So Are We Going to Sign Chad Durbin or Not

Also possible headlines today were “So Are We Going to Trade Away Joe Blanton or Not” and “It Is Insane That We Technically have to Wait for Carl Pavano to do Something Before Any of This Goes Down.”

When the Cliff Lee deal snuck on through, the next name being liberally spread across the blogosphere was Big Joe’s.  He was going to be the human luxury tax for acquiring Cliff, and we would be undoubtedly be sending him to Boston or some stupid thing in order to be able to pay Cliff in the money he wanted and not the “magic-bean” centric deal Ruben was originally trying to force on him.

That hasn’t happened yet.  I can’t really see Joe still being on the roster by the time the season rolls around, but I didn’t put my contact in this morning, so I can’t really see anything.  With J.C. Romero being wrangled back into the pen–as he thanks the baseball gods that he is left-handed–the signing of Chad Durbin becomes all the more distant.  (Did you know that dictionary.com lists “Pecksniffian” as a synonym for “left-handed”?)

As with every deal of the past year, and I guess ever, the question is, “Will there be money?!”  Chad’s off season relationship with the Phillies has been everything from “optimistic” to kind of like sitting in a restaurant for eight hours and constantly winking at the waitress without ever ordering food.

I like Chad Durbin.  As I’ve sworn many times, I took a play writing course in college with a guy who looked like him and always wore a Phillies hat, so I feel like we’re old friends.  And he’s dependable.  If the Phillies use less of the pen than ever this year with four nuclear depth charges in the rotation, Chad is fully capable of dotting the season with solid appearances; possibly less than before, but certainly enough of a window to have an impact.  His versatility makes him an inning-eater/long relief guy.  But he’s right handed, so, you know.  Fuck ‘im.

That may be how it ends; with Durbin not getting a deal because Romero got one for being a LOOGY.  Somewhere in his off season, meat-flavored hideaway, Joe Blanton patiently awaits the conclusion of Carl Pavano’s thing, to see where he may indeed land.  And then, only then, after the money’s been moved and the uniforms shifted, will we see if our old pal Chad will come back to us.

I can’t really blame him for not wanting to gamble his playing time on whether or not Ryan Madson decides to stage a one-man assault on the clubhouse furniture again.

Or hell, we could just lean even harder on Danys Baez!

"“I feel like [Danys] Baez is strictly a one inning guy.”–Charlie Manuel"

I feel like Danys Baez is a ‘one inning, seven earned runs, picks-up-the-loss’ guy.