Flyers try to outdo Phils on shakeup

The Flyers raised the questions. The Phillies provided the answers. Well, some of the answers.

In the churning wake of the local hockey team's week of roster upheaval, you had to wonder: When was the last time a winning team changed personality so completely? And is it possible to remain successful and even improve while executing such a dramatic conversion?

Those were the questions rattling around the cranium over the holiday weekend. Then came the announcement of the all-star rosters for Major League Baseball on Sunday.

Pitchers Roy Halladay, Cole Hamels and Cliff Lee will represent the Phillies, the team with the best record in baseball. Placido Polanco - arguably the fourth or fifth best everyday player in their lineup - was the only position player chosen.

Compare that with 2009, the year the Phillies were reigning World Series champions and Charlie Manuel was managing the National League team. The Phillies had four representatives in that game, too: Chase Utley, Ryan Howard, Raul Ibanez and Shane Victorino.

From four hitters to three pitchers and one position player in just two years. This is not just a hiccup, not merely an aberration caused by injuries or players running hotter or colder (although Utley would likely have won the voting for second basemen if he'd been healthy). The all-star selections reflect the enormous change in the personality of the Phillies, which turned out to be a canny reaction to changes in baseball itself.

The Phillies won a World Series and an NL pennant with a slugging lineup and an everchanging pitching staff. Two years later, with the pendulum swinging ever further in the direction of pitching as the key to success, they are winning with a remarkable rotation and an inconsistent lineup.

It would be like Andy Reid deciding to win with a power running game, or the Sixers with great players.

It may be that general manager Ruben Amaro Jr. got a bit lucky. The best moves available to him at key times led him to acquire Halladay, Lee (twice) and Roy Oswalt. Or maybe Amaro really saw the big picture clearly and this was all a well-designed plan. Certainly he stressed pitching last July, trading for Oswalt when most media and fans were calling for improvement to the lineup. Then Amaro continued his pitching binge by signing Lee over the winter.

Flyers GM Paul Holmgren clearly has decided to pursue an entirely different approach after the frustrations of the last few years. A franchise that stressed depth at forward is now focusing on goaltending and defense. The signing of Ilya Bryzgalov is Holmgren's equivalent of getting Halladay and Lee - he only hopes the Russian goalie is nearly as effective.

The big difference, of course, is that Holmgren also unloaded the players the team had been built around. Amaro didn't trade Utley, Howard or Jimmy Rollins in order to facilitate his change in emphasis. Indeed, he hoped (and still hopes) that winning core will raise its production in the second half and, most important, in the playoffs.

There's a simple explanation here. The Phillies core group has won. The Flyers core of Mike Richards and Jeff Carter did not. The Phillies didn't need a shakeup in chemistry, and Amaro had no salary-cap issues to deal with. He had the luxury to be able to add three elite and expensive starters to a proven team.

Holmgren has risked more because he has torn up his own formula and started over with a new one. Richards and Carter were the two-headed cornerstone of the team Holmgren built as GM and, previously, as assistant to Bob Clarke. It was Holmgren who saddled that group with a series of cheaper alternatives in goal for the last five years.

Maybe the most telling aspect of the sudden makeover was the role of Chris Pronger. After signing with the Flyers, Jaromir Jagr said he talked with Pronger on the phone before making his decision. Wayne Simmonds and Brayden Schenn, acquired from L.A. in the Richards deal, said they got calls and texts from Pronger, welcoming them to his - ahem, the - team. It sure looks like the irascible veteran defenseman was in the loop as Holmgren gutted a team one year removed from a trip to the Final.

It was a stunning shakeup on the roster. But it was a bigger shift in emphasis, as the Flyers finally try to win it all with first-rate goaltending and defense.

The Phillies are showing that you can successfully make such a radical shift in approach without taking a step back. Only seven of the Phillies in uniform in Florida were on the 2008 World Series team. That's a huge change in three years.

Holmgren doesn't have the affirmation of a recent championship. So yes, it's possible to win after extreme change. In the Flyers' case, they'd certainly better.