I read something on cnnsi.com today mentioning in passing that the Phillies offered Burrell a 2 year, 22 million dollar contract.   Has anyone else heard that? If that is true, I would classify that as borderline insulting.  I still say a 3 year, 45 million dollar offer (with a club option for a fourth year) is the way to go.  At least if he walks away from that, you know you made a good faith effort to keep him and you won't be the sucker who overpays for his services.

 Just to stir the pot a little and satisfy my curiousity...

In light of today's announcement that Tim Lincecum was awarded with the much deserved 2008 Cy Young Award, I pose the following question:

If could have either Cole Hamels or Tim Lincecum on the Phillies next year, who would you choose? The only assumption implicit in this question is that they both would be signed to long term deals at the same salary.

Pending a physical, it looks like Matt Holliday will be going to Oaklan.  Now that the dream of a Utley-Howard-Holliday middle of the order is dead, I think the club needs to redouble their efforts to sign Burrell.  An outfield of Werth, Victorino, and a Dobbs/Jenkins platoon simply won't cut it.  On a related note, Burrell has to be salivating when he sees Mike Cameron's 10 million and Brian Giles' 9 million options picked up. 

Cole is obviously done for Game 5...if somehow the conclusion of Game 5 is pushed back until tomorrow (Wednesday) and the Phillies lose, is there any chance he's ready to go again by a Game 7 on Friday (if necessary)? He threw 75 pitches last night and would be on three days rest come Friday.  My opinion would be to pitch him, but my gut feeling is that Cholly wouldn't do that. Thoughts?

Any thoughts on how the Phillies could/should configure their DH lineup for the games in TB?

Does Dobbs start at DH? Does Stairs?  How about Burrell as the DH...this could seemingly keep his bat in the lineup late in the game without having to make the defensive substitution. I wish that we could take Howard's defense - Chuck Knoblauch throwing syndrome and all - out of the equation, but I just don't see how that would work.

As a Phillies lifer toiling in South Florida, I couldn't be rooting any harder for the Rays at this point...if the Rays win the ALCS, I will officially be going to Game 1 of the World Series.  Even though I'm only 27, I don't think it was unreasonable for me to seriously doubt whether I'd ever live to see the day.

Interesting bit of trivia -- if the Phillies do in fact square up with the Rays, they will be charged with doing what no franchise has ever been able to do to this point: knock a baseball team from the Sunshine State out of the playoffs.  Both times the Marlins have been to the playoffs they've won it all (plus this year's Rays team).  Would be nice having the Phillies as the answer to a trivia question that involves something other than futility.

Putting aside yesterday's heroics, what would be the wise thing to do with Pat Burrell? 

With his weak finish to the regular season, he's aruably coming off his worst season since '04, although his numbers generally have been freakishly consistent since then.  He has posted OPSs of .892, .890, .902., and .875 from '05-'08, respectively.  He is days away from being 32, so I would argue that he has another 2-3 seasons of production falling within that range.  So what, exactly, is a 32-year old who can reliably give you that kind of offensive production (and, it bears mention, unquestionably bad defense) worth to the Phillies?  Would 4 yrs/40-45 million get it done, or am I way off? 

As a disclaimer to this post, I'm kind of out of the loop on the Burrell contract negotiations (or lack thereof), so I may have missed some information along the way concerning what Burrell is looking for and what the Phillies are willing to pay.

Given the awesome developments over the past two days, and the unfamiliar position I find myself in as a lifelong Phillies fan, it's weird to devote a post to John Smoltz at this point.  I have always been a Smoltz fan, as hard as that may be to admit as a Phillies fan; he's always been all class in my book.  Anyway, has anyone else who's watched the coverage on TBS been very impressed with Smoltz's performance as a color guy? Is this his first crack at this, or have I missed this in the past? I think he has a definite future in the booth should he choose to explore it.

Sincerely,

Steve Jeltz

.210/.308/.268

Curious to see what people think about the job our manager did over the course of the 162-game grind known as the regular season.  While I have certainly disagreed with more than a few of his in-game/tactical decisions this season, I'm generally happy with the job he did this year.  The team really seemed to play hard (yet loose) for him and was resilient when it needed to be. 

Personally, I would vote him third in the NL behind Pinella and Gonzalez.