There seems to be a problem with the new theme I updated to not showing the new banner in certain web browsers. I’ll try to have this fixed within the day, thanks for understanding.

Posted under Other

Jeff Carter is being done an injustice by not getting many votes for the all-star game while being tied for the lead league in goals scored and playing out of his mind so it’s our job to fix it. Currently he is far behind due to the fact he isn’t even on the ballot so I have put a link on the left sidebar and am encouraging anyone reading to sign up and vote by clicking on it. Every vote helps so vote as often as you can and support one of our city’s young stars.

Posted under Flyers

According to a baseball insider, the Phillies and one other team have offered free agent pitcher Derek Lowe a contract. If this offer is legitimate it is a step in the right direction for Amaro. While I previously wasn’t open to the idea of signing the 36 year old Lowe I’ve warmed up to it considerably due to a few factors.

The first thing you have to look at is what he would bring to our rotation. A Hamels/Lowe/Myers/Blanton would be a top four not many other teams could match and help solidify an already World Series winning rotation. Secondly where age is concerned the fact that he is a sinkerballer helps and there are other examples of pitchers of his type going into their early 40s. The fact that he is a sinkerballer also helps us out because of the fact that CBP is a smaller ballpark and he causes a ton of groundball outs.

Overall while it is still a pipedream we get him it looks like we are legitimately interested and there is an outside chance we really do sign him. I’m hoping he ends up signing because were going to need good pitching if we want to repeat as champions due to the loss of Utley for the first few weeks of the season. I’ll post more information as it comes out but look for a theme change on the site within a few days.

Posted under Phillies

Hey everyone just wanted to keep you updated on some changes that will be going on in the coming weeks. As you can tell I haven’t been able to post as often as I’d want to due to finals coming up and layout changes I’ve been working on. Over the next few weeks I will be making several changes to the design of the website and possibly adding a message board to further encourage discussion. Thanks for bearing with me during this time and I would like to also note that I’m looking for someone to write about the Sixers so drop me an email if interested.

PhillyFanTalk

Posted under Other

If the same principles that apply to batters apply to General Managers then Ruben Amaro only has two strikes left. Today, as many of you already know, it was reported that Pat Burrell and Jamie Moyer were not offered arbitration which puts the team in a tough position. Should Pat and Jamie choose to sign elsewhere, we will not get the draft pick compensation we would have gotten had arbitration been offered and we also lose two huge parts of our World Championship team.

The “worst” that could have happened if they were offered arbitration was they would choose to accept it and then we would be “stuck” with them for 1 more year on a salary an arbiter decides. This wouldn’t have been that bad a scenario because its not like they aren’t productive players (although there is significant risk with each). Clearly the risk is outweighed by the potential benefit because essentially we are losing out on keeping two more of the players who brought us a Championship and potentially losing extra first round picks. 

From reading my thoughts on this so far I’m sure you think that I’m jumping on Amaro’s back too quickly and thats not it at all. If his intentions are to use this money to sign an upper level Free Agent such as A.J. Burnett or Derek Lowe then that is completely acceptable but if it is simply an excuse due to the pay raises our core is due to get through salary arbitration then it is inexcusable and Amaro is on his way to getting the image of ownership’s puppet, as Ed Wade was. 

Im planning on giving this some time before I fully judge the move but as of now I consider this Amaro’s first move (the Golson/Mayberry trade is a plus to me but is too small a trade) and it was a massive failure. Time will tell how this offseason turns out but losing Burrell and relying on a platoon of Jenkins/Stairs/Mayberry will not work out, especially since Chase is out for at least a few weeks. I’ll be posting more in the coming days when we see how this shakes out but for now the ball is in your court Ruben, make a move.

Posted under Phillies

Well I was wrong. I thought that the Eagles had what it took this year to make the playoffs but after the embarassment that was yesterdays game I’ve given up. Normally i’d be the optimist and say it’s still early but this team has quit on themselves, the coaches, and us. I still don’t have much of an opinion on the benching of McNabb because I don’t know the plans of ownership this offseason. If the plans are to go into rebuilding mode then yes, Reid did the right thing by benching Donovan because we have to see what we have in Kolb but if they plan to keep McNabb and the coaching staff around then it was a terrible decision. What I believe needs to be done is a complete rebuilding, let Kolb start the rest of the year and if we don’t have anything with him use either one or a package of both first round picks to get a quarterback and see what you can get for McNabb. As much as I’m not one to bash Reid and I fully appreciate what he has accomplished a complete change of staff will be needed as his game plans have obviously gone stale. For the rest of the year our young players need to be given as many reps as possible because almost no ones job should be safe this offseason. My final thoughts on this are ones of sympathy for mainly Brian Dawkins and some of the other veterans that when we had a great core the ownership of this team only got us the weapons we needed once and possibly prevented us from many other Superbowl trips. A change of direction in the franchise is needed but for now, let’s go Flyers and Sixers.

Posted under Eagles

Chase Utley will miss 4-6 months due to hip surgery which is a move I’m sure many us saw coming due to the huge drop in power numbers. His short swing which causes a fast motion in his hips seemed to cause this and hopefully surgery will prevent it from happening again. Look for Jason Donald to be your opening day starting 2b if Chase isn’t ready to go. Get well soon and lets repeat as World $#@! Champions Chase!

Posted under Phillies

An extremely hyped up offseason is so far not manifesting into anything special as the Sixers lost tonight (to a 1-8 Timberwolves team) and dropped to 5-6 on the year. This team seems to have the pieces and can show promise as it has for at most a quarter a game during the season but they need to find a way to put things together soon. In this young season Andre Igoudala hasn’t turned out to be what he is being payed $80 Million to do and that is being a threat in all aspects of the game. Brand has been solid and all you can really ask from him so far with a new team this early in the year and I fully expect him to pick it up even more as the season progresses. Thaddeus Young has proven that last year was no fluke and has taken the next step in his development to what I believe his All-Star caliber ceiling. From the beginning of the year I said I expected it to take around 10 games for the team to gel and that time is just about up. It’s time to start winning. Hopefully they come out strong next game and prove what they can do, but until then we have enough Eagles stuff to talk about and I’ll be posting my thoughts on them shortly.

Posted under Sixers

With free agency looming the World Champion Phillies have some difficult choices to make. Scott Eyre has already resigned and Jamie Moyer is looking like he won’t be far behind so our attention must turn to our LF situation.

Pat Burrell hasn’t been contacted by the Phillies according to various reports so he doesn’t look like a candidate to be in our outfield next season. There are several options we could take up through free agency, my favorite is Milton Bradley. Although he has the bad clubhouse reputation and hasn’t been anywhere close to injury free in his career, he is worth taking a shot on as Manuel can win over even the most explosive personalities (yes I’m talking to you Brett). If he ends up getting hurt it’ll be a perfect time to test out Golson, who although still can’t hit breaking balls well enough, deserves a chance before we make Michael Taylor our favorite internal left field prospect.

The pipedream for some people is none other than Manny Ramirez but as incredible of a player as he is there really is no previous example of a player doing great past his age other than the (suspected) steroid users, plus who wants to risk the circus him and his agent bring.

Don’t expect the huge trade this season simply because it’s Ruben’s first as GM. He will do a great job and hopefully bring is another championship, which our core is capable of doing if we solve the LF situation and possibly add another bullpen arm. The division will be tighter between us, The Mets, and Braves but as long as no one has a sudden dropoff in production we are the front-runners to win it again. Once free agency gets underway I’ll provide updates, thanks for reading.

Posted under Phillies

So I was watching ESPN yesterday and saw the headline “Did the Eagles Lose the Game or did the Giants Win It?” I didn’t watch the show it was on as I had other things to do but needless to say this got me thinking. The Eagles have shown they are a great team but for some reason can’t pull out the close win (2 of which come to mind right away are the ones against Dallas and the latest against New York).

Donovan McNabb needs to get things going for the Eagles

McNabb’s sporadic play to start games recently is hurting us and he needs to get into a groove earlier if we want to make this late season push and attempt to make the playoffs. I have less of a problem with Reid than most people do but I did get frustrated with some of his choices during the game, mainly being on the final 4th and 1 where you NEED to put the ball in Donovan’s hands and run it straight up the middle instead of using Westbrook who was not exactly having a great game.

This mediocrity we are stuck in seems like its hard for the team to shake and we have the 3rd hardest remaining schedule in the NFL staring us in the face for the stretch run. We need to get things going next week against an embarrassing Bengals team and if we do 6-4 isn’t the worst thing in the world so hopefully we get things back on track.

Posted under Eagles