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
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.
Why do you refuse to notate the presence of Darren Ruf in the power picture? All teams bring up rookie players to help as both Washington and Atlanta have been doing. Have you no faith in the phillies developing players...Utley, Howard, Victorino, Rollins, Hamels although Victorino was a rule 5 as Worth was. They have had success and will again.— Cactusclarke- they most likely will not give Ruf a fair chance to be Honest..... he may be the only bright spot for this team in 2013 but I dont think RAJ will let cholly go his way very often. — pr0f3ss0r
- Any team in baseball that loses it's 3 and 4 hole hitters is going to have a rough year. A LOT of reasons to believe that both Utley and Howard will have more productive seasons this year. Victorino, while great in 2008, was a disaster in many ways (on- and off-field) for the personality of this team last year (i.e., pop-up friendly, untimely hitting, just-ok-CF). Pence was less than advertised, and an absolute DISASTER at fielding his position. Mayberry just isn't an everyday guy.
Positives: Utley seems to have solved the balky-knee issue, and looked like a man on fire after his new therapy regimen. Howard won't be recovering on the fly from a torn Achilles next year. Michael Young is HEADS AND TAILS better than Polanco, even in a bad year (sorry, but it's true - Polly is a nice guy, but he couldn't stay on the field and looked lost at the plate). Mike Adams, Mike Stutes, and other pieces of our bullpen are a lot more settled than they were last year.
Maybe more importantly, the Phiillies aren't going to go into this season completely handcuffed, luxury-tax-wise. Cody Ross? Seriously?? Not for that kind of money. But come July of this year, the Phils will have the ability to wheel and deal at the deadline for some Player-To-Be-Named-Later who is have a hot year.
Lots of reasons to be excited about this team. Particularly with Halladay-Lee-Hamels.
Let's not forget that the 2008 team started with Geoff Jenkins and Adam Eaton inked on the lineup card...— Philth - This comment has been deleted.— rombo66
- Word. — fmMD
- New research suggests the Mayans may have caused their own demise by altering their natural landscape for more croplands, thus causing a long-standing drought. Science magazine also reported that new artifacts have also led researchers to theorize that the signing of an aging, overpaid slugger to lead their empire did not, and they emphasize "not," lead to their downfall.
I'm tired of this "we need a power-hitting" outfielder nonsense. Who was the power-hitting outfielder on the World Champion 2012 Giants? Buster Posey. He hit an underwhelming 24, followed by...wait for it...Pablo Sandoval, who crushed a whopping 12. The entire Giants team barely clubbed over 100 HRs last year, but still won it all.
The key for them was pitching and timely hitting. I don't want an inflated contract for another old slugger. I want a team that's hungry and plays hard, a la 2008 or 1993. This team is old and getting older...if they want it bad enough, they'll win it all. And if they don't, the conquistadors will wipe them out anyway.— holleratrob - I am still not sure why the Phillies gave away Hunter Pence, immediately after Shane Victorino. NOW they are in need of quality outfielders?— Bobphxville
- Since the Nats have an OF of Harper, Span and Morse, Werth might be expendable.
But its not good when you're best option is to try to get a quite possibly washed up Werth back for $40 mil (over the next 4 years) and see if the Nats would eat almost $60 mil, because even then, what could we possibly send them that they need? Starting pitching - check. OF'ers - check. IF'ers - check. Pen - check.
If we're going backwards, might as well go back all the way...— guru26 
This team, as it stands right now, is a third place team in NL East.— EJAY- Smug Ruben has failed. Period. The current roster isn't good enough. The current group of outfielders is a joke. Smug Ruben has failed since Pat Gillick has left town. Time for Ruben to work for the Eagles.— shawnmac
- Sorry Utley needs to go. We also need to improve our lower batting order--thats key--teams need to stuggle against us from 1-9 in the battng order.
— phillyboymike7 - Murph -
Any word on Utley's workout routine and playing projection for next year? (Does it look like he will be a 110 game player or a 140 game player?)
How about Howard's offseason conditioning and Achilles strengthening? Will he be able to drive pitches this year or has that injury totally sapped his strength? What do these guys do in the offseason to prep for the new year?
— drunkindewey - Murph - Any word on Utley's workout routine and playing projection for next year? (Does it look like he will be a 110 game player or a 140 game player?)How about Howard's offseason conditioning and Achilles strengthening? Will he be able to drive pitches this year or has that injury totally sapped his strength? What do these guys do in the offseason to prep for the new year? (HTML deleted) — drunkindewey
- whenever you have a little addition by subtraction going on, you can say that you are better,......but, they are not remarkably better since they had a very long way to go to return to their above-average selves,........with that being said, if they pull the trigger on the Vernon Wells trade or the Alfonso Soriano trade,.....or better yet BOTH,....then and only then will i say they are able to compete with Atlanta and Washington for the division,......as of right now, they are bargain-basement at best— SyddBarrett
- The Eagles reached four NFC championships in several years and then started listening to the fans ("get rid of McNabb" for losers like Jeff Garcia). Now that the Phillies have had some success people who never cared about them are giving advice. Phillies, please do not listen to idiotic Eagle fans disguised as Phillies fans who post on this board.— mr
