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?

FREE_AEC
ASSASSINATED
by
JOHN POWERS MIDDLETON

Free_AEC has been removed from Twitter.

Here are screenshots of tweets made to me from John Powers Middleton ( @johnmiddleton). They of course come in reverse order so read bottom to top.

I found this one morning. Apparently this was triggered by a retweet the previous evening from a bizarre Twitter account composed of retweets.

I then sent a tweet to @johnmiddleton which he responded to directly and then favorited.

If you were holding out hope for a Yankees style buying spree to celebrate the Phillies $6 Billion TV deal with Comcast then you can go ahead and cancel your season tickets. The Middletons are back stabbers and bloodsuckers.

The war with Scott Boras continues. A new war is waged against Rusney Castillo's agent Jay Z, and the buscones in the Dominican Republic and their counterparts in Venezuela are in the crosshairs as surely was my Twitter account.

If you enjoyed the Phillies 2014 season then you're going to be thrilled with what they have for you in 2015, which will be year four of the Phillies 20 year rebuild to be conducted exclusively through the MLB plantation slave draft.

Throw your arm up in the Roman salute to your leader John Powers Middleton.

Let's not forget Dad - John S. Middleton - and his war criminal girlfriend Condoleezza Rice either.

_
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Are PHILLIES Planning a TEN YEAR Four Billion Dollar RIPOFF?

As the news hit of the Phillies new TV deal it was craftily revealed that the PHILLIES have been pulling in HUGE TV dollars all along.

All that was previously reported - especially by that fat pedophile BILL CONLIN - is the CASH FEE that Comcast paid the Phillies directly. That is $35 million every year. Turns out this is like the naming rights fee paid to the Phillies by Citizen’s Bank. The Phillies sell and receive all the advertising revenue from their TV broadcasts according to David Murphy of the Philadelphia Daily News. 

All those ads from car manufacturers, Apple, Samsung. That’s all Phillies money. That’s the whole deal there. The Phillies not only own their TV broadcast they get paid $35 million annually just so Comcast can put their name all over it and draw in some viewers for their pre & post game shows. 

The new TV deal raises the annual cash payment to at least $100 million, plus advertisement revenues AND an equity stake in NBC Universal. The Dodgers much hyped deal is for cash. The value of those payments decreases with time as dollars become less valuable. The Phillies deal is NOT frozen as they get advertisement revenues which go up and the equity stake should also increase over the course of the 25 years. 

The advertisement revenues are the core of the deal. Without producing complete copies of the contract between NBC Universal and the Phillies no one can claim the Phillies are not Major League Baseball’s richest team. 

On Sunday January 12, 2014 Matt Gelb reported in the Inquirer that as I had been stating on Twitter from day one of the announcement, the deal is worth at least twice the reported $2.5 Billion price, probably SIX BILLION DOLLARS. The cash portion of the deal is subject to a 34% revenue sharing tax. That’s where the Dodgers went wrong. Their deal is all cash and all taxable to the Commissioners Office. The other half of the Phillies deal is the Equity stake and the advertising dollars which are not taxable. The Phillies keep it all. That part of the deal is also INFLATION PROOF. Not only is the Phillies deal on the same plane as the Dodgers now, but ten years from now the Phillies deal is likely to be worth MORE than the Dodgers. 

So why did the Phillies sit out the free agent market…again?

I mean it’s not bad enough the Phillies finished 73 - 89 last year. No they were actually LUCKY to finish that well. Their Run Differential predicted a 66 - 96 finish for them.

This Phillies roster looks more like the Camden Riversharks than a big market MLB team. 

Why do the Phillies look like they are preparing to live FAT off of TV revenues and perhaps more REVENUE SHARING from the Commissioners Office?

Like the Phillies did before.

Just 13 years ago at the Vet. 

You remember that. Curt Schilling screaming to get out of town so he could win.

As Cliff Lee is doing now.

Scott Rolen then holding a press conference to trash the Phillies invisible ownership for “lack of commitment to win”. Rolen was then shipped to St. Louis, where he won a ring with the Cardinals in 2006. Schilling won three rings elsewhere. 

Curt Schilling

Scott Rolen

Jonathan Papelbon

Cliff Lee

I don’t remember any other MLB team holding stud players hostage like this and they in turn screaming to get out in public. 

And this is happening 13 years apart.

After a new ballpark was built for the Phillies with tax payer money.

This isn’t baseball. It’s ORGANIZED CRIME. 

Celebrating Ben Wetzler "pinch"

And let’s not mention BEN WETZLER again.

BEN WETZLER

BEN WETZLER

BEN WETZLER

BEN WETZLER

BEN WETZLER

Remember the end of last season, after we endured a farcical team with a roster loaded with Camden Riversharks dressed as Phillies players. We thought “well at least the Phillies first round pick is protected”.

David Montgomery is still laughing at us. Shin-Soo Choo is a Ranger. Jacoby Ellsbury is a Yankee. Brian McCann is a Yankee. 

Only three MLB teams out of thirty scored fewer runs than the Phillies in 2013. 

While the Phillies are one of those ten MLB teams with a protected first round pick, the Phillies are the only one of those ten teams that told their fan base before the 2013 season began that they were a “Championship team”

That is FRAUD.

No one in the Phillies organization thought the 2013 edition of the team was capable of making the playoffs.

If an art dealer tells you a copy of a Van Gogh painting is the real deal it’s FRAUD and the dealer goes to PRISON.

The Phillies LIED to the public to sell millions of dollars in tickets and food at Citizen’s Bank Park.

Where’s the PERP WALK?

And David Montgomery continues to laugh at us. He tells Ruben Amaro to work on his smirk. Montgomery has turned Amaro into a smirking WWE “Bad Guy”. 

And the Philly and MLB media sells the Amaro big lie to us. 

ED WADE is still here.

PAT GILLICK never left.

Wade and Gillick are both highly paid Assistant GM’s to Amaro. 

When Amaro is finally “fired” he will end up as another Assistant GM to whoever is the next GM.

Along with lying about the TV money the Philly media will soon go full out to “fire” Amaro. They will resurrect their “Next GM has to be from outside the organization”.

Yeah, like Pat Gillick, who is now a “made guy” in the Phillies organized crime OUTFIT. 

PHILLIES 

SCAMMIES MAFIA

Godfather

JOHN S. MIDDLETON

Consigliere

DAVID MONTGOMERY

Capos

AMARO

GILLICK

WADE

What the Philly media will never do is call for a BOYCOTT of the Phillies. Never demand a return of the hundreds of millions in taxpayer money given to these criminals to build Citizens Bank Park. Never call for a BOYCOTT of Citizens Bank and all Phillies advertisers. 

I’ll save you the trouble of wondering what the Phillies “next” GM will think, what his “strategy” will be.

How many major Free Agent players have the Phillies signed in the thirty-two year history of this ownership group?

TWO

Jim Thome and Cliff Lee.

That’s one big time free agent every sixteen years. The next Phillies GM won’t see any problem with that.

And Cliff Lee wasn’t even a “clean” big time free agent. He was only gone one year from the Phillies roster.

Jim Thome was signed only to cover the Phillies epic fail with Scott Rolen who called a press conference to denounce the Phillies owners for having

NO COMMITMENT TO WIN

The video of Scott Rolen’s press conference has been hidden from the public twice as long as the Zapruder film was. Eighteen year old Phillies’ fans have never seen Rolen’s press conference. A transcript of it does not even exist on the Internet (Google it). 

BILL GILES father was the President of the National League. Back then there was no free agency. Star players were mocked by owners when they attempted to hold out for more money. There was no way out and that’s how Bill Giles believes it should be.

The Phillies would not pay Jayson Werth, Shane Victorino or Hunter Pence. That would have been a great outfield in 2013. The Phillies could have been close to a wild card berth with them. Sign Masahiro Tanaka and another of the quality starters available and there you go, playoff team in 2014.

Phillies fans are dreaming of Giancarlo Stanton and Mike Trout.

Trout will require a contract far more than Pence, Victorino and Werth cost together. Maybe twice as much. Stanton will cost more than those three former Phillies outfielders as well.

Then there is the biggest hurdle.

BILL GILES

Bill Giles believes if you pull down Mike Trout’s pants you will see tattooed on Trout’s ass “Property of Arte Moreno”

Same goes for Giancarlo Stanton except Jeffrey Loria is the owner of Stanton. 

Bill Giles believes MLB players are like slaves sold at auction. Once a MLB plantation owner has that player under control he should never be able to free himself unless that owner gives his consent. 

Unless Bill Giles dies before Stanton and Trout hit the free agent market there is no chance of either let alone both being signed by the Phillies. 

How many Scott Boras players have the Phillies signed….ever?

ZERO

Scott Boras is the face of the free agent market, exactly what Bill Giles believes should not exist. 

The next Phillies GM is going to hate Scott Boras as well. You can bet your families life on that. 

The “Phillies GM” is a SCAM. A scam run by the Philly and MLB media on the public. 

David Montgomery has been the Phillies GM ever since he “replaced” Bill Giles as President and CEO.

John Gotti claimed he was just a “plumbing parts salesman”. David Montgomery claims he “just runs the finances and has nothing to do with the Phillies roster”. 

Whoever controls the money runs the business. The Phillies business is managed by David Montgomery who answers to John S. Middleton who has over four billion dollars in cash. 

Amaro, Wade and Gillick have lifetime employment. They get paid and they keep quiet about what they know. MLB General Managers never write tell all books. They do not do so because their paychecks never stop posting. 

The major issue we are dealing with as Phillies fans is the institutional corruption of the Philly media which will not oversee a BOYCOTT of the Phillies which would force them to change how they run the team. 

The Plan

So what is stopping the Phillies from doing what the Astros have done? You know the Astros, they are the Phillies favorite trade partner, the team Ed Wade was last GM for before he returned to the Phillies. What’s stopping the Phillies from just moving everyone and playing farm guys at the MLB minimum salary while they “rebuild”?

NOTHING

In fact, the Philly media is setting the table for the Phillies to feast off the blood of Phillies fans for TEN YEARS.

The Philly and MLB media is bashing the Phillies for being “old”. 

What a perfect setup. The Phillies farm system has very little talent, but their farm - like all 30 MLB teams farm systems - is loaded with young guys. Why not bring them all up? Just clear out all the money and lose over a 100 games.

Just like the Astros. 

Phans money in the front door

And while doing so the Phillies can feast on over a $100 million in yearly cash payments from NBC Universal, over $50 million per year in national TV money and whatever they can get from suckers still willing to buy a ticket and advertise on TV for games that few are watching. MLB minimum salaried payrolls are $13 million per year. A ten year rebuild in Mafia Burnout fashion could yield the Phillies more than $150 million per year in profit.

Werth, Victorino & Pence out the backdoor

The Dodgers recently sold for $2 billion. Ten years from now the Phillies could easily get that just off their market size and the rise in value of MLB franchises. They could get three billion. And running their Mafia Burnout plan on the payroll could yield them significantly more than an additional billion dollars.

John S. Middleton and his criminal crew might ripoff the Philadelphia market for over four billion dollars in the next ten years alone to go with the blood they have sucked out of us already. 

Now set a match to it
TEN YEAR REBUILD

V8886JX3G7G3
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. 

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