BREAKING: Phillies extend Ryan Howard!

Okay, so maybe it's not so breaking now, but thus is what happens when you decide to take a nap.

Anyways, as you can tell by the headline, the Philadelphia Phillies extended Ryan Howard! It's a 5-year/$125 million extension with both positives and negatives.

First the positives, RYAN HOWARD IS GOING TO BE A PHILLIE UNTIL AT LEAST 2017 UNLESS SOMETHING HAPPENS AND HE GETS TRADED IN 2016 SO THEY CAN GET VALUE FOR HIM!

Not to mention that he is Ryan Howard, his numbers have still been on the improving side each year, and oh yeah, he's Ryan motherfuckin' Howard, bitches. Howard has been a force since joining the Phillies and now he can only be a force for the Phillies and never a force against the Phillies. Yes folks, that's a good thing. Being on the other side of a former player kicking the complete crud out of you sucks beyond belief. Trust me, I'm a Philly fan. Ruslan Fedotanko alone has provided me more pain than most ex-players do to their former teams in a whole lifetime.

Now I love Ryan Howard, but if you live in a fantasy world where all things Ryan Howard and Phillies are great and Ruben Amaro, Jr. is a genius who can do no wrong and extending Ryan Howard is the best thing ever, I suggest you stop reading this now because what I am about to say may not make you very happy.

There are reasons to have reservations about this.

Ryan Howard is a physical specimen, I am not concerned about how he will age in 7 years. But I am concerned about the future of the rest of the Phillies.

Will the Phillies still be able to extend Werth and Rollins? MLB is filled with power first basemen who can hit 25 to 30 HRs each year. Sure Howard is in the upper-tier of those and his defense is constantly improving, but the Werths of the league and the Rollinss of the league are much more difficult to find. While Domonic Brown is projected to be a complete beast coming out of the minors, there is no guarantee with minor league prospects. Why make Howard the priority and why do it now when there are rarer, more valuable players on this team than Ryan Howard.

Having Howard is great and I love the guy (though truth be told, I'd do that Howard for Pujols trade in a heartbeat), but the question of why now sure comes into play. He's in the middle of a slump no less and it is a random day at the start of the 2010 baseball season. Why is this happening now and not in the off-season? Wouldn't Amaro and the Phillies be better off seeing how Howard progressed at least through this season and maybe even into next season before re-signing him? I can tell you right now they would have. Now I am not saying he is the next David Ortiz, but really, Howard is not a free agent until 2012, waiting and still getting keeping your guy is not the worst move in the world.

And what happens when Jayson Werth goes? The right-handed hitting presence in the middle of the order disappears instantly. Truth be told, if the Phillies could only extend one, either Ryan Howard or Jayson Werth, the better person to extend would be Werth. A power hitting 1st baseman is replaceable, the awesome beard, defense, and right-handed hitting ability in a line-up of lefties is not. You ask about Domonic Brown again? Dom Brown is yet another leftie.

Is re-signing Howard a bad thing, you ask, after reading this? No, it is not. As much as I just touted Werth, the Phillies will get more if they let him walk than they will if they let Howard walk and outfield is the deepest part of the Phillies farm whereas our only real 1B prospect is 19 and playing in the Gulf Coast League. I just hope the Phillies know what they are doing in terms of Werth and/or Werth's replacement and/or righties in the middle of the line up and that Ryan Howard does not become Philadelphia's next Danny Briere in a few years.