January 21, 2010

You Can Eat a Lot of Innings With $24 Million

News Item: Phillies re-sign Joe Blanton for three years, $24 million

Somehow, the idea of the team giving a pitcher $8 million a year led to the "Phillies are cheap" lie being resurrected yet again on the radio. Why's that? Because the Phils traded Cliff Lee for prospects as part of the Roy Halladay transaction, rather than keep both pitchers.

Please. Let's go through this again. The Phils are paying Blanton $8 million, which is $1 million less than Lee was set to make. If money were the object, the Phillies could've just released Blanton and kept Lee for the one year. Instead, they offered Blanton around, didn't get offers they wanted, and decided to trade Lee- who was not going to re-sign- instead.

So now, the team has their entire front four (Halladay, Cole Hamels, Blanton and J.A. Happ) under control for three years. Cheap teams don't generally give one pitcher $60 million and another $28 million in the same offseason. Once again, I wish the Twins were that "cheap."

UPDATE: And Shane Victorino too! Congrats to Craig Calcaterra for breaking the story.

Posted by Stephen Silver at January 21, 2010 11:12 PM
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