5 Reasons Dealing Cliff Lee in a Waiver Deadline Deal Would Be Big Mistake

As Cliff Lee took the mound for the Philadelphia Phillies on Sunday against the Arizona Diamondbacks, one thing was clear: the Phillies had not traded Lee to the Los Angeles Dodgers. For once, it seemed, GM Ruben Amaro, Jr. had stood by his word.

A day after the August waiver trade period commenced last week, it became known that Lee had been placed on trade waivers by the Phillies. Although it’s a customary procedure done by most teams to gauge potential trade interest in their players, when a player of Lee’s magnitude is placed on trade waivers, it tends to send a shock around the baseball world.

What may have been more shocking, however, was that Lee and the remaining three years and $87.5+ million of his current contract was claimed by the Dodgers. The Dodgers—who had already made a Phillies-related splash twice in almost as many days after acquiring Shane Victorino and Joe Blanton from the team—made the bold move by claiming Lee, putting the Phillies in position to trade Lee and/or dump his remaining contract on the Dodgers and free themselves from the millions still owed to their left-handed ace.

While Lee pitched against the D’Backs, taking yet another no-decision in the Phils’ walk-off win, it signaled that Amaro had not traded Lee before his 1:30 p.m. waiver trade deadline on Sunday. But if Amaro does the unthinkable and puts Lee on trade waivers for a second, irrevocable time, would it be the right move if Lee was claimed?

Here’s five reasons why it wouldn’t behoove the Phillies to let go of Lee on waivers.

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5 Reasons the Phillies Made a Huge Error Pulling Cliff Lee Back off Waivers

It’s no surprise that Cliff Lee was placed on waivers by the Phillies—virtually every player in baseball is placed on waivers at one point or another following the non-waiver trade deadline.

It should also come as no surprise that the Los Angeles Dodgers claimed him.

With new ownership set on taking advantage of the LA market and making the Dodgers the attraction in the city over the summer, adding a big-time pitcher like Lee to pair alongside perennial Cy Young Award contender Clayton Kershaw not only makes baseball sense, but it’s sound business sense as well.

Yet the Phillies, with the chance to remove more than $75 million from their payroll over the next three years, pulled Lee back off of waivers, ending any chance that the Dodgers could work out a deal for him during the season.

They should have let the Dodgers take his bloated deal. Here’s why.

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Philadelphia Phillies: 4 Players Who Should Have Been Traded at the Deadline

Ruben Amaro Jr.’s fire sale of the 2012 Philadelphia Phillies has left them an aging $170 million Triple-A team, a ghost of what once was.

After trading Shane Victorino, Hunter Pence and Joe Blanton, the Phillies find themselves searching for some sort of identity. They also recently released Mike Fontenot, who was replaced by Michael Martinez from Lehigh Valley. 

If Amaro wants to complete the fire sale, there are still several pieces left on the current roster he can try to move. Older players with no upside and bad contracts still plague this team. Hopefully, some more moves will be made, allowing the Phillies to sign some big free agents for 2013.

Here are four players who should have also been moved before the July deadline.

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One Year-End Goal for All 25 Philadelphia Phillies Players

The Philadelphia Phillies are having quite the memorable season, but for all of the wrong reasons.

Coming into the 2012 campaign, you would find few so-called “experts” with the nerve to go against the grain and pick any team but the Phillies to win the National League East. They were carrying that level of expectation.

Of course, fast-forward a couple of months and the Washington Nationals are the talk of the division with the Atlanta Braves right on their doorstep. The Phillies, meanwhile, are battling the Miami Marlins to stay out of last place and looking forward to 2013.

That’s right. How many people would have guessed that, at the beginning of August, the Phillies would be out of the postseason race and looking forward to next season?

With Hunter Pence, Shane Victorino and Joe Blanton all officially in the books as “former” Phillies, it’s time for their replacements and the rest of the club to start preparing to come back strong next season.

One of the most vital ways to do so is to finish the 2012 season strong. Here’s what each player needs to accomplish by the end of this year, with an eye on the future.

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Philadelphia Phillies: 5 Players the Team Can Build Around Long-Term

Since the Philadelphia Phillies won the National League East in 2007, long-term hasn’t been in the vocabulary of their fans.  Anything less than a World Series win was considered a failure year after year, but it has come time to plan for the future.

Looking at the current Phillies roster, who can they be built around long-term?

Ryan Howard is 32 and has been almost invisible since his return from the DL in early July.  Howard is under contract through 2016 with a club option including a $10 million buyout in 2017.  He is a power bat in the middle of the Phillies lineup, but at this point in his career, he isn’t a player that you build your team around.

Chase Utley and Jimmy Rollins used to be considered centerpieces for the Phillies, but that is no longer the case.  Utley can’t seem to stay healthy for an entire season, and Rollins, although solid in the field, is not the type of hitter that can carry a team.

Fan favorite, Carlos Ruiz, is a free agent after the 2013 season and it is unlikely that the Phillies will re-sign him after that.  Ruiz is currently 33 years old and having the best year of his career.  The chances of him replicating these numbers (or anywhere near these numbers) is highly unlikely. 

Roy Halladay and Cliff Lee are still aces, but as for long-term, let’s just say they aren’t going to be in Philadelphia after their contracts expire in 2014 and 2015 respectively.

The Phillies’ long-term options may not be on their current roster.  

By trading Joe Blanton, Shane Victorino and Hunter Pence, the Phillies freed up some cap space for the offseason.  Placido Polanco and Juan Pierre will be gone after this year, freeing up even more room to add pieces to build the franchise around.

These are five players, two currently on the roster, three who may be in the near future, who the Philadelphia Phillies can build their team around.

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The Philadelphia Phillies All-Time Lineup

The end of the most dominant era of Philadelphia baseball is most likely upon us. In the wake of this unfortunate realization, I take solace in pondering the greatness of Phillies teams past. Not only the ones I saw, but also imagining what it would have been like to be a spectator in the stands for those teams which came long before my time.

I have compiled what I believe to be the best lineup one could make, selecting the cream of the crop from every player to ever wear the red pinstripes. Enjoy!

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Cliff Lee: Why Phillies Must Allow the LA Dodgers to Claim Star Pitcher

Cliff Lee has been claimed by the Los Angeles Dodgers, and now the Phillies must allow their star lefty to walk for the sake of financial flexibility.  

According to a report from CBS, the Dodgers claimed Lee off of Waivers on Saturday. However, according to Jayson Stark, Phillies General Manager Ruben Amaro Jr. says “he isn’t going anywhere.”

This may sound good to Phillies fans, but it’s terrible for the long term.

A Lee trade would’ve allowed Philadelphia to shed the $95 million remaining on his contract, while also restocking the farm system.

Even if the Dodgers declined to trade for the lefty, just letting him go would’ve allowed the team some much needed financial flexibility—the Phillies have the second highest payroll in MLB.

With the recent re-signing of Cole Hamels, Philadelphia now has four players making over $20 million a season—an outrageous total considering that the Phillies sit 13.5 games behind the first-place Nationals in the NL East.

The Phillies started to reload at the deadline when they dealt the expiring contracts of Shane Victorino and Hunter Pence, and it would be in their best interest to continue the firesale.

They are in no position to contend this season, and considering the way their aging high-dollar players are playing on the offensive side of the ball, it’s not likely to get better any time soon.

It may not be the most attractive option, but the Phillies must start to rework their roster to encourage flexibility.

They can’t continue to spend $200 million a year and finish in last place. It’s just not a good business model.

Letting go of a player of Lee’s caliber is tough, but it’s the right move for next season and beyond.  

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What Waiving Pitcher Cliff Lee Means for the Philadelphia Phillies

According to the Los Angeles Times, the Philadelphia Phillies recently waived starting pitcher Cliff Lee’s contract.

Shortly after these reports were made public, other reports surfaced that Lee had been claimed by the Los Angeles Dodgers.

But, what does this mean?

Essentially, Lee was waived to gauge interest from other clubs. In cases like this, the GM who waives a particular player is not necessarily trying to move the player. Rather, he is seeing what he could get for that player if he were to try to move him.

Cliff Lee is owed $85M. From the looks of things, Philadelphia Phillies GM Ruben Amaro, Jr. is selling off high-priced players he doesn’t believe can be the contributors they once were, or contributors that he can use to keep the Phillies in contention.

Reportedly, the Los Angeles Dodgers claimed Cliff Lee. Now, they can work out a trade with the Phillies.

According to ESPNLA, Cliff Lee will not be heading to the Dodgers any time soon.

Reportedly, Amaro is asking too much in return. Amaro probably wants top-tier prospects, and the opposing team to take on the remainder of Lee’s contract. But, what team is simple-minded enough to do that?

What does all of this mean for the Phillies?

It screams that the team is having financial issues. No MLB team has ever had as many starting pitchers as the Phillies making more than $20M (Halladay, Lee and Hamels).

What this also says is that Amaro is probably considering dumping off Lee’s contract so that he can invest that salary into the team’s other needs.

But, Ruben Amaro, Jr. has said that he has no interest in moving Cliff Lee. Truthfully, he probably doesn’t.

This has all been blown out of proportion. Amaro did the right thing. If he wasn’t gauging interest in a 33-year-old starting pitcher with $85M left on his contract, with a record like Lee’s, on a last place team, then fans should call for Amaro’s head.

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Report: Cliff Lee Claimed off Waivers, Joe Blanton Traded to Dodgers

The Philadelphia Phillies have continued remaking their roster after trading Hunter Pence and Shane Victorino at the trade deadline. For the first time in years, the Phillies were sellers at the trade deadline, and more moves have been made today.  

Joe Blanton was put on waivers by the Phillies, and the Dodgers then claimed and traded for the right-handed starting pitcher. The Phillies will receive a player to be named later or cash considerations. Blanton was expected to be traded at the trade deadline, but a deal with the Orioles fell through due to monetary issues.  

The Blanton move was expected. A more interesting story, however, is developing about Cliff Lee. Yesterday, the Phillies put Lee on waivers, with most expecting him to not be claimed because of his large contract.

But according to Jon Heyman of CBSSports, Lee has not cleared waivers. In Heyman’s tweet, no specifics were given, so Lee’s situation is currently up in the air.

If Heyman’s report is true, the Phillies will either have to pull Lee off waivers, let him leave or negotiate a deal with the team who claimed him.  

Updates will come as more details are released about Lee being claimed off of waivers.  

 

UPDATE 6:10 p.m. ET: Well, apparently the Red Sox are not the team who claimed Lee. 

UPDATE 8:32 p.m. ET: ESPN is reporting that the Dodgers are the team who claimed Lee. More to follow.

UPDATE 10:31 p.m. ET: Jon Heyman, CBS’s baseball insider who first broke the news of Lee getting claimed, tweeted that completing a trade for Lee is not very likely to happen. If a deal is not worked out, Lee would then just stay with the Phillies. If Lee was to be put on waivers a second time, the Phillies would not be able to pull him off like they can now, so Lee will almost definitely stay with Philadelphia for the remainder of this season.  

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Will Phillies, Yankees Still Be Able to Win Titles with Payroll-Conscious Plans?

According to USA Today, no two teams in Major League Baseball are spending more money this season than the New York Yankees and Philadelphia Phillies. The Bombers top the league with a payroll of around $198 million, and the Phillies are just behind them at around $175 million.

Here’s the thing, though: These numbers are on their way down. Such is the plan for both clubs.

It’s been common knowledge for a while now that the Yankees are looking to curb their high-spending ways. Hal Steinbrenner said back in March, via ESPNNewYork.com, that he wants to get the club’s payroll under the $189 million luxury tax threshold that will kick in in 2014, a tall order for a club that has been operating with payrolls over $200 million for several years now.

The Yankees started the season with a payroll right around $210 million. With Nick Swisher, Russell Martin, Hiroki Kuroda and Mariano Rivera (who could be re-signed at a bargain price) coming off the books after this season, the Bombers stand to save a lot of money. Good news for them.

The Phillies are also headed in that direction. They committed a lot of money to Cole Hamels when they signed him to a $144 million extension, but they cleared some payroll by trading away Shane Victorino and Hunter Pence at the deadline.

According to Matt Gelb of the Philadelphia Inquirer, these moves allowed the Phillies to get under the $178 million luxury tax threshold for this season:

Phillies are slightly under luxury tax limit now, Amaro says.

— Matt Gelb (@magelb) July 31, 2012

So for both clubs, things are going according to plan. Yankees and Phillies fans can rest easy knowing that their clubs are doing their utmost to avoid paying money as a penalty for spending too much money.

But…Wait a second, is this really a good thing? The high-spending ways of these two clubs in recent years has led to a lot of extra wins. And we are, indeed, talking about two of the past four World Series champions. 

The big question: Can the Yankees and Phillies still hope to compete for championships even as they come back to the rest of the pack financially?

It’s obviously not going to be easy, as neither club is going to be able to go out and patch up holes by dishing out large contracts to established stars. That’s a habit that both clubs have been guilty of in recent seasons, and it’s clear now that this habit is something of a double-edged sword.

But keep in mind that the Yankees have been at this for a lot longer than the Phillies. The Phillies are actually relatively new to the whole bloated payroll thing.

When the Phillies won the World Series in 2008, they did it with a payroll of under $100 million. They built a championship team not by signing free agents, but mainly by drafting and developing.

According to Baseball-Reference.com, four of the Phillies’ six best players in terms of WAR in 2008 were acquired via the amateur draft. Their names: Chase Utley, Jimmy Rollins, Pat Burrell and Ryan Howard. Hamels, their best pitcher, was also acquired via the draft.

The best free-agent signee the Phillies had that year was Jayson Werth, who was being paid only $1.7 million. 

The 2008 Phillies go to show that it’s a lot more cost effective to develop your own star players than it is to go out and acquire them from elsewhere. After all, the best thing about young stars is that they’re cheap.

The Phillies are where they are now because their own star players have earned big paydays in recent years. Howard is now making $20 million per year. Hamels is making $15 million per year, and will make $20 million per year after this season. Utley is also making $15 million per year, and Rollins is making $11 million per year.

Those players alone are making $61 million in 2012, over half of the Phillies’ entire payroll in 2008.

The Phillies have pushed their payroll to the luxury tax limit by spending money on free agents like Cliff Lee and Jonathan Papelbon, and they also traded for Roy Halladay and then signed him to a lucrative contract extension. 

They essentially took a page out of the Yankees’ book. Once they had established a winning team that was built via the draft and bargain free agent and trade acquisitions, they started throwing money at it in an attempt to keep the wins coming. Like a bad drinking habit, they simply let it get out of control (the Papelbon contract was the last straw).

The problem they’re facing now is that some of the players making the big bucks (Utley, Howard, Halladay) are getting up there in age, and are probably no longer capable of being worth the money they’re being paid. To make matters worse, the Phillies’ farm system has taken a hit over the years thanks to the high-profile trades Ruben Amaro pulled off in 2009 (Lee), 2010 (Halladay) and 2011 (Pence).

Since the Phillies are going to be stuck with a high payroll for the foreseeable future, Amaro is going to have to fill out his roster with players who are both talented and cheap. He’s gotten himself on the right track in this regard, as he got some good young players in the Victorino and Pence trades.

The Phillies should be able to contend in 2013, especially if they find a way to keep Lee around without compromising the team’s chances of staying under the luxury tax threshold in 2013. The odds of them contending for a championship, however, are not high due to the fact that key players like Utley, Howard and Rollins are no longer superstar-level players. 

The Phillies need new superstars, and it’s in their interest to develop them rather than sign them. They may be able to go all-out for a World Series title one last time in 2013, but one way or another the Phillies are going to have to embrace a youth movement very, very soon.

The Yankees are facing a similar quandary going forward. They’re not going to be able to rid themselves of the contracts of Alex Rodriguez, CC Sabathia and Mark Teixeira, which will account for over $73 million in 2013, around $70 million in 2014, around $66 million in 2015 and so on.

And while it’s true that the Yankees will be able to save money this offseason by not re-signing Swisher, Martin and Kuroda and bringing back Rivera at a bargain price if they so choose, they’re getting to a point where they’re going to have to decide whether to sign Robinson Cano and Curtis Granderson to extensions.

If they do, they’re likely going to have over $100 million committed to just five players heading into the 2014 season. 

That’s going to leave them with a relatively small amount of wiggle room to fill out the rest of their roster, and it can be taken for granted that they’ll be wary of signing high-priced free agents due to their fear of crossing the luxury tax threshold. Don’t expect another spending spree like the one the Yankees went on before the 2009 season, when they committed over $400 million to Teixeira, Sabathia and A.J. Burnett. 

The Yankees are already sending signals that this will be the case. Brian Cashman said recently, via Bryan Hoch of MLB.com, that the club has no interest in going after Cliff Lee. They simply don’t want to take on another gigantic contract.

From here on out, a typical Yankees offseason will probably more closely resemble this past offseason. The Yankees made a move to acquire a young pitcher in Michael Pineda, signed Hiroki Kuroda to a one-year deal worth $10 million that looks like a bargain now, and rounded out their bench by signing up Andruw Jones, Eric Chavez and Raul Ibanez, players who have given the Yankees great value for relatively little money.

It was an efficient offseason, in retrospect, something that we’re not used to seeing from the Yankees. Look for them to make a habit out of this as long as they’re dealing with the burden of so many heavy contracts left over from their more foolhardy years.

The bright side is that the Yankees are showing this season that they can win games without breaking the bank for free agents every offseason. They didn’t act like the Yankees over the winter, but they’re still the Yankees.

However, in many ways the Yankees are in the same boat as the Phillies in that they’re wrapped around a core of players who are older and a lot less valuable than they once were. A-Rod is no longer an elite player. The same goes for Derek Jeter. Sabathia has been more hittable than usual this season. Teixeira has been productive, but he’s nowhere close to the player he was in 2009 and years prior.

This core wasn’t good enough to get the Yankees to the World Series in 2010 or 2011. It’s doubtful that it will be good enough to do the trick in 2012.

So like the Phillies, the Yankees are going to have to mix in more and more younger, more affordable star players in the near future. The good news for them is that they’re in a better position to do this than the Phillies, as the Yankees’ farm system is typically regarded as being pretty strong. Some homegrown stars could be making a difference for the Yankees very soon, and it wouldn’t be at all surprising if Cashman makes more trades similar to the Pineda-for-Jesus Montero swap.

What it will come down to for both the Phillies and the Yankees in the coming years is this: If they’re going to be cheap, they’re going to have to be smart. The boorish tactic of throwing money at problems will no longer be an option, meaning they’ll actually have to worry themselves with getting good value out of the dollars they’re spending for once.

Right now, both clubs are in a tight spot because both of them have so much money committed to players who simply aren’t worth it. The only way for both clubs to account for that is by trimming as much payroll as they possibly can while constantly being on the lookout for cheap, controllable players who have the potential to outperform small contracts.

The Phillies seem to understand this, and the Yankees have made it plenty clear in recent months that they have understood this for some time now.

The question remains: Can they win titles with payroll-conscious plans?

I don’t see why not. Spending a ton of money hasn’t exactly worked for the Phillies in the last couple of seasons, so it actually bodes well for them that they’re moving towards backing off on their spending. The organization was at its best when it didn’t have a bloated payroll. It’s headed toward a return to the good old days.

It’s hard to imagine the Yankees’ payroll sinking very far below the coveted $189 million mark, as they’re always going to be spending as much money as they possibly can. It’s not like they’re eventually going to be crushed under their own excess, though, as the Yankees have quietly put together a strong farm system. To boot, Cashman has done some of the best work of his career over the last two seasons making very small moves that have helped offset the sheer burden of the club’s big contracts.

As long as the Phillies and Yankees put quality teams on the field, they’ll have a shot. The rest will be up to luck, as they’ll have to hope to stumble upon cheap stars who can balance out the old, expensive stars.

And indeed, winning the World Series takes good luck too. All you can do is put a good club together and hope that the baseball gods take it from there.

 

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