Well, welcome back to the show. Summer has been too nice to be worried about blogging, but I am pretty excited about History being made by Jimmy Rollins this year. In the summer of records, we have seen Barry Bonds, Alex Rodriguez, Tom Glavine, and Tiger Woods winning his 13th Major. But, Jimmy Rollins has the chance to do something so special only one player(Willie Mays) has done. Twenty doubles, triples, homeruns, and stolen bases for the year. Jimmy Rollins started this year by saying Philadelphia was the team to beat. Well, all salary cap issues aside, he has certainly placed his money where his mouth is by having a truly special season. He is 5 triples away from this feat. At his current pace, he will hit only 18 triples for the year. Is anyone going to doubt that this guy will reach it, though? Jimmy knows what he has to do to be considered a great player for the ages, and anytime you can be mentioned in the same sentence as the The Say Hey Kid, thats saying something.
Ok, Lets look at the moves the Phillies made this past week.
1. Acquired RHP Julio Mateo from the Mariners in exchange for Minor League SS Jesus Merchan. Salary cap response to this is now the bullpen can use the same lawyer to cover all of their domestic battery charges.
2. Acquired 2B Tadahito Iguchi from the White Sox in exchange for nonroster RHP Michael Dubee. Hmmm, Where does this guy play when Chase comes back? Maybe right field since that spot seems cursed. Speaking of cursed, who the heck gets injured playing tag with kids? Are you serious?
3. Acquired RHP Kyle Lohse from the Cincinnati Reds in exchange for LHP Matt Maloney. Salary Cap was thinkng about this trade…what does it mean to be the ninth(9) best prospect in the Phillies organization. Is that higher or lower than a bucket of used balls?
4. Purchased the contract of INF/OF Joe Thurston from Triple-A Ottawa. Who? This is the type of trade that goes unnoticed…and produces the desired Phillies results…nothing. At least Gillick didn’t sign a has been to 6 years 100 million dollars ala Ed Wade.
There you have it, not much was on the market and the Phillies came through with their share of nothing. Salary cap does want to mention that mom works at the SPCA. She makes a good point about Vick, how many knew dog fighting was still going on in this country? For all the NAACP people saying it is unfair to suspend Vick and the NFL is hurting an innocent man, I say when the dog owners of America start complaining, you better seperate yourself as much as possible. Vick would have been better off dating a 16 year old girl than killing dogs. Hope for his sake he is innocent because that judge is going to throw the book at him if convicted.