Phillies already Trading their Future for Today

John Middleton deems Jonathan Arauz too Good to Keep

Jonathan Arauz Signs Contract with Phillies

David Price and Zack Greinke got paid big this winter. Not by John Middleton though. In fact the whole pitching market seems to have gone up in price so far. When your team has a $6 Billion TV deal that shouldn't be any problem at all. However, if your team is owned by a balls out criminal like John Middleton who thinks nothing of ripping off $200 million from his own sister it's a completely different ballgame that you're playing.

Fortunately for John Middleton he has the racist Philadelphia media 100% behind him. The player you see pictured above - Jonathan Arauz - doesn't exist anywhere in the corporate media discussion of the Phillies. Kevin Maitan - profiled in my last post - is completely unknown to most Phillies fans and the media in Philadelphia is going to keep it that way. The Braves have an illegal, unenforceable verbal agreement to pay that generational SS talent just $4.5 million when he's easily worth $30 million. Yet you can't find an article or any discussion about Kevin Maitan and John Middleton allowing the Phillies alleged division "rival" to have Maitan at a bargain price.

This is the way things work in the land of "42". The July 2nd market does not exist. Where do all those international star players come from? For the "42" market the answer most give is a shrug of the shoulders and perhaps a comment like "Who knows? We don't have none of those on the Phillies so it don't matter"

So John Middleton's collusion with the Braves against Kevin Maitan continues.

John Middleton's rape of the Phillies fan base also continues unobstructed and with the exception of myself and a few angry commenters on the ever rarer comment sections of corporate media, John Middleton's epic ripoff of the fourth largest market in the USA goes on at an ever more rapid pace.

Jonathan Arauz wearing Phillies red in the GCL at age 16

Above you see Jonathan Arauz at the plate, in a Phillies uniform in the Gulf Coast League this past summer. Arauz was still 16 years old. Arauz was playing against some recently drafted four year University grads. Arauz caught the attention of the entire scouting base in MLB. Ben Badler at Baseball America raved about Arauz in a way I had not witnessed by him since he gushed over a teenager named Rougned Odor. 

The Rangers were recently rumored to be offering Odor an eight year deal, trying to buy out some of his early free agent years. This is what John Middleton is going way out of his way to avoid. Any player with the potential to get to free agency by age 27 and get an eight year deal is someone John Middleton does not want on the Phillies.

The Phillies had another GCL player who they paid an additional 100k for in Luis "Hands of Stone" Encarnacion. He is listed to 1B and will fit best as a DH if his bat advances. The fact that the Phillies will have no long term use for such a player is what makes him a keeper for John Middleton, who is already planning his next rebuild.

This is now "The Phillies Way". A brief period of contention followed by a 12 to 15 year rebuild. It's all by design. The Phillies payroll is under $70 million and they take in $200 million minimum before they sell their first ticket. John Middleton's bank accounts are being flooded with new money that should be used to buy players but instead is going to Palm Beach to finish and furnish his mansion and out to Hollywood where his greedy thieving son @johnmiddleton (his Twitter address) is planning the purchase of more film production companies and buying more mansions and beach houses.

John Powers Middleton
Hollywood Johnny
@johnmiddleton

So what did Phillies fans get for trading the future - during a rebuild! - for today? Well, they didn't get Cliff Lee.

Mark Appel is already a certified bust. Finding a conversation about Appel among prospect ranking media folk is about as scarce as a discussion about Domonic Brown. In fact, being released on waivers is in Appel's future, it's just a matter of how long the process is allowed to run. Unfortunately for Phillies fans that is likely to be quite a long time since Appel is a graduate of Stanford.

You see, Stanford is a very special place for Super Republican John Middleton. Stanford University is an elite university on this planet and it is a Republican University. On this blog you can see John Middleton photographed with international War Criminal Condoleezza Rice, an event that took place in Philadelphia. John Middleton is a big financial contributor to the Republican party.

Why did John Mayberry Jr. last for a part of six seasons with the Phillies? 500 games,  1,370 plate Appearances producing 1.2 WAR. One point two. Not twelve, one point two Wins Above Replacement. Over parts of six seasons. 500 games. 1,370 PA.

John Mayberry Jr. is a Stanford man.

Ruin Tomorrow Junior. I've never used that nick before, but after being horrified at the trashing of the Phillies fans future by including Jonathan Arauz in this deal for a 24 year old certified bust of a number one pick, it seems disturbingly relevant.

Ruben Amaro Jr is a Stanford graduate.

Expect Mark Appel to get a second chance with the Phillies and then a third chance followed by a fourth chance. We know he's a bust right now, but it's going to be years before John Middleton will be willing to cut the cord. During these years John Middleton's stooges Matt Klentak and eventually Andy MacPhail will be assigned the blame for the Appel/Arauz "mistake". It isn't their fault per se. Their blame only goes as far as they are taking John Middleton's money in exchange for being his front men in public. They have no honor to be spoken for, but blaming them is like looking past John Gotti and blaming the pile of dismembered buried corpses on his soldiers.

How Large will John Middleton's Ripoff of Phillies Fans Be?

So the press conferences for the Phillies have ended, possibly for years. John Middleton has introduced his latest stooge who appears to be a graduate from the Ed Wade school of Stuffed Shirts. It won't be long before people are missing Ruben Amaro. However, they need not worry. Like any made guy in an ethnic Mafia who gets "pinched", Ruben Amaro has just "gone away" for awhile. When his short sentence is up Ed Wade and the others in the Phillies Mafia (including newly minted members Andy MacPhail and Matt Klentak) will be here to welcome Ruben home.

Of course, the real question that should be generating dozens of articles about the Phillies in and outside of the Philadelphia market is: Why Have the Press Conferences Ended?

The Phillies have a $6 Billion TV deal with Comcast. When you total up the Phillies revenues from this TV deal, the $50 million they get from the National TV deals with ESPN, FOX and TBS, the $25 million from merchandising, the $25 million they get from MLB dot com, when all this is totaled up the Phillies have at least $200 million in revenues before they sell their first ticket or beer at Citizens Bank Park.

The Phillies starting rotation was awful last year and it will be awful in 2016 unless they sign top-of-the-rotation starters this winter. The Phillies lineup was devoid of any big bats before and after the slot that Maikel Franco hit from.

These three guys wouldn't help?

That's what John Middleton's stooges are telling us. Even John Middleton himself before he had his stooges in place said at his first press conference "We're not two or three free agents away". Nothing was made of this comment by Middleton. It is very disturbing. He clearly put a cap on the Phillies signing of free agents at "two or three". Yet the Phillies are a team that can carry six to eight big time free agents on their payroll.

It gets worse.

The Phillies do not have any payroll. Next years payroll stands at approximately $60 million with Howard and Ruiz representing more than half of that. If the Phillies signed Zack Geinke, David Price and Yoenis Cespedes their payroll would be tens of millions of dollars shy of where it was just two years ago. Then Howard and Ruiz come off next year which would give the Phillies room to add free agent Stephen Strasburg, while still leaving their payroll far below where it was two years ago.

This is John Middleton's plan. It is what Scott Rolen - in his unique and historic press conference - labeled as "No Commitment To Win" a decade and half ago. Everything that Scott Rolen said has come to pass. He talked about how if he signed he would watch many of the best players around him disappear and we saw that happen as Jimmy Rollins and Chase Utley watched everyone around them disappear. First Jayson Werth, then Shane Victorino and Hunter Pence followed by Cole Hamels (largest contract in Phillies history dumped before half of it was paid). Ryan Howard is only here because John Middleton couldn't dump him.

Everyone in the Philadelphia sports media as well as the MLB media knows that John Middleton pulled the plug on this team after the final out in October of 2011. That is when the rebuild began. We are now going into the fifth year of the Phillies rebuild and we aren't even in the middle of it. There is no plan in action by John Middleton that will see the Phillies in the postseason before 2022. This is why J.P. Crawford will spend all of next season in the minors. Then his debut will be delayed until May of 2017. That will take Crawford through the 2024 season under control of John Middleton. SS is an important position. John Middleton values players "On the Dirt". John Middleton has never signed an outifelder to a real free agent contract. All of his contract offers are for three years, which nets him old men like Raul Ibanez and Marlon Byrd. Real outfielders get six years and up.

John Middleton's sister, Anna K. Nupson is suing her brother for the theft of $200 million that she inherited. The details are available in an article by Matt Gelb in the Philadelphia Inquirer (“Phillies co-owner and his sister in inheritance feud” Oct 4, 2015), an article that has received no attention by the MLB media. It seems that the MLB media is trying to bury this story the same way they have buried Scott Rolen's press conference denouncing John Middleton for having "No Commitment To Win".

Anna_K_Nupson

 

If John Middleton is willing to rape his own sister out of $200 million and will it upon her death to his thieving son John Powers Middleton in Los Angeles, what kind of future can we as Phillies fans expect from this criminal?

It has become more than pointless to discuss the press releases and comments from John Middleton's stooges such as Andy MacPhail and Matt Klentak. Doing so makes any member of the corporate media a complicit criminal co-conspirator of John Middleton.

Why was Frank McCourt removed as owner of the Dodgers? All the rhetoric was about how Frank McCourt was taking money from the Dodgers and buying mansions and a private jet with the money instead of buying players for the Dodgers. However, in the eight years that Frank McCourt owned the Dodgers they made the playoffs four times. When McCourt gave up ownership of the Dodgers they had one of the best farm systems in MLB, largely because McCourt spent money to add players to that farm.

In contrast look at what John Middleton has done to the Phillies. Over the past decade the Phillies farm has been the least productive in MLB. It's not difficult to figure out why. When you consistantly overdraft players such as Greg Golson, Anthony Hewitt, Joe Savory and Larry Greene with your first round pick in the MLB draft because they are willing to agree to pre-draft deals for slot money, and you fight an eighteen year long war with the most powerful agent in MLB, Scott Boras, this is the result. To compound the length of this path of destruction, John Middleton has refused to spend money in any of the other open markets in MLB. Look at the signing bonus of Maikel Franco, just $100,000-. That is staggering in its paucity. When a team over spends it's limit in the July 2nd International Signing Period that team is still allowed to sign as many players as it wishes to for a maximum of $300,000, three times what John Middleton was willing to pay Maikel Franco.

The signing of Carlos Ruiz was even more scandalous. Ruiz could not even buy a new Toyota Corolla with what he received from John Middleton to sign out of Panama. Seriously, is it difficult for anyone to figure out why Ruiz and Franco are the only starting level position players from Latin America produced by this Phillies ownership regime in the past 35 years? 

In 2011, Chuck Lamar resigned from the Phillies as their farm director. He made his displeasure known to John Middleton about the selling of the Phillies farm in order to acquire Roy Halladay, Cliff Lee and Roy Oswalt. LaMar did not object to the trades, his objection concerned John Middleton's refusal to compensate for the farm system losses by purchasing players on the open markets. John Middleton fully understood what he was doing. What we have experienced was a deliberate plan by Middleton to burn up the Phillies farm and leave the Phillies in a state like that of an expansion team in their second year of operation.

Is it hard to figure out why John Middleton would do this?

At least $200 million in revenue before the Phillies sell a ticket or a beer at Citizens Bank Park. How much does Maikel Franco make? How much will J.P. Crawford make? Nick Williams? The rest of this bunch of bench players like Galvis, Hernandez, Aaron Altherr, Cody Asche etc?

When Howard and Ruiz come off the payroll next year it is possible the Phillies payroll could be under $40 million in 2017. Without selling a ticket you can see at least $160 million sitting on the table for John Middleton's greedy, thieving hands to scoop up and send off to his thieving son John Powers Middleton in Los Angeles so he can buy more mansions and film production companies.

Every Phillies fan needs to absorb this fact: There is no Phillies Savings Account. No MLB team has a savings account. Whatever is leftover after expenses are paid goes into the owners accounts and never returns to the team.

If Zack Greinke, David Price and Yoenis Cespedes are signed that is our money being used to buy players for the Phillies. If those players are not bought then that money instead goes into the bank accounts of John Middleton and we as Phillies fans never see that money again.

Why do the Philadelphia sports media and the national MLB media refuse to make this fact plain to the fans of the game?

John Middleton is looting the Phillies franchise, and the Philadelphia and MLB media are aiding him in committing these crimes year after year. 

Where is the FBI? Probably busy trying to make a new case against me for telling the truth about this criminal John Middleton and his crimes. 

NOTES:

“Phillies co-owner and his sister in inheritance feud” October 4, 2015

“Getting to bottom of why Phillies' LaMar Chucked it” September 9, 2011

JOHN MIDDLETON gives Phillies Fans the Finger

JOHN MIDDLETON June 29, 2015

I've waited a long time for this day. Finally the curtain lifted and the Wizard of Oz appeared in public for the first time as owner of the Phillies. He cleared up a lot too. There are no more questions or mysteries for anyone in the media - Philly or national MLB - to hide behind either.

Buster Olney, Jayson Stark, Jerry Crasnick, Ken Rosenthal and all those clowns in Philly pointing fingers at the crash dummies like Ed Wade, Ruben Amaro and so many hapless, helpless Phillies managers.

Now we KNOW.

As I've stated over and over again all along. It wasn't the crash dummies. The owners were not sleeping. They were not golfing. They were not out of touch. Everything the crash dummies were blamed for was the work of the guy pictured above, the guy who didn't think an 8,000 square foot mansion in Palm Beach was big enough for him so he bulldozed it and years later is still building his 17,000 plus square foot castle on that beach front lot.

So what does John Middleton have for us?

BULLSHIT

This is what todays press conference was. A mountain full of it.

John Middleton, Andy MacPhail, Pat Gallic June 29, 2015 Phillies

The first two, the Phillies owner and his new Phillies President Andy MacPhail proved themselves to be master bullshit artists. I won't wast six words transcribing any of that stink pile, but I will pass on the meaning of it.

Matt Wieters, Justin Upton, Zack Greinke and David Price. They sure would look good in Phillies uniforms in 2016 wouldn't they? The Phillies have Cole Hamels and Aaron Nola is ready to come up now. Add another Harang guy and they have a five man rotation of a playoff contender with some backups on the farm. Giles and Papelbon have the eighth and ninth innings. Wieters and Upton with Maikel Franco and J.P. Crawford ready to debut at short stop. It's probably not a division winner, but it is a winning team and it could be turned into a division winner before the 2017 season.

Where's the problem? Well, look at the pictures above from the press conference. John Middleton kept saying that MacPhail would have all the resources necessary to make the Phillies a winner, but upon further questioning he then ruled out any big free agent acquisitions, actually placing a limit of two when in fact four will be available.

That's really disturbing. That answer by John Middleton told us that he is in no way a George Steinbrenner. George - if the Yankees were in the Phillies position - would definitely sign all four pictured above and would probably do several significant smaller moves as well given the Phillies situation.

This brings me back to Scott Rolen's press conference long ago when Rolen said the Phillies owners had "No commitment to win"

No Commitment to Win

John Middleton made that abundantly clear to me today. He is prepared to let the Phillies rack up many more 100 plus loss seasons so he can gather all the free players he needs to win ten years or more from today in the MLB draft.

This means that the Phillies next MVP or Cy Young Award winner may right now as you are reading this still be in elementary school.

So even watching a Hall of Fame player who rode busses in the minors for years to get an opportunity to manage in MLB resign because he couldn't take facing this roster of mostly Camden Riversharks, with the memories of Scott Rolen still in mind, John Middleton let us know that he would not spend the Phillies insanely large revenues for stud players who would lift the Phillies from the ultimate cellar of worst team in MLB to respectability again.

Look over my blog and gaze upon John Middleton's Xanadu castle in Palm Beach. Follow the crazed, arrogant antics of his son @johnmiddleton on Twitter as he purchases more mansions and film production companies in Los Angeles with the money that Phillies fans have given to him to buy players such as I have pictured above.

Where is the FBI? Probably trying to figure out how to lock me up. John Middleton has permission to steal the world.


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