Philadelphia Phillies Will Get Their Players but Don’t Expect the World Series

The Philadelphia Phillies have just signed free agent closer Jonathan Papelbon to a four-year deal worth $50 million.

This signing proves two things to Phillies “Phans.” It proves that pitchers Ryan Madson and Brad Lidge will not be back with the Phillies in 2012. They will both surely look elsewhere to close. It also proves, once again, the Phillies will get their guys.

At the end of the day, the Phillies will enter spring training in Clearwater, Fla. with five or six star-free agents on board. However, because of recent postseason history, do not expect the Phillies to win the 2010 World Series.

The Phillies won the ’08 World Series and have been improving personnel ever since. They won the World Series in 2008 with just Cole Hamels. They lost the World Series the next year with Hamels and Cliff Lee.

They failed to make it back in 2010 with Hamels, Roy Hallady and Roy Oswalt. Then they were bounced in the NLDS last season with Hamels, Lee, Halladay and Oswalt.

One would think if the Phillies get a fifth ace, they’ll just miss the playoffs altogether.

There is still much work to be done with the Phillies this offseason. Roy Oswalt, Raul Ibanez and Jimmy Rollins are free agents and might not be back in 2012. Raul Ibanez hit 20 home runs and had 84 runs batted in, making him a serviceable option as a designated hitter. Unfortunately for Ibanez, the Phillies are not in the American League.

What you see is what you get with Jimmy Rollins. Outside of his MVP season in 2007, he’s been the same since his rookie year. He wants to come back and if the Phillies cannot get Jose Reyes, they might as well bring back Rollins.

Roy Oswalt went 9-10 with a 3.69 ERA and got spanked in the playoffs. Knowing the Phillies, they’ll go for C.J. Wilson first before turning to Oswalt for a reunion.

They’ll get their players and make the playoffs once again in 2012, but don’t expect them to win the World Series until they actually get there. It’s not to say that they will not win the World Series next year, they certainly will contend for it. Baseball fans outside of the cheesesteak capitol of the world just have that “fool me once shame on you fool me twice shame on me” type mindset with the Phillies.

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Philadelphia Phillies Drop Series Aginst the Arizona Diamondbacks

The Philadelphia Phillies came into Chase Field hoping for a nifty sweep against a Diamondbacks squad that was last in the NL West and coming off being swept by the New York Mets, who are last in the NL East. 

They found out the hard way that a Kirk Gibson-led team lays down for no one.

The Phillies had Cliff Lee going in the opener against their ace Ian Kennedy. Lee struck out 12 Arizona batters but did give up two costly home runs to Chris Young and Geraedo Parra to put the Phillies in the hole.

Ian Kennedy was riding off an emotional adrenaline rush going into the game on the same day of the birth of his first child. He went the full game allowing only three hits and striking out 10 Philly batters while rendering their lineup helpless. 

“His curveball really had good bite to it good depth to it really kept them off balance.” Arizona Diamondbacks manager Kirk Gibson said during Monday’s post game conference on his starter’s complete game shutout.

“He didn’t really have any taxing innings or anything like that so I wanted him to finish that game.”

On Tuesday’s showdown, Roy Oswalt lasts only three innings after giving up five runs.

Daniel Hudson doubled Oswalt’s innings while giving up more hits than he did. However, what Hudson did was keep his hits scattered and came away allowing just three runs and got his first win of the season.

The Phillies did start a ninth inning rally against David Hernandez but it wasn’t enough.

The Diamondbacks have always been a tough team ever since Kirk Gibson took over as manager. There problem this year has been pitching. Kennedy and Hudson has seen success in the past and looks to have finally gotten out of their early season slump.

As for the Phillies, their lineup isn’t the full issue, but their bullpen is starting to thin out with injuries and when their famed starters last only three innings, that doesn’t help the cause.

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Florida Marlins Look Like Challengers to Phillies in NL East

It may be early, it may be an aberration, it may be a smokescreen, but the Florida Marlins might be the Philadelphia Phillies‘ biggest threat in the 2011 season.

As of now in the NL East standings, the Philadelphia Phillies are on top with a record of 11-6 while the Florida Marlins have are a tight second with a record of 10-6, which means they are a half-game back from the Phillies and first place.

As the stats show, it is going to be a wire-to-wire rivalry between Florida and Philadelphia.

Batting Average

Philadelphia Phillies: .273

Florida Marlins: .265

Home Runs

Philadelphia Phillies: 13

Florida Marlins: 8

Runs Batted In

Philadelphia Phillies: 80

Florida Marlins: 63

Stolen Bases

Philadelphia Phillies: 11

Florida Marlins: 7

ERA

Florida Marlins: 3.04

Philadelphia Phillies: 3.56

WHIP

Florida Marlins: 1.20

Philadelphia Phillies: 1.24

Strikeouts

Philadelphia Phillies: 133

Florida Marlins: 113

While it looks like the Phillies have an edge on the Marlins, it is by a slight margin.

As for the pitching, two (Josh Johnson and Ricky Nolasco) against three (Roy Halladay and Roy Oswalt and Cliff Lee) may not be fair odds, but all the Marlins have to do is catch the Phillies with one or two of their three aces in order to really give them trouble.

The next time these two rivals meet is on the second week of May.

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Philadelphia Phillies Preview: Sizing Up the Team as Spring Approaches

Fans are starting to notice a subtle decline in the Phillies’ overall success ever since their big banner year of 2008.

In 2009, they lost to the New York Yankees in the World Series. In 2010, they lost to the San Francisco Giants in the National League Championship Series. Their only big hot-stove move was surprisingly signing star pitcher Cliff Lee.

They now have a starting rotation of historic caliber, but are they set for another World Series run?

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MLB Trade Rumors: 10 Near-Deals That Teams Will Regret Not Making

A wise man once said that when your team sucked last year, change the roster. That man was so wise that he didn’t tell me his name.

But fogetaboutit.

The point is that when teams suck and no top-tier free agent wants to go to a losing team—probably because they have already played on a losing team for most of their career—they then need to make trades so that they start winning again.

But for some reason the trades that need to happen sometimes never do, for one reason or another.

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Cliff Lee Signs: Are the Phillies Now the Baseball Version of the Miami Heat?

Throughout the entire hot stove season, all that people heard about Cliff Lee was the Yankees and Rangers.

Lee will go to New York because of the money; Lee will stay in Texas because of the familiarity with the organization and how close the state is to Little Rock, AR.

But what about returning to the Phillies?

It was in Philly where the whole Cliff Craze first occurred. When the Phillies acquired Cliff Lee in a trade with the Cleveland Indians for players nobody has ever heard of, no one could talk about him without including World Series and/or free agency.

When you’re a top free agent, you always have the New York Yankees as your de facto top choice. But what happens when you join a team with an already terrifying pitching rotation?

Now with the return of Cliff Lee, the pitching rotation of the Philadelphia Phillies goes from scary to just plain traumatizing.

Opposing teams best bet to beat Philly is to hope for the fifth starter, though even he would essentially be the third starter in 65 percent of the league or to just hope to face the bullpen before the ninth inning.

When faced with an elite closer, like the Phillies have, it becomes an eight-inning game for the other team. With a rotation like the Phillies, the only hope for opponents to score is by luck or shaky bullpen relief.

Just look at the top of the rotation: Roy Halladay pitched the most complete games in the majors last season and Cliff Lee has pitched the second most. Opposing teams are playing zero inning games with Lee and Halladay for sixteen games.

Unlike the Miami Heat of the NBA, Philly’s super-star starting pitchers do not need to learn how to play with each other; they just need to learn how to play with catcher Carlos Ruiz, something that isn’t really a problem.

The New York Mets look like a joke compared to Philly and the major moves of Dan Uggla to the Atlanta Braves, Jayson Werth to the Washington Nationals and Javier Vazquez to the Florida Marlins mean nothing now.

The Philadelphia Phillies will dominate the NL East.

But like the Miami Heat, the Phillies still have to beat the champs. Playing the role of the Boston Celtics of the National League, the San Francisco Giants still have their Fantastic Four of Tim Lincecum, Matt Cain, Jonathan Sanchez and Madison Bumgarner along with an improved lineup.

This will be great for baseball, as new powerhouse rivals are formed, diverting the attention of the media and fans away from the never-ending rivalry between the Boston Red Sox and the New York Yankees.

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