Liberty Ball

A day later than expected, the Phillies got a victory in their first spring training game.  Yesterday the Phils beat the Cincinnati Reds 8-1.  Philadelphia blew the game open with a 7 run 5th inning.  Greg Dobbs led the charge with a 3 run home run.  New acquisitions, Geoff Jenkins and Pedro Feliz produced well with Jenkins driving in Ryan Howard in the 2nd, and Feliz going 2-2 with an RBI and run scored of his own.

Jamie Moyer, the oldest player in the league, was the most impressive performer of the day.  Moyer pitched 3 scoreless innings while giving up only 1 hit and striking out 3.

The Phillies play the Pirates today at 1:05 et.  The game against Florida State was cancelled due to rain.

In a surprise move, Charlie Manuel named Brett Myers the Phillies Opening Day on Tuesday.  Most assumed third year pitcher Cole Hamels would get the nod for the start.  Hamels went 10-5 last year and was easily the top starter.  Myers suspects that the move might be a form of thanks for him returning to the starting rotation from the closer role.  When all is said and done, who’s #1 doesn’t matter nearly as much as if there is a rotation set up.  Rarely does it line up where each teams #1 pitchers face each other in a series.  Getting to start on Opening Day is a way to recognize good work from the previous year and throughout the off season, and in my mind, Brett Myers is very deserving of the start

Apparently tonights game against Florida State University was cancelled.  I was trying to find it and just saw that it was cancelled.  I don’t know why yet.  Meanwhile, the Mets tied the University of Michigan 4-4.

This is just a quick note that Brad Lidge’s surgery was successful this morning.  He is still expected to miss 3-6 weeks.  In the meantime, Tom Gordon will move to the closer role.

Brad Lidge felt a twinge in his right knee Saturday while pitching batting practice.  He and the team decided to go ahead and have surgery to repair the small meniscus tears rather than wait and see if the injury fixes itself.  He is expected to miss 3-6 weeks.  He is hopeful that he can still pitch on opening day.  Luckily the injury happened now rather than mid season, and as much as I don’t like surgery, it seems like this is the best option.

Ryan Howard won his arbitration case with the Phillies on Thursday.  His win set a record for first year arbitration eligible players.  Howard received a record setting $10 million when the Phillies were offering him $7 million.  The good thing is that now Howard will not enter free agency until after 2011.  The bad thing is that now he is going to want a bigger contract than Albert Pujols.

Ryan, I love you and I think you do great things but cut down on the K’s, improve your D, and lead us to a world series win and then you can make Pujols kind of money.

I would like to apologize for my recent absence.  I have been recovering from shoulder surgery.  I wanted to get in touch with Kris Benson a little better and had surgery to repair the labrum in my right shoulder.  Now hopefully in a year I will be pitching in the majors.

I’ll give credit that Johan Santana is good.  He has been the most dominant lefty in the AL for a few years now.  His addition to the Mets has made them extremely cocky.  They seem to think that now they are shoe-ins to win the NL East.  According to Bob Klapisch’s article on ESPN.com, Carlos Beltran wants to make sure Jimmy Rollins knows that the Mets are the team to beat in the East.  Somehow they think that adding one pitcher will make them much better from last year.  Yes, he will add some wins on his own, but if they still have the same colapse at the end of the season they had last year, a man who plays once every 5 games will not save the team everygame.

The Phillies are the defending NL East champs, and have made the right moves to repeat, no matter who the Mets have pitching.

The word from Phillies camp is that Tom Gordon has his old pop back.  He was one of the few pitchers to actually throw fastballs in the first few days of camp.  This is a change from last season when he was coming off of an injury and couldn’t throw hard until later on in the spring.  I have always like Gordon since his “Flash” days with the cubs.  Having an actual closer in Brad Lidge, the Phillies can use Gordon as the set up man he should be.

There will be one more pitcher reporting tomorrow morning when pitchers and catchers report.  The Phillies signed veteran right hand, starting pitcher Kris Benson to a minor league contract today.  Benson had surgery to repair a torn labrum in his throwing shoulder 10.5 months ago.  He is hoping to be recovered and joining the major league team sometime between opening day and June 1.  The Phillies signed him after seeing him pitch at about 60-70% back in December.  They took the chance to sign him now before he is fully recovered rather than battle other teams once he is able to pitch at full strength.  With signing him to a minor league contract, the team does not risk much money if he is not able to perform after his recovery.  Anything that he is able to contribute is a bonus since he is a veteran pitcher who knows his way around the NL East.

John Sickels wrote an interesting article on the top prospects from 2000.  He rates them in an interesting way by putting them in order of win shares.  Pat Burrell was the 3rd rated prospect from that class, and he was 5th on the win share list.  It’s an interesting look at who was hot then, and what they have been a part of since.

The projected 5 man pitching rotation for the Phillies is filled by 5 starters who missed time at one point or another last season.  Although they all had a record of .500 or better, except for Myers due to his role as closer, the team ERA was 5th highest in the NL. 

The rotation has Cole Hamels at the top, followed by Brett Myers, Kyle Kendrick, Jamie Moyer, and Adam Eaton.  Hamels is one of the top young lefties in the league.  Kendrick showed great promise last year after getting called up on June 13th, going 10-4 with an ERA of 3.87.

Eaton is the weak link in the rotation.  Last season he was 10-10 with an ERA over 6.  The Phillies signed Chad Durbin in the off season.  Although he will mostly see time in the bullpen, he has the ability to make spot starts when needed.  The loss of Kyle Lohse to free agency could prove to be a bigger loss than losing Aaron Rowand.  The Phills are still looking to get one more veteran pitcher to solidify the rotation.

The last two NL MVPs have been Phillies.  This year should be no different.  Ryan Howard and Jimmy Rollins, the 2006 and 2007 MVPs respectively, are among the top candidates again this year.  However, this year will yield a different Phillies MVP.  Chase Utley was the leading MVP candidate last season until he broke his right hand and was put on the 15 day DL.

Utley batted .332 with 22 HRs and 103 RBIs while playing in only 132 games due to his broken right hand.  When he went on the DL it opened up the door for his infield partner to take the award.  If he has an injury free season, he will be the key to this lineup.  Most likely Utley will bat third in the most potent offense in the NL.  In that spot he will be protected by Howard, and be able to drive in Rollins, and Victorino.  The other factor for the Phillies to remain the top offensive team in the NL is the production of Pat Burrell.  He was able to finally realize his potential in the second half of last season.  With this being his contract year, he should have his best complete season to date.

Last season, Jimmy Rollins said that the Phillies were the team to beat in the NL East.  Rollins backed up his bold statement with an MVP season.  This winter, Rollins was making new predictions.  He claimed that this year the Phillies will win 100 games.  Although the Phills haven’t been nearly as loud as other teams in offseason moves, they made the ones that they needed to in order to make Rollins’ prediction come true.

After Brett Myers succeeded in the role of closer last year, the coaching staff decided that they would like to have him move back to the second spot in the starting rotation.  The acquiring of Brad Lidge from the Houston Astros made that possible.  Although Lidge only had 19 saves in 27 chances, in his career, he has converted 123 saves in 150 chances.  Along with that, he has a 3.36 career ERA and averages 1.4 strikeouts per inning.  If Lidge can get back to his 2005 form, it will greatly strengthen the Phillies pitching staff with the 1, 2 punch of starting pitchers, Cole Hamels and Brett Myers.

The other transaction that will have the biggest effect on this season was yesterdays signing of 3B Pedro Feliz.  Feliz rounds out an infield full of MVP candidates.  Feliz’s offense will not improve the lineup that much, but his defense will.  He ranked first in fielding percentage in the NL among third basemen.  Third base was the biggest hole on the Phillies roster prior to yesterday.  There is still some cap room left, and there is some talk that they are looking into signing another veteran pitcher.  It has been rumored that veteran righty, Kris Benson is on the top of that list.