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Bill Conlin: For Phillies, Werth is worth keeping

JAYSON WERTH has made a strange trip through the 2010 regular season. A normal baseball season for most major league players is a succession of peaks and valleys, hot streaks and slumps.

Jayson Werth has been a key part of the Phillies' run to another NL East title. (Yong Kim/Staff Photographer)
Jayson Werth has been a key part of the Phillies' run to another NL East title. (Yong Kim/Staff Photographer)Read more

JAYSON WERTH has made a strange trip through the 2010 regular season. A normal baseball season for most major league players is a succession of peaks and valleys, hot streaks and slumps.

But the Phillies rightfielder has bookended a dramatic start, where it appeared he would blow away the all-time record for doubles, with a dynamic finish. In between?

Not so much . . .

His April was a shock in itself. During spring training, Werth's at-bats resembled a guy warming up for the Phillies' midwinter Clearwater fantasy camp. His swing resembled the drunk-hanging-onto-a-lamppost form that bedeviled Pat Burrell when his chronic ankle problem made it difficult to keep his weight back. The result was a lunging genuflection.

"Werth's way out of sync," Charlie Manuel said toward the end of spring training. "He's got to get it right pretty soon."

Of course, the talk began in early March that his free agency in the fall would see him pursuing a Jason Bay contract - long and heavy. The Mets gave Bay 4 years for $66 million with a $17 million 2014 vesting option. Bay gave them six homers and 47 RBI before an injury ended his season, but that's another story.

Whatever, when the bell rang, the Phils' angular 6-5 powerhouse had banished all his batting demons. The plate discipline that permits him to see more pitches per AB than any other big-league player was back. He fired 22 doubles and nine homers in April and May, batting .295. His OPS was .950.

Then his season slid into a strange valley where he continued to hit for good average - .286 in June, .305 in July - but stopped hitting with runners in scoring position. In July and August, Werth drove in just 16 runs, hit only five homers and had reverted to his March genuflections. It should be pointed out that the Phillies' injury crisis peaked during those months. The injuries to Jimmy Rollins, Chase Utley and Ryan Howard left Werth an island in the stream. He did not see a lot of fastballs middle-in.

The April version of Werth showed up Sept. 1 and was an even more potent version.

As the Walloping Wolfman dismantled the Nationals in Monday night's clincher, turning Roy Halladay's 21st victory into a laugher, I asked myself once again: "Can the Phillies really afford to let this integral part of their run, their only certified righthanded slugger, walk away hand-in-hand with uberagent Scott Boras?"

It has been assumed from Day 1 that Domonic Brown will slide seamlessly into rightfield next season. But wait . . . Has the tall, lean running machine looked anywhere ready to assume such a heightened role for this veteran team? He did not hit lefthanders and a quarter of what should have been a complete Triple A season saw him on the bench here after the injured warriors came back. Despite his howitzer arm, Brown's defense remains a work in progress.

Dom will play winter ball in the Dominican Republic. That will be an eye-opening experience for the kid. The Dominican Winter League is not a development league. Managers are paid to win and the owners expect no less. The games are a carnival din of merengue music, trumpet riffs, conga drums and a half-dozen scantily clad beauties in team colors dancing on the dugout roofs.

Dom Brown could probably use 200 or so additional Triple A at-bats. With Werth gone, Manuel probably would opt for a platoon of Brown and Ben Francisco or John Mayberry Jr. in right. Does that sound like the kind of protection Ryan Howard needs? Ben batted .253 with four homers and 22 RBI in 162 ABs, Brown .211 in just 57 ABs. Mayberry is still breaking-ball challenged.

Skilled as he is at thumping GMs with an array of numbers proving his clients are the greatest thing since J.D. Drew, Boras will have a hard time getting anybody to bite on a bigger contract than Bay's deal. Werth is 31. A 4-year deal takes him to the back end of his career.

Jamie Moyer is off the books next season. That's $6.5 million. Raul Ibanez is off in 2012, $11.5 million more. Could Dave Montgomery find $11.5 million more to pay Werth next season (plus the $6.5 million saved on Moyer)? Then in 2012, he'll have the full $18 million to play with. With the rest of the nucleus locked up - the Phils hold an $8.5 million option on Rollins next season and he'll be looking for an extension this winter - at least the Teflonics can look at a measure of payroll certainty. Not to mention the certainty of another sold-out season.

Watching Jayson Werth pound prodigious homers this month, it is a Phillies question that absolutely must be asked:

Can they afford to let this five-tool, All-Star outfielder walk out of that No. 5 hole?

Time for some creative, out-of-the-box thinking.

Maybe something on the order of moving Cliff Lee, J.A.Happ, Kyle Drabek, Travis D'Arnaud, Michael Taylor, Anthony Gose and Jonathan Vilar.

And winding up with Roy Halladay, Roy Oswalt, a champagne hangover and three minor leaguers whose names I seem to have forgotten.

Send e-mail to bill1chair@aol.com.

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http://go.philly.com/conlin.