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.
- When a perennial doormat wins 98 games in a season, its a fluke until proven otherwise.
The Nats weren't taken seriously until August rolled around, at which point (to their credit) they had built a comfortable lead in the division.
In 2013 the Nats will have a target on their backs from day one. Good luck indeed.— the_anti_negadelphian - Perennial doormat? Those days when the Nats finished with the worst record in baseball are long in the past. You'd have to go back to 2009 for that. In 2010, they went from worst record to 21st. in 2011, they went from 21st to 15th with an 80-81 record. And I'll say it again: when you finish with the best record in baseball, and it's BACKED UP BY HAVING OUTSCORED OPPONENTS BY THE LARGEST MARGIN IN BASEBALL, then it's not a fluke. If you want an example of a real fluke, look at the Baltimore Orioles. They won 90 games with a nearly neutral Run Diff.
And what on Earth does having a "target on their backs" really accomplish? I'm sure the Phillies had a pretty back target on their backs after they won the division in '07. That didn't stop them from winning the division 4 more times after that. Why? Because they were a team that was very talented and young, much like the Nats are now (only the Nats have even better starting pitching now than the Phillies did in '07).
Again, doesn't mean crazy things can't happen and the Phillies can't catch the Nats. They play these games for a reason. But if I were you, I'd learn to accept the fact that the Phillies are a good but aging team on a downward trajectory with an enormous payroll and that the Nats are a very good and young team with about half the total payroll of the Phillies. You can catch us, but if you were betting the house on it, well, you'd be making an extremely risky (and stupid) wager.— phorget_about_it - I'm not saying the Nats suck, im saying that one good regular season doesn't prove much about a team. — the_anti_negadelphian
- Sir, you need a big dose of reality, as the Nationals are STOCKED...You need to watch more baseball before making silly assumptions about "flukes"...Their pitching alone, both starters and relievers, set them apart...but they also have a deep,young, nucleus with backups that could start at certain positions here. — bearsfriend
- Having the best team on paper doesn't guarantee anything. I've watched enough baseball to know that. Have you?
— the_anti_negadelphian - I've been a die-hard Phillies fan since 1974. I've also lived in the DC area since 1991, so I've seen a lot of Nationals games in their brief history. I can tell you, from watching them the past few seasons, they are NOT a fluke. This team has built itself into a solid contender, and Davey Johnson has a lot to do with it. He has instilled confidence in this team. They are a young, talented team, and will be a force in the NL for the time being. To blow off what they have done as an organization as a fluke is either a lack of baseball knowledge or simply ignorant. — Dave14
- The Nats have a solid young team, I'm not disputing that. But it will be a lot harder for them to win the division now that they're not a dark horse.
This is a ridiculous argument. The games will be played, and we'll see who is right.
— the_anti_negadelphian - The Phillies are not only lacking talent at key positions, the proved last year they lack heart.
If you watched the Phillies, from June through September, they were a team desperate for the season to end.
Things will get worse in Philly before they get better, and that's based on analysis of an aging core of players, lack of new talent from the minors and mediocre free agent pickups.— fmMD - Murph- You are by far my favorite writer, local or national but I believe you are making some stretch arguments here. First, Are John Lannan (28) and Kyle Kendrick (28) really "older" than Vance Worley (25) and Joe Blanton (32). The answer is a definitive no. Are they less talented? Perhaps but that is no slam dunk. Worley was terrible last year. Kyle AND Lanna have the two best ERA of the four pitchers in question.
On Victorino vs Revere, you sure cherry picked OPS as the stat of choice. I would go with OBP because neither should be considered a slugger, and with their speed, getting on base is more important. Even so, were the OPS that far apart to begin with? .704 (vic) vs .675 (Ben), but my argument again is that speed is what you want and all things being (relatively) equal why wouldn't youth break the tie? You yourself just made the youth argument on the back end of rotation so how come it doesn't apply here?
I don't disagree with the overall crux of your story but the detailed reasons seem to be a stretch.
Finally, you have been arguing that the Phils wasted their only two trade chips in May and Worley and while that may be true, how valuable were these chips anyway? Can it not be said that Ben was the best possible return for these chips?
Thanks for all of your hard work over the years- love the statistical analysis you provide but I definitely wanted to weigh in and perhaps get your feedback to my thoughts here.— stoner156 - They had a trade chip last year, Cole Hamels.— re6035
- They had a trade chip last year, Cole Hamels.— re6035
- re6035- are you serious re: Hamels? He is by far the best player on the team. If you disagree, who is?— stoner156
- They still have a bad lineup but can't be argued that with Utley, Howard, Young instead of Polanco, Ben instead of Vic, and anyone instead of Mayberry that they are better opening day '13 than in '12? Only downgrade is RF. Again, the bar is low but still, aren't they at least better than last year?— stoner156
- I stopped reading after the first paragraph. Anyone who thinks Nick Swisher would have made the Phillies better is an idiot.— the_anti_negadelphian
- If you put the outreagous money he got from Cleveland aside, Swisher is actually a very competent player. Not great, but he would be an upgrade over anything in that OF now, and he can switch hit. As he gets older, he can also play 1B, which could help extend his career. I'm not his biggest fan, but from 2005 through last year he has played in over 150 games each year (excpet 2005 only 130)/hit at leat 20HR's and played in the biggest baseball market in the country.
— ryanrockzzz
