If the Phillies made a contract offer to Mike Lowell, they aren’t saying.But they did discuss it.
Assistant GM Ruben Amaro Jr. told me tonight the Phillies had a dialogue with Lowell’s agents, Sam and Seth Levinson, before the free-agent third baseman and World Series MVP accepted a three-year, $37.5 million offer to stay with the Boston Red Sox. Amaro declined to further characterize the discussions.
An ESPN.com report indicated the Phils presented Lowell with parameters for a four-year, $50 million offer during a conference call Sunday night. At that point, Lowell, who had been seeking a four-year contract, said he preferred to work out a deal with the Red Sox.
"The only thing I can tell you is we've had contact with Lowell's representatives," Amaro said.
Last week, GM Pat Gillick flatly denied a report that the Phillies were interested in Lowell, insisting that improving the pitching staff remains the team's top priority. Amaro said that hasn’t changed, and the Phillies still intend to spend most of their remaining money (about $10-12 million) on pitching.
Lowell, 33, also garnered interest from the Los Angeles Dodgers and the New York Yankees, who briefly flirted with the idea of using him at first base. Lowell batted .324 with 21 home runs and a career-high 120 RBIs.The Phillies still could use an offensive upgrade at third base, where Wes Helms, Abraham Nunez and Greg Dobbs combined for the lowest on-base-plus-slugging percentage of NL third basemen. The Phillies didn’t pick up Nunez's contract option, leaving Helms, Dobbs and newly acquired Eric Bruntlett as their third base combination.
6 comments:
This insistence on the part of the Phillies that they only have $10-12 mil remaining, and that it's going to pitching, is incredibly frustrating.
And also, clearly, a lie.
Lowell would have cost them $12 mil a year.
Even now that he's off the table, what pitching are they going to get? There's nothing good available. (Lohse just isn't worth what he's going to get.)
Not good enough..when you are 1-2 pieces from being a championship team...you do what it takes to get there.
Trot Nixon's and Randy Wolf's dont bring us to the next level....spend the money
This is a huge disappointment (although not surprising). If we go and allow Rowand to walk (which is basically imminent) and do not replace him with anything significant in the OF, then this offseason appears to be shaping up as a failure. I don't believe we've improved the pitching enough to allow such a hit in offense. It will be interesting, if not depressing, to see where this goes...
I'm with the rest of the posters. I'm incredibly fed up with the two-faceness and ambiguity that the brass of this club is showing.
They're all talking out their asses, to be frank.
I flat-out do NOT believe that the Phillies only have $10-12 million to spend. I think the number's more like $12-15 million.
This club's taken a step back -- they haven't re-signed Rowand, which will create a hole on the team not only in terms of production but also in clubhouse chemistry and defensive attitude.
The attrition is worse when you try to wrap your brain around the fact that not only are they (most likely) going to let Rowand walk, but they're not properly allocating their available funds so that you can at least match Rowand in terms of production (see Lowell, Mike).
And Scott, you can say the Phillies have this stand or that stand til you're blue in the face, but the fact is that the Phillies are using not only you, but the Philly press in general as a type of propaganda.
For Gillick to say one thing and Amaro to say another, I think it really represents the confusion the fan-base is experiencing right now. We're scratching our collective head, because this team is one or two solid pieces away from being one of the most dominant teams not only in the NL, but in all of baseball. And management's too busy scheduling tee times to even notice what's so blatantly obvious to the rest of us.
I'm not attacking or accosting you, Scott. I'm just incredibly frustrated by the way this team handles itself.
I would be interested to see in the next few weeks if we do make some type of upgrade at 3B still. Joe Crede's been available, and I know we have a trading relationship with the White Sox already, but can we trust them after the Garcia fiasco?
Also, Tadahito Iguchi's name could pop up. How many more teams need starting 2B? The Mets locked up Castillo and the Astros were close with Kaz Matsui. Padres? Rockies? From what I've read, Iguchi wouldn't come back because he wanted to see his offers as a 2B, but now that some holes are filled, might he change his stance? Granted, Tadahito Iguchi and Mike Lowell can't even really be mentioned in the same sentence, but it would still be an upgrade over trotting Wes Helms out there more often than not.
If were stuck with the Helms?Dobbs platoon, we might have to get used to a decrease in offensive numbers that were used to seeing with the high Powered Phils offense. I'm really not of the mind to give Helms a second chance.
And as difficult as it is too see Lowell not sign, you really can't fault managment for not trying. He just wanted to be in Boston.
But I agree with everything the posters say about managements' lexicon the last few days/weeks. I've always been skeptical of anything Amaro says.
Lets call for an Ownership Day, where they come out of the shadows and show us what they look like. These guys are practically faceless.
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