Phightins

This website is incredible. Thanks for posting.

Jarkko Ruutu to Anaheim for a 6th round pick. Good riddance, glad he is out of the East.

Haha, I did read your entire post. I was just surprised to see that he wasn't mentioned anywhere else.

No love for Doug Collins? If we are legitimately looking for the best coaching job, not the guy who happens to coach the most talented team, I think he HAS to be top 3. And I don't think saying this makes me a big homer or anything, I just think you'd struggle to find more than 2 other coaches who have gotten more out of the group they are given than Collins has. Of course, I'll admit a lot of the Sixers success is probably an indictment of how bad Eddie Jordan was, but Doug has done a spectacular job. And most importantly, he registered on OTR just so he could write me a nice letter.

I think he's talking about the Bautista deal. The Weeks deal is solid assuming he can stay healthy (which is a pretty big assumption, but yeah).

Wonder how much of those 4 seasons will be spent on the DL.

Looks like Jose Bautista is about to sign a 5 year extension with the Blue Jays. $65 million.

Chris Kelly to the Bruins for a 2nd round pick. I love deadline time, yay.

You can't really compare the situations. Pujols is a different animal. I have a hard time believing the Cardinals wouldn't jump at the opportunity to pay Pujols $28-30 million per year if it was only for 6 or 7 years.

I think they would gladly pay Pujols $20 million a year. The issue is the length of the contract.

Here is Ken Rosenthal's take on the Albert Pujols situation. Pure speculation, but very interesting, like everything else he writes. http://msn.foxsports.com/mlb/story/Albert-Pujols-St-Louis-Cardinals-Mark-Teixeira-Ryan-Howard-speculation-021511 Uh...the mere idea of this (from a Phillies perspective) makes me hard. And I guess it does make sense from the Cardinals perspective if they don't think they will be able to keep Albert. But I am not going to get my hopes up.

It is pretty top heavy, IMO. From everything I am reading, there isn't going to be much value in the second half of the 1st round/2nd round.

CC is welcome to come to the Phillies. We could use an upgrade at the 5th starter spot. :glasses:

Haha I totally forgot he used to be in the Phillies organization. He was the player to be named later in the Scott Eyre trade 3 years ago.

Also keep in mind that the 1st round pick will be in the late 20s (hopefully 30) in a pretty weak draft. I dig this trade more and more the more I think about it.

Today the Phillies claimed Brian Schlitter and DFA'd Andrew Carpenter. Scouting report on Schlitter, Yankee fans? I suspect he is just another arm to stow away in AAA, but the Phillies are supposedly giving literally every arm a look for the bullpen this spring.

This spring is going to be a lot of fun. I think 22 of the 25 roster spots are basically set in stone, but the battle for the final few spots will be interesting. With the bullpen specifically. If everything goes as planned with the starting rotation this year, the middle relievers will probably get very little work, but I am incredibly excited regardless. Really stoked for some of these kids, specifically DeFratus, Schwimer, and Mathieson.

Versteeg will wear #10. He is the first since John LeClair, I believe. Will be pretty strange to see.

Yeah I heard that Mason was offered and the Flyers declined. I really don't want to see them trade for a goalie. The market is very thin, so the asking price for anybody that would be an improvement over Bob/Boosh is going to be high, I would think. I don't see it as that pressing of a need. I also heard that Columbus' GM was asking RJ Umberger for his opinion on some Flyers guys. A blog I read did some deductive reasoning and realized that the only guy they possibly could have been talking about is Braydon Coburn (since everyone else Umberger played with is either gone or has a steep contract). I actually would not be surprised at all if Coburn is traded after the season, but I don't see them doing it now unless they get a legit replacement.

Ken Rosenthal is picking Cole Hamels to win the Cy Young. I am in love with Cole, but I will be stunned if he has a better season than Halladay. But with that said, I might actually be more excited to see Cole than any of the other guys. He's had the cutter and a competent curve ball under his belt for a full season, and he supposedly looks awesome in workouts.

I am now looking for... JvR-Richards-Versteeg Hartnell-Briere-Leino Carter-Giroux-Zherdev Nodl-Betts-Powe Well, if Zherdev is still on the roster in April, the playoff lines will probably look something like this. But I fully expect him to be the odd man out, and perhaps dealt by the deadline.

That's a pretty big price IMO, but I am in total win-now mode with the Flyers right now so I am cool with it. Fills the only potential hole on the roster by giving Mike Richards a real weapon to play with. Although the Flyers have had practically no top 3 round picks in the past 4 seasons, and that looks like it will continue. But Burke loves JvR and supposedly asked for him initially. I am very happy the Flyers were able to hang onto him.

Yessss

Welcome aboard Kris Versteeg.

Peter Forsberg retires. That took a while.