The Phillies need another bat, if they want to go on a run. Their offense is not nearly good enough to be a playoff team, and Raul Ibanez makes sense for them.
Delmon Young is hitting .291 off of left handed pitchers, and that’s great. Ibanez is only hitting .262 off of left handed pitchers. Ibanez has 16 home runs off of right handed pitchers, and that’s 12 more than Delmon has against righties, so there is an obvious reason for a platoon situation. Raul Ibanez is not great at defense, but compared to Delmon, he is a gold glover! Young’s WAR is -0.3, that means that he is negatively affecting the Phillies! He is causing the Phillies to lose more games than he is helping them win. While Young’s WAR is -0.3, Ibanez’s is 0.9. That means that he is positively affecting the Mariners, and is helping them win games. While I like the platooning situation, there is another way that this could work. The Phillies could have Raul play left field, and move Dom Brown to center. Dom is playing well in left field though, so I am not a huge fan of that idea, but Charlie Manuel might be.
The Mariners are currently 11 games out of the AL West, so they should be open to trading Ibanez. The Phillies would be taking a chance here, if they get him, but we all take chances everyday! We all walk outside everyday, with the risk of getting hit by a car, getting shot, getting attacked by an animal etc. If that happens, we die. That’s it. The Phillies would be taking their chance with Raul Ibanez, if he doesn’t work, then they have made a bad deal, it happens. You never know until you try!
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