PhoulBallz.com

In recent seasons, the Phillies have parted ways with a considerable collection of well-regarded prospects in efforts to acquire established big league players. As time passes, those young players get closer to contributing for their new organization at the highest level and some are already doing so. As this year's trade deadline approaches, here’s a glance at how many of those former Phils’ farm hands have performed throughout the pros thus far in 2012. Jonathan Singleton , 1B, traded to Houston in the 2011 Hunter Pence deal- In 82 games with the Double-A Corpus Christi Hooks, the 20-year-old has posted a .271 batting average with 18 doubles, 3 triples, 12 HR and 49 RBI. Jarred Cosart , RHP, also dealt in the Pence trade- In 13 starts for Corpus Christi, the righty hurler is sporting a 4-5 record with a 3.91 ERA and a .273 batting average against. Cosart, 22, made 1 start for Triple-A Oklahoma City in May, allowing 4 earned runs in 6 innings of work. Overall in 79 2/3 innin...

Links for today from around my bloggerhood... Amanda talks about Ruben Amaro's top 10 moves as Phillies GM, over on PhilliesNation . Late Night with Jimmy Fallon's got a good blog. Here they review funny names in the sport of baseball. Minor league media head Mike Ashmore covered two double headers yesterday in NJ. Read his live blog from the quadruple header right here . Not sure if it's streaming all day, but PhoulBallz.com is fully in the mix on Slugtrail Radio's podcast that was recorded last night. If you like prank calls, random discussion and sports talk...check that out here . SI has a photo list of most recent MLB no hitters by team. Check that out here . Lakewood coach Bob Milacki was part of the Orioles' most recent no-no. David Murphy's got some quotes from Jason Donald on being traded. The Indians' triple A team, the Columbus Clippers, are visiting Lehigh's Coca Cola Park, so the trio of Donald, Lou Marson and Carlos Carrasco had a fast in...

The Phillies and Indians have reportedly agreed on a deal which would send Jason Donald, Carlos Carrasco, Jason Knapp and Lou Marson to Cleveland for Cliff Lee and Ben Francisco. FOX Sports' Ken Rosenthal reports on the agreement here .

Some pictures from Saturday. Red Phanatic was out at the on-deck series. Vendors are wearing new shirts with Phils phont this season. The Jasons...Ellison greets Donald after his homerun. *************************************** More... Colbert making his way in from the bullpen with Ruiz and Dubee. Utley awaiting a Ruiz warm up throw.

So, if you missed it last time , the initials on his cap stand for The Bat. He's back. He brought his new team along for a visit. Our Phillies beat them (again) tonight, on a Jason Donald walk-off hit, 3-2. The Bat's new team will play at Citizens Bank Park again tomorrow also. Then, on Sunday, it will be on, for real, as the champions of THE WORLD defend their title! The Metropolitans signed Gary Sheffield. I didn't think he'd be fit well with the Phils. Although, he surely would have plenty to play for and prove, after being released this week. The Phillies will open the season with three lefty relievers. "Jay" Happ and new acquisition Jack Taschner have made the opening day roster. Scott Eyre is, of course, the third left hander. Sorry, Koplove and Majewski...your spring ERA's (0.96 and 2.56 respectively) apparently weren't good enough. Macho Row has the full agenda for the opening night schedule, minute by minute. We'll see you all on Saturday...

A few big news stories in World Championsville today. The first is that Chase Utley will undergo surgery next week on his injured hip. This surgery could take as long as 6 months to recover from. The right hip had troubled "ChUtley" for a good portion of the 2008 season. If Utley misses the start of the 2009 season, this could be a window of opportunity for Jason Donald, or this could fully seal the deal on a return to Philadelphia for Tadahito Iguchi. The second story is phormer phirst round drapht pick Greg Golson was traded to Texas for another first round pick John Mayberry. Mayberry, a 24 year old righty slugger, has already been assigned to triple-A Lehigh Valley, and was added to the Phillies' 40 man roster. The loss of Golson should not be a subject to worry about. Last offseason I was stunned to learn that another top draft pick named Mike Costanzo was sent away, and look how that turned out (Eh-hem, BRAD LIDGE). The Phillies were simply at a point where ...

Albert Pujols won his second National League Most Valuable Player award on Monday. Pujols was the only NL player to appear on every submitted ballot. That's right, pholks. There were writers who did not even place as low as a 10th place vote toward the guy who led the majors in homeruns and RBI. Psst, that's Ryan Howard with 48 homers and 146 RBI, if you don't know who I was speaking of. This breaks the Phillies' streak of two consecutive MVP's. Howard won in 2006 and Jimmy Rollins won in 2007. Brad Lidge was the only NL player to receive a first place MVP vote, besides Pujols and Howard. Lidge finished 8th overall in the voting for the MVP honor. He also finished 4th in the Cy Young Award voting. Luckily, the World Champs are only coming up short when it comes to individual awards. Charlie Manuel finished second in NL manager of the year voting as well. Lou Pinella of the Cubs won that award. Side note...With Jimmy Rollins and Chase Utley blocking the way...

Philadelphia Magazine published an article this week all about our Phantom Phive...the ownership group of the Phillies. The author, Richard Rys, even compared the ownership group's popularity in Philadelphia to that of Mumia Abu-Jamal at a police function. He also claimed that the famous ball field saying, "play ball", has been replaced in the front office with "play it safe." Comedic zings and punchlines aside, while stories like this are a good read, all they do is put me in a Phoul mood. With the Flyers' loss in the 2008 playoffs, Philadelphia has just completed its 100th consecutive major pro sports season (counting the big 4 teams) without winning a championship. Yes, 25 years times 4 teams= one hundred seasons without a championship . Quotes from the face of the Phillies ownership group, Dave Montgomery, like, "I just believe the organization needs an image that’s not directly tied to wins and losses", completely makes me want to violate that...