Kuzul

Just how desperate were the Philadelphia Phillies to sign a right-handed, power hitting corner outfielder with Major League experience? Desperate enough to forget what solid defense looks like? Desperate enough to jeopardize the playing time and development of a pair of young outfielders with a lot to lose by sitting on the bench (or wasting away in Triple-A)? Because if the Phillies' signing of free agent outfielder Delmon Young does anything, it reeks of desperation. After months of searching for a bona fide, middle of the order threat to fill a corner outfield vacancy, the Phillies settled on signing Young to a one-year, $750,000 deal. (h/t: Ken Rosenthal of FOX Sports). Jeff Passan adds that if all incentives are reached, Young could earn as much as $3.5 million for one season.While it looks like the kind of "low-risk, high-reward" type deal that Phillies general manager Ruben Amaro Jr. has been pondering, ...

When owners of Major League Baseball teams give their general managers millions of dollars to spend on the free agent market, it's kind of like giving money to a kid who wants candy. You tell them not to spend it all in one place, but know they're going to do it anyway. And that's because the free agent market is a fickle mistress. Like any good gamble, one pull of the handle could send you home with your pockets weighed to the floor or broke like a joke. The Philadelphia Phillies must know the feeling. The free agent market has changed since its inception. Teams no longer pay for past production. They pay for what a prospective free agent could do for them in the future. Nowadays, it's easy to go broke. But one fundamental aspect of the free agent market that has never changed is that it is incredibly easy for you ...

No one is ever going to accuse a general manager of a Major League Baseball team of having an easy job, namely because when someone needs to shoulder the blame (or reap the benefits), it falls on the guy who is responsible for putting the team together. As with any position with an ounce of power and responsibility, when things go well, you're a great general manager. When things go wrong, it's all your fault. Ruben Amaro Jr. is a man who has experienced both ends of the spectrum as the GM of the Philadelphia Phillies. He took over following a World Series title in 2008 and missed the postseason in one of the team's most highly anticipated seasons in 2012. Now, with an aging core and few prospects ready to step up as reinforcements, Amaro has his work cut out for him this offseason. With several holes to fill and limited resources, ...

The hits just keep on coming for the Philadelphia Phillies in a season where they have been decimated by injuries. According to an official tweet from Major League Baseball, rookie second baseman Freddy Galvis has been suspended for 50 games after testing positive for a banned substance known as Clostebol—a performance enhancing drug. Though the suspension will begin immediately, Galvis quickly took to the media to claim his innocence through an official statement, passed along by MLB.com's Todd Zolecki.“A trace amount of a banned substance – 80 parts in a trillion – was detected in my urine sample. I am extremely disappointed in what has transpired. I cannot understand how even this tiny particle of a banned substance got into my body. I have not and never would knowingly use anything illegal to enhance my performance. I have always tried to follow the team’s strength and conditioning methods, listen ...

There's an old song by famous musician Jim Croce called You Don't Mess Around With Jim where Croce warns listeners that there are certain things you just shouldn't do, with the lyrics, "You don't tug on Superman's cape. You don't spit into the wind. You don't pull the mask off that old Lone Ranger, and you don't mess around with Jim."Is it too late to add, "You don't cross a passionate, Philadelphia Phillies fanbase," in there somewhere?"Philadelphia has proven, time and time again, to be a hard-working, blue-collar city, and it is certainly no secret that the fans want their players to approach their "job" in the same respect: Play hard, have fun, but most importantly, win.Players who have dared to go against that grain have often become something akin to target practice for those same passionate fans—be it with words, or in rare cases, actual, solid objects.The bottom line ...

Two things are inherently true about the Philadelphia Phillies: The roster is full of talent and that talent is being paid a ton of money.We live in an era and love a game in which getting a good deal is vastly important, and when the Phillies have nearly $200 million invested into the payroll, one can only wonder whether or not that money is being spent wisely.Are two, possibly three by the end of this off-season, starting pitchers truly worth $20 million a season? If the Phillies were to ink Cole Hamels to a lucrative contract extension, it would be the first time in history a team housed three pitchers that expensive.What about Ryan Howard? Was that huge contract extension worth it?In this slideshow, we will take a look back at the 2011 season, comparing each player's performance to the money he made, ranking who provided the biggest bang for ...

The Philadelphia Phillies' offense have been a puzzling bunch for most of the 2011 season. For a while, on Opening Day as the team struggled making contact with Houston Astros' starter Brett Myers, it looked like the lineup picked right up where it left off following the 2010 National League Championship Series—standing at the plate looking at strike three.On that day though, John Mayberry Jr. delivered a clutch base hit off of the bench, where he sat next to Greg Gross, one of the greatest pinch-hitters of all time, Greg Gross, now Phillies' hitting coach, for most of the game. From that at-bat onward, it seemed as though the offense was going to reach down inside and deliver some of that potential we had been waiting for.A few weeks later, Phillies' fans were demanding a trade for a legitimate offensive superstar as Chase Utley sat out with Patellar Tendinitis and ...

In more ways than one, waiting for the 2011 regular season to begin was especially taxing for guys like myself.After the Philadelphia Phillies nabbed Cliff Lee from the clutches of the Texas Rangers and New York Yankees, the flurry of headlines began to develop. That echoed throughout the offseason, and Lee joined a rotation filled with Cy Young winners, backed by a lineup filled with All-Stars.As we patiently waited for Opening Day and the 161 games that would follow, fans, ball scribes and former players alike wondered whether the 2011 version of the Phils' would be the greatest team in the history of the franchise.Though the team is, technically, off to one of the hottest starts in baseball, that is yet to be determined. However, it does open the door for an interesting question. What exactly was the greatest team in the history of the Phillies?Before we break those team ...

For a team that has mashed the cover off of the baseball in recent memory, you would think at first glance that the Philadelphia Phillies' organization hasn't been built around solid defensive players, but around offensive juggernauts.Not so fast. That isn't even close to being the case.While the Phillies have had their good times, and very, very bad times in their history, they have always held one philosophy as golden—defense rules the day. Though that philosophy may not have been as clear as the "pitching and defense wins championships" motto that current general manager Ruben Amaro Jr. uses, the citizens of Philadelphia have always respected a team that plays a gritty, hard style of baseball, and those players just so happened to be of an elite defensive caliber.Though I've done a few slide shows like this before, most notably the Greatest Phillies' in Team History, this one is going to ...

If you ask me, the Philadelphia Phillies got off to a pretty good start this weekend at home. Three games. Three wins.That good start went way beyond simply getting three wins, however, as the team answered several imposing questions that people around the game held against them heading into the season. As Roy Halladay, Cliff Lee and Roy Oswalt toed the hill, people questioned whether or not they would be able to live up to the hype. They responded by walking just one hitter, striking out 23 more and allowing just six earned runs in 19 innings pitched.Starting the season without Jayson Werth and Chase Utley in the lineup was going to be a problem for the Phils'. The offense looks weak and won't provide any run support. Those critics were silenced by the likes of Jimmy Rollins, Ryan Howard ...