The gift that keeps on giving

Mike Lieberthal has definitely received more than his fair share of gifts from the Phillies during his 13 seasons in the big leagues. There’s the estimated $53 million is salary, as well as all of the other perks that baseball players have come to expect.

That isn’t to say Lieberthal is greedy or selfish – at least no more or no less than any other person. He’s just a guy who is blessed with the rare talent of being able to hit a baseball reasonably well, and squat for a few hours a night while taking the routine punishment that goes with being a Major League catcher.

Through all of it – the fickle, one-sided treatment from the fans and media – Lieberthal was able to turn in two All-Star appearances, a gold glove award, and a handful of surgeries all while catching more games than any other player in the team’s 123 season history.

To be fair, all sides involved have received fair compensation. The Phillies got all those games and service, the fans got an above-average catcher for a few seasons, and the press got one of the better quotes and more interesting baseball minds to come through town in a long, long time.

But just to show Lieberthal how much they really like him, the Phillies gave one last final gift to their all-time squattiest catcher.

How about no offer of arbitration?

By not offering Lieberthal – a free agent who made $7.5 million in 2006 – salary arbitration, the 34-year old can sign to play anywhere without that team being saddled with offering a compensatory draft pick back to the Phillies. That opens the door for the Southern California native to ink the reported one-year, $1 million deal to play for his hometown Los Angeles Dodgers as the club’s backup catcher in 2007.

Had the Phillies offered Lieberthal arbitration, the reported deal from the Dodgers likely would have vanished.

How’s that for a parting gift?

The Phillies also bestowed the same kindness on free agent relief pitchers Aaron Fultz, Arthur Rhodes and Rick White; as well as infielder Jose Hernandez. Because all of those players were Type A free agents – meaning teams must give up a first- or second-round pick to sign them had the Phils offered arbitration – they become much more attractive to potential suitors.

Instead they are free and unfettered.

That’s not the case for outfielder David Dellucci, who was offered arbitration by the Phillies before Friday’s midnight deadline.

This is significant because Dellucci had reached a three-year, $11.5 million agreement with the Cleveland Indians earlier in the week. Now, the Phillies will receive the Indians’ second-round pick and a supplemental pick between the first and second rounds if the Tribe and Dellucci finalize the pact.

If the deal falls through, the Phillies will be able to negotiate with Fultz, Rhodes, White, Hernandez and Lieberthal unlike in years past. Under the new collective bargaining agreement ratified last month players can continue to negotiate with their former clubs instead of waiting until May 1.

That doesn’t appear likely, though.

Meanwhile, the Cincinnati Reds declined to offer arbitration to Type-A free agent David Weathers, a player whom the Phillies are reported to be interested in adding to their bullpen. Regardless, it appears as if the Phillies were taking a wait-and-see tact with Weathers with general manager Pat Gillick admitting on Thursday that the team had not offered a proposal to the pitcher.

Elsewhere, the San Francisco Giants did not offer arbitration to Barry Bonds, which lead to the controversial slugger to sign with the A’s or Padres.

Monday randomness

Things got pretty busy as they are wont to do during a weekend series against the Boston Red Sox, so this is my mea culpa for not offering any posts for a couple of days. I really wanted to, and certainly had plenty of stuff to write, but duty kind of called. It happens.

So what was so interesting last weekend. Well, Tito Francona was in town, which is always a treat. If anyone deserves success in this game, Francona is up there at the top of the list. He certainly has sacrificed quite a bit during a long career as a player, coach, scout and manager.

Curt Schilling was back in town, too. He's gone now and certainly the scribes are much happier, though the TV-types kind of like him. In case anyone hasn't noticed, writers and TV folk are very different. One group works for a living and the other, well... they wear makeup.

Come on, it's a joke...

Anyway, everytime I see Schilling I think back to the June, 2004 series at Fenway when I asked a former Red Sox pitcher (he'll remain nameless, though these days he pitches for the Dodgers and had a really good 2004 post-season) if he knew where the "media-friendly" pitcher was.

"Just follow the cameras," that former Red Sox pitcher said.

As an aside, that trip to Fenway was one of the most fun (in a baseball and work sense) ever. Any trip to Baltimore and Clearwater rates really high, too, but that particular weekend in Boston was really good.

As another aside, trips to Washington, my former hometown, are always a blast, too, though that has nothing to do with the baseball. Put it this way: it's hard not to have fun in Washington.

Anyway, Schilling was up to his old, teasing, preening and flirtatious ways with the local TV types last weekend. He lead them on, danced around and pretended like he had soooooooo many important things to do. But in the end, did anyone really think he was going to turn away from a rolling TV camera? Curt Schilling?

Of course not.

The writers, for the most part, ignored Schilling. That story has been told too many times, thank you very much. Besides, as erstwhile scribe Dennis Deitch suggested, perhaps it was time for a statute of limitations on Schilling stories. If a player has been out of town for seven years, it's only proper to ignore him forever. After all, that's how the IRS works, right?

So yes, Schilling was in town.

Appropos of nothing: Does anyone out there have doubts about that bloody sock?

And David Wells was in Philadelphia, too. In fact, the always chatty and round lefty was in town long enough to kind of, sort of allude to an idea that Phillies' pinch hitter David Dellucci had used steroids. From watching and listening to Dellucci speak about the comments, it was very obvious that he was very hurt and disappointed with what Wells had to say.

Since I wrote it late on Saturday night when most people were out and about doing stuff or inside sleeping, here's a reprint of what went down:

Much ado about nothing? During a pre-game conversation where he discussed everything from his upcoming minor-league rehab assignment, his age, and Barry Bonds’ 714th career home run, controversial Red Sox pitcher David Wells was his typical self. This time, though, Wells brought a former teammates and current Phillie into the mix.

While talking about baseball’s steroid controversy, Wells mentioned David Dellucci and the fact that the Phillies’ top pinch hitter has just one homer a season after stroking 29 a season ago for the Texas Rangers.

"You see a little bitty guy hitting 30 home runs, what, Dellucci, I guess?" Wells told reporters. "How many home runs did he hit last year? 29. Has he ever done that in his career? How many has he hit this year? So, the numbers have gone down tremendously since all this has come up. I know Dave, I've never suspected him of doing them."

After the game, a visibly upset Dellucci cleared his name.

“I've been tested. I've been tested this offseason. I've been tested a number of times last year,” Dellucci said. “I leave the stadium after midnight every night because I'm working out. I do that this year, and I did that in Texas.”

What Wells failed to mention is that Dellucci hit 29 homers last season in 128 games and 516 plate appearances in the hitter-friendly American League. That comes to a home run every 15 at-bats.

This season Dellucci has appeared in 34 games for 40 plate appearances primarily as a pinch hitter. If Dellucci hits a home run in his next time up, he will be averaging one home run for every 16 at-bats.

-- John R. Finger

The next day, Wells issued a kind of, sort of mea culpa through the Red Sox PR staff. Francona, in a classy move that shouldn't surprise anyone who knows him, offered an apology in person to Dellucci. Still, Dellucci was rightly still stinging from Wells' comment.

As far as the baseball stuff goes, this Red Sox club doesn't appear to be as strong as the one that stormed through Philadelphia last season, which, for me, was one of the best teams I have watched during my years on the job.

The others (in no particular order): 2001 New York Yankees 2001-02 Arizona Diamondbacks 2003 Seattle Mariners 2004 St. Louis Cardinals 2005 Boston Red Sox

Finally, Kevin Roberts of the Courier Post writes my new, favorite blog.

More on the trade

For my money – what there is of it – Buster Olney is the best baseball writer in the world right now. Oh sure, there might be other guys who are more analytical in regard to the Baseball Prospectus-type of writing that all of the kids are talking about, but numbers and statistics always left me cold. Baseball is about stories, and Olney is really quite interesting.

Yes, I lean toward the “Moneyball” theory in putting together a team, but at the same time I take more stock out of what an old scout or storyteller can teach me about the game than anything some guy with an MBA can show me on an Excel spreadsheet.

Besides, last summer former Inquirer writer Jayson Stark told me how hard Olney worked on his daily dispatches for ESPN after I had revealed to Stark how much I enjoyed his colleague’s work.

Gushing and name dropping aside, Olney had an interesting perspective on the Phillies’ deal for David Dellucci.

Here’s an interesting excerpt from Buster’s ESPN blog:

Phillies GM Pat Gillick knows Dellucci from his days as GM of the Orioles, and I don't think he'd be picking him up knowing that David would only be pinch-hitter type. There's more mad scientist in Gillick than any general manager I've covered; he always thinking two or three moves ahead, and he won't always tell you what he's doing. You have to think, on the face of it, that the acquisition of Dellucci is merely the first domino to fall.

Olney wonders if Pat Burrell is more hurt than anyone is letting on, or if there will be future deal involving Bobby Abreu. Nevertheless, it’s pretty fair to say that Gillick has been bold in putting together this year’s team… well, maybe he’s not bold per se, maybe we’re just not used to such proactive behavior.

It's 4:51 a.m., do you know where your new fifth outfielder is?

Phillies' GM Pat Gillick pulled off a late-night trade for the left-handed hitting, fifth-outfielder he coveted in the early hours of Sunday morning. For promising right-handed pitcher Rob Tejeda, and minor-leaguer Jake Blalock the Phils picked up David Dellucci from the Texas Rangers. In other words, Gillick dealt Vicente Padilla, Blalock and Tejeda to Texas for Dellucci.

Dellucci is a 32-year-old, .259 hitter who spent the past two years with the Rangers, and has also spent time with the Yankees, Diamondbacks and Orioles. Last Season Dellucci had a career-high 29 homers and 128 games.

In 2001, Dellucci was a pinch-hitter for the World Champion Diamondbacks.

According to the UPI, the Rangers' GM Jon Daniels, said:

"It was hard trading David. He's been with us for two years. He has a strong relationship with the players and the community. He was pretty shocked."

According to the UPI, the teams had been working on the deal for nearly a week.

With Dellucci in the fold, that means the Chris Coste/Tomas Perez era in Philadelphia has ended... at least for now.