INDIANAPOLIS--The last thing Ruben Amaro and the Phillies want to do here at the Winter Meetings is to go out and do something like make a trade. The way things stand now, Amaro likes the way his team looks. Oh sure, there are pieces to add here and there--big pieces, in fact. But as far as the core base of the club, the Phillies look good.
Nevertheless, Amaro and the Phillies are here looking for pitching. They want a couple of relievers and a starter to hold down the No. 4 or No. 5 spot of the rotation.
Ideally, Amaro wants those additions to come through free agency.
Since the team needs pitching and other teams want pitchers, it would be kind of silly for the Phillies to trade pitchers for pitchers...
Right?
"It's kind of like robbing Peter to pay Paul," Ruben said before adding the caveat that it really gets down to whether Peter is a better player than Paul.
Still, Amaro was pretty good at finding the guys the Phillies needed at the right time last season. Raul Ibanez was a pretty good pickup last winter and he's hoping that Placido Polanco at third base can be the same type of coup this year.
The only thing the Phillies had to give up to get either player was a first-round draft pick because Ibanez was a Type A free agent. Interestingly, the GM said if Polanco was a Type A guy the Phillies would have been reluctant to have gone after him, and he does not see the team going after any other players that would result in the Phillies giving up some type of compensation.
Third baseman Chone Figgins was a Type A free agent while Mark DeRosa, Adrian Beltre and Melvin Mora were Type B guys.
"I would not do it unless it was a guy who could make a huge impact, and frankly, those guys aren't out there right now," he said.
But John Smoltz is out there. So too is Randy Wolf, Jarrod Washburn, Jason Schmidt, Ben Sheets, Mark Prior, Brad Penny, Rich Harden, Jon Garland, Jose Contreras, Bartolo Colon, and Erik Bedard amongst the starters.
J.J. Putz and Chad Cordero are a couple of the relievers out there that would not require the Phillies to give up anything other than a paycheck.
In other words, if Ruben and the Phillies want to get this done on the cheap, it's doable. All it will take is a little bit of creativity. Certainly that was on display last July when Pedro Martinez was added for the playoff push.
But don't look for Pedro to be added back into the fold any time soon. Oh sure, he started three of the Phillies' last 10 postseason games, including two during the World Series. However, if Pedro returns to Philadelphia it will be after everything else is taken care of or there are not too many other options.
Just like last season, inking Pedro is something that will "develop later."
Nevertheless, Pedro has expressed an interest in another dance with the Phils and Ruben has stashed that info away for now. Still, from friends that have talked to him Pedro is preparing to pitch a full season if the right team will have him. In the short term, one of his friends says Pedro is back in the Dominican preparing for his celebrity golf tournament featuring the likes of David Ortiz and Ryan Howard.
We would have chatted a little longer with Ruben on Monday, but he had to run off to his second trade meeting of the afternoon...
Anyone want to guess if Peter, Paul and Joe Blanton's names come up?