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Lohse Confirms Phils’ $21MM Offer

Kyle Lohse was an integral part of the Phillies playoff run last season, and his free agent status made him a commodity for many teams in the offseason. The Phils, according to Jim Salisbury, bit early.

Lohse, who will pitch against his former teammates for the St. Louis Cardinals today, confirmed yesterday that he received a three-year offer in the neighborhood of $21 million shortly after last season ended.

“It went away early,” Lohse said. “It was gone less than a month into the off-season. It’s not like we had extended talks â€” one time, that was it.”

Phils Asst. GM Ruben Amaro said the talks extended throughout the offseason, but the Geoff Jenkins and Pedro Feliz signings changed the Phils mentality and took the deals away. I’ll believe a little of both here.

Lohse is 7-2 with a 3.92 ERA for the Cardinals. He’s probably not worth $21M for three years, and he was dumb for not taking the deal (it was the most he’d be offered all offseason), but it would’ve been nice to have him in the rotation this season (to help, you know, if a certain starter-turned-reliever-turned-starter had problems).

Tim Malcolm

Tim first found the Phillies as a little infant at Veteran’s Stadium, cheering on a Juan Samuel game-winning home run in his very first game. With the pinstripes in his blood, he witnessed Terry Mulholland’s 1990 no-hitter, “Steve Carlton Night” at the Vet, game three of the 1993 World Series, countless games during the charmed 2008 championship season and various road excursions. Since November 2007 Tim’s been writing about them daily at Phillies Nation, becoming one of the world’s most popular Phillies scribes. You can catch him on Twitter and Facebook, as well. When he’s not talking about the Phils he’s relaxing with a St. Bernardus ABT 12 or one of his many favored brews.