‘Tis The Season: 5 Crafty Ways For Phillies to Score at Annual Winter Meetings

In past years, the Phillies have been huge players at the Winter Meetings. In 2009, they shocked the baseball world by acquiring Toronto’s ace, Roy Halladay, and sending another former Cy Young, Cliff Lee, to Seattle. In 2008, the team signed free agents Jamie Moyer and Raul Ibanez to multi-year deals, and in 2007, the team signed outfielder Geoff Jenkins to a two-year contract. So what do the Phillies have in store for 2010?

According to Phillies beat writer Todd Zolecki, it could be a quiet winter for the Phillies.

Despite losing free-agent outfielder Jayson Werth to the division-rival Washington Nationals, the team will look to replace him on the cheap. The Phillies and their fans have known for quite a while that Werth would head to the highest bidder and, in the long run, the Phillies simply didn’t feel that Werth was worth (no pun intended) the $126-million dollars the cellar-dwelling Nationals gave him, so maybe it didn’t sting as bad.

With $146 million already committed to the payroll in 2011, the Phillies aren’t expected to be big players at this year’s annual Winter Meetings. That hasn’t stopped them in the past, however.

Last year, just a day after General Manager Ruben Amaro Jr. told the media  that his team wasn’t interested in acquiring Toronto Blue Jays’ ace Roy Halladay, the Phillies became one of four teams that struck the offseason’s biggest blockbuster, with the Phillies acquiring Roy Halladay and prospects Phillipe Aumont, Tyson Gillies, and JC Ramirez, and trading Cliff Lee to the Seattle Mariners. The fact of the matter remains that the Phillies like to do things under the radar.

So while the team postures as though it isn’t willing to make any big moves this year, I’ll speculate otherwise. After all, the Phillies have an odd knack for catching people off guard and pulling the trigger when least expected.

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