Philadelphia Phillies: 25 Most Spellbinding Teams in Franchise History

You don’t have to be a fan of baseball to know what a spellbinding team is. Sports fans around the world know what it means to fall in love with their team; to feel as though the players on the field are an extension of themselves.

When the team wins, you feel jubilation. When the team loses, you get that bitter taste of defeat. When your team, that you’ve followed through thick and thin, wins it all, the feeling is of pure ecstasy.

Fans of the Philadelphia Phillies know that range of emotions quite well, because you don’t reach 10,000 losses without having to endure the lowest of lows. The Phillies have had their share of losing seasons, and the fan base slept, dormant until the franchise returned to it’s winning ways.

Now that it has, there is no doubt that the city of Philadelphia is a baseball town, and there are few things that fans of the Phillies wouldn’t do to support their teams.

So the question must be asked: Which teams in the history of this franchise were the clubs that we simply couldn’t do without? This isn’t a slideshow ranking the greatest teams, but instead, the clubs that had the will to win, a storybook finish, or the teams that we couldn’t pry our eyes away from.

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25 Philadelphia Phillies Your Kids Can Look Up To

Raising an aspiring catcher? You will want to sit down and have a conversation with your children about two of the greatest catchers in the history of the Phillies‘ franchise, Bob Boone and Carlos Ruiz. Where would either of the Phillies’ World Series teams be without their respective catchers?

Both catchers pride themselves on defense, but Boone’s game behind the plate was second to none. Though he was never recognized for his work with the bat, it was Boone who controlled the game’s pitching, handling guys like Steve Carlton and Tug McGraw and drawing the most out of them, all while being a rock behind the plate.

Years later, Ruiz approaches the game in much of the same way. He is a defense first catcher with great technique, and understands the importance in controlling the pace of the game by keeping runners in check.

Handling pitchers has become “Chooch’s” specialty. Working with All-Star talents like Roy Halladay, Cliff Lee, and Cole Hamels, Ruiz is now recognized as one of the game’s best catchers, drawing the best out of the Phillies’ staff by calling an excellent game behind the plate and earning the respect of every pitcher he works with.

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Bold Predictions for Every Phillies Player

The ancient Mayans weren’t very fond of the year 2012.

Looking thousands of years into the future, they believed that the year 2012 would be the last. Their famous “long count calendar” ended with this year. So while those fanatical about their predictions prepare for the end, we baseball fanatics look forward to another great year of baseball.

The real question is whether or not the Mayans, one way or another, were on to something with their calendar of the end. Will 2012 be the end of the Philadelphia Phillies reign over the NL East?

While those questions won’t be answered for another seven months or so, it certainly is not too soon to let loose a few predictions for each of the members of the Phillies’ roster for the upcoming season. With questions abound surrounding health, performance, and success, let’s take a crack at predictions for the upcoming Phillies’ season.

For up to the minute Phillies’ coverage, check out Greg’s blog: The Phillies Phactor

Follow @Greg_Pinto
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Comparing Every Current Philadelphia Phillie to a Former Player

We live in a very materialistic world where the focus of our daily lives is based on the here and now and very rarely on the future, and even more rarely, the past. The Philadelphia Phillies are certainly not exempt from this thought process. Over the last few seasons, the idea has been to “win now.”

Those guys are prospects for a reason, so we’ll trade them for a proven player. That pricey free agent would sure look nice in red pinstripes, but the depth on the bench is certainly going to suffer if we sign him.

That’s been the thought process for the last few seasons, and will be as long as the Phillies have a core of players intent on winning a World Series and calling any other result a failure. That’s not necessarily a bad thing. First and foremost, it means the Phillies are winning.

The dangerous situation is getting caught up in the here and now and turning a blind eye towards the future. We must look at the past for information and interpret it towards the future. I thought that comparing each player on the Phillies’ roster would be an interesting way to apply that idea.

This slide show will observe a player’s career to date, take his statistics, and compare them to a past player who followed a similar career path. Just for fun, maybe that player’s career can give us some insight into what the future holds for the Phillies.

For up to the minute Phillies’ news, check out Greg’s blog: The Phillies Phactor.

Follow @Greg_Pinto

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Philadelphia Phillies: Handing out Their Payroll Based on Success

It’s time for the obvious fact of the day: Baseball players make a lot of money.

With the ratifying of MLB‘s new collective bargaining agreement, no player that will don a Major League uniform in 2012 will earn a salary of less than $480,000. Yes folks, that is the minimum salary for big league baseball players.

That’s just the beginning, however. The polar opposite of the minimum salary would be the deal that Albert Pujols signed just this winter, netting the new Los Angeles Angels‘ first baseman $250 million over a 10 year span, or the 10 year, $275 million deal that Alex Rodriguez signed with the New York Yankees.

The point is this: Whether you’re talking about a first-year player or one of the best athletes in the game, baseball players are well compensated.

That makes managing the payroll all the more important, and the Philadelphia Phillies have one of the biggest budgets to manage in the game. Needless to say, there are a few great deals on that payroll and a couple of albatrosses.

Managing a payroll is difficult. With the spending limit for most teams being the $178 million luxury tax threshold, teams have to make tough decisions, and the Phillies are no different. A lot of times, a number of variables come into play: The market for a player, his marketability, the depth of his position, his value to your team weighed against his value to other teams.

We live in a day in age where teams rarely pay for past success, but instead, projections of what a player’s statistics will look like moving forward, and that isn’t necessarily a bad thing. But it makes us wonder: What would a player’s salary look like in 2012 if we took into account, first and foremost, his success from the previous year?

This slideshow will attempt to divvy up the Phillies’ payroll, handing out the most money to its most successful players. A number of variables will be taken into consideration for each player, described on his respective slide.

What would the Phillies’ payroll look like if it were based on past success?

For up to the minute Phillies’ coverage, check out Greg’s blog: The Phillies Phactor.

Follow @Greg_Pinto

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Philadelphia Phillies: 25 Reasons 2012 Will Be Different Than 2011

As the new year rolls around and people across the world toss their 2011 calendars in the garbage, fans of the Philadelphia Phillies might as well do the same. 2011 was a year full of promises and high expectations, neither of which were met on the field, leaving the city of Philadelphia with a bitter taste in its mouth for the third consecutive season.

But there’s a bright side. 2012 is shaping up to be an interesting year in a number of different ways, and its baseball season will be no different. While at a glance the Phillies appear to be a team very similar to the squad run out on the field last season, a lot has changed.

Fans are becoming tired of the same old song and dance, the same old promises. Each and every season since 2008, the Phillies have been a team that was expected to win the World Series—nothing less, and over each of those seasons, they have failed.

Will 2012 be a different story? Well, I’m not ready to dust off my crystal ball just yet, but there’s hope. The Phillies are a much different team heading into the 2012 season, and a promising team that should give fans something to be excited about once again.

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Philadelphia Phillies: 25 Best Soundbites in Phillies History

“Different people, different backgrounds, different ideals… We walk in different doors at the beginning of the day and we walk out of different doors at the end of the day, but when it is time to go out on to the field, we all go through the same door.” — Scott Rolen

In a very brief sense, that’s what the sport of baseball is all about. For most of the season, each team is composed of a roster of 25 men plus a number of coaches and other experts coming from all kinds of different walks of life, and at the end of the day, they have to work together in unison if they want to win. Great teams know how to put their differences aside and just win ball games.

Obviously, you don’t get any of that inspirational jargon, like the quote above from former Philadelphia Phillies‘ third baseman Scott Rolen without a few interesting characters on each club. For as many players who would love nothing more than to stay as far away from a camera as possible, there are those who just can’t resist jumping in front of one and grabbing a microphone, and that is where most of the great soundbites come from.

The Phillies have had their share of players who can produce a great quote come through their organization over their history, and if a reporter needed that perfect quote to complement his story, here are 25 of the best soundbites he could go to.

 

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20 Reasons the Phillies-Mets Rivalry Is Still Alive and Well

Not all that long ago, match-ups between the Philadelphia Phillies and New York Mets were games that topped season-ticket plans and made for must-watch television, but as time has worn on, some would argue that this long standing rivalry has lost some of its luster.

Time to wake up and smell the coffee, folks. This rivalry isn’t dead. It’s alive and better than ever.

We may not have seen many benches-clearing brawls in recent seasons, but that doesn’t mean that these two teams have decided to bury the hatchet. Looking forward to 2012, both teams are wielding their respective hatchets and are ready to use them. The Mets will hack at the legs of the Phillies, trying to climb back towards the top, and the Phillies will make sure they’re doing what it takes to stay there.

To say that this rivalry doesn’t exist any longer is a short-sighted statement. The real question is a bit more philosophical. What makes the first place Phillies and last place Mets such bitter foes? Where does the anger and competitive edge come from? For what reason, other than the uniforms they wear, do these players legitimately dislike one another?

The answers may be less obvious than you think.

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25 Hotshot Philadelphia Phillies to Watch in 2012

Looking ahead to the 2012 season for the Philadelphia Phillies, there are a lot of things that we already know. Looking around the diamond, we know who most of the everyday players are. The same thing can be said about the starting rotation and the bullpen. We know who will fill most of those roles.

Beneath the surface, there are things that we do not know. We all know that Ryan Howard has the potential to hit 40 home runs a season, but can we say that about anyone else? We all know that Shane Victorino runs like a greyhound, but who else can steal bases? Fresh off of a new deal, we know that Jimmy Rollins can play defense, but are there a couple of Gold Glove-caliber defenders waiting in the wings?

One of the greatest aspects of the game of baseball is that no matter how advanced the statistics become, or how much instant replay is introduced to the game or how each organization’s front office grows, baseball will always offer its fair share of surprises, and none of us will have seen them coming.

The Phillies may have a couple of those surprises in their organization. Sure, the roster plays host to a number of established veterans who’ve produced similar numbers over the course of their careers, but it also hosts a number of players with big question marks hanging over their heads.

Is that prospect ready to take the next step? Can this guy become an everyday player? Will that guy make an impact on the MLB? Can this veteran stay healthy? Can that veteran produce?

For the sake of this slideshow, we’ll call those guys “hotshot” players. This means that no matter the level of talent they poses, they have something to prove in 2012, and whether or not they can prove themselves can have a tremendous impact on the Phillies at some level.

Is the future in the hands of these 25 hotshot players?

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Philadelphia Phillies: 25 Reasons to Raise Your Kids a Phillies Fan

Becoming a fan of the game of baseball isn’t hard. Whether it’s the competition, the players, or the excitement of the game that catches your eye, there is something about the sport that everyone can love. From mammoth home runs to perfect games, baseball is a sport that draws people in and connects generations of families.

Loving the game isn’t a challenge, and neither is having a favorite team. A lot of those reasons listed above stay true here. Whether you became a fan of the New York Yankees during their dynasty years or love the New York Mets because your grandfather was in attendance when they won it all in 1969, every person is born with an inbred allegiance to a single team.

Loving the Philadelphia Phillies? Well, that’s easy nowadays.

The Phillies are a winning team, and fans love a winning team. Once upon a time, however, these fans endured a long drought of winning teams. The Phillies’ fan base is built upon passion and loyalty. Sure, you’ll hear your fair share of horror stories, but it’s time to be honest.

Phillies’ fans aren’t some of the worst in baseball. They’re some of the best.

Phillies’ fans are just as committed to winning as the players on the field. If you aren’t giving it 100% effort, they’re going to let you know, but if you play the game the right way, baseball immortality is within your grasp.

But passion is just one of a number of reasons to raise your children fans of those Fightin’ Phils. After this slideshow, you’ll realize that raising Phillies’ fans is a no-brainer.

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