Hey guys, I was wondering if I could get your perspective on one of your former prospects. Let me start by saying that yes, I know, the rules and guidelines explicitly say (in bold) not to write a fanpost right off the bat, but since I really only came here to ask a specific question in the middle of the off season, I figured you wouldn't mind.

Anyway, last November, the Phillies picked up Rivero off waivers from the Indians, and it was pretty much brushed aside, because, ya know, good prospects don't get put on waivers. Nobody really seemed to know anything about him and nobody really seemed to care.

The reason I'm here is because as you may or may not know, Rivero kinda raked (and I use the term loosely) this year in AA. He hit 16 HRs with a triple slash of .270/.326/.440, a K rate of 19.7% and a BB rate of 6.9%, not bad numbers for a 23 year old in AA, especially considering his .766 OPS was the highest of his career. While he was good with the bat, he was pretty much disregarded because he was about as good in the field as Tim Tebow is at QB. The thing about it though, was he seemed to be playing out of position. Freddy Galvis is one of our better prospects and was playing SS in AA, so Rivero was moved to 3B. 

My question is, how is Rivero at short? We didn't get to see him play there at all this year, but since Galvis is now in AAA, I think the Phillies might move Carlos back to SS in AA. Shortstops that hit for power don't grow on trees, so he's piqued my interest, especially since nobody in the Phillies fanbase seems to know much about him. I went back to see why he was waived, which brought me here. Not exactly a glowing report from you guys, but my general impression was that Carlos seemed to have stagnated with the bat, which obviously changed this year. Given what I told you about his 2011 numbers, what do you guys think about him?/ how do you feel about him as a prospect? Do you guys even remember Rivero?

Thanks in advance.

Since Ryan Howard is likely going to miss at least some of 2012 with the Achilles injury, it would seem that the logical solution would be to put Mayberry at 1B and Brown (crossing my fingers he makes the team out of ST) in left while the Big Piece is out. My question is, what if Brown and Mayberry both tear the cover off the ball while RyHo is out, or at least play pretty well?  

When he gets healthy, Howard has to be in the lineup, but who should sit? The most obvious answer would be to platoon Mayberry and Brown for the rest of the year, but might the Phillies get creative? Mayberry has already shown that he can handle center field pretty well, albeit in a small sample size. Does that potentially make Shane expendable? If we can get a deal similar to what the Mets got for Beltran last year (which was a B+ prospect according to Sickles), would anyone be willing to take it?

I'm sure most would answer "fu*k no", but keep in mind Shane's in the last year of his contract, so if Brown and Mayberry preform well enough this year, he might not be back next year anyway. I know this begs the question, "what does good enough" mean?

Victorino had easily the best year of his career posting a 5.9 WAR in only 130 games. Seeing as how Victorino had never broken the 5 WAR plateau before in his career, I would expect him to regress to around 4-4.5 WAR next year. Honestly, I think if Mayberry plays every day, he could reach that and maybe more. I know there's pretty much no consensus at all as to what to expect from Jr. next year, but I don't think a 4 WAR season is that unreasonable given the progress he made this year. Basically, if Mayberry can just repeat what he did in 2011, I think it makes Victorino VERY expendable, and I would definitely be willing to at least shop Shane around at the deadline.

I know the Phillies won't think like this, but to me, it doesn't even matter what Brown does as there's really not much of a chance he's worse than Raul was this year. That is, even if bad Dom shows up in the field next year, it probably won't be a net loss; the Phillies will be no worse off in left than they were this year when they won 102 games and stopped trying at the end. 

Overall, I think we should at least be open to the possibility of dealing the beloved Hawaiian at some point this year, and even if we don't trade him, the possibility that he's gone at the end of the year.

Everyone can see that the run defense is getting gashed.  Maybe, instead of having the DTs penetrate, we should have them go back to the old 2 gap system.  We just don't have the linebackers to play the wide 9, 1 gap system; other teams are running it up the gut too easily. If we have Patterson and Dixon take the majority of the snaps, and have them cover 2 gaps while still using the wide 9, it might help keep some pressure off the LBs, and we might have less runs for 7 yards right up the middle. 

That probably means a reduction in playing time for Jenkins, but at this point, I really don't care.  We can use him in all passing downs, but i think, given the makeup of the rest of the defense, we need to put our best run stuffers on the field as much as possible.

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I know this has nothing to do with the Eagles, but this suspension reeks of shit.  Pryor has been suspended for 5 games by the NFL.  According to ESPN:

"Pryor made decisions that undermine the integrity of the eligibility rules for the NFL draft," the league said Thursday. "Those actions included failing to cooperate with the NCAA and hiring an agent in violation of NCAA rules, which resulted in Ohio State declaring him ineligible to continue playing college football.

"Pryor then applied to enter the NFL after the regular draft. Pryor had accepted at the end of the 2010 college football season a suspension for the first five games of the 2011 season for violating NCAA rules. Pryor will be ineligible to practice prior to or play in the first five games of the NFL regular season after he signs."

link

If I'm reading that right, the NFL is suspending the player for violating NCAA rules, which opens a whole new can of what the fuck. This is akin to the Netherlands throwing someone in jail for getting caught with weed in America. Not only would the Netherlands have no right prosecuting someone that committed a crime in America, but they would be prosecuting the perpetrator for something that isn't even illegal in their country.

The NFL is acting COMPLETELY AND TOTALLY outside of its jurisdiction. 

Does this also mean the Reggie Bush is eligible to be suspended, or maybe Vince Wilfork?

Another abnormality is the fact that Pryor has yet to appeal the suspension, nor has he or his lawyer contacted the NFL Players Association that they would be interested in an appeal, which is strange because, from my prospective, Pryor have as close to a slam dunk case as you can get.  Something just doesn't add up here and I was wondering if anyone else is seeing this like I am.