...“When a team gets rid of you, it’s funny how you have a knack for stepping up a little more when you face them,” he said. “There’s a little more incentive to beat them, and that’s definitely the case with me watching the game.

Cleveland and Seattle, you guys are toast next year! What's not to like about this guy? Well if he signs with NY, then they'll be alot not to like, but other than that....

The only logical conclusion from all this Cliff Lee madness today is that he will sign with the Orioles.

so is the wife going to tell him they might take it personal or is the takeaway that everything with the Lees is personally?

“I pulled for a lot of those guys, but it’s weird, when a team gets rid of you, you kind of like seeing them lose a little bit.”

As a Phillies fan, lemme just say... pull THIS, Cliff-o.

Love it. Should he happen to sign with my team this offseason, he's my new jersey.

Love it. Should he happen to sign with my team this offseason, he's my new jersey.

Not sure who you support, but if they aren't willing to part with 4/110 minimum, then they ain't in the running...

Hee!

Is Cliff Lee's ultimate goal to play for 29 teams and really, really have incentvie in every game that he pitches? If that incentive theory actually worked, Mike Morgan would be in the Hall of Fame.

Shouldn't he be fired? That's what NPR and CNN would do if he were playing for them.

Shouldn't he be fired? That's what NPR and CNN would do if he were playing for them.

I get the Juan Williams reference. Is CNN Rick Sanchez? If so, the reference is a little out of date, Morty.

What's this? Another non-story?

I heard it here second too.

Post 10:

Yes Ma'am--I mean no ma'am! Sir!

The Lee family is just stirring up quite a storm in the Northeast today.

I agree with Cliff. Many years ago I got a small ass raise and so I left that restaurant. They ended up hiring some jackass, gave him more money, and he lasted less than a year. Plus the restaurant changed themes a little over a year later and struggled ever since, eventually closing up several years ago. I definitely liked seeing the new guy fail and the business I helped run fail after I left. For some reason people can never properly value employees they already have.

For the Phillies, it's even worse than "they picked Halladay over Lee," it's that they couldn't keep Lee because they had offered arbitration to Joe Blanton and figured they couldn't afford *both* Blanton and Lee based on what Blanton was likely to make in arbitration... They first tried to deal Blanton but found no takers, and thus were "forced" to deal Lee to remain under their own internal self-imposed "cap."

So the real tragedy in all of this is not that they chose Halladay instead of Lee, it's that their idiotic decision to offer Blanton arbitration directly kept them from keeping Lee in 2010.

I know he's got a ring, but Amaro, Jr. is no genius. Now Werth will walk so they can keep Ibanez for 2011 (since no one will have him for his salary), and no one had a gun to his head when he gave Howard that extension.

Amaro isn't Ed Wade, sure, but did Wade drop the bar so low that Philadelphia can't see that he's really only marginally better than Wade?

no one had a gun to his head when he gave Howard that extension

How do you know this? Were you there? But seriously, you wonder what goes on behind the scenes of these irrational contract signings. Like - do agents hire hookers for the GMs? I bet they do.

Amaro isn't Ed Wade, sure, but did Wade drop the bar so low that Philadelphia can't see that he's really only marginally better than Wade?

no.


but it is impressive that over the last 2 years he's acquired cliff lee, roy halladay, and roy oswalt. he's screwed some other things up, and noone's giving him a free pass on that, but he's not a total rube.

I think what Lee is trying to say is, "I feel bad for the players. But not for the management."
Either that or, "You kind of like seeing them lose. They're like the Yankees of the National League."

Bear with me here, but the Phillies probably see a franchise player regardless of whether his stats are in the upper echelon of MLB players - he's their face of the franchise, even though fans may like R. Halladay for his dominance, C. Utley more for his blandness or J. Werth for his beard.

Most MLB teams would have just let a player like Howard go and let that guy get the brunt of the blame for chasing the money somewhere else.

The Phillies showed some loyalty and admittedly may have overpaid to keep Howard in Philadelphia - it is shocking to see a team make an overture to keep a guy in one uniform for what looks to be a the rest of his MLB career.

no one had a gun to his head when he gave Howard that extension

How do you know this? Were you there? But seriously, you wonder what goes on behind the scenes of these irrational contract signings. Like - do agents hire hookers for the GMs? I bet they do.

Someone remind me: why, exactly, did the Phillies feel like they "had" to get rid of Lee to get Doc?

why, exactly, did the Phillies feel like they "had" to get rid of Lee to get Doc?

Long story short, Halladay was willing to sign a contract extension, and Lee wasn't.

As for why they couldn't keep both, I think they felt like they didn't want to empty their farm system, and they thought the Mariners made a good offer.

#24: the Phillies didn't think they would be able to sign Cliff Lee to an extension that they were comfortable with. I suspect it will take 6-7 years and around $150M to sign him so I think that much was reasonable. On the other hand, they knew from trying to trade for Halladay last summer that he was anxious to get out of Toronto and was willing to sign a very favorable contract extension.

So that left three basic options:

1. Sit tight with Lee through 2010 and let him walk for two late-first round 2011 draft picks which wouldn't help the team until 2013 at the very earliest.
2. Keep Lee through 2010 and trade for Halladay too. This is the win-now move as it really depletes the farm. Also it would have required moving some other pieces (Blanton for instance) to free up salary.
3. Trade Lee for prospects to reload on the fly and trade for Halladay. This extends the current team's window a bit by giving them a great front of the rotation, and maybe helps them stay competitive in a couple of years by allowing them to replace aging current players from within.

I think option 3 was a good idea in theory, but I think they could/should have gotten better return for Halladay.