Building the perfect quote for this Phillies season
This morning, Richard Justice of MLB.com put together a list of teams who could really surprise people in 2014. The Phillies, who were rewarded with three paragraphs, could in fact really surprise a lot of people. Not because they necessarily have what they need to contend, but because so many people are counting them out that any sort of success would be an immense surprise.
But as the preseason has gone one, analysts, writers, and players have done their due diligence and swung through camp with optimism, if only to bulk up column inches or fulfill a duty assigned to them by Phillies PR people. By putting together the thoughts of those willing and unwilling optimists, or even just objective witnesses, we can attempt to put together a comprehensive, genuine quote to sum up the Phillies' chances in 2014.
Richard Justice, MLB.com, 3/28:
"The Phillies are built for today. General Manager Ruben Amaro Jr. has kept his veteran core players together, hoping for one more magical run. Even his offseason acquisitions of Marlon Byrd and A.J. Burnett reflect a win-now philosophy.
Let's say Ryan Howard discovers his power and Jimmy Rollins is his old dazzling self and Cole Hamels, Cliff Lee, Chase Utley all get it going. The Phillies aren't as good as the Nationals and aren't going to finish in front of them in the NL East.
But if the old guys have another run in them, and if they somehow steal one of those NL Wild Card berths, who knows what can happen?"
"You've got to be confident and expect to win. I feel like as a group we're thinking that way. There's no other option. So that's how we've got to see it."
"The Red Sox lost 93 games and finished last in the American League East in 2012 before winning the World Series last year.
The Phillies wonder, why can't we?"
"The Phillies finished Spring Training 2008 with a 12-18 record before winning the World Series. They finished Spring Training '09 with a 13-19 mark before winning a second consecutive National League pennant.
Of course, the difference between then and now is those 2008-09 teams followed winning seasons and All-Star and MVP-caliber performances from players like Utley, Ryan Howard and Jimmy Rollins."
"I wanted to know where we're at. [General manager Ruben Amaro Jr.] laid it out for me. I wasn't uncomfortable."
"I think guys are real tired of not winning over here, from what I can hear and see. So you have a lot of guys ready to show up, ready to stay healthy the best they can and put a good team on the field every day.
"What I see is intensity out there, good times in the locker room, good preparation. Guys seem like they do a good job of preparing. In the dugout guys are pulling for each other. They expect to win."
"With runners on first and second and one out, Phillies first baseman Ryan Howard ripped left-hander J.A. Happ's first pitch to center field for a single to pull the Phils even....
Howard has shed some pounds, appears in great shape, and for the first time in well over two seasons, he is healthy. As goes Howard, so go the Phillies."
According to these statements, we can break down the three main themes of the Phillies' potential success this season thusly:
Believe in yourself
Age is just a number
Ryan Howard
Howard is the key, but he is not the only one, and therefore serves as the symbol of the Phillies' need for former elite players to return to their previous status of six or seven years ago.The other two facets, pulled directly from inspirational posters hanging in a grade school classroom and a night school classroom, cover the "confidence" mentioned by Cliff Lee and everything that stems from the Phillies' oft-cited aging core, including health.
Covers a lot of ground, but takes a little too much time, and as the Phillies have taught us, nobody's getting any younger. Right? The Phillies are old. I don't know if you've heard.
"The Phillies need a lot to go right, after a lot has already gone horribly."
Too simple. Too vague. It doesn't have to be a tweet.
"With the odds of age, health, and lack of depth against them, the 2014 Phillies will need to stand on the unstable shoulders of former heroes to climb out of a deepening hole."
Fun, but leans a bit too hard on imagery and metaphors. Might lose some of the more literal readers.
"After a litany of issues afflicting all of their old reliables, and an uninpsiring spring, most optimism for the 2014 Phillies is due to the fact that they have yet to play outside of preseason baseball's meaninglessness."
This leaves us with something rather wordy:
"Should the players emulate versions of themselves that no longer exist, the Phillies could muster adequate confidence and be not uncomfortable enough to fall into one of the two NL Wild Card spots."
...but comprehensive, taking most of the above quotes into account, and providing an honest reflection of what the Phillies aren't saying by what they're saying.