Is John Middleton just a Bloodsucking Criminal or a Racist as well?

Kevin Maitan, the "next Miguel Cabrera". John Middleton refuses to pay him. Refuses to pay him with such contempt that he is allowing the Phillies division rival the Atlanta Braves to have this once in a generation talent.

Look at this video of Kevin Maitan. If you understand baseball at all you can see the talent immediately. I have looked at video of the top high school and college position players in the upcoming MLB draft in which the Phillies will pick first. Kevin Maitan is better than any of them. It's not even close.

Here is where this gets interesting. The videos of the upcoming MLB Draftees show players who are 17 to 21 years old. Kevin Maitan in the video above and the other videos available is 14 years old.

FOURTEEN.

The last player who resembled Kevin Maitan in terms of talent at an early age was Bryce Harper and he began to generate this kind of spotlight at 16 years old. We have not seen a shortstop talent like Kevin Maitan since Alex Rodriguez was drafted first overall in 1993. However, A-Rod wasn't a switch-hitter.

This is where things begin to get more than perplexing. I've been watching the Phillies for over four decades. Every Phillies fan of this length of time understands the drought in talent from Latin America in the Phillies organization. There was Juan Samuel, Julio Franco and George Bell in a relatively short window of time and then there was nothing for decades.

There's a good explanation for this. An ownership change. Samuel, Franco and Bell were signed under the ownership of Ruly Carpenter who did things a different way. None of Carpenter's players called a press conference as Scott Rolen did and denounced him for having "No commitment to win". When Carpenter signed Pete Rose that contract made Rose the highest paid player in all of professional sports.

The largest contract John Middleton has given out was to Cole Hamels and that contract didn't stay here very long did it? How long did Jim Thome's contract stay here? Bobby Abreu? The only reason Ryan Howard's contract didn't leave almost as soon as it began is Howard's career imploded along with his Achilles tendon. When Middleton signed Howard to that extension he was sure Howard had a floor of 35 HR and 110 RBI and he would be able to dump most of Howard's contract as with so many others.

Have you noticed the sort of Latino players who do come up with the Phillies? Every one of them is flawed in some way. Not a one of them has that "star" look to them. From the time they arrive they have a short shelf life stamped on them. That's the opposite of Kevin Maitan, who looks like he could become a part of a MLB team for 25 years if we count his farm system years.

In 2013 the Red Sox won the World Series. Two years later and the Red Sox are already rebuilt and looking to finish off their team as a WS contender this winter with several young core type talents in their lineup and several more on the way from the farm.

Why do the Phillies - a wealthier franchise than the Red Sox - look like an expansion team going into their second season six years after their last WS appearance while the Red Sox are ready to go and their farm system is loaded as well? The Red Sox didn't acquire Mookie Betts, Xander Bogaerts, Blake Swihart or any of their stud prospects on the farm by selling their big league players to another team in the John Middleton style. The Red Sox have a very aggressive farm system that is very well funded. Most of the rules in place capping draft spending and penalties for spending in the July 2nd period are there to inhibit the Red Sox.

The Dodgers have the highest payroll in MLB. They have won their division three straight seasons. Yet the Dodgers are not rumored to be in long term trouble. There are no warning flags about an empty farm and aging MLB players. Indeed, the Dodgers have some of the best young talent in MLB on their big league roster or about to join it. People who keep track of international signings for the current July 2nd period have one chart for the Dodgers signings and another for the rest of MLB. The current expenditure estimate for the Dodgers in the current July 2015 to July 2016 period is $87 million.

EIGHTY-SEVEN MILLION DOLLARS.

In the past thirty-five years combined the Phillies have not spent $87 million in the international markets.

A year ago I was apoplectic about the refusal by John Middleton to pay Yoan Moncada, a 20 year old Cuban switch hitter with power who could play SS and would easily fit at 2B in MLB. Moncada was a perfect fit for the Phillies needs - not that a player with his skill set is or could be someone not in need by any MLB team - and even fit perfectly with their stated desire to "get younger" and "rebuild" a championship team.

So far, since the Phillies actually began their rebuild in October of 2011 and revealing their true intentions publicly on July 31, 2012 by dumping Shane Victorino and Hunter Pence for nothing, the only thing that has been built is John Middleton's $40 million mansion in Palm Beach, Florida.

While watching a Phillies game and grimacing at one of the Phillies propaganda ads in-between innings that has some of their players talking about going to baseball games with dad when they were children it made me wonder how Yoan Moncada would fit in such an ad. Would he speak in broken English or through an interpreter? Would he speak of dad or his excitement at playing in front of Fidel for the first time?

Mostly though I think of how much Yoan Moncada resembles Robbie Cano in his skill set and I think of how long Robbie Cano's contract with the Mariners is and how much John Middleton clearly detests paying baseball players. The fact that a player might not have a lot of ability to star in propaganda ads to tug at the wallets of season ticket holders is a factor as well given that John Middleton is obsessed with his personal fortune and how fast it is growing, and as revealed by his sister Anna Nupson, how controlling of every last dollar John Middleton is.

Anna Nupson
Raped by her own brother

Two of the Phillies last "big signs" out of the July 2nd market are Luis Encarnacion and Jhailyn Ortiz.  Upon looking at video of Encarnacion I immediately nicknamed him "Hands of Stone". Ortiz looks like a DH, even though he was 16 years old in the video.

If you're John Middleton and you want your players to be controllable for their entire MLB life then you do not want athletic, powerful five tool Latin American players. This type of player as a group has a high incidence of hiring agents like Scott Boras and Jay Z to test the free agent market. Players like this have a very long shelf life in MLB. If they rise quickly they can become free agents at 27 years old and it's not difficult to envision such a player still going strong at 37 so a ten year contract is a possibility.

Not on the Phillies though.

Cole Hamels
Sold for Free Players

Cole Hamels contract is the largest and longest signed in Phillies history and as noted above it is no longer here. It's pretty safe to say that Max Scherzer's contract will not be traveling to another franchise as Cole Hamel's did. When you sign a player to a contract like that you are going to pay it.

John Middleton has never paid such a contract.

John Middleton has never signed a player like Yoan Moncada and everything written everywhere says that John Middleton will not pay Kevin Maitan. The current rumor has the Braves signing Maitan for just $4.5 million. Note the decimal point. That is not 45 million, it is four point five million dollars.

Kevin Maitan
Future MLB Superstar

Keith Law has pointed out that the current agreement between the Braves and Maitan is illegal under MLB rules and to quote Law "There is nothing stopping another team from giving Maitan another million dollars to sign with them".

ROFLOL!

I would not have a second thought about giving Kevin Maitan another thirty million dollars to sign with the Phillies. At $35 million he would be a steal. Kevin Maitan is the best SS talent I have ever seen. He has Cooperstown written all over him, even at such an early age. Apparently the prospect of dealing with a player of such talent who would eventually require the largest contract in MLB history at some point down the road is an appalling thought to John Middleton. Of course, he could just use up Maitan's seven years and then let him leave, or sell him before his walk year for some "prospects", but John Middleton insists that he really wants to win. He screams that from the rooftops of his mansions. John Middleton is extremely loud in his shouting of his desire to win.

In 35 years of owning the Yankees, George Steinbrenner never once said he wanted to win. The rest of the baseball world screamed in rage about the continuous actions of George Steinbrenner which made it apparent to everyone that nothing else in his life mattered except seeing the Yankees win another World Series.

It is a Tale of Two Owners. One who never speaks of winning but shakes the MLB world with his spending that makes plain that desire and a different owner in a similarly rich market who screams loudly in public about his desire to make the Phillies a winner but who refuses to buy one player while the Dodgers and Red Sox are buying players by the dozen.

Jason Groome
Future Pawn of John Middleton

Kevin Maitan is in a glass presentation case, ready to be purchased, but John Middleton is not even in the store. No, John Middleton is focused on the upcoming MLB Slave Auction in June. The Phillies pick first and the player they choose really has no choice but to take the slot money offered. John Middleton is focused on Jason Groome, a 17 year old pitcher from across the river in New Jersey. Jason Groome is a white boy who John Middleton believes he can control for his entire Phillies baseball life. John Middleton can sucker Groome with his "Phillies for life" rap and sign him to a very tradable contract if necessary that will net Middleton a bunch of "prospects" as the Phillies ever so slowly begin their next rebuild.

You see, John Middleton is a planner. His sister Anna Nupson and her lawyers have revealed this. John Middleton has a plan for the Phillies that runs through the next twenty years and includes the ascension of his son John Powers Middleton as the next owner of the Phillies. It is John Powers Middleton who will receive Anna Nupson's $200 million inheritance that Middleton and his lawyers tricked her into signing away unless Nupson's lawyers are successful in overturning this injustice.

How did we fans of the Phillies get stuck with this bloodsucker as owner of our team? Why should we continue to tolerate John Middleton's theft of our money? What has John Middleton ever contributed to bettering the Phillies? Why is John Middleton allowed to steal over a hundred and fifty million dollars every year that should be spent on buying players for the Phillies?

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 Deals Cole Hamels for Pile of Dog Feces

So it has happened. He did it again. The bloodsucker who the Philly sports media told you for years was your savior, a "George Steinbrenner" just dealt yet another Cooperstown talent for the standard sack of crap that you always see head for the airport in deals like this.

Let's quickly review the "work" of John Middleton again:

Curt Schilling
Scott Rolen
Bobby Abreu
Cliff Lee
Hunter Pence
Shane Victorino
for
Vicente Padilla

This is correct. Vicente Padilla is the total return for shipping out all those players. If Schilling was not hated by so many baseball writers he would have gone into Cooperstown on the first ballot. It was his "trade" that brought back Padilla. The rest yielded nothing.

Now we can add Cole Hamels to this list without adding anyone to the sum total of Vicente Padilla.

Jorge Alfaro

The prospect evaluators at Baseball America and their ilk will tell you never to scout a stat line. You know why they say that? Because if you do you don't need to pay for all the verbiage they produce and then they're unemployed. Really, the only time you can't scout the stat line is when everything is good.

That won't be a problem with Alfaro or the rest of this "haul".

Alfaro in AA this year: Nine walks and 61 strikeouts. A ratio of almost seven to one. Take a look around MLB at any successful hitter and see how many you can find with a ratio like that. Then consider that Alfaro is doing this in AA and he's 22 years old.

If you read the work of the prospect guys they'll tell you how Alfaro has awesome power. Well, he has five bombs in 207 plate appearances in AA. What they mean is that in batting practice he can hit the ball a long way. So can many guys in slow pitch softball leagues. The minors are full of guys with big batting practice power who can't connect in games.

The Phillies already have a catcher like this. His name is Cameron Rupp. Now they have two Cameron Rupps.

More bad news, and this is from the prospect guys at Baseball America themselves. They had Alfaro rated as the 54th best prospect in the minors before 2014. This year they downgraded Alfaro to 67th. If asked they will tell you that this is dependant on the talent as a whole, but this is bullshit. If you have followed their work for over a decade as I have then you know that no prospect goes backwards like this on the Top 100 list unless that player failed at the next level or showed no improvement. The later is the case with Alfaro who moved from low-A to high-A ball - not a tremendous jump - aging another year and showing no improvement at all.

Now it gets worse.

Alfaro has moved on to AA this year after 99 plate appearances late last season in AA and he is still the same guy as he was in those 99 plate appearances after aging another year.

In short, Alfaro has horrible plate discipline. He is crippled at the plate. This is a key component of hitting. You can't get better at the higher levels if you can't recognize bad pitches and take them. It's all downhill from here. The difference in this regard between AA and MLB is profound and Alfaro is challenged almost to the point of being overwhelmed in AA.

If Alfaro's defense improves he may have a year or two - on the Phillies - as a backup catcher to Cameron Rupp.

Nick Williams

Williams will turn 22 years old on September 8th. Before last year he made the Baseball America Top 100 list for the first time.

This year he didn't make the cut. Another guy who went south on the list that matters. However, this year he surprised a lot people by making some improvements at the plate in AA and he will likely crack the Top 100 lists this winter.

Williams is a "toolsy" Domonic Brown type of outfielder. He has all of Brown's flaws, maybe some more on defense than Brown does (Williams arm stinks while Brown has a cannon). Nick Williams is a soon to turn 22 year old project. If Nick Williams looked more like Darin Ruf than Domonic Brown he couldn't sniff the bottom of a Top Three Hundred list.

A .836 OPS at AA in 415 plate appearances is nothing to be excited over and in his chats this year Keith Law has not been excited about Nick Williams. Maybe in his writeup behind the pay wall he will try to put a shine on Williams so as not to alienate Phillies fans, but his true opinion on Williams is available in his chat transcripts.

The only other player in this criminal transaction is Jake Thompson, a RHP who the Rangers received in a deal with the Tigers. Thompson is 21 years old and has a decent MLB quality fastball and a good slider. He lacks command though and do I even need to write this for you? He's likely to end up in the bullpen, probably a 7th inning guy.

The others are so bad I won't even mention their names. It's better that way since you will never remember their names three years from today anyway. I'm not sure the Camden Riversharks would have much interest in them. Really, I'm not exaggerating their lack of ability. One of them is going nowhere and he's 24 years old. He has a mother who may still be alive and have an internet connection, why go down that road? None of this is his fault, he's an innocent swept up in the crime wave of John Middleton.

Oh yeah, and the Phillies took on the contract of Matt Harrison. This is a dead contract. Harrison essentially has a broken back. He has had three serious spinal operations. He should just go home and collect his money guaranteed on his deal. However, John Middleton doesn't have the decency to do that. Harrison will be put on the field as a Jerome Williams type of crash dummy to get shelled and help John Middleton get the first pick in the MLB draft - probably for at least the next three years, maybe longer than that (picking first in the draft I mean, Harrison will not be able to take the field for that long).

Putting Matt Harrison on the field should be considered a Human Rights violation. John Middleton is of course proud to have his picture taken with international War Criminal Condoleezza Rice so why would he blanch at putting a man with a broken back out on the field to be shelled?

Did the Rangers have any better prospects than this? ABSOLUTELY! And they told the Phillies to forget about them. So if the Rangers wouldn't give up Joey Gallo or even Nomar Mazara then why would the Phillies do the deal? Why would they not even insist on the lone pitching prospect the Rangers have in Alex Gonzalez?

Simple.

John Middleton told his underlings who will take the rap for this crime to "Get Hamels out of here."

In 2017 the Phillies had one player under contract for that season. Just one. Can you guess his name?

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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2014: Another SCAMMIES Season?

Scott Boras announced to Phillies fans more than a year ago through the Philly “news”papers that the TV deal coming the Phillies way would be worth at least as much as the Dodgers, and could be for more money. This is due to the humungous market the Phillies control. The three media markets in front of them - New York, Los Angeles and Chicago - are shared by two teams. The fifth largest market is Dallas/Ft. Worth which is 14% smaller than the Philadelphia market. 

We all know the personal wealth of the Phillies ownership group lead by John S. Middleton (and the Buck and Betz families) is at least eight billion dollars, and the money is in liquid assets. This is how blue bloods do it. They have it, they hide it, and they do so in profitable, yet conservative investments. 

The Phillies were purchased for just thirty million dollars n 1980. By the end of this decade they will be worth at least three billion dollars. 

That’s a lot of zeroes added to the investment. By that time the group will likely have cleared about a billion dollars in profit over the four decades as well. That’s more than one hundred times the initial investment. 

How would you have liked to have invested ten thousand dollars 40 years ago and have it return more than one million dollars today? 

That’s what the Phillies ownership group has done.

And what did they give us this year of two thousand thirteen? 

JOHN MAYBERRY (Special Olympics Bronze Medalist)

BEN REVERE (Toothpick bat, no arm, freezes on balls hit at him, Cooperstown bound!)

CASPER WELLS (Camden Riversharks cut him)

The BIG WHIFF ($25mil windmill)

PETE ORR (painful to watch, scrappy tweener. Riversharks starting 2B)

MICHAEL MARTINEZ (conspiracy theories surround him & are too obscene to publish)

ERIK KRATZ (Gobble! Gobble! Gobble!)

CAMERON RUPP (First baseman for Apple softball team)

ROGER BERNADINA (Nats cut him, pointed him toward Camden, Amaro grabbed him)

LAYNCE NIX (Another signee from the Nats scrap heap)

KEVIN FRANDSEN (Mr. Scrappy)

JOHN MCDONALD (????? Waivers from Cleveland)

EZEQUIEL CARRERA (how could we forget you Ezequiel? Waivers from Cleveland)

DELMON YOUNG (Amaro claims dusty scouting report he found said he was a stud)

Those are just the Camden Riversharks position players on the roster.

“Arms”

John Lannan (Um....another Nats castoff)

Jeremy Horst (left handed....um...he’s a lefty...)

Tyler Cloyd (Riversharks ACE!)

Raul Valdes (no one puts more effort into throwing an 86MPH fastball & he’s a lefty!)

J.C. Ramirez (Phillies actually traded Cliff Lee for this Rivershark)

Joe Savery (1st round pick, obvious dud on draft day, passed on Giancarlo Stanton)

Cesar Jimenez (lefty...he throws left handed...uses left hand to throw ball...)

Chad Durbin (yeah he was good in 2008, but that was 5 years ago)

Mauricio Robles (see above comments on throwing with left hand)

Casper Wells (He pitches too! And sucks just as much!)

John McDonald (he pitches as well, and SUCKS BALLS!)

That’s 25 Camden Riversharks. If I recall correctly 25 is the regulation MLB roster size. I believe that is more than enough evidence to convict John S. Middleton and his fellow owners of felony fraud given that his spokesmen David Montgomery and Ruben Amaro declared this bogus roster to constitute a “championship team” before the 2013 season began. 

You don’t even need to accept my evaluation of the talent, the Phillies record was an abysmal 73 - 89 and while there were just six MLB teams with a worse record than the Phillies, the Phils seem to actually have been lucky as their run differential of -139 was only better than that of the Astros and Twins. If we wish to discuss “championship teams”, the Red Sox run differential was 336 runs better than the Phillies. 

That’s a lot of runs to make up for the “Phightens” in 2014. Anyone who thinks one stud bat and one stud starting pitcher is going to even make a sizable dent in that run figure is either too stupid to be executed or they have a medical emergency between their ears. 

Many people around the game are somewhat stunned at how the Phillies have collapsed. It’s not every year that you see a 102 win team sink to 73 wins in just two seasons. There is a lesson to be learned here.

The 2011 Phillies were all about pitching. Their lineup was barely enough with a MLB game high pitching staff. The Phillies worst starter was clearly Roy Oswalt with a 3.69 ERA and 104 ERA+ In contrast, in 2013 Cole Hamels ERA was 3.60 and his ERA+ 106. Hamels was clearly the 2nd best starter on the staff. The 2011 Phillies had a 5 man lights out rotation backed by a deep bullpen. If that team had had the Phillies 2007 lineup they probably would have set an all-time record for regular season wins. 

The 2011 Phillies also delivered the lesson that if you can’t hit, you can’t win in the postseason. The Phils Game Five first round loss to the Cardinals was 1 - 0. 

So what did the Phillies do since 2011? They listened to the Phantards and did what they scream for, they “got rid of” players, good players who make money. In 2010 they had “got rid of” Jayson Werth, but they realized early in 2011 that they couldn’t survive with that hole in RF and traded the farm for Hunter Pence. That was the Phillies last move as a contender. Since then they have followed the voice of the Phantard, the same species that booed Mike Schmidt, and before Schmidt booed Chuck Klein. 

Phantards never scream for the Phillies to drop money bombs on the best free agents. Phantards love money, something they will never have and while they can’t begin to understand how much money John S. Middleton has, they have little trouble wrapping their tiny minds around player contracts. 

So even though the Phillies have the Dodgers dollars to spend and need to spend that kind of money this winter to have any chance of contending for a playoff spot next year,  Phantards aren’t screaming for Shin-Soo Choo, a catching tandem of Brian McCann and Carlos Ruiz, winning the bid for the best pitcher in Japan (and just 24years old) Masahiro Tanaka and signing Matt Garza. 

No, the Phantards are still screaming for the Phillies to “get rid of” the few good players they have left. 

So what are we looking at this winter, a 2014 Phillies season that sees them capture the NL East division flag or another SCAMMIES season? 

If the Phillies are to return it will cost a lot of money and make very large waves throughout the game as every player the Phillies must sign is coveted by either the Yankees or Dodgers, and in some cases both of those teams. So who are those players?

CATCHING

Brian McCann and Carlos Ruiz

Everywhere I’ve looked this is described as a choice. It’s not. Neither of these guys are 135 game catchers anymore. 100 games for either is realistic. For the Phillies that means in the neighborhood of 60 games started by either Erik Kratz or Cameron Rupp. That’s another egregious hole in the starting lineup. A lineup that was 27th out of 30 teams in runs scored. A lineup so bad that Cole Hamels record was 8 - 14. 

A team like the Tigers could roll with this sort of arrangement as they have Miguel Cabrera and his 1.078 OPS in their lineup. The Phillies best hitter was Chase Utley with an .823 OPS and he only played in 131 games. Domonic Brown was almost identical with an OPS of .818 and playing in only 139 games (Brown has always spent a lot of time on the D.L.). 

McCann and Ruiz also have platoon splits making this arrangement a power move.

SPLITS 2013

CHOOCH

.636 OPS vs RHP

.836 OPS vs LHP

MCCANN

.869 OPS vs. RHP

.616 OPS vs LHP

Assuming the same kind of season for each this gives the Phillies an .800+ OPS from the catching position, putting them at the top of the game there. If the Phillies are going to chop away a big portion of that 336 runs they trail the Red Sox by then this is the type of moves they have to make, and it is indeed plural.

OUTFIELD

Outfielders figured prominently on the Camden Riversharks roster compiled above. This is an area for a major upgrade. The most obvious move is also likely to be the most powerful move the Phillies can make, signing Shin-Soo Choo. 

SHIN-SOO CHOO .885 OPS

SHIN-SOO CHOO .423 OBP

SHIN-SOO CHOO 112 walks

SHIN-SOO CHOO 21 HR

Does anything else need to be said? With the exception of Choo’s HR total every figure there would have been tops on the 2013 Phillies, and Domonic Brown’s team leading 27 HR isn’t very far ahead of Choo. Given that Choo is replacing Ben Revere and the other dregs who filled CF this is a real and powerful boost for one of the most anemic lineups in MLB. 

Carlos Beltran

An .830 OPS for the Cardinals and he had 60 more PA than Domonic Brown ( so much for age being important ). Almost as important, Beltran can actually catch balls hit toward the RF area. Choo is much better defensively than anyone the Phillies had in CF last year so these two would make a noticeable improvement in the Phillies defense. That’s secondary to the need to upgrade the run scoring but a nice bonus. 

If we’re being realistic this is the best the Phillies can do to upgrade their lineup. That is a noticeable improvement over 2013, but forget the playoffs, it’s not even going to make the team a winner.

PITCHING

The Phillies are better here only because they have two legit top-of-the-rotation starters in Cliff Lee and Cole Hamels. However, once past them things fall apart. Kendrick is a huge question mark. His second half was a nightmare and we know that a shoulder injury was behind it. There is no reason to believe that his shoulder will be sound next year. The history of bad pitching shoulders in MLB is very bad indeed. Elbows can often be fixed via surgery, but the track record for shoulder recovery is on the opposite end of that spectrum. We should assume that Kendrick’s 2014 will be no better than 2013, and there is an excellent chance that it will be worse.

Recall what happened to Roy Halladay.

So clearly the Phillies must sign two reliable starting pitchers, but remember that 336 run differential with the Red Sox. The lineup moves have not recovered half of that. This means the starting pitchers must be elite, not far removed from Lee and Hamels or the 2014 season will be another SCAMMIES season. 

MASAHIRO TANAKA

1.27 ERA

LOWEST ERA in JAPAN

W - L Record

24 - 0

24 years old

Is he Yu Darvish? No, he’s a different pitcher. However, no one knows exactly how good he’ll be here. At 6’ 2” he’s not small so those trying to knock him on that measure are clearly biased in some way. Tanaka’s splitter has been described as "arguably the best splitter in the world" by Baseball America’s international expert Ben Badler. 

Tanaka is also good at finishing games and his fastball has hit 96 MPH in the ninth inning this year, so we know his arm is truly strong. He is also described as smart in that he goes for strikeouts when he needs to but otherwise, in Roy “Doc” Halladay fashion, Tanaka induces weak contact early for outs which keeps his pitch count down. 

Tanaka is a STUD. He is the best pitcher available this winter. The Yankees want him. The Dodgers want him. The Phillies had better bid at least $81 million to win the posting. It’s long past time that the Phillies won one of these deals. 

The next best pitcher available is Matt Garza. 

I’ve never been a big fan of Garza, he’s not elite by any means, but his stuff is still very good even if his medicals are not. He’s five years older than Tanaka with the milage on his arm that goes with it, yet he’s clearly the 2nd best pitcher available unless you like A.J. Burnett at his age. 

Garza can’t field his position well and is very emotional. He can blow up. But he doesn’t have to be an ACE, just be solid in the 4th slot of the rotation. He’s more than qualified to do that. 

And what about Burnett? He would certainly be better than Kendrick. The Phillies don’t have to put Kendrick in the rotation anymore than they need to put Ethan Martin or Miguel Alfredo Gonzalez. Kendrick has another year to go before hitting the market so the Phillies can make him the sixth starter and sign Burnett to fill out the rotation.

Lee

Hamels

Tanaka

Garza

Burnett

Combine that with Choo, McCann/Chooch, and Beltran and we’ve made a huge hole in that 336 run figure. Probably chopped close to 280 off it. That’s enough to get rid of the SCAMMIES and see the return of the Phillies in 2014.

What would all this cost? Way more than any Phantard is going to consider. Way more than those lamers known as “beat writers” are going to consider and especially a non-starter for those loudmouth Eagles fans that host the talk radio shows in Philly and hate any player who gets paid.

But they’re all scum. They all get paid to watch those Camden Riversharks in Phillies uniforms. There’s no reason to ever listen or read any of them. They are actually hostile to all real Phillies fans. Those of us who watch all 162 games, even the games that last over seven hours. 

As for the money to make this happen, well that’s never been an issue. The ownership group of the Phillies has at least eight billion dollars in liquid assets (cash in the bank). John S. Middleton has over four billion. If Bud Selig gave Middleton permission to do so he could write two checks and buy both the Dodgers and the Yankees.

The Phillies coming TV deal is rumored to be as much as $275 million per season. That means the Phillies could easily run a $400 million payroll and be very profitable. 

A $400 million payroll and be very profitable. 

Yes it’s true. 

The Phillies currently receive just $35 million for their TV deal. Their payroll this year was $159 million.

Subtract $35 million from $275 million.

$240 million

$159 million

----------------

$399 million

So when Mike Trout hits the market and the price is $50 million per year for ten years, it’s not going to be a problem. 

Welcome home Mike. 

V8886JX3G7G3

The Destruction of the Atlanta Braves

What have the mass media done to Braves fans? This is going to be ugly so hide the kids.

Can you believe that it's 2011 and the Braves payroll is just $89 million this year? It just boggles the mind. The Braves payroll has basically been frozen at this level for ten years, while they have played in brand new, beautiful Turner Field. If Ted owned the Braves their payroll would be at least $200 million.

And they could afford that.

That's the reason for this ugly post. Through mass media brainwashing from the local yocal press in Atlanta to the national baseball media, Braves fans have had their brains scrubbed like the Manchurian Candidate.

But this movie is dirty, it's from the backwoods of Deliverance notoriety. Braves fans have been made to strip, bend over and squeal!

Squeeeeal!

These good old boys actually think Atlanta is something called a “mid market team” to quote a Braves fan at MLBTradeRumors.

According to A.C. Nielsen, the folks who get paid big bucks to track markets and rate them for broadcast advertisers, Atlanta is the 8^th largest market in the country right behind Boston and ahead of Washington D.C., which just signed Jayson Werth away from the Phillies.

And it just gets uglier the more you look at these statistics.

A.C. Nielsen market rank, TV Homes in millions.

2010-11		2011
Rank	DMA Name	TV Homes
1	New York	7515330
2	Los Angeles	5666900
3	Chicago	3502610
4	Philadelphia	3015820
5	Dallas-Ft. Worth	2594630
6	San Francisco-Oak-San Jose	2523520
7	Boston (Manchester)	2460290
8	Atlanta	2407080
9	Washington, DC (Hagrstwn)	2389710
10	Houston	2177220
11	Detroit	1883840
12	Phoenix (Prescott)	1881310
13	Seattle-Tacoma	1874750
14	Tampa-St. Pete (Sarasota)	1795200
15	Minneapolis-St. Paul	1753780
16	Miami-Ft. Lauderdale	1580580
17	Denver	1572740
18	Cleveland-Akron (Canton)	1526200
19	Orlando-Daytona Beach	1453120
20	Sacramnto-Stkton-Modesto	1409400
21	St. Louis	1258580
22	Portland, OR	1197780
23	Charlotte	1166180
24	Pittsburgh	1160820
25	Raleigh-Durham (Fayetvlle)	1131310
26	Baltimore	1108360
27	Indianapolis	1106420
28	San Diego	1089010
29	Nashville	1039430
30	Hartford & New Haven	1018770
31	Kansas City	974820
32	Salt Lake City	953950
33	Cincinnati	923830
34	Columbus	915950
35	Milwaukee	901100

St. Louis has a payroll $20 million more than the Braves, yet St. Louis is just the 21^st largest market in the country and about half the size of Atlanta.

Can you handle anymore ugliness? I hope so.

Milwaukee's payroll is just a few million dollars shy of the Braves and Milwaukee is the smallest market in the game.

How small is Milwaukee in comparison? Atlanta is more than two and one half times bigger than Milwaukee. That's probably why the Braves moved from Milwaukee to Atlanta after the 1965 season.

This is some serious abuse that Braves fans have undergone over the last decade, and there is no sign of the abuse subsiding. The entire baseball media continues to operate under the big lie that Atlanta is some kind of tiny market buried under Chipper Jones contract.

It was once much different.

Way back when Greg Maddux was a star product of the Cubs farm system and about to become a free agent. The Cubs would not pay him the big bucks and Greg Maddux hit the market.

The Yankees did not sign Greg Maddux. The Braves did. And the Braves signed Maddux to what was then the biggest contract for a pitcher in MLB history.

In fact, when you look at what the Phillies have done the past few years in acquiring Halladay, Oswalt and Lee and paying them the big bucks, it very much resembles what the Braves once did to become the dominate force in the N.L. East.

The Braves developed Tom Glavine through their farm system, the Phillies did likewise with Cole Hamels.

Braves fans need to stop hating on Phillies fans and the owners of the Phillies. They have nothing to do with the Braves puny payroll. Liberty Media and John C. Malone are responsible for the Braves embarrassing backwardness. Braves fans need to organize a large Tomahawk Chop protest against Liberty Media and John C. Malone.