Posted on 12/13/2010 9:20:25 PM PST by TexasNative2000
After two weeks of negotiations with the Texas Rangers and New York Yankees, Cliff Lee has agreed to return to the Philadelphia Phillies.
Right you are. I imagine that the Giants will have to win it again, or perhaps twice more for people outside of San Francisco to take them seriously.
Lincecum, Cain, Sanchez, Baumgardner and Zito still sounds good to me.
When you have a pitching staff where Cole Hamels is your #4, that’s just unbelievable. This is making my night!
I’ll still stack them up against the Giants starting rotation. Bumgarner won’t be a rookie next year. But yes, that is one hell of a starting rotation. The Phillies are out for payback.
It took Mike Krukow in a game broadcast during the World Series to point out the obvious — that back-to-back Cy Young winner Lincecum was the UNDERDOG in every Game 1 start he made in the World Series. Talk about unfreaking-believable. He was not favored against the Braves, the Phils or the Rangers. Like the man was chopped liver. And then he goes out and beats Cliff Lee twice, handing him his first two ever post season defeats. But he pitches west of the Mississippi, so he will never get the respect he deserves.
I remember the media writing off the Giants against Lee. 7-0 post season record. Now his World Series record is 2-2. Just a BIT of a difference there... No longer Mr. Invincible.
This is why they play the game on the field and not from a computer model.
Above, sorry I meant Lincecum was the underdog in the first game of every playoff series, not the World Series. Typoed that...
Can't imagine why!
What was W.C. Field’s saying, “On the whole I think I’d rather be in Philadelphia?” So would Cliff Lee. Not for Yankees. Schadenfreude!
LOL........yankee fans have only themselves to blame. And they are not amused.
The combination of a current winning culture and great ballpark is helping drive the success of the Phillies in recent years. Not having to deal anymore with the ugliness that was the old Veterans Stadium is a plus.
Maybe he was stuck with his house in Philly?
Maybe his back is really a concern and he went with the most cash up front?
I am just glad he his not going to be a Yankee!
Oh Happy Days !!!
Christmas came early to Philly. Everyone is SOOOO pumped up by this rotation.
Now if we could just start hitting again.....
Good point. Werth is gone and they may need to move Ibanez to make room on the payroll.
Funny how the Phillies thought they couldn’t afford him after 2009 and swapped him for three so-so prospects. They pulled a Yankee (if you remember how the Yankees were the mystery team waiting in the weeds during the Catfish Hunter bidding-—when Hunter was freed up after Charlie Finley reneged on insurance payments-—and merely asked Hunter what it would take to make him a Yankee) and landed their man. Lee looked very comfortable pitching in Philadelphia in ‘09. (And I bet they still debate whether the Phillies should have gone with him on short rest instead of Joe Blanton in Game Four.) That Halladay-Lee-Oswalt-Hamels rotation looks bloody great on paper . . .
For a lifetime Philly fan, the notion that a player would take less money because they love the atmosphere here is impossible to imagine. What a turnaround...
That staff should rival the Braves of the mid 90’s and the Orioles of the early 70’s. Killer.
That staff should rival the Braves of the mid 90’s and the Orioles of the early 70’s. Killer.On paper, they certainly could. I'm not that sure they're the equal of the Baltimore rotation of the early 1970s but they're at least the equal of Maddux-Glavine-Smoltz.
One thing to beware of with Lee: He's deadly in his two postseasons overall (lifetime postseason ERA: 2.13; lifetime postseason WHIP: 0.82), but he's not too close to that in regular season work. (Lifetime ERA: 3.85; lifetime WHIP: 1.26). He had the big overall year in 2008, yet last year was the lowest WHIP of his career (he led the league with his 1.00) and the best strikeout-to-walk ratio of his major league life: his 10.28/1 was way over his career head (3.10).
Lee could be one of two things: he could be a genuinely great pitcher hitting stride; or, he could be going over the peak and toward the downslope within the first two and a half years he's back in Philadelphia. Still, it's a terrific deal for the Phillies and it speaks well enough for Lee himself, since he left a lot of money on the table (about $28 million overall) to go back to where he really did feel comfortable.
And no more Chan Ho Park A-Rod deals!
It could not have worked out better for the Rangers.
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