Philadelphia Phillies: What Might Roy Halladay Be in 2013?

The Phillies have plenty of excuses ready for their just-finished 81-81 yard sale of a season. To hear Jimmy Rollins tell it, if they had been healthy, the Phillies would have won the division again.  

Well, Jim, we are not sure what season you just watched, but it is pretty hard to imagine that a full season of regressing stars Ryan Howard and Chase Utley would have meant 17 more wins. For that matter, JRoll, you yourself stayed healthy all season, which was a shock in and of itself.

Besides, the Phillies season was not decided by the games its stars missed. It was decided by what their stars did when they actually played.

Cliff Lee finished with a record of 6-9. Make your own joke.

Rollins was the only player with enough plate appearances to qualify for the batting title. He thus led the team in batting average by hitting .250. As a leadoff man.

Utley hit .256. Howard hit .219.

And then there was Roy Halladay.

Fresh off winning the National League Cy Young Award in 2010 and finishing runner-up in that voting last season, Doc posted this line: 11-8, 4.49 ERA, a half-dozen starts missed and a strikeout-to-walk ratio of 3.67, his worst since 2007.

The Phillies will pay Halladay $20 million next season, when he will be 36 years old. What will they get for that money?

Let’s look at some big-name pitchers and how they fared in their age-36 seasons.

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