Fresh Take: Baseball Style

 

With the October Classic upon us, its time for SCL’s Fresh Take, a la Baseball!  It’s fitting that the New York Yankees with their 26 Championships and the defending World Champion Philadelphia Phillies square off in the World Series; on the flip side, how bad is it to be a Cleveland Indians fan? Past Indian pitchers CC Sabathia and Cliff Lee square off in Game One of the Series, while Indians fans get to wonder what if.  Not to mention, if you add in the Championship rounds with Jim Thome, Manny Ramirez, and Charlie Manuel, it looked like a Cleveland reunion out there!

The Yankees and Phillies led their respective leagues in runs and home runs. With the right field jet stream in new Yankee Stadium and the short flower beds in Citizens Bank Park, will anyone be surprised if we see an new record for home runs in a World Series this year? The Phillies have four guys who hit over 30 home runs while the Yankees counter with five who hit more than 20. Get ready for the shooting gallery!

Is there a cold weather team bias to the World Series now?  Everyone talks about the “dog days of summer” and how lousy it is to play in Arlington, TX or Miami, FL in July and August with 100 degree days, but have you noticed that seven of the last ten World Series have been won by cold weather teams?  And this year the trend has to continue after Philly and New York spun out the boys from California.  As we extend the baseball year later and later, its seems less and less likely to see a team from the South or the West representing their leagues or at least winning the whole thing…

So time for the prediction!  It looks like the studs from each team, Ryan Howard and Alex Rodriguez are ready to rumble, but it’s still pitching that wins in the playoffs.  Both teams have Aces and Jokers in their rotations, offenses in high gear and this will be a great series to watch.  I’m tired about hearing how suspect the Phillies bullpen is, especially after they knocked out the LA Dodgers in five games. I think the Phillies October magic will continue and I’ll take Philadelphia in six!

Read more Philadelphia Phillies news on BleacherReport.com

What’s Wrong with Cole Hamels?

The Philadelphia Phillies need to take a page from the New York Yankees’ playbook.

Given a home series with the floundering Florida Marlins, the Phillies proceeded to screw the pooch over the weekend and watch their seven-game division lead fade to four, after a three-game Marlin sweep.

Meanwhile, the Yankees’ strangled their bitter rivals, the Boston Red Sox, taking four from the Sawx with timely hitting and fabulous pitching, thereby securing a firm hold of the division lead.

Speaking of pitching, what has become of Phillies’ ace Cole Hamels, who got lit up again this weekend and fell to seven-seven on the year?

The California Goldenboy who brought Rocktober back to Philadelphia by leading the Phillies to a World Championship last season has been remarkably pedestrian thus far this season. What’s up?

Is Hamels satisfied after signing for $20.5 million guaranteed this offseason?  Yes, he avoided arbitration and got his money earlier than expected, but one expects his next contract to be a monster compared to the $6.6 million he gets next year and $9.5 million in 2011.

Is he pissed off that the Phils signed fellow lefty Cliff Lee to be another horse in the rotation? 

Hamels was making some progress over the last few games before the Lee signing and went all to hell ever since.  However, one can’t imagine that Hamels minds having another stopper in the rotation to take some of the pressure off.

So what is it? Wife Heidi Strobel has a baby on the way, and they just bought a new $2.2 million mansion to house the newest Hamels…is that it? 

Or is it too much time on the banquet rounds after winning his NLDS and World Series MVP trophies, which Cole alluded to earlier in the season.

One thing is for sure, if the Phillies can’t get the Cole Hamels of October 2008 back sometime soon, a back-to-back World Series dream will fade into never never land.

Ruben Amaro the Genius, JP Ricciardi the Dunce

Winner

 

 

 

 

 

Loser

 

 

 

 

 

All my life I have dreamt about a career in sports; player, broadcaster, executive, any would have been great. In retrospect, I think I may have passed on GM of a major sports franchise. I wrote earlier about Roy Halladay and the need for Toronto and Philadelphia to make a deal and GMs Ruben Amaro of the Phillies and JP Ricciardi of the Bluejays (both seen above) went toe to toe to make it happen. After watching this week, one can’t help but think that rookie GM Amaro made Ricciardi look like a fool and bitch-slapped JP and the Bluejays by procuring Cliff Lee from Cleveland for a pittance next to what the greedy Jays were asking for Halladay. Meanwhile the Bluejays overplayed their hand and now still have a great, albeit disappointed pitcher in Halladay.

Amaro is a disciple of the always cautious but wonderfully successful Pat Gillick. Meanwhile, Ricciardi was brought up by the master of Moneyball super fleecer and also very successful Billy Beane. It appears that Ricciardi either dramatically underestimated Amaro or overestimated his market position. Ricciardi has been widely speculated to be a “dead man walking” with his only chance of survival being a drastic salary purge of the Bluejays bloated budget. Plus his current wishy washy handling of the Halladay affair and wide spread use of the local and national media in trade “negotiations”, did nothing to endear himself to already jaded Toronto fans. By asking for a king’s ransom for Halladay and not budging, Ricciardi watched the trade market shift gears and blow right by him. This most likely cemented his fate as a casualty of the trade wars this coming off-season.

Meanwhile, with his Cliff Lee acquisition, Amaro has come up smelling like a rose. That’s not an easy task in Philadelphia which is widely known for its tough press corps and even tougher fan base. By bringing in Lee and earlier Raul Ibanez in free agency, Amaro has Philly fans thinking repeat of their 2008 World Series Championship.

A week ago one GM was the Master, the other the novice; in a week the Master is a dunce and the Novice a genius. Yep, the world of a GM is way too fickle for me…

Why the Phillies Need to Trade for Roy Halladay

So it appears that Buster Olney of ESPN has his thoughts on why the Philadelphia Phillies need to attain Toronto Blue Jay ace pitcher Roy Halladay, effectively trying to steal my thunder. 

Thankfully, while his opinions are solid, they do not quite emulate mine and make my case even better! As head coaching “great” Herm Edwards once stated, “You play to win the game!” or in this case, the World Series. How would Halladay help the Phillies?  Well…

These days, no one in baseball without excellent starting pitching. The Phillies have a great defense and awesome offense, a good bullpen, and a closer in Brad Lidge who is finding his groove again. 

What they don’t have is the starting pitching needed to win in the playoffs. The winning streak the Phillies have been on in July has been great, but winning in the playoffs is different.

You need two bonafide starters to win four game for you over a seven-game series. Last year the Phils had Cole Hamels and Brett Myers, with assistance from Joe Blanton. This year, the Halladay-Hamels duo would make the Phillies one of the favorites to win it all.

Second, the addition of Halladay would add an edge to a sometimes aloof Philadelphia squad. Manager Charlie Manuel is already warning against complacency as the Phillies have built upon their NL East lead. Halladay, along with second baseman Chase Utley, would help the Phillies with a “bring it every night” mentality. 

The signing of Raul Ibanez to replace infamously low-key Pat Burrell started the transition; Halladay would cement it in place. The Phillies never give up until the final out; adding a “step on their throats” killer edge would make them dangerous indeed.

Finally, a Halladay trade would energize the city of Philadelphia to epic proportions and signal MLB that the Philllies have put aside their somewhat timid approach and are ready to establish themselves as a contender for years to come. Philly has always been overshadowed by the Mets, Yankees, and Red Sox: teams who stop at nothing to bring titles to their respective cities. 

It’s time for the Phillies to do the same. The nucleus of the team is built to win now and will be that way for another three to five years. With much of their young minor league talent blocked by All-Stars on the big club, the Phillies can afford to move prospects for a shot at another ring.  

Gengereral Mnana Ruben Amaro needs to decide. The time is now and make his mark with this team. Roy Halladay in Philly Red would take him a long way towards doing so.