–In a column written by Bob Brookover of the Philadelphia Inquirer, Phillies Director of Minor League Development Chuck Lamar stated that Anthony Hewitt will spend next season back in Lakewood, repeating Low A after his performance this year for the BlueClaws which was disappointing at best. With an average that has hovered around .200 and a strikeout rate at 35%, there is really no other logical choice.
–The Minor League season appears to be over for Michael Schwimer who has been on the DL for the past 10 days or so with a lower back strain that had Lehigh Valley been in contention, he would most likely be pitching through. His placement onto the DL was a precautionary measure. A very successful season for Schwimer who has placed himself firmly onto the radar for a bullpen spot with the Phillies next season.
–Still uncertainty in Lehigh Valley as to who will be starting for the Phillies on Monday. After being removed having pitched just one inning last night, it was widely assumed that Vance Worley would be the man. During interviews after the game, Worley stated “he did not know anything….all I know is that I pitched an inning and got a handshake” Lehigh Valley still lists Andrew Carpenter and Nate Robertson as the starters for their final two games, while Worley is now listed as the probable for Monday on the Phillies website.
Phuture Phillies 
I hope it is Worley on the mound for the Phillies on Monday. He’s had a good year at two (and 1 inning at a 3rd) levels of baseball this year. With payroll being tight he would be a good candidate for a rotation spot next year if Blanton is traded.
I’m rooting for him.
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Do you believe that Blanton will be traded?
He carries a 2 more year contract at a nice sum ($7 mil?), but this season has been mediocre at best. Do you think he’d be traded just as a salary dump? That is, getting little back for him?
And do you think the Phils would want to rely on Worley in Blanton’s place? If only there were two or more serious candidates for the rotation about ready. Nobody else seems close.
Interesting take on Blanton. PERHAPS those of us disappointed in his overall season could see him getting back on track in ’11…assuming no early season injury problem.
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How is it that there’s been no mention of the GCL Phillies winning the Championship? Come on guys, we expect better!
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It’s sort of funny. Double jumping Stutes and Worley looked great at first. Then it looked bad. Now it looks good again. Anyway good luck to the young man.
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It’s funny how people believe that guys with large contracts and mediocre seasons can be traded so easily.
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Julio Rodriguez is getting ridiculous. 6 IP, 2 hits, 1 BB and 11 K’s
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At this point, Hewitt is simply wasting a roster spot in Lakewood.
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Yeah just when you think Lakewood can’t get enough pitching Rodriguez appears…I don’t care if he throws 84 or 94 (since his speed is a question) he is getting people out.
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The discussions of Rodriguez’ mph on his fast ball has led to confusion here. Some say it is in the high 80s and others say he hits 93. Will there be any source other than Baseball America that can give us his reality?
Still, as has been said, his numbers are crazy…crazy good.
Looking forward to the straight, er, dope.
Anybody who ain’t curious ain’t a real Phils fan. Ha!
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“Art D. says:
September 4, 2010 at 10:21 PM
The discussions of Rodriguez’ mph on his fast ball has led to confusion here. Some say it is in the high 80s and others say he hits 93. Will there be any source other than Baseball America that can give us his reality?”
Your answer: http://blogs.app.com/blueclaws/
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I think the Phillies will investigate the trade market for Blanton in the offseason.
With only 2 years remaining at 8M per year his contract is not outrageously bad. Sure, it’s not the best season to be trying to get good value in trade but other teams may view that positively and evaluate him on the basis of his total career which is that of a typical 3 (on some teams) 4 or 5 starter. I also wouldn’t be disappointed if they kept him at least through next year but if his contract becomes the reason they can’t re-sign Roy Oswalt then I’d rather trade him sooner than later.
With a top three of Halladay, Hamels and Oswalt the bottom 2 can consist of younger, cheaper options like Kendrick and Worley. Also, don’t rule out Jamie Moyer returning at a vastly reduced salary if Blanton is traded. If you need a pitcher at the trade deadline next year I wouldn’t expect an ace again.
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Keep an eye on the Crosscutters today. A win gives them a wild card berth in the NY-Penn playoffs.
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If they can move blanton for a third base prospect it would be nice,and move ibanez then you could maybe sign Werth, we could really use a third base prospect if we move these guys, but I dont think they can move these guys for prospect without eating money, worley in his place I take the chance with having the other three aces.
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Blanton is a innings eater and saves the bullpen during a long season. He is a good #4 pitcher for a team with 3 aces. Then let the younger guys compete for #5 spot. Not saying Im right just giving my opinion.
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David Buchanan is sort of an up and down guy. Lets hope he is up today for the CCs
Since Raul is on his finial year he might be attractive to an AL team(there always the Seattle fools)
Blanton! Good luck. If only he would work at his craft and stay away from the french fries.
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Rodriguez sounds a lot like Hyatt.
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There really is nothing to do with hewitt is there. I know he was a lottery ticket, but what a bummer. If u can’t hit the ball you can’t play the game.
Blanton is an eater, just not of innings.
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Hyatt throws a lot harder than Rodriguez, I believe. 91-93, something like that.
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I’m sure the Phillies investigated trading Blanton and Ibanez, I’m sure both those guys were on the waiver wire. But as the saying goes, it takes 2 to tango. In my opinion, Blanton will be back next season. For Raul, the Phillies would likely have to eat $5M-$7M in order to trade him.
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If Ibanez catches fire in this last part of the season, I’m sure that we could trade him and $6 million in a salary dump and resign Werth on a backloaded contract. Then we can put Brown in LF. Blanton will be harder to move due to his awful start to this season, so Worley would be competing with KK for the #5 spot in the rotation, with the loser becoming the long reliever. The pen will probably be Lidge, Madson, Baez, Mathieson, Schwimer, Bastardo, KK/Worley, and LOOGY FA or Romero.
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I think Worley would benefit with a little more time in AAA next year. He was rushed wayyyy too soon to Reading in 09 and paid for it, though responded really well this year. Let him buy his time in AAA next year and have him be the go to guy in case of an injury. With a good year next year, he should easily be able to challenge for a rotation spot in 2012.
I’d dump Blanton in a heartbeat, while he has pitched better in the 2nd half, he’s no more than a very overpaid #4 starter on our team.
As for Hewitt, I said it once and will say it again that he’s a complete bust. He’s still young, but after 3 years you would think he would come around in some shape or form.
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Joe Blanton is a good pitcher signed to a serious deal here just last year. Not being traded. Sometimes the ideas on here are absurd.
Like the idea that we could adequately replace Blanton with Worley. Blanton is better than almost every Phillies prospect starting pitcher will turn out to be. Blanton himself was once a top 50 overall prospect and first-round pick. He would have been viewed as a righty Steve Carlton on this site, and now he’s a league-average pitcher. This is what prospects usually turn out to be, and you’re lucky even if they become that.
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RE: Julio Rod’s velocity
One of the guys over at scouting the sally posted this a couple weeks ago.
“Next up was Julio Rodriguez who took his turn dominating Delmarva hitters. He threw a bit harder (90-92), topping out at 93. Rodriguez lived in the upper half of the zone and was able to overpower Shorebirds hitters. He didn’t show me enough with his other stuff because he simply didn’t need to use it. Rodriguez had a slurvy curveball which had a Shorebird’s hitter flailing for a third strike. He’s tall and lanky with a frame which projects additional size. I am surprised Rodriguez isn’t on Phillies top prospect lists yet. In reviewing them, they are overvaluing statistical performances of older kids at the lower levels and not seeing young gems like Rodriguez. I would rank him below Braves prospect Arodys Vizcaino and Mets Prospect Kyle Allen, but on level with Mets Prospect Jeurys Familia in a ranking of pitchers I’ve seen at this level in the past 2 seasons.”
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Brian,
I understand that the vitriol for Blanton is a little extreme, but to say that our prospects won’t reach expectations is premature. Sometimes, we hold our prospects on a higher pedestal than we rightly should but outside observers feel the same way. Keith Law has gone on record to praise the upside of Jarret Cosart and feels Colvin is not too far behind. In his estimation, Cosart has front line rotation potential and I would agree with that assessment. You have to be impressed with the maturity and resolve of Jesse Biddle and his fast rising success through the minors. Colvin has rebounded from a poor beginning to arguably be one of our top 3 prospects.
It’s true that most prospects will never make it but then it would the ruin the fun and intrigue of watching their growth.
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I apologize that should have been directed to That Guy.
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I would trade fat joe in a minute he hasnt done anything to prove his worth, the logic was if we can some how trade him and ibanez we might have enough for werth, worley would just be one of the option at a cheaper price. My people on here are suppose to want to see the kids get a chance, worley deserves the chance to see if he can help. you can find blanto types out there, he is a inning eater for a bad oakland a team, big deal. I love how people talk about blanton even when he was trade here his era was high, who would you rather have him or werth,
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As Harry Kalas would have said… “Jayson Werth… outta here!”
You can trade all sorts of people but Werth is a 60 million dollar plus commitment. Not going to do it.
Brown (Prospect!) and Francisco will be a platoon.
Love to see them trade Blanton, Victorino and May (Prospect!) for Matt Kemp.
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I would rather have Blanton than Kendrick, even at his price. If Worley gets a shot at the rotation next season, it should be over Kendrick. Not Blanton. And who knows if Worley can even cut it in the rotation.
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The Worley audition officially starts tomorrow. After Kendrick’s outing today you might even see him get some of his starts the rest of the year. That assumes success, of course.
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I really am starting to believe they will try to trade victorino , if they can keep werth and move ibanez ,werth to center brown in right and francisco in left with a lefthanded platoon player.
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Victorino+ prospects for Rasmus since he wants to be traded.
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It beats me why they didn’t just let Blanton go to arb.. With a one year contract he would of showed up in top shape(maybe). Even if he got more money, he would be done with him. I quess I am just bitter watching 470k Happ go (nice last game).
Anyway I hope Worley excels tomorrow.
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Victorino + prospects for Rasmus? This is the type of junk I see that shows that ppl are just spouting stuff out of their azz. Why the heck would the Cards do this trade? La Russa is gone after this year anyways. Rasmus is still one year away from arbitration. So they will trade a cheap Rasmus for 2 years, $16M of Victorino? You know the Cards need cash to re-sign Pujols?
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nowheels, the Phillies rolled the dice on Blanton. He was going to get at least $8M anyways in arbitration. They figured tack on 2 more years for the same rate and hope that he continues to improve. If Blanton got 1 year, gave his all and had a career year, it’s likely he would command $12M+ and would have walked. And then ppl on this site would get pissed wondering why we didn’t give him a multi-year deal when we had the chance.
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Why would we want to be done with Blanton, when Kendrick is the best #5 we have? Let’s not pencil Worley in for nearly 200 IP of league average pitching before he makes his first start. Or any other prospect we might like. None of them are of Drabek caliber or any closer to major league ready.
In what way is a Francisco/Werth/Brown outfield preferable to Ibanez/Victorino/Brown? The money won’t be better if Werth finishes with an OPS in the Top 10. And if Brown Ks one more time, I’m officially going to be nervous about depending on him next season. I don’t want to also be starting a 4th OF with shaky defense.
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There will be many pitchers available as good as Blanton at much less money. If you want to keep him fine but one year contracts so he wakes up.
Personally I would like MT back if I knew the A’s screwed him up with BillyBall.
Put you are right to be nervous. There we injuries this year but not that serious. One year ending injury in the outfield next year would…….
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As much as I believe francisco is a 260 hitter is that worse than ibanez is? last year was a career year, his play this year is really down, just believe that a platoon of ben and another left hand bat is better for us if we can keep werth, we need to maintain right handed bats, stop guys like wolf, and capuno types from making our lineup look silly, with the junk they throw,
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nowheels I think the minor league system is actually in a SLIGHTLY better position to provide injury relief next season if someone goes down with a major injury than it was this season. The only prospect in the minors you could call-up this season was Domonic Brown. There were no infield prospects advanced enough when Howard/Polanco/Utley/Rollins went down.
Assuming they aren’t traded next year you might possibly see Matt Rizzotti(1B), and Harold Garcia (2B/3B) as players who could be called up to fill-in for a Howard, Utley, or Polanco long-duration injury. There will be no prospect OF at AAA to call-up, but the MLB team will have 4 OFers. If one of them goes down then Ben Francisco/Ross Gload see more time.
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nowheels, you need to look at Blanton’s numbers last year. He had a 4.05 ERA. So you think you’re going to find a pitcher in FA with a better ERA for less than $8M per season? Good luck with that.
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We can’t keep Werth. He’s going to be too expensive. The money isn’t going to be there anymore, now that we’ve acquired Oswalt. No one is going to take Ibanez’s full salary off our hands.
Besides, I would feel a lot better about Francisco taking playing time away from Ibanez than a full-time platoon with Gload or Dobbs. And I’m not worried about guys like Wolf and Capuano beating us.
Until the Worleys in our system develop into regulars, it doesn’t make sense to trade major league pitching. Hoping the free agency market plays into our hands is a gamble. Amaro signs guys like Blanton to extensions for just this reason.
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Just when I thought Drew Naylor was burying himself he finishes off the season strong. He has a CG/SHO today and finishes 3-1 in his last 4 games with a 2 ERA.
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There are rumors that Werth is signing with Scott Boras. If that happens, there’s no way he’s re-signing.
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” There we[re] injuries this year but not that serious. ”
Really? Seriously? The Phillies had extraordinarily bad injury luck this year, and have done an amazing job of overcoming those injuries. (Do I need to list all of the injuries? Three starting pitchers missing significant time, and one of them clearly less effective even upon his return (Blanton); three of their top 4 position players missing substantial time with injuries, and in all 3 cases also less effective upon their return; several other less serious injuries to regular and bench position players; bullpen devastated by injuries.)
Now, it’s possible (though not likely) that they could have EVEN WORSE luck next year. They could have more injuries, and/or they could have an even more serious injury to one of their stars (i.e., season ending as opposed to missing several weeks). But what nowheels doesn’t get is that it’s virtually impossible to have the kind of depth to overcome injury problems like that.
That said, I’d agree that the relative lack of strength in the upper minors makes them a LITTLE less able to withstand serious injuries than one would like, but:
(a) The chances of that making much difference next year are slim; if I were to rank my concerns about next year for the team, that would rank about 4th. And that’s true even though I am pretty optimistic about the team next year.
(b) The REASON that the top of the farm is somewhat bare is that the Phillies have been aggressive about trading for pieces to win now. Even the people on this board who bash the Phillies’ organization have been for the most part accepting of those trades. Having Halladay and Oswalt in the rotation next year is certainly worth a little less depth in the upper minors.
I mean, I really don’t get what nowheels thinks the Phillies should have done differently in this regard. There are areas where organizational decisions can be questioned, certainly in retrospect and probably even based upon information known at the time the decisions were made. But it seems to me that any decision which could have led to more depth in the upper minors would have on balance damaged the team overall this year and next year.
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Some people just don’t understand that the minor league system exists for the benefit of the major league team. If that benefit comes from promoting a player to the majors, then great. If that benefit comes from trading a minor league player (or multiple players) for an established major leaguer, then this is also great. The goal is that the Philadelphia Phillies win championships, not the GCL Phillies (although the latter is nice because it means you have a better chance of improving the big club).
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And I don’t want to get deeply into the Blanton morass, but I will point out that in 10 post all star break starts he has an era of 3.75.
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Gotta give nowheels credit for one thing. After being proven wrong this year about the concerns about supposed inadequate depth to sustain injuries*, he has the … uh, something … to double down & make the same argument regarding next year’s team.
*To be fair, even I wouldn’t have thought that the Phillies could have overcome so many serious injuries. Heck, I thought they were done in late April. They were 48-46 after the game where Manuel made perhaps his worst managerial decision of the year. They have gone 31-14 since then, despite missing Utley, Howard and others for much of that time, and their initial injury related ineffectiveness upon their returns.
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Late July, that should have been.
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