2 Good Wins Over the Bucs!

[Caligula]

Utley needs to go. If they don't trade him they will resign him, which is not a good idea. At all.

 

[WestCoastPhan]

detroit wants papelbon and they have a couple of very nice nearly major league ready prospects.

 

[Omar 382]

a 1 year deal worth 8 mil with bonuses for 135 games played is a good signing, in my opinion

 

[Omar 382]

benoit has been lights out westcoast. i would be shocked if they traded for him

 

[jvett77]

The Phils are 10-4 in July so far with 10 to go in the month and 6 of those games are tough - against STL and DET. If the Phils can take 6 of those 10, it's a 16-8 month, hardly a reason for severe house cleaning. I am for any small move that improves the team though.

 

[Retroram52]

Call up Asche and get him in the line-up!

 

[jvett77]

I'd like to see what Asche can do. With Revere out, his bat might be needed, if that is, he has no trouble with ML pitching. But we won't know until we try him.

 

[Caligula]

a 1 year deal worth 8 mil with bonuses for 135 games played is a good signing, in my opinion

Sure, but that's not going to be the contract Utley signs.

 

[Cedrique]

No, keeping a $12+ million bullpen arm is stupid.

You have no concept of how important it is to get someone with the "closers mentality". It's not like you can just take some guy who is either a 30+ year old /career middle reliever /minor league starter like Sergio Romo, Jason Grilli, Glen Perkins, Edward Mujica and make them into a closer and expect them to perform well.

 

[Cedrique]

I'd like to see what Asche can do too, and I believe he could very well be the third baseman of the future but--I don't see anything that would lead me to believe that he would be a significant offensive upgrade over Michael Young This Year. So if the intent is to give the offense a jump start I would think about bypassing Asche for now and moving Young and bringing up Franco. It could turn out great or fail miserably, I don't know, but I would try it. That's just me, I'm an aggressive gambler-they call me mr. Vegas.

 

[Caligula]

You have no concept of how important it is to get someone with the "closers mentality". It's not like you can just take some guy who is either a 30+ year old /career middle reliever /minor league starter like Sergio Romo, Jason Grilli, Glen Perkins, Edward Mujica and make them into a closer and expect them to perform well.

Hahaha. You've convinced me.

 

[Retroram52]

Cedrique, the numbers are good for both players but if Franco is the guy you like so be it. I'll take both of them for a replacement of Young and Revere especially since Revere is down for may be the entire year. If you want to keep Young and move Utley, then again bring both Ashe and Franco up and get them started in the bigs sooner rather than later. Doing nothing may kill us in the long run.

 

[jvett77]

Biddle made Franco look silly in the Futures game with that K. Whoever is brought up will still have an adjustment period.

 

[Cedrique]

I would rather not keep Young, I'm just saying that if the goal is to improve the offense for the rest of this year I think keeping Utley, moving Young and putting Franco at third may have the most upside potential. And I don't have a problem with moving Young and replacing him with Asche either, I just don't believe that replacing Young in the lineup with Asche would be a boost to the offense. (nothing against Asche at all and given Young's defense Asche may still be an upgrade overall, but the offensive numbers he is putting up in triple A are not significantly better than what Young is doing in the majors. And the fact that Asche is playing in Lehigh Valley suggests that he is facing the exact same pitchers that have allowed Micheal Martinez to hit over .300 this year).

 

[WestCoastPhan]

haha! jvett, it was 1 AB...give me a break.

 

[WestCoastPhan]

cedrique, if you bring franco up, ya gotta bring up asche. that is why you move utley...and then put asche at 2B.

 

[Cedrique]

cedrique, if you bring franco up, ya gotta bring up asche. that is why you move utley...and then put asche at 2B.

I might do that in a couple weeks but right now I am going with the assumption that they are not out of the race yet. And as long as he can play I believe Utley is better than Asche. If he gets injured or someone blows you away with a great trade offer for him, then maybe you move him. Otherwise if you still have hope for this season, let him play it out and you can probably get a draft pick for him if he signs somewhere else next year.

By the way, realistically I don't think the Phillies will do this based on their history of being scared to death of rushing players to the majors and "ruining" them.