Hey! A photo of Jacoby Ellsbury healthy! How much is this worth? Mandatory Credit: Kim Klement-US PRESSWIRE

Cliff Lee for Jacoby Ellsbury. Yeah, I’m not holding my breath either.

A story by Ben Shapiro for Masslive.com (“powered by” The Republican,” a Springfield, MA newspaper) speculates the Red Sox may be “keeping an eye” on the Phillies next week at the Winter Meetings.

It’s not because he thinks Red Sox brass is concerned the Phillies are too young to use the oven by themselves, or that they might have a house party while the parents are away.

Shapiro speculates that, if the Phils find the asking price of the remaining free agent center fielders to be too high, perhaps they’d be interested in trading for Boston’s Jacoby Ellsbury.

Two years ago, Ellsbury was an 8 WAR player for the Sox. He finished second in the AL MVP voting to Justin Verlander, hitting .321/.376/.552 for an OPS of .928, an OPS+ of 146, with 32 HRs, and 46 doubles, also leading the league in total bases with 364.

Ellsbury is also just a few seasons removed from stealing a league-leading 70 bases, and also has a Gold Glove in his resume, for whatever that’s worth.

There’s are the pros.

Last year, however, Ellsbury played in only 74 games, missing the first half of the season with a separated shoulder. His OPS dropped to .682 and he hit just four home runs and 18 doubles in 323 plate appearances. In 2010, Ellsbury missed even more time, playing in just 18 games.

So yeah, durability has not been his strong suit the last few years.

But here’s where Shapiro’s article got a little hilarious.

Of course, there’s the little issue of who the Red Sox could get in return for Ellsbury.

While Philadelphia’s rotation is stocked with big names, the Phillies also have some younger pitcher, including Kyle Kendrick and Vance Worley. Philadelphia probably would not part with those two inexpensive and young pitchers.

Maybe I’m nuts, but the idea that the Phillies would rule out trading Vance Worley or KYLE KENDRICK?!?! to anyone, is ridiculous on its face.

Kyle Kendrick is set to make $5 million as a number five starter this year. And despite the increase in his K-rate last year, Kendrick would absolutely be made available in the right deal. Even Worley, who will probably make around a million dollars in 2013 after arbitration, would be moved if the deal is right.

It’s hilarious these two pitchers were dismissed out of hand because of reluctance on the part of the Phillies. If anything, Boston would be the ones laughing through the phone at the thought of Worley or Kendrick being the centerpiece in any trade for Jacoby Ellsbury.

So, who does Shapiro think the trade target should be?

They might part with Cliff Lee, though.

Lee was placed on waivers last August. Philadelphia pulled him back and he was never traded, but the fact they were willing to place him on waivers means they might be willing to trade him, for the right offer.

Is Lee overpriced? For all practical purposes, yes.

Even if you think last year was merely an off one for Lee and not a sign of things to come, he is still owed about $100 million for the next four seasons. Of course, if Zack Greinke who has had one season in his career in which he finished with an earned run average under 3.00 is going to get a contract worth more than $100 million on the current free agent market, then Lee is only marginally overpriced.

Cliff Lee did NOT have a bad season in 2012. Mandatory Credit: Brad Mills-US PRESSWIRE

First of all, Lee did not have an off year for the Phillies, unless you’re going by the oh-so-modern metric of win totals. His ERA of 3.16 was higher than his 2012 ERA of 2.40, but well below his career ERA of 3.59. He led the league in SO/BB at 7.39 and also walked a league-low 1.2 batters per nine innings, all while striking out 207 batters in 211 innings.

Yes, he had a problem with the longball and struggled for a stretch in the middle of the season, but Lee’s overall numbers suggest that anyone who thinks they’re buying low on him is gravely mistaken.

It’s difficult to imagine the Phils trading Clifton Phifer for a player who has missed most of two of the last three seasons due to injury.

And someone who only has one year left on his contract.

And is on the verge of a potentially big payday.

On the other hand, if the Phillies are considering Ellsbury, perhaps now is the best time to buy, while his value is lowest. If the Phillies reasonably believe that Jacoby is healthy and capable of being the player he was in 2011, and they’re reasonably sure they could sign him to a contract extension, or re-sign him once he becomes a free agent after next year, then perhaps Amaro might be motivated to get the ball rolling.

Ellsbury will enter the 2013 season at 29 years old, younger than Bourn, Hamilton, Pagan and Victorino. He has a better combination of power, youth and speed than any remaining free agent. But he’s also a left-handed hitter, which isn’t ideal with the Phils’ lefty-heavy lineup.

He also made just over $8 million last year, and will probably get a slight bump up this year in arbitration, even though he missed half of last season. Figure around $10-11 million for 2012.

Basically, it’s really hard seeing a way these two teams could swing a deal. Even though the Phillies would be buying low, they’d still have to give up valuable prospects and/or big league players for a guy who they’re only guaranteed to have for one year. And it’s hard to imagine the Phils aggressively pursuing a contract extension with Ellsbury, given his recent medical history, before the season begins.

If the Phillies are going to pursue the trade market for an outfielder, a trade for Justin Upton (however unlikely) would make more sense than Ellsbury. So don’t expect anything to happen with the Red Sox and Phillies concerning the young Boston center fielder next week.

Still, as has been mentioned over and over and over again over the last few weeks, “Ruben Amaro likes to make a big splash.”

I mean, after all, he’s due, right?

The Yankees didn’t get much production from the most expensive roster in baseball. Mandatory Credit: William Perlman/THE STAR-LEDGER via US PRESSWIRE

They say a fool and his money are soon parted. Unfortunately for some of baseball’s highest priced teams, that’s becoming more evident with each passing day.With New York’s epic fail against the Detroit Tigers in the ALCS completed last night thanks to Detroit’s series-sweeping 8-1 victory, the Yanks are out of the playoffs.

The team with the highest payroll in the game ($198 million in 2012), now joins the Phillies ($174 million), Red Sox ($173 million), and Angels ($154 million), as the four richest teams in baseball all watching the World Series from their living rooms next week (payroll numbers courtesy of USA Today).

The Tigers, who have the fifth highest payroll in baseball at $132 million, certainly aren’t the Oliver Twist of the playoffs. They’re a big spending team that has managed to navigate the postseason and now has a chance for their first world title since 1984.

But for most of the season, Detroit was a disappointment. It took a furious late-season rally for the Tigers to overtake the White Sox and win the AL Central, winning only 88 games in the regular season. Six teams in the American League won more games than Detroit in 2012.

But the playoffs are about luck, timing, and even more luck. The Tigers’ starting rotation is led by the best pitcher in the game and some young arms that are throwing their best right now. They were also fortunate enough to run into a Yankees team that completely forgot how to hit a baseball.

So it’s not like the Tigers were a runaway freight train all season that used their cash to make themselves a dominant American League power. Yet, here they are, in the World Series.

Good for them.

However, the trend in Major League Baseball this year certainly seemed to be the teams with smaller payrolls having their day. The Washington Nationals ($81 million), Baltimore Orioles ($81 million), Cincinnati Reds ($82 million), and Atlanta Braves ($83 million) all made the playoffs with payrolls under $100 million.

And while the two teams playing in the NLCS, the Cardinals ($110 million) and the Giants ($117 million), both have hefty salary commitments, they still rank just eighth and ninth among all Major League teams.

Why? Cheap, home-grown players and smart free agent acquisitions.

The Cardinals decided last offseason not to mortgage their future and re-sign Albert Pujols to a mega-contract. Instead, they went with Allen Craig at first base.

Craig earned $495,000 and the earliest he can become a free agent is after the 2017 season. Craig hit .307/.354/.522 with 22 HRs, 97 RBI and 35 doubles this year.

Pujols earned $12 million this year for the Angels, but at 32 years old, is still owed $228 million over the next nine years. The Angels will pay him $30 million in 2021, when he is 41 years old. This year, Pujols hit .285/.343/.516 with 30 HRs, 105 RBIs and 50 doubles.

Anyone with a working brainstem can see that Craig is the better value in this deal.

St. Louis resisted the urge to spend huge money on their signature franchise player, and were rewarded when their cheaper, younger option produced at about 75-80% of what Pujols did.

The Phillies, to their credit, have tried to make decisions like this recently. When Jayson Werth became a free agent, the Phillies could have outbid the market to keep their slugging right-fielder. Instead they chose to let Werth sign a ridiculous contract with the Washington Nationals, and planned to turn the job over to their young superstar-in-waiting, Domonic Brown.

Unfortunately for the Phillies, Brown did not produce in the way that Craig did for St. Louis this year. That necessitated a trade with Houston that landed the Phillies Hunter Pence.

Ryan Howard’s contract is one that continues to hamper the Phils. Mandatory Credit: Steve Mitchell-US PRESSWIRE

The Phils were chasing a World Series led by the rotation of a generation, the Phour Aces. They felt they had to spend more money to get Pence and give up promising young minor leaguers Jonathan Singleton and Jarred Cosart in order to put themselves in the best position to win a World Series.Cosart and Singleton are now among the top prospects in the game, and appear to have promising big league careers ahead of them.

Pence is now a Giant. And, if you hooked Ruben Amaro up to a lie detector test, I think he’d tell you he’d probably not do the Pence deal again.

The Phillies sacrificed cheap, young talent (albeit unproven) for a veteran player who cost more. All because they were seduced with winning another World Series.

Which is what makes the Cardinals’ restraint last year so unusual. After winning the World Series they made the smart baseball move, and now it appears as if they will be rewarded, just one win away from their second straight World Series appearance.

The problem with chasing a World Series in the way the Yankees, Phillies, Red Sox and Angels have done, is that a franchise and fanbase can lose focus and allow themselves to make massive salary commitments to players who are usually older and on the decline.

Young players don’t cost anything. They’re cheap because they haven’t accrued enough service time to trigger free agency. And, they’re still on the way up.

Most free agents hit the market in their early 30s. Sometimes, like Cole Hamels, a quality free agent hits the market in their mid-to-late 20s, and in those cases, the expenditure is sometimes a wise course of action. But most are older players. And, most free agents are paid more than they’re actually worth, because there is a market that dictates those salaries.

The two things the Yankees, Red Sox and Phillies all had coming into the season were sky-high payrolls and older rosters. All three teams eventually failed (although New York was good enough to make the playoffs and actually win a playoff series, which is no small feat) because they were too old and injury prone.

The Red Sox spent much of the second half of 2012 excising their mistakes from the roster in an attempt to get younger, more athletic, and financially flexible. Both the Yankees and the Phillies have said they want to do the same thing.

What baseball in 2012 taught everyone is that having the most money doesn’t guarantee success. Outbidding everyone for the highest priced free agent doesn’t necessarily equal wins and championships.

And with the addition of a second wild card team, it’s easier than ever to make the playoffs (although granted, it’s still pretty hard). Gone are the days where making it through a 162 game schedule and finishing in first place meant a 50/50 shot at getting to the World Series.

Baseball is a game of balance. A balanced roster gives a team the best chance for success.

The Phillies proved in 2011 that having four of the highest priced starting pitchers doesn’t mean anything if you don’t have an offense or bullpen that can support it.

The Yankees in 2012 proved that high-priced, aging veterans can falter just as easily as cheaper players.

And the Red Sox this year proved that assembling a roster full of high-priced talent doesn’t always mean they’re going to work well and play well together.

Money is a great advantage. But a productive farm system is even more valuable. The Tampa Bay Rays and Oakland A’s have shown that smart teams with baseball sense and an attention to the right metrics can be just as successful as the mega-powers.

Money is wonderful, but money poorly spent renders that advantage useless.

For the Phillies, their payroll of $174 million is more than enough to win a championship and gives them a huge advantage over every other team in the National League East.

But that money must be spent wisely, and it must be spent in a balanced way.

Money itself cannot help a stupid team win a championship. A smart team uses their money wisely and gives themselves the best chance to succeed.

All that being said, even if a team does everything perfectly, there is no guarantee a World Series parade will come to town. And a team must get lucky enough that their younger players will produce when called upon.

Still, as the Tigers await the winner of the Giants-Cardinals NLCS, the teams with the four highest payrolls will sit at home and watch.

It’s a trend that seems to be happening more and more with each passing year.

Poor Joe. Mandatory Credit: Kim Klement-US PRESSWIRE

Has anyone who reads this website ever drank beer at work?  Honestly I really do not understand this type of behavior due mostly to the fact that I don’t drink.  If it was really that important to drink a beer wouldn’t it be possible to consume the beverage directly after the game, or is there something intrinsically interesting about getting drunk at the place where you are not supposed to get drunk?  Apparently it was frowned on enough to get a manager fired and have a general manager sent to a nei-impossible situation.  Jon Lester admitted to drinking in the clubhouse and new manager Bobby Valentine stated that this type of behavior would not be tolerated.

If Lester pitches like he did today, he can probably smoke crack in the clubhouse and management will look the other way.  Lester gave up two hits over seven innings while striking out ten.  It used to be that a tough left handed pitcher could neutralize the left handed contingent of the Philadelphia line-up.  Every starter for the Phillies today was either a switch hitter or right handed.  This strategy did not work.

Joe Blanton looks like a guy who would enjoy some fried chicken and beer.  He was even rumored to be on his way to the Red Sox before last season for extra outfielder Mike Cameron.  If there was any sort of interest from the Red Sox it probably waned after five innings, five runs and two home runs.  He managed to strike out five, but was consistently up in the zone and the Sox took advantage.  Maybe Joe needed to work on watching people smash the shit out of his pitches; mission accomplished.

I will hate Cody Ross for the rest of my days and looking at Dustin Pedroia makes me miss Chase Utley even more because he is bald and ugly.

Day off tomorrow, Minnesota on Wednesday.