Winter Meetings open: The trouble with standing ‘Pat’

The MLB Winter Meetings are underway in Nashville (Nashville?). The major league-wide storylines:

- The Johan Santana Sweepstakes: Yankees vs. Red Sox.
- Is Miguel Cabrera getting dealt?
- Will a young pitcher (Bedard, Haren) get dealt?
- Japanese players possibly making a splash.

The major Phillies storylines:

- Does Aaron Rowand get five years somewhere; if not, will he take a trip back to Philadelphia?
- The Phillies look to address the pitching staff with possibly one final addition.
- Are they finished patching up 2007’s league-worst bullpen?

As far as the Phillies, Pat Gillick has stressed this won’t be a heavy Winter Meetings for both the team and for baseball, but you have to take that with a grain of salt — he denied chasing Mike Lowell forever, yet they had an offer ready for him. Still, it remains pitching is highest on the team’s radar, and the free agent pool has already been stricken as poor.

The big pitching names out there are still Carlos Silva and Kyle Lohse, and I would be surprised if the Phils were in on either, since they went hard after Randy Wolf, who commanded far less than both. Instead, I see the Phils gunning for Bartolo Colon in free agency, still a good choice for me.

Trade targets? Jayson Stark has the Phils interested in Erik Bedard, which isn’t news. Phils scouts have been seen in Baltimore this season, and there’s been word that the Phils had been talking with the O’s. One O’s writer thought it was for Melvin Mora; clearly the Phils have higher standards. Bedard would look wonderful in a Phillies uniform, but for Carrasco, Cardenas and Madson (or something like that)? That’s the risk.

I say if the Phils can offer up Outman, Cardenas and Victorino for Bedard and Mora, I’ll take it. Then pursue Rowand hard. Sure you lose Vic, but you platoon Werth and Snelling for a while and get a glimpse at Brandon Watson. Production lost? Yes. But add Mora, and production gained at third. Not much, but enough to remain a top-5 NL offense.

I’m worried the Phils are finished patching together the bullpen. They still need a late-innings guru. David Riske isn’t yet a Brewer, so there could still be time on him. Jeremy Affeldt still lingers. Truth is, I just feel really uncomfortable about Romero/Madson/Gordon/Lidge.

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- League-wide, I think the Yankees will grab Santana. The Sox seem to be too stubborn on its young players (either Ellsbury or Lester now), while the Yanks are in more a position of desperation. Santana/Pettite/Wang is a very formidable 1-2-3, and with A-Rod back on board, the Yanks could suddenly be the class of the AL East again.

- Miguel Cabrera will go to the Angels. Though right now the gears have stopped, I see the Angels ponying up enough for the 24-year-old. As much as I’d love to have him in pinstripes, you’d be giving up way too much for him (one of the big boys).

- For all my talk about Bedard, I don’t think he’ll be dealt. Same for Dan Haren. Looking at the teams contending for young pitching, none really has enough to deal, sans the Sox and Yanks. The Mets shot themselves in the foot by trading away Lastings Milledge. Sure he’s overhyped, but he makes a good No. 2 in a deal with Carlos Gomez.

- Fukudome will go to the Giants. Kuroda will be snatched by the Mariners. The Dodgers will come to terms with Andruw Jones. That leaves Rowand to choose between the Phils and White Sox, when all is said and done. It’s a battle the Phils may lose.

- That brings me to my final point: The Phillies are in trouble. Just going by position, the Phils have:

Lost Aaron Rowand/Gained Chris Snelling
Lost Michael Bourn/Gained Brandon Watson
Lost Geoff Geary/Gained Brad Lidge
Lost Tadahito Iguchi/Gained Michael Restovich
Lost Antonio Alfonseca/Gained Shane Youmans
Lost Abraham Nunez/Gained Eric Bruntlett

And they moved Brett Myers from one place to another, not gaining anyone in the process. Of those above deals, I’ll take three of them (Lidge, Youmans, Bruntlett – and not by much on the latter two); the other three are gross failures for the Phils. Of course, who knows how 2008 will play out, but on paper, this is a horrible return.

Last year at this time, the Phillies pulled the trigger on the Freddy Garcia trade. They lost one big prospect (Gio Gonzalez) and one work-in-progress (Gavin Floyd), gaining one player thought to be a 15-20-game winner. That worked out horribly — Garcia was an absolute failure in Philly.

The Phils were able to defeat that deal through two huge pieces of luck: Kyle Kendrick and Kyle Lohse. The two of them, together, had the season we hoped Garcia would have. But who becomes the new Aaron Rowand? Who becomes the new Iguchi? More importantly, what about the weaknesses they haven’t fixed? One starting pitcher; one reliever; third base? Are they content with this team in 2008?

Gillick says he’s not spending money just to spend it. That’s fine. I admire that — you need a plan and you don’t want to just throw around cash. But the truth is this — this team won 89 games last year; most years, that’ll barely win you a Wild Card. Can we say right now, with the moves this team made, that they’re better off in 2008 than they were to end 2007? I can’t say that.

Cordero off market; bloggers vs. Conlin

A few developments in the past two days, with the post-Thanksgiving lull hitting us hard:

- Nothing new for the Phillies. Wolf and Kuroda are still on the table, supposedly. Jayson Stark put the official stamp on the Mike Lowell drama, saying the Phils “would’ve” offered him the 4Y/$50M deal if he wasn’t satisfied with the Red Sox’ offer. Lowell was satisfied, and alerted the Phils there was no need to offer. Good on Lowell.

- Francisco Cordero is off the market — the Reds nabbed him with a 4Y/$46M deal, with an option for a fifth year. Too much? Probably. But this is a good move for the Reds, upon second glance. They’re a young team with a very formidable pitching staff in the works (Harang, Arroyo, Bailey, Cueto), and their offense is strong. Their bullpen needs work, and Cordero is an instant band aid. They almost needed to overpay for him; they may contend in 2008, in that division.

For the Phils, it means little. The Lidge acquisition ended any speculation of the Phils going after a closer, though the shallow thought of a Lidge/Cordero bullpen whet my whistle. For the market, it means a guy like Jeremy Affeldt might take 3Y/$15M. I wouldn’t mind that.

- Finally, the intriguing news in the blogosphere is the battle between Bill Conlin and Crashburn Alley. When I first read Conlin’s piece about Rollins’ MVP win, I noticed the potshots at “cybergeeks” — slamming OPS+ and VORP and Range Factor and such — and knew this would cause some sort of firestorm. Fire Joe Morgan went after him, obviously, dissecting his article like a biologist to a raccoon carcass. Crashburn took it one more, writing Conlin about the baseless nature of Conlin’s argument. Colin responded, and it can be read here.

If Conlin hasn’t come across as arrogant before, he comes across as it in spades here. Like Marcus Hayes before him, he shows no respect whatsoever for new wave baseball statistics and formula. One question is: Should he? Is it his job to respect stats and formula? Actually, no, it’s not his job. What we must remember is Conlin is paid to be a columnist. He doesn’t report fact, he gives opinion on the fact. The fact in question is Rollins winning the MVP. So Conlin gave his opinion; that his opinion includes a diatribe against new wave statistics is part of his character, his old, grizzled, traditional approach.

Conlin is as old-school as they get. He has a knack for heady and studious language; his columns play out like dizzying landscapes as he finds the offbeat and exceptional in the everyday sports world. He’s also genuinely Philadelphian — his pieces take a fan’s approach and, for the most part, he enjoys rallying the masses. Most of all, he’s been entrenched in the Philadelphia Daily News long enough to understand and revel in its ethos — appeal to Joe Philadelphian, the blue collar union worker on 11th and Passyunk with the soft pretzel and Wawa coffee. He doesn’t bother with stats because, hell, Joe Philadelphian doesn’t. Joe wants to feel good about his city, his athletes. When we win, he wants to revel. Conlin does that well. He don’t need no stinkin’ stats.

And sure, that’s part of the downfall of newspapers. Instead of being the be-all and end-all information source, they’re becoming niche publications, satisfying target audiences through aggregation sessions. The DN is that and so much more — it’s blue collar, a freakin’ tabloid — it doesn’t need our respect. So its columnist doesn’t respect us.

Basically, bloggers, calm down — you should expect this kind of brush off from “When I’m King of the World.”

Still, Conlin’s complete lack of care for a reader comment is just wrong. As an editor, I always try to at least leave a quick, polite e-mail explaining my method when I’m criticized. Conlin doesn’t even care to look at Crashburn Alley, instead labeling Bill (blogger at CA) as a Mets fan angry at the voting. Then he goes on about Hitler and a necessity to wipe out bloggers. Bill at CA wasn’t trying to provoke Conlin, so why did Conlin respond the way he did? Easy — he sees us as the threat; old-school newspapermen see the internet (and anything that goes with it) as threat. I know — I’m in the business. Is he allowed to do that? Sure. It’s his life.

- One other point from the Rollins MVP talk: Most Americans, including the boys at FJM, are vehemently against Rollins even touching the forcefield of the MVP award. Please. It’s a sportswriters award; they look at more than sabermetrics. And you should. If it’s the Most Outstanding Statistical Player award, by all means, let Hanley and Holliday battle it out. But Most Valuable Player — like I’ve been saying forever — is very open ended. Rollins was incredibly valuable, and value isn’t just a statistic. It’s in intangibles, image, etc. And that’s why I can see Rollins as MVP. He was the total package — not just statistically.

Bloggers — and I say this with love — let’s not turn into a boy’s club, like the pen/paper scribes we face off with at the front lines. Let’s be above that.