The 2010 Philadelphia Phillies - Closing the Book (For Now)

I think that’s just the mushrooms.

Thanks to all of you for making my first summer on the blog sweet… to the Phillies for all of the wonderful (and not so wonderful) moments all season, and for having someone to laugh, scream, and discuss it all with. Y’all are the best. Thanks for putting up with me!

Thanks for the intelligent perspective. Being new to the blog world I found yours to be funny, insightful and informative. SO thank you Blog Lords and associate lords. Special thanks to all those involved in the creation of Samuel L , the Lidge weebles (both versions) , and the toes. Well done!

You are all welcome to visit the Collective any time, although given our tendency to assimilate those cultures we find i nteresting, it may not be a good idea. :-)

He is coming up with all of the pressure that comes with being a top prospect, along with the pressure of replacing a talented and liked player. Heap onto that the difficulties of playing in a place where the fans let you know what they think and he has a tough road. I wish him all the luck.

The pressure is there already and only going to get worse. He’s also got a lousy set-up, as he’s in a division stuffed with some young studs, Heyward probably the best, and his freakish plate discipline at such a young age will invite lots of unfair comparisons and additional pressure on a guy whose team’s major need is OBP, followed by batters who see many PPA.

BUT HE SHOULD BE PLATOONED WITH A RIGHTY!

Phillies have no plan to re-sign Werth.

Pretend you’re a GM. You have an opportunity to get a 39-year-old left fielder who bats .275 /.349 /.444. Yawn. Can you use him as a platoon player? Well, against righties, he hits .277/.366 /.455.

By way of comparison, the Marlins put in 22-year-old Logan Morrison for 62 games, in which he hit .283/.390/.447, and hits righties at .257/.359 /.439 (yes, oddly he hits lefties harder, but no matter).

The curious part about Ibanez is that the only thing that he does better than other guys who produce the same results is be older than they are and get paid well. He just doesn’t have anything to recommend him at this point. He’d have more value if he just hit HRs, or mashed righties, or was God’s gift to left field defense, was exceptionally speedy. But he’s not any of those things.

You have to figure that this last year is a completely sunk cost, because everyone else can plug in Ben Francisco types and sleep at night knowing that passing on the opportunity to take Ibanez off the Phillies’ hands will not come back to haunt you.

Spring training should start around March 1st… It starts about a month prior to the season, and baseball is going to be starting its season 4/1 this year (and ending the regular season in September- October baseball will be reserved for teams that make the post season)… so about 127 days.

Totally agreed about Ibanez. With his age and salary he is not going to fetch anything of value by sending him to another team, and at least by keeping him the Phillies will benefit from his hot streaks. Does his upside fit his paycheck, no… but he is not Adam Eaton or Juan Castro or even Greg Dobbs bad. Might as well keep him.

I am looking forward to seeing Brown… but I am also trying to keep my expectations for him tempered. I think he will be good with time, but he has very big shoes to fill, and I am going to have to be patient- the learning curve is pretty steep.

I’m one of those people whose emotions depend on the outcome of a game… I know, that sounds crazy, but it’s true. I am in a minority especially since I’m a girl obsessed with baseball.

This was a great season for the Phils and I love checking this blog every day. Thanks for a great season TGF and Phillies!

Starting the countdown now to spring training!

Keep your eyes on the fan posts in the next couple of days/ weeks. I have two things that I am toying with… one that I asked help with and will be up soon, and something else that I am looking at. I don’t know what else is happening here, but at least come around for that.

But 127 sounds about right- With the start of the season being moved to the first of April, it will probably be somewhere around the first of March.

I think there is going to be a lot of effort expended there. The Phillies are losing three veteran relievers- Contreras, Romero, and Durbin. I expect that the organization will try hardest to keep Contreras, as he was one of their most dependable relievers down the stretch— and a combination of Contreras, Madson, and Lidge, was used to get through the late innings this year. With starters like the Phillies have, late inning relievers are more important than the middle relievers, as most of the time the starter is going to get you to at least the seventh, allowing you to then just go to the late guys unless the game is a blowout in either direction.

After that, there may be some attempt to keep Durbin. He is not great, but decent, and I don’t think Zagurski or Mathieson showed enough to make the organization believe that they are major league ready. (Although given the team’s financial situation, they could very well go with one of these two or Worley/ Kendrick in the ’pen).

I think there is the least likelihood of their keeping Romero. While left handed relievers are important, Bastardo has shown signs of having something, is able to get out righties as well as lefties (allowing him to get around a right handed batter getting switched in or to pitch to a L-R-L sequence in an inning). I think he comes back only if he agrees to a really cheap contract.

Moyer the MAN!

I really hope Moyer comes back next year, if not as a starter than as a long man/spot starter/pitching coach combination.

You know Fox execs. were like “aww fuck”

Shane’s contract actually has two years $17 million left on it.

The idea of an outfield of Francisco, Werth, and Brown seems like a place where defensive misadventures would happen. Also, Ben Fran is not that good a hitter. He is a backup for a reason, and I am concerned about his ability to be competitive over the course of the season. If keeping Werth is plugging one hole by creating two, the team will not be good.

Completely agreed. I know it’s playing with fire a bit, but Dukes’ talent could end up making it a worthwhile gamble.

Yeah it was. That made me wince. Reminded me of some god awful baseball played by both teams that I endured the past week.

Well put.

I have also been thinking about how a good, but aging team can reload without having to drop out of contention in the meantime. My own experience following the Phillies saw them reload on the run, so to speak, from 1979-80, and they came home with a championship. They then proceeded to get very old in the next four years, got back to one World Series (1983), and then fairly quickly dropped out of contention. In 1993 they caught lightning in a bottle as it were, had some bad injuries to Kruk and Dykstra soon after that and again fell out of contention save for one brief hot stretch in early 1995. The question remains whether this team, which has already had greater long-term success than any other five-year period, is capable of staying competitive, as the 1981-83 teams did, or headed for a dropoff like the post-1983 and -1993 teams did. Something worth considering during the coming months.

I am looking forward to it already. I don’t know that I agree with you about Blanton- I think he will still be here. And that’s ok. His ERA, etc. were in some ways drug up by a really bad start when he was coming off injury, making him look worse than he truly was. While he is in not close in talent to the Big Three, nor are a lot of other pitchers. I think in some ways our view of Blanton is dimmed by the fact that he has to work in a rotation with three other pitchers of that quality- the drop off is so much that even average (or a little above) looks bad.

The outfield may be in a lot of flux for the next two years. The organization is saying that Brown is not guaranteed the right field job to start 2011, and I think it is appropriate. While he hit well while he was receiving regular playing time, he could probably use more time in the minors to work on hitting lefties, and more importantly, his defense- there were a number of times that Brown was exposed in the outfield, something that can prove quite costly. I would prefer to put the money into re-signing Werth with an eye toward his playing Right field in 2011 before sliding over to left field in 2012 (potentially sooner if Ibanez struggles). The organization is going to be in the position to probably need outfield help in 2012, as it is fully possible that none of the prospects will be ready to move up. That being said, keeping Werth would be expensive, and does not fix the potential problems in the bullpen.

With you on Ryan Howard- he had a very good season, but I would trade a little bit of batting average for a few more home runs.