5 Ways to Fix the Philadelphia Phillies

Major League Baseball teams are like ocean liners.

They are big and powerful but not especially nimble. It takes a long time to get them going in the right direction; it usually takes just as long to correct diversions from course.

And so here are your Philadelphia Phillies, trying to bounce back from a .500 season after ripping off five straight division titles. Things in motion tend to stay in motion, and the Phillies momentum is decidedly downward. But throwing his hands in the air and saying, “Well, it was quite a run” is not going to save Ruben Amaro, Jr.’s job or keep people buying tickets to see games at Citizens Bank Park.

Were I him, here is what I would do.

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5 Center Fielders the Philadelphia Phillies Must Target This Offseason

While their needs are many, the Philadelphia Phillies must prioritize filling their hole in center field above all else this offseason.

The Phillies ranked at or below Major League Baseball averages in batting averages, on-base percentage, slugging percentage and runs scored. They certainly hope that full, healthy seasons from Ryan Howard and Chase Utley will give the slugging and runs scored numbers a boost.

Ultimately, though, this is still a pitching-first roster, with three starters scheduled to earn more than $20 million apiece in 2013. It would be senseless to spend that sort of money on starting pitching and then entrust the most important outfield position to John Mayberry Jr.

None of this is intended to suggest that signing a premium center fielder will “fix” the Phillies’ problems. Third base is still a huge question mark. Unless you really believe in both Darin Ruf and Domonic Brown, the corner outfield spots look, well, spotty. They still do not have a trustworthy setup man.

But an above-average center fielder, one who can cover defensive deficiencies of his outfield counterparts and help with the bat, is a necessity for the Phillies as they are currently constructed.

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Philadelphia Phillies: Chase Utley’s Upcoming Contract Year a No-Win Situation

Chase Utley is in a no-win situation in 2013 because of his contract situation, his injury history and his lack of production in the past two seasons.

Utley is in the final year of a seven-year, $85 million contract. As so often happens with long-term deals, Utley’s production has waned precipitously over the past six seasons. From 2007-2010 (the first four years of the contract) Utley made the All-Star team every season. He earned MVP votes in each of those seasons but 2010, which was also the first year that Utley’s knees became a concern. 

When Utley missed 47 games in 2010, it was the team’s first real indication that maybe, just maybe, Utley’s body would not let him be the player he had been again, like, ever.

By spring training in 2011, it was apparent that Utley’s knees were degenerating, the sort of injury that often cannot be fixed by surgery. He missed 59 games in 2011; because he came back in time for the playoffs, his absence was noticeable, but ultimately easy to forget.

Less so in 2012, as the Phillies‘ five-year playoff run came to an end while Utley played only four more games (83) than he missed (79.) Perhaps more alarming was Utley’s nose-diving production. From 2005 through 2008, Utley drove in more than 100 runs every year, hit no fewer than 22 home runs, hit no worse than .291 and scored more than 100 runs three times, including a league-leading 131 runs scored in 2006.

So it is not just the games he is missing that now trouble the Phillies, it is what he is (not) doing when he plays: eleven home runs in each of the past two seasons, 44 and 45 runs batted in, batting averages of .259 and .256. Sure, he is consistent now. It is just consistent mediocrity.

And this is why Utley’s coming contract year is such a problem. Utley will no doubt be heavily motivated to “prove he is healthy” and post numbers sufficient to convince the Phillies, or some other team, to give him another multi-year deal. Maybe he can do it, too.

If he does it, though, the Phillies and their fans will almost certainly question openly why he was able to do it in 2013 when he was not able to do it in 2011 or 2012. Particularly this past season, when Ryan Howard missed so much time with his Achilles injury, the Phillies desperately missed Utley’s bat in the middle of the lineup. Have his numbers declined? Sure. But he is still miles better than Freddy Galvis, Michael Martinez, Mike Fontenot and Pete Orr.

Utley’s worst-case scenario, of course, is having a year productive enough to get him signed elsewhere but not good enough to convince the Phillies to keep him. Because at that point, the fanbase will almost certainly feel that Utley used two expensive seasons to keep himself healthy at the team’s expense—and at theirs.

The team and its fans have no choice but to hope that Utley comes back healthy, strong and reasonably like the player he has been for them in the past.

It will be interesting, though, to see what that ultimately means.

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Philadelphia Phillies: Trading Lee, Halladay or Worley Necessary to Even Scale

The Philadelphia Phillies have approached the last two seasons trying to win a championship with a lopsided team.

Particularly in 2011, when “the Four Aces” were projected by many to win 80 games by themselves, the Phillies figured that if their pitchers held opponents down routinely, the diminished offensive output coming from Chase Utley, Ryan Howard and the Phillies’ other aging core starters could be covered over.

It worked until 2012, and then it did not work at all. It turns out there are only so many days you can play Ty Wigginton, John Mayberry Jr. and Kevin Frandsen (and bat them near the middle of the order) without seeing the offense shrivel up and blow away.

So the Phillies enter this offseason with as many offensive positions in question as they have offensive positions solidly filled. Third base is a need, as is the entire outfield. Going into the 2013 season with Darin Ruf and Domonic Brown penciled in as starters would be inviting disaster. 

In past seasons, the Phillies were able to patch the holes in the lineup through free agency. Unfortunately, the more you look at the free-agent landscape this offseason, the less there is to like.

The headliners on offense are all outfielders. Josh Hamilton is probably the biggest name. His production is not in question. But can you remember an established superstar hitting free agency with more questions surrounding him than Hamilton? Put aside (if you can) his troubled past with drug use.

In the past four seasons with the Texas Rangers, Hamilton has missed an astonishing 157 games. Couple that with his underwhelming postseason numbers (.227 batting average, .414 slugging percentage) and the thought of guaranteeing Hamilton generational money looks as dubious as some of his life choices.

B.J. Upton will be available. He piles up three things: home runs, stolen bases and strikeouts (1,020 of them in 3,568 at-bats). His .256 career batting average compiled over seven seasons suggests that that is what he is. No question he has value; power/speed combo players like Upton are not plentiful. Is he worth five years and $80 million, though? 

Former Phillie Michael Bourn is out there, too. He is a two-time All-Star (most recently this season with the Atlanta Braves). But a lot of his value is tied up in his speed. He stole 42 bases this season; he was also caught a league-leading 13 times.

And the ongoing disaster that is Carl Crawford since he signed for seven years and $142 million is the cautionary tale that might make Bourn less attractive as a target for a long-term, long money deal.

So if the Phillies cannot just go shopping to fill their positions of need, they might need to part with assets in trades. As the team’s 2012 offensive performance exhibited, the Phillies do not have bats to deal.

They still have arms, though.

Cole Hamels is not going anywhere, not after signing a six-year, $144 million contract extension this summer. Understandably, the Phillies identified Hamels as a home-grown talent who the fans have an attachment to. He was the Most Valuable Player of the only World Series win this generation of Phillies fans has seen.

After Hamels, though, the Phillies do have some pieces. As tempting as it may be to have a rotation of Hamels/Cliff Lee/Roy Halladay/Vance Worley with Kyle Kendrick and Tyler Cloyd holding down the fifth spot, it might be impractical given the team’s offensive needs.

This is not to suggest that any one of Lee, Halladay or Worley alone could bring back a young, inexpensive talent.

Lee is the best pitcher of the three; he is also owed the most money over the longest term ($75 million over the next three seasons). Halladay is in the last year of his current contract, but he will get $20 million this season, and he is coming off an indifferent season where he missed time with injury. Worley also had an iffy season and was also hurt. But he is only 25, and not even arbitration-eligible until 2014.

For that matter, the Phillies might want to dangle Cloyd and see if anyone has interest.

Until the World Series is over and teams are free to start signing players all the scenarios posited by baseball scribes are idle speculation. Will the Arizona Diamondbacks trade Justin Upton? Will the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim alleviate their logjam in the outfield and part with Peter Bourjos? That depends on what those teams are offered, obviously.

The point here is that the Phillies must be willing to break from their “pitching first” agenda to rebuild their everyday eight. Moving a big-name pitcher like Lee or Halladay, or an inexpensive option like Worley or even Cloyd, may be the best way to get where they need to go.

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Philadelphia Phillies’ Best Case Scenario for 2013? Emulate the 2010 Phillies

The trouble Phillies fans have with the team they have now is that it is not the team they used to have.

The offensive numbers the Phillies used to put up are, in the context of what the team looks like going into the 2012 offseason, patently absurd.

Let’s start with Ryan Howard. You probably remember that Ryan Howard once hit 58 home runs in a season. He drove in 149 runs that year. He was the National League’s Most Valuable Player.

What you may not remember is that that year was 2006. The Phillies did not even make the playoffs in 2006. But Howard’s breakout season signaled a new era in Phillies’ baseball, an era where the team’s hitters would start making better use of the bandbox dimensions of Citizens’ Bank Park.

The Phillies made the playoffs in 2007 for the first time in fourteen seasons. Howard went off again, with 47 home runs and 136 RBI. Chase Utley had his true “here I am” campaign, hitting .332 with 22 home runs and 103 RBI despite missing 29 games (an omen, sadly.) They both had great years, but 2007 was Jimmy Rollins’ MVP season: .296, 30 home runs, 94 runs batted in and an astounding 139 runs scored.

In 2008, another 48 home runs and 146 RBI for Howard, another 33 home runs and 104 RBI for Utley. Rollins stole 47 bases. Video game stuff and a World Series title.

The Phillies fell short of a successful world championship defense in 2009, but the pennant was not all bad, and it certainly was not for a lack of offense. Howard had another monster season with 45 home runs and 141 RBI, Utley was in with 31 and 93.

And they started getting it from different places. Raul Ibanez hit 34 home runs and drove in 93. Jayson Werth (in the season that probably convinced the Washington Nationals to give him his current crazy contract) hit 36 home runs, drove in 99 runs, scored 98 more and stole 20 bases for good measure.

“Enough,” I hear you saying. “Yeah, that was all fun, but those guys are gone now.”

Yes, they are. Which is why, if you are going to hold out hope for the 2013 Phillies, you have to hope they can get it done the way the 2010 Phillies did.

The Phillies won 97 games in 2010, good enough to win the National League East by six games. By comparison, the Washington Nationals were slobbered over for winning 98 games this season. Unlike the prior four seasons, though, the 2010 Phillies could not rely on MVP candidates and breakout years. They had to patch it together.

Can they do something similar in 2013? Let’s see.

Howard hit .276 with 31 home runs and 108 RBI in 2010. The average probably will not be there, but given a full, healthy season, the counting stats should be very similar.

Utley hit .275 with 16 home runs and 65 RBI in 115 games in 2010. Granted, that might be the best he can do in 2013. But he is playing for his baseball life with his contract ending. If anyone is properly motivated on the 2013 Phillies, it is Utley.

Ibanez hit .275 with 16 home runs and 83 RBI in 2010. Can Darin Ruf give you something similar? Can Domonic Brown? Maybe not. But Delmon Young is a free agent after this season, he does not figure to break the bank, and his 2012 slash line was .267/18/74. Hmmm.

Rollins hit .243 in 2010 and missed almost half the regular season with injuries. He will be at least that good and, if 2012 is any indication, he will be much better.

The 2013 Phillies will miss Shane Victorino, sure. But Victorino‘s 2010 season was pretty mediocre: .259/18/69. If they do not break the bank on B.J. Upton, can the Phillies squeeze that out of a John Mayberry Jr./Domonic Brown platoon?

All that said, there are still two fairly significant components the 2010 team had that the 2013 as of this writing just does not. Werth was solid again with .296/27/95. And Placido Polanco had his last decent season, hitting a punchless-but-dependable .298.

The answer there may need to come from outside the organization. Chase Headley is on track to waste his prime with the San Diego Padres after going for .286/31/113 while playing half his games in cavernous Petco Park.

If the Phillies could find a way to extract Headley, they could count on him to replicate Werth‘s 2010 numbers and live with an inexpensive light-hitting right fielder or center fielder. Dexter Fowler?

And no, I am not going to address the pitching. All of the foregoing assumes that the Phillies will get something like 85-100 healthy, productive starts from Cole Hamels, Cliff Lee and Roy Halladay, and that Jonathan Papelbon will still be a reliable (if unspectacular) closer.

Why am I assuming that? Because save for Halladay’s anomaly of a season, none of them gave any reason to think they will not be what they have been. Questionable as Halladay was, he still won 11 of his 25 starts in 2012.

So no, the 2013 Phillies are never going to look like the offensive juggernauts of the end of the last decade.

But that does not mean they do not have one last run left with this team.

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Philadelphia Phillies and New York Yankees Share Troubling Similarities

Watching the disintegration of the 2012 New York Yankees in this postseason, aside from being sort of a joyful exercise for many, has brought back a lot of ugly recent postseason memories for Phillies fans.

The Yankees are down 0-3 to the Detroit Tigers in the American League Championship Series primarily because the offense that was second in the major leagues in runs scored during the regular season has scored one run in the past two games. That run came in the ninth inning of Game 3 on a solo home run from Derek Jeter‘s backup.

It is not as though the Yankees beat the Baltimore Orioles up in the Division Series, either. But for unexpected heroics from Raul Ibanez, the Yankees would not have reached the ALCS at all. The Yankees are hitting an even .200 as a team through eight playoff games. More shockingly, they are slugging an absurdly low .317.

To Phillies fans, this smacks of getting shut out at home in Game 5 of the 2011 National League Division Series to lose to the St. Louis Cardinals. And it is not far removed from scoring a scant two runs at home in a Game 6 loss in the 2010 National League Championship Series to the San Francisco Giants.

Big payroll teams failing to hit in the playoffs.

That is not all the Yankees and the Phillies have in common these days.

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Philadelphia Phillies: Will Ryne Sandberg Replace Charlie Manuel in 2013?

Imagine you have had your present job, as a manager for a large local concern, for eight years.

The company you joined in 2005 had long been both a punching bag in its industry and a local laughingstock. Only by virtue of its effective monopoly in providing its product in the region had it even survived.

Your first year in the job, though, you turned a profit. You did it again the next year, and the year after that. In your fourth year running things, the company had one of the two greatest performances in its largely unremarkable 140-year history. You followed that success with another hugely profitable campaign.

In your eight years, you have overseen five of the company’s best performances. In fact, though shareholders were disappointed with 2009’s return, it was still one of the company’s six most successful efforts ever.

2010 and 2011 saw diminishing returns, but the business was still quite profitable despite surprising, late-year downturns that ultimately dinged the bottom line.

And then, in 2012, for the first time, you and the company only broke even. You have not been scapegoated for this outcome—not specifically. But the board which pays your salary and the shareholders have not exactly absolved you of responsibility for the return to mediocrity, either.

During a year-end press conference with your immediate supervisor, he introduced one of the company’s former employees, who left the company under regrettable circumstances. Universally, the former employee’s departure is seen by everyone involved with your company as a horrible error.

This former employee has been back with your company for the past two years working in the field. 

And now he is back in the home office. And he will be working alongside you next year.

That’s not good, is it?

The extended metaphor above, obviously, is that of Charlie Manuel‘s eight-year tenure as the manager of the Philadelphia Phillies. Everyone who wants Manuel gone (and there are quite a few) plainly ignore the fact that in his first seven seasons running the team, these were the results: seven seasons better than .500, a World Championship, two pennants and five division titles.

Manuel presided over the longest extended run of success the Phillies have ever seen, by a long shot. Even the Danny Ozark teams of the late 1970s, which ultimately produced a champion under Dallas Green in 1980, were not this good.

But professional sports have little room for nostalgia. Manuel’s team, expected to win another division title with the second-highest payroll in baseball, only won half of its games.

So you could excuse Manuel for feeling a bit unsettled about having Ryne Sandberg, the Hall of Fame second baseman the Phillies gave away so long ago, introduced at a press conference presided over by Ruben Amaro Jr. early this month.

Not one of the three men said Sandberg is Manuel’s heir apparent. Probably because it is so obvious that it did not need to be spoken aloud. Manuel is under contract for more than $3 million in 2013, the last year of the contract extension he signed in March of 2011.

The big question for Manuel is whether he can survive the 2013 season with his job. The answer to that question will probably be decided by June 1, 2013. If the team starts fast and is in contention, he almost certainly will survive the season. 

The schedule-makers did Manuel some favors. The Phillies do open with three in Atlanta, but then they do not see the Braves again until July 5. Similarly, the Phillies do not see the Washington Nationals at all until May 24. So for seven weeks or so, Manuel will have a chance to compile wins against the likes of the Kansas City Royals, Pittsburgh Pirates, New York Mets and Miami Marlins.

If the Phillies get to June 1 with the division lead or a solid hold on a wild-card spot, Manuel should be fine as far as finishing out his contract goes.

But it is still not going to be much fun, with his likely replacement watching and waiting all the while.

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Philadelphia Phillies: Watching Ghosts of Playoffs Past from Home

It is tough being a Phillies fan with the team out of the playoffs. But at least you are getting to watch some of your old favorites delivering more October magic.

Check out the sick air Jayson Werth got tonight after hitting a walk-off home run to save the Washington Nationals‘ season. Before Werth signed his seven-year, $126 million contract with the Nationals, he was the Phillies’ sneaky big-game performer.

In 40 games over four postseason runs (he was gone for last year’s National League Division Series loss against the St. Louis Cardinals), Werth hit 11 home runs, drove in 23 runs and scored 27 times. In other words, against postseason-caliber pitching, Werth hit at a clip that over a full season would be 44 home runs, 92 runs batted in and 108 runs scored.

This is not to say that the Phillies could or should have matched Werth‘s deal with the Nationals. For the most part, Werth‘s regular-season tenure with the Nationals has been forgettable. But there he was, with his team’s season on the line, delivering again.

The New York Yankees‘ season was not hanging in the balance in the bottom of the ninth in Game 3 of the American League Division Series with the Baltimore Orioles…but it was headed that way. Trailing 2-1 in the bottom of the ninth, in a series tied at one, future Hall of Famer turned Yankee fans’ whipping boy Alex Rodriguez was due to hit with one out.

Yankees manager Joe Girardi told Rodriguez to put his bat down and sit this one out. And up stepped…Raul Ibanez? That’s who Girardi wanted in place of a guy who made $30 million this season? A guy with 647 career home runs? (Regular season, of course, but still.)

Yup. And Ibanez, last seen patrolling left field in Citizens Bank Park the past three seasons (including three playoff runs), promptly made Girardi‘s daring call look prescient and brilliant all at once. Ibanez hit a home run to tie the game. That would have been enough…except Ibanez then hit the game-winning home run in the 12th inning.

Again, this does not mean that the Phillies made the wrong choice in letting Ibanez walk after last season. The Yankees had the flexibility to play Ibanez primarily against right-handed pitching; Ibanez’s game-tying blast last night came off right-handed closer Jim Johnson.

But for Phillies fans who doubtlessly remember Ibanez just missing a home run late in Game 5 of the 2011 NLDS against the Cardinals, a home run that might have given the Phillies one more grasp at the title? It’s tough.

And yes, Kyle Lohse‘s Cardinals team lost today on that aforementioned Werth blast, but he could hardly be faulted. Lohse went seven innings and gave up one run on two hits. For Phillies fans who still remember Lohse giving up a grand slam to Kaz Matsui of the Colorado Rockies in the 2007 NLDS, well, this guy is basically unrecognizable.

Of course, when he’s hitting .125 in the postseason like he is now, so is Hunter Pence…but there he is, headed to the National League Championship Series with the San Francisco Giants.

Or, as Phillies fans would say, Pence is headed to the NLCS one year too late.

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Philadelphia Phillies: Fans Rooting Against Yankees, Cardinals, Giants

In 2010, after having the sickening privilege of watching the favored Phillies lose a deciding Game 6 of the National League Championship Series at home to what seemed like an only decent San Francisco Giants side, I tweeted “I’m not a baseball fan. I’m a Phillies fan.” I did not see a single pitch of the 2010 postseason after that game. I heard it went pretty well for the Giants though.

In 2011, I again lucked into watching the Phillies’ playoff demise. This time, the Phillies managed to lose 1-0 in Game 5 of the National League Division Series. Ryan Howard folding up in a pain-wracked ball while making the last out was just icing on the putrid cake. Phillies fans did not know for certain then that Howard’s injury would impact the 2012 Phillies. But we had a sense it would not help.

And now here we are. The playoffs are well underway and the Phillies, for the first time since 2006, are nowhere to be found. With reference to playoff baseball, I find myself struggling to find a reason to watch or to care. Maybe you have a similar problem.

So I am turning to the oldest and best-known cure for this sort of malaise. If I cannot watch the Phillies win, at least maybe I can watch some teams I don’t like lose.

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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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