term contracts with players older than 30, the Phillies were merely gazing this time around.
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what a bunch of twits !— d1955h- Wild child in lala land. Baseball's answer to Lilo.— NewMick314
- at $25mil for 5 yrs, Hamilton is signing identical contract to Howard... Hamilton is about 5 times better than Howard --twice the power hitter and infintely better than him at everything else (since Howard is a zero at everythign else, and there's no multiple of zero)..another repercussion of worst contract extension in major league history: Phils unable to get a quality hittter becuase they have all their offensive budget linked for another 4 yrs to a .250 hitter with 180 ks a yesr who can't field, run or hit lefties.... what a joke— warbiscuit
- You're confusing multiplication and division. Zero is the multiple of zero, not infinity. You see, you can't divide by zero because nothing can't make up a part of something. However, if you create a limit function and divide by zero, as the limit approaches zero, the answer grows expontentially and is rationalized as approaching infinity, but never reaches it because infinity isn't an actual number. It's just a placeholder.
— centard -
Centard,
there is a really cool website that alot of people just like you visit often. It is called match.com. good luck.— Matt from Iowa - centard: Attempting to educate the blithering bizkit of bellicose blarney is as if attempting to talk to a wall, excepting the wall has far more sense! — BEMiller
- Yo, Centard, who's on first? — rex nemorensis
- Become an Angels fan — honomugym
- 2008 was more special than we imagined. Phil's are a third place team in the east, and the Nats and Braves are going nowhere. Dodgers, Giants, Yankees, Red Sox, Toronto, Tampa...I don't see a World Seies for many years... (HTML deleted)— Napa818
- 2008 was more special than we imagined. Phil's are a third place team in the east, and the Nats and Braves are going nowhere. Dodgers, Giants, Yankees, Red Sox, Toronto, Tampa...I don't see a World Seies for many years...
— Napa818 - anyone with half a brain (not the Clueless Rube) knows you improve your team by getting elite players, not by trading prospects for a singles hitting center-fielder and an over-the-hill former 3rd baseman and filling the rest of your roster with bargain basement trash ...— warbiscuit
- How true. Look at that fool Brian Sabean in SF. He went out and wasted money on such elite players as Aubrey Huff, Cody Ross, Mark DeRosa, Pat Burrell, Marco Scutaro, Angel Pagan, Ryan Vogelsong, etc... and what did it get him? Oh, that's right, it got him two WS titles in 3 years. Ah, but you are clearly more knowledgeable than any MLB GM. How is it possible that no MLB team has snatched you up yet? — inky93
- inky93, i totally agree. — feudal_nobility09
- How long until Clueless Rube is unemployed?— maximusud
