CLEARWATER, Fla. -- Wes Helms has arrived, but nobody is sure how long he'll be staying.Not even Helms.
Since the Phillies signed free agent Pedro Feliz last month, Helms seems to be the odd-man out. With Feliz slated to be the everyday third baseman, Greg Dobbs will be relegated to a bench role. Helms, who will make $2.15 million this season, is trade bait for the Phillies, who would like to flip him for a reliever. Problem is, interest in Helms seems to be fairly brisk. That may change, of course, once teams begin playing spring-training games next week.
Helms, 31, was a disappointment last season, batting .246 with only five homers and 39 RBIs. He met the media today for about 10 minutes. Some highlights:
-- "In this game, you're loyal to the team you're on. But when it comes down to your career, you want to play. That's the only way you can go further. If it came down to where they had a deal on the table and it would benefit me and them, yeah, I'd definitely go. If I could get 100 more at-bats than what I could get here, it would be to my benefit. You always want to start in the big leagues. It's the way you stay in the big leagues. But also teams cater to really good bench players, too. Guys stay in the big leagues 15 years that way. So, yeah, if I had a chance to play every day, I would love to. But staying here and being a bench player on a winning team, to be on a team like this, I'm really happy with that."
-- "This spring training, I'm playing for Wes Helms because I'm either playing to help the Phillies or I'm playing for other teams to say, hey, we need Helms to help us now. It doesn't take away from me being a team player, but I've got to think about my career here. What do I have to do to better myself? Thats how I have to approach it."
-- "I'm out there to prove something to myself. I know the year I had in Florida wasn't a fluke. I just got off track. I want to prove to myself that I can play another 5 to 6 years. But I also want to prove to the Phillies that the contract they gave me wasn't a bad thing. I don't take something for nothing. I want to give back. But my play on the field, I want to show them that."
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Programming note: Kyle Kendrick and Brett Myers will be on "The Today Show" at 7:30 tomorrow morning to discuss the prank played on Kendrick last weekend. If you've missed it, and I'm not how you could've missed it (it has been all over SportsCenter today), click here to watch: http://sports.espn.go.com/broadband/video/videopage?videoId=3251122&categoryId=2521705
3 comments:
"Brisk" interest in Helms is a good thing, right? Are you misinterpreting the word?
Anon: By brisk, I mean cold. There isn't much interest in Helms right now, but that may change later in the spring.
Nice try, but brisk is not what is commonoly thought of as cold - it's fast paced
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