Phillies Nation

He already turned down a minor league deal from the Yankees…. and a minor-league deal would be as far as I’d go with this guy right now.

BTW, Ronny Paulino hit a 2-run HR last night in the Baseball Serie del Caribe for his Dominican team. They lost 3-2 though.

Do it! Do it! Do it! For the right price that is. I mean honestly. 20% of Andruw Jones is still better than 100% of Bruntlett in the outfield or Matt Stairs…probably even Geoff Jenkins. Jones is a multi gold glove winner who when he makes contact can kill the ball. I would rather the Phils dump Jenkins and Stairs to bring on Jones. Nothing against either of those guys, and Stairs will always have a place in Phillies legend but this is about winning.

Oh yeah I forgot that, gold glove too:) Question is would he be willing to be a bench player? He would have to really impress to dethrone Werth or Victorino, and of course we invested too much money in Ibanez.
I trully think we need a right handed bat that can play both the Infield and outfield but if just one than Jones has the best tools out there.

I think if he’s had at the right price, Jones would be a nice pick up. I would figure the worst case scenerio is that he would be a little better than his disasterous year last year. Best case scenerio, he provides a powerful right handed bat in the pinch hitter spot.

Tim makes an interesting point about Andruw when he says he has been one of the largest “fall from graces” in baseball history. Really, who has messed up their career so quickly and at such a young age, excluding injury?

I’m with Rick, what the hell happened to this guy?
It’s so easy to say steroids, but who knows.

Other people constantly point to Jones having conditioning and weight problems. If conditioning is the problem, all we need to do is do the opposite of what we did with Freddy Garcia. Give the guy a physical! Maybe run him around in some drills a little bit to see if he’s not sucking wind like a middle aged investment banker.

If he checks out like a prime-aged major leaguer should, as well as his price being around the same we would be willing to pay Nomar (who has been riddled with injuries over the past five years), why not give him a go? Maybe he’ll belt another 50 for us?

We would just have to unload Stairs or Jenkins and hopefully get some infield help as well (outside of Bruntlett, we just have a bunch of has-beens in the forms of Giles, Ozuna, etc.–of course theres Donald, but im not sure if hes ready yet)

I don’t think that Jones was on the juice. I think that he got too comfortable with his situation and stopped doing the things that he needed to do to stay at that level. His swing has always kind of been hit or miss… when he gained weight, opposing pitchers realized that he couldn’t keep up with fastballs and couldn’t reach balls on the outside part of the plate. It’s obvious that he fell victim to complacency but his attitude still has not changed. If this guy is going to get his career back on track, he’ll need to be willing to admit that he might have to spend some times in the minors and a lot of time on the treadmill. Up until now, he hasn’t showed that he’s ready to do that and he just seems like he could care less what happens as long as he’s cashing his checks. This is usually the type of situation that I jump all over but I’m not so sure about this one… he needs an entire off-season to prove that he’s going to do it. This ballpark, this head coach, this team and this city (not the pressure of NY) could be just what he needs but it has to be under our terms.

I also saw Paulino hit the HR. However, during that at-bat, he looked terrible against the curve ball. We all know what happens when a batter has exposure like that. Don’t get too excited just yet…

You can guarantee a roster spot for him, if you waive him either no-ones picking him up or your rid. Poor Andruw, you have to just wonder what he ran out of in that last year with the Braves and does JC know where Andruw can buy some more?

I agree…if you need bodies then you can invite him to spring training but he wont get any playing time…

I’m sorry, but if you are fortunate enough to make it to the big leagues and still let yourself go like that, to use one of Geoff’s words, that’s disgraceful! For his numbers and power to fall off like that within one years’ time makes me question how he got there. Either way, laziness or PED’s, it doesn’t bode well for his future. Maybe he can get back into shape, but I’d always be afraid he’d lapse back into his bad habits. We need another bat, but I’d be real careful with this one.

Could someone tell me about Sergio Escalona? His numbers have been trending in the right direction and he’ll be at Spring training… he’s also LH. Looking at the recent PR coming from the Phillies, it sounds like they’re not going to end up with Beimel, Ohman or Flores so the might have to try to go with what they’ve got. What they’ve got is one and a half LH relievers (Eyre and Zagurski, who is recovering from TJ). If I had to make a wager, I would bet that the Phils are going to go with Park for the early going and leave Happ in the ‘pen until Romero returns (50 games). In other words, I think that Happ is going to get screwed. Unless Escalona can pitch… I don’t know anything about him but his numbers were pretty good last year in A and AA.

it looks odd, but jones is only 2 years older than ryan howard though howard has been in the league for only a few years while jones came in the late 1990′s. The phillies do an amazing job of producing great players in their,but they always call them up too late when they are around 27 or 28. We need some good starting batters who are young.

happ is in the roatation and hell stay there. park is in the bullpen and hell stay there. they got him to replace seanez…condrey is the odd man out when they sign another reliever, if they still do.

Rick F, no, no, no to Abreau, I am all about the bad karma where he is concerned. That clubhouse changed practically overnight when he left, don’t know why, don’t care, just keep him far away from the Phillies.

*Abreu* I must have Keith Primeau on my mind, lol.

If he accepts a minor league contract ,why not.But there is a reason the Dodgers totally gave up on him.He went from 100 mph down to a screeching halt in about 1 1/2 years.
But just imagine this guy in his prime..fantastic defense,35 homer man,100 rbi,.265 hitter….and he’s only 31 yrs old.
This is the kind of guy the Pirates should take a chance on not us.

Jones was even sent home by his Winter League team this year after hitting about .190. No Thanks ! I would still like to see Moises Alou as the righthanded hitting outfielder off the bench.

Oh yeah I TOTALLY forgot about that…i was leery about jones to begin with until you reminded me of the winter league thing. What sane, rationally-thinking team would guarantee a major league contract of ANY sort to a washed up guy who hit .190 in WINTER BALL and got cut from his winter league team? nobodys going to give this guy anything other than a minor league contract with a spring trainign invite. he wont be placed on anyones 40-man roster until he returns to form in the minor leagues. this guy was DEFINITELY juicing. he hasnt been able to do diddly-poo offensively since they released the mitchell report.

you need someone like nomar actually. hes such a great fit for this team: veteran right handed bat winning playoff experience in boston and teh ability to play ALL infield positions minus catcher and probably the corner outfield spots as well if needed.

those of you that were all for getting Sheets for 2 yrs raise your hand. Bet you are the same ones all for signing this fat, lazy has-been. You can’t coach work ethic and desire. If he didn’t keep himself in shape for Bobby Cox or Joe Torre he ain’t gonna do it for Manuel. He’s made his fortune and couldn’t care less about resurrecting his career.

thats exactly right..not exactly the same people. If Ben Sheets’ medical records checked out theres nothing wrong with signing him to a lower risk brad penny deal, but clearly that wasnt teh case. they all saw his medical records and noticed that hed probably need surgery, thus he recieved almost no real offers. but if someone isnt healthy theres nothing you can really say. when healthy, who wouldnt want to sign sheets to a low risk deal. he should have gotten surgery RIGHT AWAY and auditioned for a trade deadline return.

with surgery this late, id be shocked if this guy pitches at all this season. whats worse, more teams said he needed shoulder surgery as well as elbow surgery, so he hasnt done that yet either..

Geoff, Nomar WAS a good player when he was in Boston (with the short field in left). But IMO, I just don’t think the guy has any heart. He won’t play with a hangnail let-alone a real injury.

Some people are talking about him as if he IS a gold glover and IS a powerful hitter. He WAS those things and IS as far away from that as is humanly possible until he proves otherwise. He probably turned down the Yankees becasue there is no chance he could have an impact on the team. He will likely sign a minor league deal with incentives for a team that he has a chance to make the team and has the possibility to crack the starting lineup. No chance of that with the Phils.

NJ, wasn’t dissing Preems, quite the opposite-if I had a shrine to anyone it would probably be him! No dissing of Lindros either, I’m one of the few who actually liked him.

SOOOO… no one knows anything about Escalona. No one has seen him play?

I still think that Happ is going to get screwed because he’s a lefty and we need a lefthander in the pen until Romero returns. I think that Happ might be the best starting pitcher we’ve got but I think that they’re going to give Park his shot because a.) they have more invested in him b.) Happ is lefthanded and they are going to need a lefthanded reliever. ALSO… if Happ spends the entire season on the roster, they’ll save one of his option years and it’s easier to keep him around for an entire season if he’s a reliever. If they use him as a starter and he doesn’t do well, they might be forced to option him back down to the minors to “Brett Myers” himself and then they’ll face a difficult decision in 2010. I think I’m quoting that rule correctly… a player has three option years. After all of his options are used up, the team must keep him on the 25 man roster or see if he passes waivers before moving him to the minors. A LH pitcher with MLB experience… someone would scoop him off of waivers so they would have to keep him on the roster. He had one spot start in 2007 that might come back to haunt them.