Philly Sports Post - Home of the PSP Podcast

Every spring as the Phillies head south and begin spring training, I begin my own springtime tradition. My four stages of spring baseball, they are as follows:
1. Relive the previous season
2. I get overly optimistic, and find all the evidence possible to support said optimism.
3. I become a lot less optimistic, and start pointing at all the reasons the season could fall apart.
4. I cobble together an assessment based on both sides of the argument and lay out a realistic prediction.



Now we come to the end of my springtime return to baseball, after mulling over all the reasons this season could be an improvement of 2008, as well as a few reasons why it could end in disappointment, I make a decision. Which will it be? Thumbs up or thumbs down? I think I’m going to go with thumbs up. I think the 2009 Phillies are positioned quite well to be a better club than last year’s world champions.

The Phillies return a prolific offense that will be at or near the top of the league in runs scored. I’ve already made my questions about the offense clear, so let’s move on to where I see most of the improvement coming from, the starting rotation. Last season the Phillies starting pitchers combined to win 59 games. This season, barring a rash of serious injuries, I expect that total to rise into the low to mid 60’s. Individually I see Hamels, Blanton and Myers all adding 2 or 3 wins to what they did last season and that trio totaling between 40 and 45 wins. I think Jamie Moyer will pitch with similar success to what he found in 2008, but not quite the luck and as a result Jamie will see his win total fall from last season’s team-high of 16 to a more modest 12 or so. That leaves the fifth starter’s spot last season a struggling Kyle Kendrick found 11 wins as this team’s #5, so to expect double digits from whomever assumes that role coming out of spring training seems reasonable, so let’s say 10 and move on. The biggest factor in derailing this theory would be guys missing time with injuries. This team does have some depth at starting pitcher, so injuries should be able to be managed as the squad will have three guys waiting for a chance to join the rotation after the Park-Happ-Kendrick-Carassco contest sorts itself out, in addition Chad Durbin could always be called on for a spot start if needed.

Click here for thoughts on the rest of the relevant NL’s rotations.

This improvement in the starting rotation will set the Phillies up to improve on the 92 wins of 2008, to 95 or more. Improving is essential since, as previously noted, several other teams also appear to have better pitching than last season. Getting back to 92 wins however should be the team’s primary goal since only once has a National League team reached that mark and failed to make the playoffs during the wildcard era, and only four NL teams have won more than 90 games in a season in the last four years combined.

So here’s the bottom line, I think the offense that was 2nd in the NL last season stays in the top 3, I think the NL’s best bullpen stays in the top 3, and I think that a rotation that was 7th in the NL last year takes a step up into the top five, and this team wins an extra 4 games and finishes 96-66. The Phillies are definitely a playoff team. They will probably once again be the NL East champs, although if Florida or NewYork won the division it wouldn’t be a complete shock. What would shock me would be the Phillies not beating either the Mets or the Cubs in a playoff series. So I’m predicting a return to the World Series for the Phillies, with St. Louis as the only team that can challenge them.