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Letters to the NL East, Part 4, Dear Phillies…

Letters to the NL East, Part 4.

Dear Phillies,

 

Is Chase Utley enjoying his rocking chair?  Let me warn you now, you’re going to say “Once everyone gets healthy” a lot while the Mets and Braves distance themselves from you in the division.

 

Good job offering Cliff Lee the most money per year, and keeping him from the Yankees.  You see, they’d score runs for him.  I find it hard to believe that you are  better off with Lee than with Werth.  Ibanez’s power seems to be vanishing and he’s aging quickly.  Rollins hasn’t really been good in three years, he’s batting third in the lineup yet has a .258 AVG, and .320 OBP over the last three years.  You’re using whatever warm bodies you could find for right field and second base.

 

You’ve got great pitching, but none of them are good hitters.  Also, every year dozen

s of great pitchers have sub-par years, get hurt, or get no run support.  Will Hamels rising walk rate make him ineffective? Will Oswalt’s back hold up? Roy Halladay threw 750 innings over the last three years, not including Spring Training.  That’s a lot of wear and tear on an arm.

 

Your a talented team, more talented than your fans deserve, but you don’t have a lot of depth and aren’t built to handle injuries.  But injuries happen, and if you play Wilson Valdez for any extended period of time you might as well shoot yourself in the foot now.

 

And that bullpen! No Lidge, you’ve got Contreras closing for now because you can’t trust Madson.  Contreras, who’s 10 among active pitchers in wild pitches and 20th in errors, is who you’re going to trust in pressure situations.  The bullpen wasn’t good last year and it doesn’t look any better.  What’s your plan? Burn out the starters and hope they hold up all season?  You can only push an arm so much before it breaks.

 

You know what they say…the bigger they are, the harder they fall.

 

Your Bitter Rival,

 

Optimistic Mets Fan

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Divisions Aren’t Won in December

I believe it’s my job to try to spin Cliff Lee signing with the Phillies as not the end of the world. Start with this Hardball Talk article. Although it’s no secret that Cliff Lee is light years better than Kyle Kendrick or whoever ends up being bumped (Blanton via trade?) from the rotation as a result of the signing.

The article by Matthew Pouliot does a good job breaking down some of the specific concerns with the Phillies, particularly on the offensive side and in the bullpen. World Series, or even division titles, are not won in December. You still have to play the games. Things change drastically from year to year. Players who have been injured don’t stay injured. Players who are healthy don’t stay healthy. Players get older. Players have good years and bad. The Mets underperformed and missed by one game in 2007 and responded by adding the best pitcher in baseball..and somehow didn’t get any better.

The other argument is flexibility. Alderson’s motto so far has been to create flexibility for the Mets to be able to adapt and fix holes as they come. To sign free agents they need when they need them. Overreacting to an acquisition by the opposition and throwing out the philosophy two months in would be silly. The Phillies are now probably the definition of inflexible. Their payroll is so bulging people are reporting that they’re going to have to jettison payroll, probably by trading Joe Blanton. Their pitching depth is poor, so that if anything happens to their starting four, the dropoff is great. Their entire offense is old, neither corner outfield spot projects to come close to being above average, and they’ve lost Jason Werth.

The Mets on the other hand will have the ability, and desire, to add a player by the trading deadline to fix holes. They’ll be getting Johan Santana back. They’ll know if their underperforming core has raised it’s game. It’s entirely likely that the Mets offense will be better than the Phillies. While the Mets have rotational depth issues as well to start the season, Dickey, Niese and Pelfrey look to be very solid contributors. Sandy Alderson has repeatedly stated that he loves to make midseason moves, and he’s confirmed that he’ll have the flexibility to do so. Maybe this is the year the Mets go 40-15 down the stretch and surge into the postseason.

As the next couple of years go by, the Mets will get more and more flexible, while the Phillies will mostly be stuck with aging players making a lot of money. Cliff Lee certainly helps their chances in 2011, but it also helps accelerate their demise as repeat divisional champions.

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Letters to the NL East, Part 4/5

(To read past year’s letters, click here)

Letters to the NL East, Part 4 of 5. (part 1, part 2, part 3)

phil_phylis

Dear Philadelphia Phillies,

You suck.  That’s right, you heard me.  You’re the “popular” pick to win the division, much like the Mets were predicted to win the World Series last year.  You know what?  It doesn’t matter.  You get credit in analysts’ eyes for being there in the past, but that doesn’t actually get you any wins in 2010.

You already get one big black mark for letting Cliff Lee leave when you acquired Halladay.  Now suddenly your rotational is only marginally better, at best.  And you have at least as many question marks at the Mets.  Sure, those questions have turned out to be exclamation points in the past, but this is a different year.  Maybe Hamels was a one-hit wonder, and will continue to be merely pedestrian.  Blanton has never been anything special, and Moyer had a hot spring, but is hardly a reliable product in the rotation.  Happ is the one thing to hold on to, in that he had a really good year in his time up last year.  There is no guarantee that that will continue, that he won’t get figured out by the league and fail to adjust, that he won’t suffer the sophomore curse.

Pedro Feliz was such a solid feature at third base that I just don’t buy that Polanco is anything more than a lateral move at best.  Your bullpen is extremely suspect, and while you do have a potent offense, the Mets did match you in runs scored prior to the injury-plagued 2009.   This offseason you lock up a couple of your players to long term contracts, and coupled with letting Lee go, it’s apparent you don’t have the money to fill any holes that arrive this season.

So, while you get many props for winning the division in previous years, the calendar has turned and that buys you nothing in 2010.  You’re at the top of the hill but you’re teetering at the edge.  All it would take is one misstep, or one good push, for you to go tumbling back to obscurity.

While I’ve enjoyed having a real rival that’s both geographical close and in the same league, I don’t know if you can keep it up for long enough for us to say that Mets-Phillies is better than Yankees-Red Sox and really mean it.  The Mets have some minor injuries to start the season, so you should take advantage of it while you still can.  If you can’t start getting ahead in the race, the Mets will steamroll right by you when they’re back to full strength.

It’s going to be a fun and combative year.  Can you handle it?

Your bitter enemy,

Optimistic Mets Fan