Yes, it's indeed a dead deal in my eyes. Oswalt, clever enough to come out and say he'd play for any team, just doesn't seem interested in playing for any teams. I understand that he is an athlete and he needs to get paid. Yet he's 32 with no championship and who plays for a team which won't seem to be competitive for the next few years. Teams are knocking on your doorstep to come aboard and help win a championship, and all you can think about it, are you getting paid? It's not like Roy Oswalt hasn't been paid so far. According to the Baseball Cube, Roy has earned a total of $76,150,000 in his playing career (estimated, up to 2010). He has 16M left on his current contract for 2011, and a 16M TEAM option (with a 2M buyout) for 2012. Oswalt is demanding teams that he gets traded to pick up the TEAM option of 16M. Sorry to tell you this Roy, usually good teams can't afford to add another 16M into their salary just like that. Especially the Phillies, who are pretty much at or close to the max in salary cap room. The Phillies have other priorities to spend on, like renewing their own players in 2012.

Now don't get me wrong. I'd love to have Roy Oswalt in the rotation. He still has the stuff to continue into 2012. This isn't Jaime Moyer we are talking about. Roy Oswalt is even couple years younger than ace Roy Halladay. What's puzzling, why is he emphasizing teams pick up the TEAM option. Earlier in the season, Oswalt talked about potentially retiring after 2011. Wait? so could this be a ploy to get more guaranteed money prior to free agency? Am I speculating? Read some quotes from March, where he talked about this situation, and again you ask yourself the same question when you are done reading:

"I've got one more year on this contract then, I don't know. We'll just have to wait and see," says the 32-year-old Oswalt, "This could possibly be it. I'm not going to say it's definitely going to be it. Next year -- I'll try to play that year out. Of course, the first thing is to get through this year. But my thing is if you're not going to play at the level that you come in at, there's no sense in going out there and just trying to add up numbers."

I'm telling you right now, Roy Oswalt is not the man for this ball club. One thing for a player wanting to win, would want to restructure his contract. The oly thing Roy is considering restructuring, is to defer payments of a TEAM option "owed" to him. It's all about $$$ and not about a championship in my opinion.

Phillies need to move on, plenty of other options they can deal with. They don't even have to move Jayson Werth to free up cap space to add-on a top-tier pitchers. Perhaps, my opinion, the Phillies should actually fix up their bullpen. Danys Baez and Jose Contreras are not going to help this team in the long haul. I am darn right scared when Charlie has to go to his bullpen. One of the teams which are scouting the Phillies last week was the Pirates. Could the Phillies be lucky enough to snag away Evan Meek from the Pirates? Evan Meek would be perfect for the Phillies. He is a setup man who can close games. Currently Meek, a 2010 All-star, is 4-3 with a 1.30 ERA 0.867 WHIP in 55.1 IP. Meek would certainly improve this bullpen, and not stress Brad Lidge to throw 2 consecutive 30 pitch innings.

If they can't get Meek, they need to find other ways to improve this bullpen. If this offense continues hitting like its supposed to, they might be able to once again get away with pitchers like Joe Blanton, J.A. Happ and Kyle Kendrick, in their starting rotation. Roy Oswalt will help, but not when he is thinking more about money than a possible championship run.

Sometimes you wonder what Charlie Manuel is thinking. Last night Charlie Manuel sent up Pitcher Joe Blanton with the bases loaded down one run in top of the 7th inning, with 2 outs. Lot of the fans were outraged in this decision. Joe Blanton isn't a hitter! Sure he hit a improbable home run in 2008 World Series. Sure he doesn't think of himself as a hitter, "I'm not a hitter," Blanton said after hitting the 2008 World Series Homerun. "I'm just going to close my eyes and swing as hard as I can, just in case I make contact." So what should have Charlie done? Send up a Pinch Hitter right? Well Let's see the situation. We got a left handed pitcher up, so look at you bench for a Right Handed Batter. No problem! Wait Wilson Valdez? That's it? Then you look at the outcome of this switch. Who will come into pitch? Currently (including last night), the Phillies bullpen has an ERA of 7.53 ERA!!!! Give me a break. So Manuel thinks well Blanton made it this far, do I risk it with bring in Danys Baez or Jose Contreras? How about rookie Rule 5 Dan Herdon? or how about G.N.C. Romero? NO!

So back to the decision: Wilson Valdez or Joe Blanton. Let's take a look at some situational stats about Wilson Valdez:

You look at these stats and say, well its gotta be better than Blanton. So what happened? EASY ANSWER: Its the Bullpen. Charlie Manuel Manual has ZERO confidence in his Bullpen. I don't blame Charlie, his bullpen is very horrendous. Take the day before yesterday, Manual loses his starter to an injury and he went with the new comer Andrew Carpenter. Carpenter before anyone else. Sure he is claimed to be their long ball pitcher, but you can just pick Manual brain and see he was hoping the 9-4 AAA Starter will excel atleast for few innings. I mean look Charlie went over Durbin, which is usually his main man.

I don't blame Charlie! So before you pick on Chuck check the facts! Valdez vs Bullpen...thats horrible to decide upon in 1 min. The only other option Phillies had was to send in a Left Hand Batter, which they had 4 of them. Yet that wouldn't work because the Cardinals pitcher, Jaime García, is good against left hand batters. He's not the best Cardinals pitcher, but last night he looked like Steve Carlton.

So before you go blaming the skipper, take a deeper look at the situation. If you gotta blame someone, blame Ruban Amaro Jr, bringing in guys like Danys Baez and Jose Contreras. Horrible!