Giants hang on and the Cardinals are 2.5 back from the Braves.

tkihshbt wrote:

Remember when Papelbon was unhittable?

I only half-listened at the time, but there was some discussion when he played here that he fell in love with his splitter at the expense of his fastball, which back then he was throwing 97-98 mph. Papelbaum is a really annoying combination of quirky, dumb and arrogant, so whenever I heard his voice on the radio, my brain would automatically tune out.

tkihshbt wrote:

artie_fufkin wrote:

tkihshbt wrote:

Remember when Papelbon was unhittable?

I only half-listened at the time, but there was some discussion when he played here that he fell in love with his splitter at the expense of his fastball, which back then he was throwing 97-98 mph. Papelbaum is a really annoying combination of quirky, dumb and arrogant, so whenever I heard his voice on the radio, my brain would automatically tune out.

I love that the Phillies gave him $50 million on the silly hope that he was still his very dominant 2007 self, but the turd made things way too uncomfortable last night.

It was a stupid signing. They have the equivalent of the gross national product of some Central American countries tied up in a half-dozen players who will never be as good as they once were. Chase Utley almost looks like a left-handed hitting version of Alfonso Soriano at this point.

tkihshbt wrote:

Remember when Max thought the Phillies were a model franchise?

You mean with posts like this one (posted after the Phillies signed Cliff Lee)?

Max wrote:

Here is a painful past, present, and future that i see coming from this:

1. The Phillies now become the favorite to win the NL pennant for the next 5 years, and to probably win multiple championships in that time.

2. $130 million is probably very close to what is within the scope of the Cardinals, PARTICULARLY, if we assume yearly baseball in October where the Cards go deep into the playoffs and get revenues from several home games.

3. The Phillies and Cards budgets were not that far apart in the Walt Jocketty days. 

Thus, if this pans out for the Phillies, it will be the result of a calculated business risk that the Phillies owners took and the Cardinal owners did not, but one which was otherwise feasible for St. Louis.

If one of the St. Louis sports journo corp wants to strap a pair on, this would be a good topic, I suggest.  Or, another way to think about it is, do it before the random blogger does.

http://2006cardinals.boardhost.com/viewtopic.php?id=279

forsberg_us wrote:

tkihshbt wrote:

Remember when Max thought the Phillies were a model franchise?

You mean with posts like this one (posted after the Phillies signed Cliff Lee)?

Max wrote:

Here is a painful past, present, and future that i see coming from this:

1. The Phillies now become the favorite to win the NL pennant for the next 5 years, and to probably win multiple championships in that time.

2. $130 million is probably very close to what is within the scope of the Cardinals, PARTICULARLY, if we assume yearly baseball in October where the Cards go deep into the playoffs and get revenues from several home games.

3. The Phillies and Cards budgets were not that far apart in the Walt Jocketty days. 

Thus, if this pans out for the Phillies, it will be the result of a calculated business risk that the Phillies owners took and the Cardinal owners did not, but one which was otherwise feasible for St. Louis.

If one of the St. Louis sports journo corp wants to strap a pair on, this would be a good topic, I suggest.  Or, another way to think about it is, do it before the random blogger does.

http://2006cardinals.boardhost.com/viewtopic.php?id=279

Ah! That's a good one. Let the record be that I actually like Max, but he was misguided in this appreciation of the Phillies. I thought what they were doing and continue to do is incredibly stupid. My guess was that their window would shut in 2013 at the earliest.

Oh there's precedent. The Phillies are two-guys-dropping-dead-of-heart-failure away from being the Boston Celtics.

They're getting there.