Without getting into any detail, the Philadelphia Inquirer posted a blurb in its "Phillies Notes" for today that, for me, seems to indicate the beginning of the end of Ryan Howard's time as a Phil. PI mentions Miguel Cabrera's gigantic contract extension with Detroit (8 years, $153.3 million) new starting point for Howard in future negotiations with the team. While Howard cannot become a free agent until 2011, some speculate that the Phillies would be looking to negotiate a long term deal much sooner. Is it realistic, though, to expect Philly to lay out that kind of dough?

Howard recently got his hand a bit deeper into the franchise's pockets after winning an arbitration hearing that got him more money than any player ever with less than 2 years service ($10 million). Their 2007 payroll was $89,428,213, with another $7 millions going out to Jim Thome. This year's payroll is (so I'm hearing) already going to be over $100 millions. Bringing Howard into Cabrera's "ballpark" would essentially double his yearly bill. Jimmy Rollin's current 5-year, $40 million contract ends after 2010. Chase Utley's 7-year, $85 million is good through 2013.

Do Philly fans need to be thinking about life after Howard today. Surely not. The season is about to start and we have every reason to believe we'll see Howard smack home run 300 in a Phillies uni. But after that? Well, let's not kid ourselves. The Phillies need to do this! Howard is the greatest thing to come from their farm system in a long, long time. The team likes to throw chunks of money at guys like Freddy Garcia, Adam Eaton, Rod Barajas and Wes Helms (with out much payoff) but took Howard to arbitration. Then the media (at least many of them) acted surprised when Howard won. Also, if they (the Phils) keep doing this kind of thing to Howard for the next two seasons, he just may decide to move on regardless of the offers.

So, the question then seems to be as to whether Phillies ownership reads guys like Bill Conlin of the Philadelphia Daily News. He's calling for the ownership to sell the team because of their unpreparedness to do what's going to win a championship. Or, on the other hand, do the powers that be look only at dollars in vs. dollars out?

This entry was posted on Monday, March 24, 2008 at 3/24/2008 02:16:00 PM. You can skip to the end and leave a response.