Meet your new Phillies, same as the old Phillies?
Maybe the Mayans were wrong. Or maybe they were Phillies fans. Because right now, it is looking like Dec. 21, 2012 will go down in history as the last day any realist could consider them a sure-fire World Series contender.
Meet your new Phillies, same as the old Phillies?
David Murphy, Daily News Staff Writer
By DAVID MURPHY
Maybe the Mayans were wrong. Or maybe they were Phillies fans. Because right now, it is looking like Dec. 21, 2012 will go down in history as the last day any realist could consider them a sure-fire World Series contender. That was the day that the last of the everyday outfielders vanished from the free agent market, as Nick Swisher went from the Yankees to the Indians on a four-year, $56 million contract.
Maybe something changes in between now and the start of spring training. Maybe Ruben Amaro Jr. finds a way to swing a trade that will address one of the glaring needs that still exists on his roster at the midway point of the offseason. But the odds of that are long. The Phillies have already parted with two of their top trade chips in Vance Worley and Trevor May, and they did not exactly have a large stack to begin with. The trades that were supposed to make them contenders were made long before this offseason. The prospects that other teams covet are already gone. Anthony Gose, Jonathan Singleton, Jarred Cosart, Domingo Santana -- those are the types of players who end up being dealt for the Justin Uptons of the world. But the Phillies dealt them for two full seasons and two half seasons of Roy Oswalt and Hunter Pence.
Now, after choosing to sit out a wildly expensive and under talented free agent position player market, Amaro and Co. find themselves with a personnel structure that looks remarkable similar to the way it did on Opening Day last season. Go position by position and ask yourself: are the Phillies in any better position to contend than they were one year ago today?
The trend of replacing departing players with lesser parts appears to have continued with Ben Revere stepping in for Shane Victorino and John Lannan stepping in for Vance Worley and some combination of Domonic Brown and a right-handed-bat-to-be-named-later stepping in for Hunter Pence, who previously stepped in for Jayson Werth. Revere is younger than Victorino and has more potential, but you can not ignore the fact that Victorino finished the 2012 season, the worst as a big league regular, with an OPS 29 points higher than Revere. Much the same can be said for the situation in right field. And at the bottom of the rotation, the Phillies have managed to get older AND less talented.
The optimistic view is that, one year ago, Ryan Howard was still working his way back from surgery to repair a ruptured Achilles tendon. This year, though, he is working his way back from a season in which he hit just .219 with a .295 on base percentage, .423 slugging percentage and 11 home runs in 292 plate appearances. And a broken toe.
The Phillies are optimistic that, this year, Chase Utley will be healthy for a the whole season. Last year, though, they were saying the same thing.
Even if you do count the outlooks for Howard and Utley as improvements over last year at this time, you also must count the outlook for Roy Halladay as the opposite. The veteran ace will be 36 years old, and he will be coming off a season in which his velocity and command dipped, his ERA ballooned, and his shoulder was afflicted by a condition that was not addressed via offseason surgery.
That’s not to say that Halladay will not return to the form he displayed in 2010 and 2011, going 40-16 with a 2.40 ERA in 484 1/3 innings. Nor is it to say that Howard won’t return to the form he displayed in 2011, or that Utley won’t miss the first two months of the season for the first time since 2010, or that Brown won’t fulfill the potential that earned him recognition as one of the top prospects in the game in 2010, or that Darin Ruf won’t continue hitting home runs at a Ruthian pace, or that newly-acquired veteran Michael Young won’t bounce back from an abysmal 2011 while also proving he can handle the defensive responsibilities of an everyday third baseman, or that Lannan and Kyle Kendrick will prove to be just as adequate as Worley and Joe Blanton were at the start of last season.
But that does say that the Phillies are essentially in the same position they were last year, the outcome of their season predicated on a slew of breaks in their direction even before the inevitable regular season injuries had a chance to mount. The variables may have been different -- John Mayberry Jr., Laynce Nix, Worley, Placido Polanco -- but the questions were very much the same. If healthy, Mike Adams should be a huge improvement over the committee that manned the eighth inning last season. But he is also an aging reliever coming off surgery (although, admittedly, not as aging as Jose Contreras was at this time last year).
The potential is probably greater than it was last season. And there is a certain amount of excitement that comes with watching a trio of under-30 players like Ruf, Brown and Revere attempt to establish themselves as legitimate pieces of a franchise’s future. Then again, this is a franchise that will have a payroll eclipsing $170 million. This is a franchise that has a lot of financial and emotional capital invested in perennial World Series contention. And while 2013 could prove to be the start of a new chapter in Phillies baseball, the roster as it stands right now does not preclude the chance of it being the expensive end of an old one.
Rube squandered away young prospects that are the lifeblood of a team --even if all the players do not fully develop, some of them do and they become the players to replace aging declining pieces and/or to trade for other quality pieces that you're missing --blowing your top prospects to compensate for not getting the starter and outfielder you need in the off-season, and only getting 1/2 good year of Oswalt who was then awful in post-season and in 2011, and then he's gone, or for 1 year of Pence and then to give him for useless trash, is how an imbecile turned a once-talented team into trash— warbiscuit- Schoenfield of espn ranks Phils 15th out of 30 teams: "want to say we're all underestimating ... but then I see an outfield of Darin Ruf, Ben Revere and Domonic Brown, and an infield defense that includes Michael Young and Ryan Howard and 30-somethings Jimmy Rollins and Chase Utley"... what Rube improvements? where did the savings from salary dumps of Pence, Victorino and Blanton go?— warbiscuit
- rube deserves "credit" for taking a defending champion team, with a talented minor league system, and turning it into a 3rd place mediocre team with one of the worst minor lague system in the majors --all while having one of highest budgets in baseball and never having any post-season success— warbiscuit
- drhoffman - the only change I would make to your post is that the factors you noted point to more than 10 more wins. I don't know how the other guys can look at the same info we do and come to their doom and gloom conclusions - guess they see what they want to see. The changes made so far (!) have only made each position better. The bullpen is going to be one of the strongest areas on the 2013 Phillies.— dwp66
- Guys....they don't have to return to their career years of '07, '08 or '09 for them to win it all again this year. They also don't have to have 4 guys slugging 40 HRs either. They need the pitchers to pitch, the hitters to hit and the defense to catch most things....this team should be quite a bit better in their approach in the batter's box this year, more healthy, and not buried back in the middle of the pack right out of the gate.....if and I mean IF there is a glaring need come the trading deadline, Amaro will find a way to get the piece we need.....I agree with dwp here, why is Murph so gloomy? Did he lose the office pool on FA signings or what?— Mark1npt
5 tool players in MLB that I know of …
Mike Trout
Ryan Braun
Carlos Gonzales
Andrew McCutchen
Last I checked, none of them were available this year.
It would be nice if we could field a lineup without any question marks. Basically we are looking for players that have ALL these assets … Youth, Speed, Power, Glove, Arm, BA, RISP, Pitch Selection, Gutsy, Veteran (yet young), Durable (guaranteed not to get hurt), Cheap (preferably under team control), … oh, and we don’t want to give up anything to get these guys.
Pretty sure the front office failed miserably in their attempt to get anybody that fits the description. Guess we’ll have to muddle thru with the handful of all stars(9) and cy young award winners(2) we have. Sigh.
— zubzub- Agreed! I'm not like some people in here that are afraid to see reality. I am a realist and what's real too me is, if you don't get better, you got worse! The players replacing players of last year are not really better PLUS Amaro depleted the Farm even more in doing this.— twpman
- Agreed! I'm not like some people in here that are afraid to see reality. I am a realist and what's real too me is, if you don't get better, you got worse! The players replacing players of last year are not really better PLUS Amaro depleted the Farm even more in doing this.— twpman
- Murph has returned to form with this dead-on analysis of the Phis and their anemic attempt this offseason to address their problems AND make up an almost 20-game gap between the further-improve Nats and themselves. Of course, I know there are two Wild Cards to be had and they don't necessarily need to beat out the Nats for the right to play in October but is this not d*mning Amaro with feint praise? Has the new bar been set so low by his mismanagement and incompetency that his defenders will point this out to me, that winning the division no longer needs to be the goal here?
He has ruined a very proud franchise and is so much closer to contending for also-ran status than he is to winning it all that his firing should be as sure a thing as his incompetent neighbor across the street, Andy Reid.
Amaro must go!!!!— advantasux - If you sign a half-decent outfielder or starter in off-season, it's a lot cheaper and better for building a team than giving away 3 or 4 top prospects at the trade deadline to fill the same need that you failed to address in the off-season (see, e.g., franchise-destroying trades for 1/2 yr of decent Oswalt, 1/2 yr of decent Pence, etc)...Rube lucked out in 2009 when he traded for Lee and thinks that he invented a new way of being g.m. -- keep trading your best prospects to get players --no, it doesn't work, you deplete all your talent and are left with an aging talentless roster and a lot of mediocre garbage left in the farm system— warbiscuit
- If you sign a half-decent outfielder or starter in off-season, it's a lot cheaper and better for building a team than giving away 3 or 4 top prospects at the trade deadline to fill the same need that you failed to address in the off-season (see, e.g., franchise-destroying trades for 1/2 yr of decent Oswalt, 1/2 yr of decent Pence, etc)...Rube lucked out in 2009 when he traded for Lee and thinks that he invented a new way of being g.m. -- keep trading your best prospects to get players --no, it doesn't work, you deplete all your talent and are left with an aging talentless roster and a lot of mediocre garbage left in the farm system— warbiscuit
- 1. regarding Young --most national commentators believe he's washed up offensively and pretty bad defensively even years ago,
2. Revere --better than Victorino? say who? hard to win when teams can routinely take an extra base or run home on any fly ball with impunity... and how does he make up for Pence's lost production as well?
3. Halladay looked washed up at the end of 2012...
4. Kendrick- is he suddenly a "good" pitcher based on a nice stretch after the trade deadline when the pressure was off -- unlikley
5. Rube refused to pick up either another outfielder at relative low cost (Ross at $8.67mil/yr for 20 hrs qualifies as low cost in my book) or a game changer like Hamilton... the salary dumps of Pence, Victorino and Blanton were apparently just to pay Hamels and brought back nothing on value in return..
team needed a few intelligent tweaks to be back in the hunt, and Rube did not make those tweaks.. wishful thinking is a poor substitute for intelligent planning— warbiscuit - @zub....you are dead on.....none of those 5 tool players were available to us this winter, either as FA's or via trade....but still, people think we should have been able to go out and get one or two! Secondly, EVERY team has holes. Nobody is exempt. A sure thing doesn't exist. Yet that's what everyone expects Amaro to produce, a 'sure thing'. As others have said here, the games have to be played. There are injuries to be had on every team. Players young and old alike break down. Some players underperform their stats on the back of their baseball cards and some players have career years that nobody saw coming, like Chooch last year. For anybody to sit here and say the Phils stink is just plain stupid. Those sure aren't 'fans' IMO. And while I agree with bisuqit on a few items/player signings in years past, I'm getting pretty sick and tired of reading the same drivel from him everyday at the end of every article. His drivel is so annoying, it's actually become abusive in my eyes. Kinda like the real 'Lonewolf' used to be........hmmmm, come to think of it since Lonewolf's been banned we've had way too much bisquit. Coincidence? I think not........— Mark1npt
- to all you charlie manuel haters, if he was such a nightmare of a mananger, don't you think competitive players like utley and halladay would have complained about the need for new management? i seriously can not recall one phillies player complaining about how the team was managed. i don't love manuel and definitely disagree with some moves, but that said, i also see the big picture in some of the moves or non moves.— high water
- His MO is deferring to veteran players in every situation. Of course they love it. Rather than exercising the discretion of taking Halladay out in a close game with a high pitch count, Manuel lets him do whatever he wants. Same with Utley. Utley, Rollins, and Howard can all pretend it's 2006-08 and they are MVP candidates with Manuel at the helm. Players love that. — jtj06
