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This season may be the perfect opportunity to trade Shane
Victorino.  Really, Trade the guy who is
one of the best centerfielders in the game. 
Trade a guy who plays a solid centerfield while switch hitting and is a
huge threat on the base paths?  Possibly.  I say this because the Phillies recently
declined to pick up Pedro Feliz’s Club Option. 
With Chone Figgins on the Free Agent Tracker, why not consider bringing
in Figgins to bat second.  The guy is a
lifetime .298 hitter averaging 40 Stolen Bases a year.  We’re going to have to pay Victorino a lot of
money sometime soon and with a guy like Domonic Brown in the Minors, this may
be Victorino’s last year in Philly.  It’s
not realistic for any team to have guys signed to multi-year deals at every
position.  In order to keep the Phillies
successful, we need to have at least 2 guys making the league minimum in the
lineup at all times. With guys like Cliff Lee, Chase Utley, Ryan Howard, Raul
Ibanez, Jimmy Rollins and Cole Hamels, there’s only so much money to go
around.  This may be an opportunity to
get the young left-handed star into the Majors sometime in 2010.  In return, the Phillies could restock the
farm system with Minor Leaguers or get another starter to replace Jamie Moyer
in a trade for Vic.  Another option would
be to move Jayson Werth to Centerfield and put Minor Leaguer Michael Taylor in
right field.  Taylor batted .320 last season in the
minors.  I personally saw Michael play
and let me tell you that this right-hander is a freak of nature standing in the
box at 6’6″, 250lbs.  I think we all know
that John Mayberry Jr. is not going to be the next stud in the Phillies
outfield, but watch out for Domonic Brown and Michael Taylor during the first
few months of the Minor League seasons. 

 

My thoughts are to keep both Victorino and Werth into the
all-star break of next season and see who is more valuable to the
Phillies.  I only see one of these stars
in a Philly uniform in 2011… Only time will tell.  I applaud Ruben Amaro Jr.surrounding himself
with lots of talent where.  Trust me, in
March, you will find Ruben standing behind the cage in Clearwater assessing
talent with his Bluetooth in his ear waiting to make a deal.