The 1,000-strong staff here at the North Side offices of Phil Watch in Chicago has been sitting around, playing old PlayStation games, eating Doritoes and drinking Mountain Dew for a few months now.
There just hasn't been much to report. Phil has been merely borderline baseball offensive since the season started. Our fearless leader, Mr. Giggity has been keeping up with Phil's ruminations, though.
But when he writes two pieces in a week about the Twins (human resources at the Star-Tribune is aware of your application, Phil), tells us that Jason Heyward is going to be good (another news flash - people like sandwiches) and seems to have a hard-on this year for the Nationals, telling us Matt Capps is resurrected (8.1 innings is now the benchmark for revitalizing a career in Phil's world - Mitch Talbot is the next Lincecum then), it's just been too damn boring and redundant to analyze it line by line.
So...Phil's wins in a way. He's won this early-season battle by boring us into submission.
But Phil's been doing a sort of blog himself with his "Morning Phil" segment that has essentially replaced the now-defunct Hardball blog over at the Trib, releasing his reactionary thoughts on the world about three (-ish) times a week through the Chicago Breaking Sports sub-site.
It's what I expect from Phil. Here's the latest.
Talking baseball while enjoying sweeps on both sides of town:
1. Sitting behind home plate at the White Sox game Sunday, listening to the U.S. Cellular crowd serenade Paul Konerko in the familiar fashion, it was easy to get ahead of oneself.
I feel like I'm there! Narrative nonfiction at its best!
And this is akin to the kind of people that tell me they just got back from Italy two seconds after I greet them at my restaurant. Keep it to yourself. Nobody cares.
Konerko is in the final year of that sweet five-year contract he received after hand delivering the ball from the final out of the World Series to Jerry Reinsdorf. There has been no indication from either side that the parties are working to keep Konerko off the free-agent market after the season. But it is genuinely difficult to imagine the White Sox without Konerko.
Oh, I don't know. Things change in life. I loved my Honda Civic but I'm glad as hell I don't have it anymore. Great in its prime but gradually declined to the point where I would have had to put about a thousand dollars into it to get it back to an acceptable level of goodness.
Hey, Konerko, while off to a fast start, is kinda like that. .824 OPS over the last three years before 2010 (good, not great). It wouldn't be a bad move resigning him with the 2011 first-base free agent class being of the underwhelming sort to say the least but if the question for how much. I like Pauly. How can't ya?
Along with Mark Buehrle, he is in so many ways the heart and soul of a team that in his era has had more ups than downs. He's older, sure, but at 34 he's still pretty much the same player he has been throughout his 12 seasons on the South Side -- a reliable run-producer and excellent first baseman who plays through troublesome injuries every season.
He's fine. Reliable run-producer is rather dubious. Hasn't driven in 100 runs since 2006 so I don't know what that means even if RBIs from the cleanup spot as a measuring stick is a rather dubious one in itself. Excellent first baseman? No. Definition of league-average since signing the five-year deal after the World Series.
Konerko has been a bargain at $12 million a year, and the White Sox should offer him another two years guaranteed at that price with a third year that can vest depending on his performance in 2012. He's a cornerstone piece of what has been a good team and you don't want to make a change there before you have to.
Bargain? Nope. Not even close. He's been paid $48 million from 2006-2009 and he's been worth $39.1 million relative to the rest of the market. In fact, he hasn't had a value at $12 million or above since 2006. But yes, let's give him a contract worth that to cover his age 34 to possibly 37 years. Let's!
And Konerko, if he were offered a third year vesting contract, he would make sure it was based solely on plate appearances...because he's not stupid. It wouldn't be as stupid as the Ryan Howard deal two days ago but history has proved that playing around with a slow power hitter in their mid-30s years is a gamble to say the least. They tend to fall off the cliff and fast.
Cuban Dayan Viciedo has switched from third base to first base with Triple-A Charlotte but no one knows if he is going to develop into a big-league hitter, let alone one of Konerko's caliber. The White Sox would be taking a big gamble by allowing Konerko to reach free agency or entertaining trade talks at mid-season, if they've fallen too far behind Minnesota (Boston could turn to him if David Ortiz is washed up, as it appears). These scenarios should be eliminated by getting a deal in place sooner rather than later.
What about Ian Gac at Kannapolis? Or Seth Loman (Biff!) at Winston-Salem? Love the names.
If the White Sox had questions about whether Konerko would maintain his level of play, he has answered them.
He's hitting .290 with a majors-leading eight homers and 14 RBIs in 18 games. His game-winner off Brandon League in the eighth inning on Sunday finished a sweep over a Seattle team that only the truly nostalgic could love. Don't play with fire. Get him signed before he moves into the market.
19 freakin' games and he's answered them!!!!???? Jose Guillen has seven homers. The Royals should give him another $50 million deal (wait, don't say that. Moore's been weird enough that he might). Vernon Wells has seven as well. His ridiculous contract is now a bargain.
Dope. It's 75 at-bats. And it's called a "contract year." And it's called 75 at-bats. Did I mention that?
2. Yes, Adam Dunn is a load in right field. That's why the Nationals have made him their regular first baseman after a season as their primary right fielder. But imagine how different -- and better -- the Cubs would look if GM Jim Hendry had overlooked Dunn's weaknesses to sign him, and not Milton Bradley, two winters ago.
I'll imagine. The Cubs would have won .2 more games. That's with a point. Dunn was worth 1.4 wins while Bradley was worth 1.2. Why? Because Dunn plays the field like a man with no arms. -37.9 UZR/150 in the outfield and -6.9 at first last year. That means he cost his team over four wins last year because he looks like a monkey humping a football out there.
The over-sized slugger -- a good enough athlete that he was in line to play quarterback at the University of Texas -- wanted to come to the Cubs badly. He also would have loved to have signed with the Astros, his hometown team. But it was Washington that offered him a two-year contract, so he took it and has become a significant part of the Nationals' turn-around.
Yes. A good enough athlete to never improve his fielding or learn to run the bases. He's a DH and the sooner he gets to the AL, the better. And "turn-around"? I like the Nats as well, even kinda pull for them, but let's cool our jets here a bit. It's 20 games and they're 10-10. All Nats optimism comes from Strasbourg and Storen, not Dunn.
He'll be at Wrigley Field the next three days, posing problems for the Cubs' pitching staff. It's not clear how Lou Piniella would have mixed Dunn, Kosuke Fukudome and Derrek Lee together but it seems obvious that they would have been a much better team if he had that challenge.
Bah! Dunn in right and Soriano in left! That would have been awesome!
And consider the following the dumbest part of today's Morning Phil. Even mentioning Lee as a potential platoon for anything is mind-numbingly stupid. He's one of the best-fielding first basemen in baseball.
Fukudome would probably be the center fielder, and Marlon Byrd probably wouldn't be on the roster.
See. Now that's an outfield I would have paid money to watch. Soriano-Fukudome-Dunn in the outfield. He would have hit a ton of homers...and he would have given up even more doubles in right. See how that works?
Hendry would have had more money to address other issues, including his bullpen.
Gonna need details on those calculations. Dunn essentially fell in the market to the Nationals, primarily over concerns about his defense. Dunn visited the Cubs fairly early on in the free agent process late in 2008 and was seeking something VERY close to what the Cubs signed Bradley for. Hendry opted for Bradley, Manny started to express real interest in returning to the Dodgers and Dunn was left with slim pickings, signing with the Nats at 2/$20 million because he had little leverage.
It's called Google.
Hendry crossed him off for two reasons -- he can't make the tough plays in right field and he had been blinded by Bradley. The Cubs would have scored a lot more runs with Dunn in the lineup, which would have camouflaged some of the issues.
How...exactly...do you camouflage issues? They would still be issues, right? And big issues at that. Oh, wait. He means fans wouldn't have to think about it because of all the pretty homers and thinking is hard. I like Dunn. As a DH. He would be a God. But players in the NL play the field. And Dunn plays the field badly.
And Cub fans would have fallen in the love with the guy, because he is a sweetheart.
I have never seen a guy so infatuated with the sort of "Face Of The Franchise" crap as Phil.
