When talking about the biggest free agent signing busts from this past offseason, we often reference Milton Bradley of the Chicago Cubs or Oliver Perez of the New York Mets. Well, I think it is time we start referencing another player as a free agent bust. That player is the Tampa Bay Rays’ Pat Burrell.

When the Rays signed Burrell to a two-year, $16 million contract in the offseason, I thought it was a great move. Here was a guy who averaged 27 HRs, 91 RBI, and a .367 OBP from 2000-2008, he was a clear upgrade at DH over the Cliff Floyd and Eric Hinske combination of last year, and I thought he along with Carlos Pena and Evan Longoria, would give the Rays one of the best three-four-five hitters in the game.

Because of injuries and just plain being terrible, Burrell has been a major disappointment for the Rays this year. He is hitting a Kevin Stocker-esque .219 with just seven HR’s and 37 RBI in 70 games for the Rays. Not exactly what the Rays were looking for.

I can understand the average dipping a little bit at the age of 32. Burrell was never a great contact hitter as his .257 average from 2000-2008 suggests. But where is the power? He is averaging a HR every 33.9 AB’s this year. Much worse than his 18.6 HR/AB average for the previous nine years.

The Rays are seven games out of first place in the AL East and are four and a half games behind the Red Sox in the Wild Card race. If the Rays plan on making one last run at a playoff berth in 2009, not only do they need their starting pitching to step up, but they also need Pat Burrell to start hitting like he is used to.

Update:

The Philadelphia Phillies have acquired LHP Cliff Lee and OF Ben Francisco from the Cleveland Indians. The Indians will receive minor-leaguers Carlos Carrasco, Jason Knapp, Jason Donald, and Lou Marson.

This is a great move by the Phillies for three reasons:

1. They get a very, very good LHP in Lee not only for this year, but for next year as well. Lee has a $8 million club option for 2010, which I am sure the Phillies will pick up.
2. They didn’t have to give up top prospects Kyle Drabek, John Mayberry Jr., or Dominic Brown.
3. They get the right-handed bat off the bench they have been searching for since spring training. Remember, they tried to sign Gary Sheffield before he signed with the New York Mets.

I will have more on the players the Indians recieved later.

This trade also means that any leverage the Toronto Blue Jays had in trading Roy Halladay just went out the window.

Original Post:

According to ESPN’s Jayson Stark, the Philadelphia Phillies have focused their attention on Cleveland Indians left-handed ace Cliff Lee. While everyone thought the Phillies would land Roy Halladay (still might happen), Lee is not bad fall back option.

Not only would they get last year’s Cy Young winner who is having a very good year this year, but the Phillies wouldn’t have to give up top prospects Kyle Drabek and Dominic Brown for Lee.

Pairing Lee and Cole Hamels would make the Phillies very tough to beat in a short playoff series.

More on this story as it develops.

If Martinez gives them anything, great. If not, no big deal, it’s only a million bucks.

At 37, Martinez is more name than substance at this point in his career. Seeing Martinez on the Phillies will be like seeing Tom Seaver on the Boston Red Sox, Steve Carlton on the Minnesota Twins, Keith Hernandez on the Cleveland Indians, or even Dale Murphy on the Colorado Rockies. Sure they were “Seaver,” “Carlton,” “Hernandez,” and “Murphy,” but the reality was they were just hanging on at the end.

That is the hardest part about watching great players at the end of their careers. You remember how great and dominating they were. You remember on their best days, they were the best players on the field—hands down. It’s hard to watch them struggle just to even stay on the field at the end.

I remember the Pedro Martinez on the Boston Red Sox that walked out of the bullpen in the fourth inning of Game Five of the ALDS against the Cleveland Indians in 1999. As soon as that door opened and Martinez came out, it was game over and everyone, including the Indians knew it.

That is the Martinez I remember.

I hope Martinez does well with the Phillies. But the reality is, I will see the Martinez on that struggled in his last three seasons with the New York Mets. From 2006-2008, Martinez was 17-15 with a 4.76 ERA and was only able to start 48 games in those three years.

Martinez should make his Phillies’ debut in about three-to-four weeks. Pedro Martinez always will have an aura surrounding him when he pitches. The Phillies are hoping even at 37, there are some wins in that aura.

On Saturday the decision was made for me. After a long day at the beach and at the softball field, I came home and tuned into the New York Mets vs. the Philadelphia Phillies on FOX.

What FOX did in the middle of this game was a joke, and they, along with major league baseball, should be embarrassed.

In the middle of this game—a game that is between one of baseball’s best rivalries, FOX switched to the Los Angeles Dodgers vs. San Diego Padres game to show Manny Ramirez’s first AB of the game. What a joke. Good work FOX. You have officially become my least favorite baseball telecast.

Ramirez quit on his team last and this year he was caught cheating. He cheated the fans, he cheated his teammates, and most importantly he cheated himself. Yet, FOX and baseball are glorifying him like he just came back from the war or he just came back from a career threatening injury.

I really couldn’t believe what I was watching. FOX portrayed him as this sympathetic figure.

What a poor guy. He had to sit out 50 games—tragic.

This is why the national media focuses so much on baseball and steroids. Instead of baseball burying Ramirez like they should have, FOX and baseball praise him. I understand Ramirez is a larger-than-life character, but give me a break. Even Tim McCarver, who was doing the Mets-Phillies broadcast, asked why are we showing this?

If baseball really wants to get rid of their steroid issue and really their image issue right now, they need to stop doing stuff like this. What this broadcast told me and America is that it doesn’t matter if you cheat; If you take steroids, baseball will do it’s best to make sure that you are still a star when you return from your suspension.

And I don’t want to hear that this was a FOX broadcast, baseball had nothing to do with this. That is nonsense. FOX is representing baseball for those three to four hours. Baseball had everything to do with this. Baseball has yet again embarrassed themselves.

One last note on Ramirez. When a star player goes down to the minors for whatever reason, it’s customary for that player for pay for a meal or two. Not Manny. Ramirez didn’t pick up NOT A SINGLE MEAL during his stops in Albuquerque and San Bernadino.

Not only is he a cheater, but he is cheap.

According to MLB.com, Phillies shortstop and former MVP Rollins has been benched for two games by manager Charlie Manuel. Rollins sat out last night’s game against the Tampa Bay Rays and will sit on Friday night against the Toronto Blue Jays.

This has to be alarming for Philly fans. Rollins is batting just .211 with a Rafael Santana-like .254 OBP this year. Manuel even moved Rollins to the six hole, and that hasn’t worked either. Rollins is just 7-for-56 since moving to that spot in the order.

It is really starting to look like Rollin’s 2007 MVP season, where he hit .296 with 30 HRs and had 96 RBI in a career year, is a peak he will never reach again. A .275/.285 avg. with 10-15 HRs is probably more where Rollins should be every year.

I can’t imagine Rollins being this bad for this long. He is in no way a .211 hitter. I am going to venture to say that Rollins has a huge second half and turns this around.

The other All-Star caliber player that was benched recently was Chicago Cubs OF Milton Bradley. According to Chris De Luca of the Chicago Sun-Times, Bradley will be riding the pine until Saturday.

Bradley, who signed a three-year, $30 million contract with the Cubs in the offseason, has been a disaster so far. I didn’t like this move when it happened, and it is even looking worse now. Bradley is batting just .241 with five HRs and 16 RBI in 55 games for the Cubs this year.

How is Bobby Abreu looking now, Jim Hendry?

With a player like Rollins, I expect a turnaround. With Bradley, I have no idea what to expect. He could flip out, he could start ripping the ball like he did last year when he had a .321 avg., or he could just continue to be terrible. Who knows with this guy?

That is why giving a three-year contract to a guy who is an enigma was such a risky move.

That is all the benching talk for now. With the way this season is going, I am sure we will be adding to this list of All-Star caliber players who have lost it at the plate this year.

According to Andy Martino of Phillieszone on Twitter, the Phillies have officially activated closer Brad Lidge from the 15-Day DL.

Lidge is 0-3 with a 7.27 and 13 saves this year. He landed on the DL because of a sprained knee, but this DL stint was more to get Lidge straightened out than anything else.

Lidge is pivotal to the Phillies’ success and they need him to somewhat return to the Lidge of last year. Asking him to 100 percent return to last year’s form is too much at this point.

If Lidge is good to go, then the Phillies will once again have one of the best bullpens in the National League.

This move means that Ryan Madson will move back to his role as the eighth inning set-up man.

Ibanez is probably the leading candidate for the MVP award in the National League, so this is a significant loss to your fantasy team and more importantly, to the Phillies. However, the Phillies are one of the few teams in baseball that can overcome a loss like this.

When you have Ryan Howard, Jimmy Rollins, Chase Utley, Jayson Werth, and Shane Victorino in your lineup, you should be able to survive without Ibanez for 15 days.

The Phillies are expected to call up John Mayberry Jr. to take the place of Ibanez. Mayberry hit just .222 in his three game audition in late May. He did however, hit his first major league HR and drive in three runs in those three games.

Mayberry Jr. doesn’t offer much fantasy value because A) he will be sent down as soon as Ibanez is healthy and B) even if you are in a Keeper League, unless Mayberry Jr. gets traded, there is no place for him to play on the Phillies.

I would say take a pass on Mayberry Jr. for now.

When I think “curveball,” the name Scott Richmond never crossed my mind. However, after last night, I might have to start putting Richmond in the best curveball in baseball today category.

Bert Blyleven, in my opinion will always be the gold standard for curveballs. I will never forget the curveball Blyleven threw to Tim Raines when Blyleven was on the Angels and Raines on the White Sox. The ball broke twice. It was wiffle ball like. I would love to find a video of that pitch. It was the best curveball I have ever seen.

Last night Toronto Blue Jays’ pitcher Scott Richmond channeled his inner Bert Blyleven, and snapped off some nasty curveballs last night against the Phillies. Take a look at some of these curveballs he threw the Phillies last night. They were flat out just nasty.

Watch the curve that Richmond threw to Chase Utley to strike him out for the second time. Not only was it is nasty, but Utley looked befuddled. That rarely happens.  

Richmond pitched eight solid innings last night in beating the Phillies 7-1. The Blue Jays’ righty limiting the Phillies to just five hits and one run while striking out a career high 11. ALL of those K’s were on the curveball.

The win moved Richmond’s record to 5-3 and he lowered his ERA to 3.58 on the season. I won’t remember this game for the fact that the Blue Jays spanked the defending world champs. I will remember this game for the fact that Scott Richmond turned into Bert Blyleven for one night.

Last summer I had an opportunity to check out Citizens Bank Park in Philadelphia while the Mets were in town over July 4th weekend.  As a lifelong Mets fan I’ve enjoyed watching the rivalry escalate between the two ball clubs when they’ve played each other over the past several years, so I decided to venture down the Turnpike and check things out for myself. Especially since I heard several positive reviews from other friends who had gone there.

For a 7:05pm start, we arrived at the park around 4:00pm or so to take advantage of the McFadden’s Bar and Grill (which by the way was the largest I’ve seen – and I’ve been to the ones in NYC, Providence, and downtown Philly).  From the moment we walked through the door we were immediately greeted by a hostess (very good looking I might add) and she showed us the way to the main bar area, which is a giant rectangle in the center of the venue. 

There was one-level to the place (and a outdoor patio area where there were TVs as well), very spacious and with high ceilings.  Everywhere you turned there was a flatscreen TV in view, tuned in to various programs (MLB TV, ESPN, etc.), and the place already had a decent sized crowd.

I was quite impressed with the ratio of staff to patrons – you couldn’t walk three feet without bumping elbows with a busboy or server, coupled with the number of bartenders that were working (I must have counted at least six or so). 

Bartenders were very pleasant and you can tell that it wasn’t their first day on the job.  So after finishing our last Yuenglings (seems to be the official beer of Philly), we headed down this narrow alleyway off in the corner, which let straight to the entrance to the ballpark. We didn’t even have to walk outside and then ‘back into’ the place.

The design of the ballpark followed the trend of the other retro-style themed ones. The city skyline was visible off into the distance and a huge replica of the Liberty Bell in center field, which lights up and ‘rings’ when a Phillies player goes yard (in this case it was Ryan Howard, shocker I know). 

Once we got to our seats (RF upper deck) we found ourselves amidst a sea of orange and blue. Amazing how many fans from New Jersey trekked across the Delaware River for the game. Literally half the upper deck area of the entire park consisted of Mets fans. 

Around the third inning or so we headed down to check out Ashburn Alley, probably my favorite part of the game.  Ashburn Alley is the outfield concourse area consisting of several places to eat, plenty of standing room to watch, and some picnic table areas/ bar stools to hang out. 

There must have been a two to one cheesesteak to person ratio.  If you’re not a cheesesteak aficionado (or happen to be vegan for that matter) there are other non-meat based options to nosh on as well. 

Shortly after we continued to walk around the park to really get a feel for what it offered. While doing so I noticed a couple interesting things on the lower level: 

1. All the concession stands have their ‘backs’ to the walkway, so when your in line/ordering food you have an unobstructed view of the field.
2. If you are sitting in the lower level area, the usher won’t let you head down to your seats until the batter has either been retired or reaches base (something you’d NEVER see in NY), which I thought was a great display of etiquette to the fans.

Pros: The intimacy/retro-feel of the park, food/drink prices are reasonable, Ashburn Alley, McFadden’s on-site, and not a bad seat in the house. 

Cons: It is quite a hike from downtown Philly (especially if you’re looking to go out in the city afterwards), and hailing a cab after the game is a daunting task.

Overall Gameday Experience:  I give this park a 9 out of 10.  Everything from A through Z was done with baseball etiquette in mind for fans of the game.  Had the ballpark itself not been built on the outskirts of town and had it not taken us about 30 minutes to hail a cab, I would’ve given it a perfect 10.

Thanks to Jon for this great critique. If anyone else would like to give a critique of a ballpark they have been to, email me at abernacchio77@hotmail.com