We are going to find out very soon exactly how much Ruben Amaro Jr covets Blue Jays hurler Roy Halladay. Is he willing to part with top prospects like Kyle Drabek, who he refused to part with 5 months ago at the trade deadline? Or will Ruben be able to pry Roy Halladay away from the Blue Jays without giving up more than Cliff Lee and a couple of top 10 prospects that don’t include Drabek or Domonic Brown?

At this point, reading every beat writer’s tweets or blog updates is a waste of time. And frankly it is annoying. How can so many of these guys be so far off from one another in terms of which prospects are/are not included? Until it is on the Phillies website, I am taking it with a massive grain of salt, even if it is coming from someone as in the know as Jim Salisbury or Todd Zolecki.

I know that many Phillies fans will not like the notion of giving up Cliff Lee when the Phillies control him for one more year and could receive 2 picks for him when/if he leaves after 2010. But it seems clear that:

a. Cliff Lee wants to hit the free agent market and see what the market bears after the 2010 season.

b. Roy Halladay wants to be a Phillie and is willing to sign now.

I would prefer Lee over Halladay on a long-term deal: he has a rubber arm, obviously can pitch in the big game, and …

Goodbye Matt Stairs. How shall we slay Jonathan Broxton without you?

Eric Bruntlett – no one made the unassisted triple play look less deserved than you. Kudos, sir.

Bako, Cairo etal. We hardly knew ya. Best wishes this holiday season.

Ruben Amaro Jr. made no bones about his desire the upgrade the Phillies bench during the 2009 offseason. And while it is debatable as to exactly how much he did improve the bench, there is little argument that glaring weaknesses have been addressed with suitable upgrades.

Juan Castro, Brian Schneider and Ross Gload now comprise 60% of the Phillies bench and with Ben Francisco and Greg Dobbs rounding out the fivesome, there is some hope that a pinch hitting opportunity will actually be more worthwhile in 2010 than simply leaving the pitcher in to hit for himself.

Castro will be able to spell three quarters of the Phillies infield from time to time, Schneider is a solid backup catcher who has never had an opportunity to produce for a winning team and Ross Gload improved his offensive metrics as a bench player for the Marlins last year and can play 1st base or the outfield.

Are any of these pickups earth shattering? No, but if there were sexy options for the bench, they’d be starting elsewhere.

But if the last few years of Phillies playoff baseball have taught us anything, it is that the signings that can’t crack the front page of the Inqy still have a chance to score the winning run in a World …

I am fully recovered from the World Series loss. The healing process began far before the last out in Game 6. When the Phils were down 7-1 in the bottom of the fifth, I had already resigned myself to the fact that the Phillies were not winning this thing. Even Ryan Howard’s two-run shot in the top of the sixth did not move me. I refused to give in to the notion of a possible rally, especially with Mariano Rivera looming 2 innings or so away.

When the last pitch was thrown, I didn’t immediately turn off the game. I watched probably 10-15 seconds of the Yankees celebrating. My opinion? Lame compare to the Phillies last year. Sorry, but the Yankees and their fans just do not match the Phillies for intensity. They were the better team in the World Series, no doubt. But we smoke ‘em in World Series celebrations. The same goes for their Parade. They can talk about the Canyon of Heroes all they want, but when the crowd size is defined as “many thousands” in a city of 8.5 million, color me unimpressed.

Anyway, thoughts already move to the hot stove and what the Phillies can do to make themselves better and to bridge the gap that exists between themselves and the Yankees. Imagine for a moment that this is where we are as Phillies fans. Instead of talking about what our favorite team would be …

Last night’s thrilling 8-7 come-from-behind victory over the Pirates kept the Phils strong homestand intact, but does not remove the concern any fan has right now about Cole Hamels underwhelming 2009 campaign.

The storyline has already been well-documented. King Cole was the NLCS and World Series MVP as he set the table for each series win in Game 1 victories while also starting the clinching games as well. Then an offseason of meet and greets, media appearances and probably 250,000 autograph requests left Cole unprepared for the 2009 season.

I’m sure there isn’t a Phillies fan alive that would trade last years World Series for a strong 2009 season from Cole Hamels. But the fact remains that the pitcher the Phils need to anchor a mostly average rotation is not living up to the high expectations both he and his loyal subjects set for him on an every start basis.

Hamels’ season long inconsistency (5-5, 4.87 ERA) could have an effect on the franchise beyond just the lack of supreme confidence once every five days. Will the Phillies feel any additional pressure to trade for Toronto Bue jays ace Roy Halladay, who is now available to whichever team is willing to empty their farm system to get him. Can the Phillies become the first National League team since the Big Red Machine to go back to back on World Series wins?

There are two ways to look at the Halladay situation from the Blue Jays’ perspective. On the one hand, GM JP Ricciardi cannot …

When Ed Wade was fired as general manager of the Phillies in October, 2005, no one wanted to see one of his proteges promoted to the post. David Montgomery wisely went outside the organization and tapped Pat Gillick to take the Phillies to the next level. Gillick kept Charlie Manuel as the manager and began to rebuild the Phillies into the team that won it all in 2008.

Now, Ruben Amaro Jr. finds himself in a dynamic spot that is rife with landmines. Taking over the 0-16 Detroit Lions comes with expectations, but not nearly those of replacing a very successful GM who brought a World Series to a championship starved city. There’s nowhere for the Phillies to go but down after winning it all, and while the fans will give passes (for a time) to the heroes of the ’08 campaign, Amaro will get no mulligans as he tries to build on Pat Gillick’s masterwork.

The beginning of the Amaro era began with plenty of opportunities for second-guessing. Not offering salary arbitration to Pat Burrell and Jamie Moyer, signing Raul Ibanez and not bringing back Pat Burrell had some believing that the Phillies’ biggest worry was their new GM.

Arbitration season, with the Phillies needing to come to terms with 8 players, including Ryan Howard and Cole Hamels, was going to test Amaro even more than the winter hot stove season.

So far, so good.

Greg Dobbs, Cole Hamels and Ryan …

Cole Hamels and the Phillies have agreed to a 3 yr., $20.5 million contract, which wipes out the next 3 years of Hamels’ arbitration years. He will still be eligible for arbitration in 2012 as a result of being a “Super 2″.

On its face, the deal seems like a great idea, and the Phillies got Hamels for the next 3 years for nothing compared to what they are paying underachievers like Adam Eaton and Geoff Jenkins. Hamels could have potentially made more during arbitration hearings, but luckily, we’ll never know. One of the real positives of this deal is the Phillies ability to avoid hearings that could create ill-will between the parties. We know how Cole took to what he perceived as a low salary in 2008 when he was not arb eligible. There is no need to make Hamels any less willing to sign with the Phillies when he is a free agent.

The contract is no indication, in and of itself, that Hamels wants to be a Phillie for the long haul. He is the Phillies property for the next 4 years unless they choose otherwise. He could either sign a contract or play it year to year. I would suspect that his main motivation for signing this deal was to guarantee himself a nice payload over the next 3 years while guarding against an injury during an arbitration year that …

The final resting place of Derek Lowe in the sweepstakes for the sinkerballer looks like a near clean sweep for the NL East, with Lowe being courted publicly by the Mets to our north and the Braves to our south. The Phillies continue to be name checked as a suitor every time Lowe’s situation is discussed, although Ken Rosenthal said that the Phils are not seriously interested. Could the Phillies swoop in with a trick play and steal Lowe from both of our rivals? Do we even want them to?

The Braves interest at this moment seems to be very high, as the franchise just lost one of their most beloved pitchers in John Smoltz to the Boston Red Sox. Braves fans, who aren’t all that passionate in the first place, are not going to be thrilled with Smoltz’s departure. Adding Lowe could help satiate the fan base, as well as calm down the very talkative and annoyed Chipper Jones.

The Mets are reported to have signed Tim Redding to presumably be their No. 5 starter. Adding Francisco Rodriguez and J.J. Putz is nice, but the Mets are still looking for pitching, and Lowe seems to be high on their radar. Oliver Perez is still out there as a possibility for the Mets, but he is unreliable, and I certainly would prefer Lowe to Perez if I rooted for the Mets.

The Phillies have uncertainty in their last rotation spot, with J.A. Happ, Carlos Carrasco, Kyle …

I was just about to work on a career retrospective on Randy Ready as well as a piece on Dickie Thon’s 50 Greatest Phillies moments. Such is life when you’re digging for content about the Phillies in the middle of the winter.

Randy and Dickie are going to have to wait. There’s Phillies news to spare.

We’ll start with Pat Burrell. He signed a 2 yr. $16 million deal with the Tampa Bay Rays.

2 years. 16 million. For the folks who didn’t major in math, that’s $8 million a year.

Wow.

The Phillies let a 32 year old righthanded bat with a 10 year relationship with the club who is a subpar defender go elsewhere for 1 year and $15 million less than the 36 year old lefthanded bat who is a subpar defender that they actually signed. And they gave up a 1st round draft pick to sign him as well. Sometimes first round draft picks become Cole Hamels.

Yup. Makes perfect sense.

This much is painfully obvious: The Phils did not want Pat back. Period. Not for 3 yrs. $45 million. Not for 1 year, $15 million. Not for 2 years, $16 million. Not for nothing. The Phillies were hellbent on making sure that Pat did not wear red pinstripes in 2009.

The reaction in certain circles to the Mark Teixeira /Yankees marriage has been passionate to say the least, with columnists like Phil Sheridan going so far as to say that Bug Selig should have invoked the “best interests of the game” clause and blocked the signing. Others are less hyperbolic, but overall there is definitely a groundswell of anger over the 8 year, $180 million contract that Teixeira is getting. Here are 5 reasons why this is neither the end of the world, nor necessarily a reason to begin picketing outside Major Baseball Headquarters in support of a salary cap.

1. The free market. While the dollars given to Teixeira during a recession certainly looks bad, this is an example of the free market working the way it always does. Teixeira went to a high bidder, although not necessarily the highest one. The Nationals are rumored to have offered $5 million more total to Teixeira, who instead chose to go with the team more likely to compete in the near term. The notion that Bud Selig should have blocked this deal is naive at best. Why should Teixeira not be allowed to go to the Yankees if he wants to? He should be forced to go elsewhere simply because it’s unfair that the Yankees have both the means and the balls (not to mention possibly a lack of gray matter) to dump nearly a half billion dollars on 3 players in the hopes of winning another World Series? What kind of ridiculous precedent would that set? You can’t just say that Selig should have blocked the deal without considering the ramifications down the line for doing so.

How much different are baseball contracts from stock purchases? You believe in the product, you buy the product. The decision either works or it doesn’t, and you either learn from the mistake or you make a lot of money. The Yankees blew millions and millions of dollars on Carl Pavano. Bad decision. Wasted money. No one is complaining about that. With a recession fully underway and the New York City economy suffering from the loss of high paying jobs and tax revenue by extension, the Yankees’ financial situation could be tenuous in the coming years. They made a big gamble. If it pays off, they deserve whatever comes with it. It could just as easily blow up in their face,

2. Someone was paying, whether the Yankees did or not. Had the Yankees not swooped in at the eleventh hour and signed Teixeira, he was headed to most likely the Red Sox or the Washington Nationals for roughly $170-184 million, according to published reports. Should Selig have blocked those deals as well, or only when the Yankees are involved? The economy being in a recession does not stop the business of baseball from plowing forward. Someone was going to show Teixeira the money. Crying about it being the Yankees is pointless.

There is no other good explanation for the Phillies signing Raul Ibanez to a 3 year deal for $30 million today, unless Burrell’s demands were wildly out of touch with the market for his services.

Look, I’m willing to give Ruben Amaro Jr. the benefit of the doubt on some level, especially since Pat Gillick’s fingerprints are probably all over this deal since Ibanez played in Seattle and Gillick is reported to be enamored with him.

But I really need someone to explain the logic to me on a baseball level. Amaro is not a sabermetrician – he’s said so himself – but I have to figure he respects the notion that a balanced lineup makes sound baseball sense.

Here are my reasons against this deal:

1. Age – Burrell is 4.5 years younger than Ibanez. That is a huge difference. If Pat had been offered a 3 year deal, he’d be younger than Ibanez is today by 18 months. Should we really expect Ibanez’s years at ages 37, 38 and 39 to be better than Burrell’s 32, 33, and 34?
2. Ibanez makes it even easier for the Phillies to be shut down by a lefty specialist in the late innings. Ibanez may have batted .305 against lefties in 2008, but he batted a less impressive .256 in 2007 and his career avg. against lefties is .268.
3. Ibanez adds nothing extra on defense. Their defensive stats are negligible.
4. Ibanez adds little extra on the basepaths. Ibanez has 4 stolen bases in his …