Pirates Preview: Trade Deadline

This is a bigger series than we, as Phillies fans, would care to admit. It's also one that we will all but ignore, mostly because everyone is so caught up in the all of the trade talk with the deadline being on Sunday.

There are a ton of things I want to talk about for this series, but all of my focus recently has been on the trade deadline, and I've been able to develop plenty of new opinions since my post a few weeks ago on trade possibilities. In that post, I basically said that I wanted Heath Bell and/or Hunter Pence, with Hunter Pence causing much more excitement. Things have drastically changed since then. (WARNING: If you're here just for a preview of the games and actual talk of the Pirates and Phillies, you should just skip down to the bottom.)

For starters, the asking price for Pence is high. Back then, I had seen someone completely make up a majoke of a trade involving only Pence and Jarred Cosart, our top pitching prospect. Get a job, man. That's nowhere close to what's being talked about now. I have heard rumors of Cosart, Jonathan Singleton (our 2nd best prospect, a first baseman), and a third prospect being turned down by the Asstros. I have also heard that they need that third prospect to be Trevor May, our 3rd best pitching prospect, for a deal to work. I have even heard that we've offered Domonic Brown, but the Asstros want younger players. But they also want "sure thing" prospects. Whaaat???

And, now, as I am typing this, I am seeing that the Phillies and Asstros are trying to find a third team to get the deal done. That deal would include us losing Domonic Brown. I have heard the Asstros want to trade with the Braves because they like their prospects more, but I've also heard the Braves are done even trying to get Pence because they're unwilling to give up what Houston wants.

Along with all of that, if we don't get Pence, we are probably looking to strike a deal with the Padres for both outfielder Ryan Ludwick and Mike Adams, their set-up man.

And if the White Sox decide this weekend that they don't want to make the playoffs, we have talked to them about getting Carlos Quentin, more than likely for a price a little lower than Pence. Quentin, however, appears to be our second choice of outfielder behind Pence.

Before I am finished typing this preview, and almost definitely before the game starts tonight, and guaranteed before the series this weekend ends, all of this could change or mean absolutely nothing depending on who gets who and wants to give up what. As of this moment in time (4:25 PM, Friday), Pence and Brown are in the starting lineups for tonight. If either or both of those change, expect big things.

I know you all are dying to know my current thoughts on all of this, so I'll tell you.

What is easiest?

I think the Adams-Ludwick acquisition would be the easiest for us to pull off at this point. That's all relative, though. You may have noticed the misspelling of "Astros" thus far in the post. That's because, with all of this trade malarkey going on, I am changing the spelling of the Astros in this blog to the Asstros. They are being super greedy in all of this, trying to completely strip our farm system to the point where we better hope for some serious advances in medical technologies to allow our players to be this good through their early 40s. Of course, the Asstros have every right to do this; they have the upper hand in all of this. The Asstros don't care if they get better this year. If they have Pence, they have him. If they don't, they don't. They don't need to make a change to get better right this second like we do. So they should absolutely do all of this. But does that mean I should see things their way and NOT start calling them the Asstros? Psh...what kind of Phillies fan would I be if I did THAT? So that deal is proving to be really tough to make, and the White Sox are only 3 games back in the AL Central, so they may not be willing to get rid of a player like Quentin in the midst of that. The Padres, on the other hand, are absolutely getting rid of players, and we haven't hit as many roadblocks with them as we have with the Asstros. At least not that I've heard. I think Adam is awesome and would be a fantastic addition to the team, and Ludwick could hopefully help out a little at the plate. If not, he's sure to be a defensive upgrade from either of our corner outfielders. Yikes.

What do I want to happen?

I honestly want Carlos Quentin. I am borderline hoping the Braves get Hunter Pence today so that we go all out for Quentin this weekend. This might be confusing, considering how excited I was about the thought of Hunter Pence in our lineup less than 3 weeks ago. But Carlos Quentin has more power than Pence, and we are ultimately looking for a right-handed hitter who can get the ball out of the yard. He's only batting .262, but are we honestly looking for someone with a great batting average? We need a 5-hitter. Right now, Quentin has 20 home runs, tied with Ryan Howard for leading current Phillies players. He has 62 RBI, behind only Ryan Howard in terms of Phillies players (and Howard leads the NL). He is tied with Shane Victorino for highest slugging percentage at .510. His OPS is also second only to Victorino. And his batting average actually isn't that bad, especially on the Phillies. For a bunch of these stats, you could argue something similar for Hunter Pence. Except when I think of Hunter Pence, I don't get the same sense of him being a power hitter as I do with Quentin. More than likely, this is because Pence looks like he's trick-or-treating to me. He's generally unathletic-looking, he chokes up on his bat, and all of the accessories he wears (3/4 sleeve baseball shirt underneath, high socks, sweat bands) just make him look like he's always wearing a Halloween costume. Watching him swing a bat is an uncomfortable experience in my opinion. I don't like that we're going to rely on that to start hitting homers. Along with all of that, I don't want to trade with the greedy Asstros. It'll be hilarious when they get nothing out of this deadline.

What do I think will happen?

I think we get Hunter Pence, and I think we end up spending way too much for him. Something I have yet to address is us giving up Domonic Brown, which, according to all of the current reports, we will have to do to get Pence. I don't know how I feel about this. At first, I was very very against even a thought of doing that. I have heard over the years that Brown is the real deal, and I think he has shown flashes of turning into a great player. Pence or Quentin, though, would without a doubt be an upgrade over him right NOW. While he seems to have potential at the plate, and he has great patience as a hitter, I almost feel like he must've gone through an 8-inch growth spurt in the past year with how awkward he looks out in the field. He can't seem to get his bearings defensively. I have no idea how he will develop in the coming years, but his dominance at every level of the minors tells me that he'll eventually come around (at least offensively). It scares me to give him up, but, at the same time, I wouldn't mind it at a time when we keep hearing how much we need to win now. My problem with it, though, is that we're going to give up our starting right fielder and our top 2 prospects (and possibly a 3rd in the top 10) for one player. And he's not Cliff Lee. He's not Roy Halladay. He's not THAT much of a difference-maker. We've made huge deals over the past few years, but they have been for excellent players, not just good players. Pence is definitely a good player, but we are paying too much for him.

As I say all this, though, I have to show some faith in Ruben Amaro, Jr. Has he steered us wrong yet? He's made nothing but great deals since he took over in 2009, and I almost feel bad doubting him this much. I thought the Oswalt deal was bad last year, and said that not winning the World Series would make it a bad deal. While we didn't win the World Series, I do think that ended up being a good deal for us. J.A. Happ, a man I worshiped during his time in Philadelphia, is awful this year for the Asstros. Not that Oswalt has really been around for us this year, but he was awesome for us last year. So my doubts of Amaro last year ended up being totally wrong. Are my doubts this year unwarranted? I don't think so. But Ruben could end up proving me wrong. Again.

Obviously this is a hot topic, so please comment, call me, text me, email me, send me a message on facebook, whatever. I'd love to hear other opinions.

No matter what happens, though, apparently we have to play a series this weekend while it's all going on. The nerve.

Game 1: Charlie Morton (8-5, 3.69 ERA) vs. Roy Halladay (12-4, 2.55 ERA)
In my preview of our first series with the Pirates, I mentioned that Morton copied Halladay in the offseason and now has an identical delivery. It is so awesome that this matchup is occurring simply because we will see Roy Halladay's delivery every half-inning until the bullpens get to work. In that first series, although they didn't face each other, Halladay and Morton had nearly identical statistical lines as well. Seven innings, 6 hits, 2 earned runs, and a difference of just 1 for both walks and strikeouts. At that time, Morton actually had a better ERA than Halladay. So should we look forward to a 1-1 game until extra innings? I don't think so. The big difference between these guys is that Halladay has kept up his success throughout the season. He had a 2.56 ERA going into that first series, and he's at 2.55 now, going 4-1 with a 2.53 ERA and 1.02 WHIP since seeing his doppleganger. Morton was at 2.51 and has since gone up to 3.69, going 2-3 with a 6.40 ERA and 1.86 WHIP in 7 starts. Needless to say (but I'll say it anyway), Morton has been awful since then, and Halladay has been the portrait of consistency. Rollins is 6 for 9 in his career against Morton with 3 doubles, including one in their showdown earlier this season. Halladay has actually gotten hit around a bit by these Pirates in his career, but look for him to "bounce back" strong after going 4 straight starts of giving up more than 1 run. Weird.
Prediction: Phillies 5 Pirates 0
Keep an eye out for: Roy Halladay throwing a complete game shutout. Ugh.

Game 2: James McDonald (7-4, 3.95 ERA) vs. Cliff Lee (9-7, 3.05 ERA)
I remember very well sitting behind home plate in PNC Park, watching James McDonald struggle to throw a strike for what seemed like 15 straight batters. I have a very difficult time believing that he is 7-4 this season and has an ERA under 4. He looked absolutely terrible against us after the first 3 innings. Here is his 4th and 5th inning against us:
Utley walked
Utley to second on wild pitch
Howard walked
Utley to third, Howard to second on passed ball
Ibanez sac fly (1 run scores)
Ruiz hit by pitch
Brown singled
Valdez grounded into double play (end of inning)
Halladay walked
Victorino walked
Polanco walked
McDonald taken out
What a hilariously bad trip through our order. The only person who did anything negative was Wilson "Why Get One Out When You Can Get Two" Valdez grounding into one of his patented double plays. Our batters have just 3 hits against McDonald, but 5 walks. I think patience will be key and will pay off for us. Lee did not face the Pirates the first time around, and, therefore, does not have much experience against them (since they're the Pirates and their team completely changes every 3 months or so). I think that he comes out firing in this game and helps to show Pirates fans why they shouldn't feel bad about not being buyers at the trade deadline.
Prediction: Phillies 7 Pirates 0
Keep an eye out for: Utley staying hot (batting .375 last 9 games) and getting a couple of extra base hits and RBI in this one

Game 3: Jeff Karstens (8-5, 2.41 ERA) vs. Vance Worley (7-1, 2.02 ERA)
Karstens has been great since he dominated us over 7 innings. He's 5-1 in his last 8 starts, including a complete game shutout in which he threw just 83 pitches. If you're not amazed by that there's something seriously wrong with you. That's throwing 9 pitches per inning. And it's not like he threw a perfect game, so he was seeing more than 3 batters per inning. It's truly unbelievable. That tells me that we just need to use the same patience in this game that we hopefully use against McDonald in Saturday's. While Karstens has been good this season, Worley has been all but unhittable in his last 7 starts, giving up just over 3 hits per start. He finally gave up more than 1 earned run since his June call-up, disappointing everyone by giving up 2 earned runs in his last start and only throwing a complete game. Get your act together, Vance.
Prediction: Phillies 2 Pirates 0
Keep an eye out for: Worley throwing 8 shutout innings and the Phils shutting out the Pirates bats, hopes, and dreams over the course of the weekend. VANIMAL!!

Instant Replay

In light of recent events involving the Pirates and Braves, as well as an undying loyalty I have to instant replay, I am deciding to finally express all of my opinions on the use of replay.

First of all, if you missed the call last night to end the 19-inning Braves-Pirates game, you should click on the link above to get a look at it. It was a horrendous call; the worst I've ever seen. I stayed up to watch all of the extra innings because, to me, this series is a win-win. If the Braves win, I'm happy because Pittsburgh loses. If the Pirates win, I'm happy because the Braves lose. Usually I'd see this situation as a lose-lose, but I've developed a much more positive outlook on this specific case. Last night was the ultimate example of win-win because not only did Pittsburgh lose, but the Braves also have to feel like total crap for winning in that way. Everybody loses! And, therefore, I win!

For years, in every sport, I have argued that instant replay is completely necessary. It is calls like this that make sports unfair. Rather than even argue why I think it's necessary, I'll just look at some arguments as to why it is a bad idea that I've heard over the years:

Calls this bad are extremely rare

Do I even need to argue against this? This argument is so incredibly stupid. Basically whoever wrote this majoke of an article says that just because someone lost a perfect game or a World Series, it doesn't mean we need to change the whole sport. Those things are "once-in-a-decade events." Uhhh...so? Do they only count perfect games that are thrown by non-Tigers pitchers? Or do the baseball record books decide to randomly eliminate the results of one World Series per decade? No, no they do not. So those things still matter. And they matter a lot. Imagine if the Phillies would've lost in 2008 on a botched call. We wouldn't have made it to the 2009 World Series because THE CITY WOULDN'T EXIST ANYMORE. Philadelphians would have killed everyone associated with Major League Baseball along with lighting the entire tri-state area on fire. We have the means to prevent bad calls from having a huge impact, but we are choosing not to. That's unfair and, honestly, just irresponsible. It's a slap in the face to Alexander Cartwright, the man credited with inventing baseball.

Games would take longer

This is the argument that might make the most sense. Except that it doesn't really. NFL games have taken 3 hours for as long as I can remember. So have college football games. More recently, though, each of them have added instant replay. Check your television schedule for a college football game in the fall. If a game starts at 12, it's scheduled to be over at 3. And it probably will be. Or at least somewhere around there. The game takes 3 hours with or without instant replay. The same would happen with baseball, and it actually makes more sense for baseball as to why. Right now, games are delayed because managers argue calls. The worse the call, the longer the argument and show that goes with it. While that is a fun part of the game to watch, it could be eliminated in favor of the correct calls by adding replay. If a manager can just call for a replay rather than call for the umpire's head, the game takes the same amount of time, if not less. Sure, there's nothing really happening in that minute or 2 compared to the shouting match you would see otherwise. But maybe that'll be good for a society that needs to learn a lesson in patience when everything we want or need is right in front of us immediately. Did I just suggest that baseball reform the modern world? Yes. Yes I did.

The Human Element

Those three words keep me up at night.
Why do we punish players who use steroids in baseball?
Why is holding a penalty in football?
Why are fouls called in basketball?
(Something something something, possible penalty, controversy, etc.) in hockey?
Seriously, what are the causes of all of these things? Easy: it gives one team or player an advantage over the other. OK, so what? Well, if that happens, the game is no longer fair.
The game is no longer fair.
The game is no longer fair.
What do we not understand about sports being fair? Every game is supposed to be fair. As a kid, you definitely accused people of cheating when you lost games because you didn't think you could lose a game "fair and square." Well, the Pirates did not lose fair and square last night. Armando Galarraga threw a perfect game last year, fair and square. Except the Pirates did lose, and it wasn't fair. Armando Galarraga was robbed of a perfect game, and it wasn't fair. But, hey, that's the way baseball has always been! It's a part of the game! Imperfection is awesome!
You are SO WRONG if you think that's anywhere CLOSE to being true. Yes, it's always been a part of the game, but only out of necessity. I doubt that Alexander Cartwright sat down, wrote the rules of baseball out and decided, "You know what? We've got all of these ways to make sure every call is correct, but I'd rather have people just kind of decide completely, 100% based on what they see immediately." He had no option other than "the human element." That's what he was working with. There was no way to slow down a play and look at it again. The same goes for every other sport. These sports were started at a time without the technology necessary for instant replay, so they made the sport as fair as possible IN SPITE of that. So now, we have decided that it's a part of the game. I guarantee Alexander Cartwright would kick everyone's ass who is trying to say the game shouldn't be as fair as possible today. I can't get over how ridiculous of a thought this is. The human element? THE HUMAN ELEMENT? Get a job, man.
I'm not suggesting we get robots to be our umpires. I realize there is a certain line to be drawn here with things like a strike zone and such, but I think that replay should be available to make things right when they are clearly wrong. That play at home plate is not a judgment call. It, like many calls in baseball, is a black-and-white, safe-or-out call that should be made in the right way. I don't think umpires should be perfect, but I think they should get a chance to redeem themselves. It's only fair. Because in today's society, we have a way to make it fair. So why aren't we using it?

Giants Preview: Revenge

EDIT: This preview now means very little because the Giants just scratched Tim Lincecum due to a stomach illness. Stomach illness...yeah right. My money says we just traded for him

There is an odd connection between this series against the Giants and the Pirates-Braves series currently happening down in Atlanta.

-Our last NLCS (2010) was played against the Giants
-The Pirates last NLCS (1992) was played against the Braves
-We are currently "battling" the Braves for the NL East (6 games is hardly a battle)
-Every one of these teams is currently in first place (Braves for the Wild Card)
-The Phillies and Pirates are both from Pennsylvania (assuming that you still agree with the rest of the world that Pennsylvania is one state. I, for one, prefer that we go way of the great state of Virginia (shameless plug) and throw the crappy part out. Pennsylvania and West Pennsylvania)
-The Giants and Pirates are the 2 teams that Barry Bonds played for, who has the home run record over Hank Aaron, a former Brave. (Yes, a huge stretch, but this is baseball. If I wasn't manipulating facts to make them work for me, what kind of a baseball fan would I be?)

While all of these things are cool, interesting, fun, irrelevant, and totally pointless, I would rather focus on just our series. Specifically, I want to look at what the heck happened in the NLCS last year for us to lose and what we need to do to fix that this year. I was just on the phone with my friend Dert, who knows way more about baseball and the Phillies than I do, and said that I was going to do this. Here's his list of things that went wrong:

1. We didn't hit
2. They pitched better than us
3. "Cody Ross had a freakin' bonfire under his ass"

So what was the deal with that?
1. Us not hitting is mostly true, but more that we just didn't hit at the right times. If you look at our regulars' batting averages, they certainly aren't pretty: Rollins .261; Polanco .250; Utley .182; Howard .318; Werth .222; Victorino .208; Ibanez .211; Ruiz .167. We batted .216 as a team with just a .294 on base percentage. Along with that, we wasted opportunities. Looking at just Game 6, the clinching game for the Giants, we had Polanco and Utley on 1st and 2nd with no one out to start the 3rd inning with the game tied at 2. The Giants took out their starter at that point, and we had Howard, Werth, and Victorino due up. Strike out, fly out, ground out. Not getting at least 1 run out of that is huge. It wasn't just a lack of hitting, but a lack of timely hitting

2. I will argue with Dert that this is actually not true. Although he has more knowledge of the Phils than I do, I am a bigger nerd obsessed with statistics. The pitching numbers are disgustingly similar over the 6 games of this series.
Innings pitched: PHI 52.2 SF 53
Hits: PHI 48 SF 41
Earned runs: PHI 18 SF 17
Walks: PHI 14 SF 21
Strikeouts: PHI 56 SF 56
ERA: PHI 2.91 SF 3.06
The only noticeable disparity there comes in terms of hits and walks, except we gave up 7 more hits than them and they gave up 7 more walks than us, essentially evening things out. How do we explain that?
Well that's easy, they had a better bullpen than us, right?
No, no they didn't. Their bullpen had a 2.79 ERA versus our 2.40 ERA. Our starters had a lower ERA, too. What the crap? It once again came down to timely pitching, which doesn't seem like a real thing. The Giants won 3 of their 4 games by 1 run, though, and the other win was a shutout. We won by scores of 6-1 and 4-2. We seemed to save our best pitching (and hitting) for two games. Of course, that's actually pretty obvious. Every team should win the games in which they pitch and hit better.

3. Cody Ross, a majoke of a player who looks like Rob Corddry and once played for 3 teams in one season, is the Antihalladay (much like the Antichrist, but I'm not willing to go so far as to call Roy Halladay Jesus). How do I know this? Well, his career batting average is .265. He hits a home run every 24.5 at bats. He has a career .784 OPS. Against Halladay in the NLCS last season? He batted .500 with 1 double, 2 home runs, 3 RBI, and a 2.167 OPS. Oh yeah, and his name backwards is Ssory Doc. I just threw up

That's what went wrong last year. How do we fix it this year?

Well, my best advice actually comes from Katie Brinker at around 4:21 of this clip. All we have to do is just be better than we were. And, in all seriousness, that's mostly going to be about hitting. Our bats are hot right now, and we just need to keep that up. With the trade deadline getting closer and closer every day, everybody seems to be playing for their job right now. We have stayed hot in July. The Giants have been known to cool us down in years past, and, at first glance, the matchups in this series make it seem like that trend could continue.

Game 1: Tim Lincecum (8-8, 2.90 ERA) vs. Vance Worley (6-1, 2.02 ERA)
Lincecum (whose name looks even weirder now that I have to type it) has surprisingly believable numbers against the Phils in his career. He's 2-1 with a 3.17 ERA. I can't remember us ever doing really anything against him, other than this game, where he actually shut us down for 8.1 innings before Jayson Werth doubled home 3 runs with 2 outs in the 9th off of Brian Wilson. He has absolutely killed our individual players over the years though, giving up just 22 hits while having 33 strikeouts. Our .193 average against him is not encouraging despite him having just 2 wins in 7 starts. His kryptonite seems to be Ryan Howard, who has 3 home runs in 19 career at bats against him. But even Howard has struck out 7 times in those 19 at bats. Worley, on the other hand, has no experience against the Giants (shocking, I know). With his last start, though, he continued on his unbelievable streak. In his first 6 starts, he was 2-1 with a 3.75 ERA and 1.54 WHIP. Since then, he is 4-0 with a 0.94 ERA and a WHIP of 0.97. The fact that the Phillies are reportedly unwilling to trade him tells me that he may have more potential than I initially thought. This game should line up to be quite the pitchers' duel.
Prediction: Phillies 2 Giants 1
Keep an eye out for: the runs coming late in this game. And for Jimmy "Superfly" Snuka, who was in the Phillies clubhouse today. Beware of extremely awkward conversation about professional wrestling led by Thomas McCarthy. I am truly dreading this.

Game 2: Barry Zito (3-2, 4.78 ERA) vs. Cole Hamels (12-5, 2.62 ERA)
Zito and Hamels are both pretty average against their opponents in this game. Neither really has an advantage in terms of a matchup against the opposing lineup, so I think it will just come down to the fact that Hamels is truly a better pitcher than Zito. My one hope for this game is that Polanco will be back (I don't know how possible that is) because he is a career .750 HITTER AGAINST BARRY ZITO. IN 16 AT BATS. That's not even fair. Hamels will need to keep an eye out for...Cody Ross. He's a .300 career hitter against Hamels with 4 home runs. Kill me.
Prediction: Phillies 8 Giants 3
Keep an eye out for: Hamels striking out double digits. And Ibanez striking out 3 times. Loser

Game 3: Matt Cain (8-6, 3.06 ERA) vs. Kyle Kendrick (5-4, 3.45 ERA)
Matt Cain is a very good pitcher, and he proved that last year by dominating us in the NLCS. The regular season, however, has been a different story. He is 0-3 with a 6.23 ERA against the Phils in his career. Initially looking at this matchup, I would've preferred to switch our pitchers for Games 2 and 3. Looking at Cain's numbers, though, I feel much better about our chances. Most notably, Jimmy Rollins is 6 for 10 in his career against him with a double, 3 triples, and a home run. Kendrick has little experience against these hitters, but a Giants lineup filled with lefties and switch-hitters worries me with Kendrick. He could end up getting hit around by the likes of Nate Schierholtz, Aubrey Huff, Andres Torres, Brandon Belt, and Pablo Sandoval.
Prediction: Giants 7 Phillies 5
Keep an eye out for: Jimmy Rollins. You know who's never hit for the cycle? Jimmy Rollins. You know who the last Phillies player is to hit for the cycle? David Bell. It's about time both of those things changed

Padres Preview

With our offense heating up, this seems to be the perfect time to face the San Diego Padres. Their pitchers did a pretty good job against us in our 4-game series in San Diego: 38 innings, 29 hits, 12 runs, 2.84 ERA. We are now facing them, though, at a time where most of our guys are hitting and playing pretty good baseball.

That's not the top reason that this is a great time, though. Our pitchers have not been at the top of their game recently, and this may be just what we need to get back on track. While their pitchers were able to shut us down pretty well back in April, you may recall that we actually swept those 4 games. That's because our pitchers did the following:

38 innings, 22 hits, 3 runs, 39 strikeouts, 0.71 ERA

Those numbers are real. Between our pitching success against the Padres and our recent hitting success against everyone else, I could not be happier about another 4-game series with the bottom-dwelling Padres. We think our offense has struggled this season? Here's a fun fact: The Padres rank last in the NL in runs, home runs, batting average, on base percentage, and slugging percentage. And it's not all that close. The highest slugging percentage in the NL is .416, the 2nd lowest is .361, and the Padres sit all the way down at .334. I haven't taken statistics since my sophomore year of high school, but I'm pretty sure that's what one would call an outlier (meaning they are hilariously behind everyone else). One thing I know about the trade deadline? Padres outfielder Ryan Ludwick doesn't look all that attractive to address any of our offensive issues.

Our starters were fantastic in this series, and our bullpen failed to give up a run in 8.1 innings. These were all close games, with Madson getting 2 saves, Contreras getting 1, and Bastardo getting his first career save by throwing 1 pitch.

We know that the Phillies are coming into this series playing well, but the Padres are, too. They've won 4 of 5 games and are coming off a 3-game sweep of the Marlins. Despite the horrendous offense, they have been doing well lately, scoring more than 7 runs per game in those 5 games. One individual to look out for in all of that is Cameron Maybin, who took his season batting average from .260 to .277 with this past series against his former team, the Marlins. He had 9 hits in 3 games, batting .600 and stealing 5 bases. He also is nicknamed Cocoa Diablo. Is that relevant? Doubtful. *TANGENT ALERT* But it does roughly translate to "Chocolate Devil," so apparently the Padres are overtly racist. But only in Spanish. Fitting, considering they're the "Padres." Except "padre" in Spanish means "father," often referring to a priest. So are these religious leaders suggesting that black people are the devil? And at this time? When players are talking about how there is a general lack of black players and fans in baseball?
*TANGENT ALERT ELEVATED* Do we really care if there aren't black players and fans in baseball? It means they aren't interested. Why is this an issue? Why is stuff still always about race? I don't get upset about the lack of white players in the NBA. I haven't heard anyone complain about the lack of Asians in the NFL. Hispanic people haven't been crying about being left out of the NHL. Get over yourself, Curtis Granderson. It's not an issue. You're being racist against everyone really, implying that it's so important for black people to be involved in baseball but not sticking up for other races. He also only makes arguments about inner city stuff and the fact that kids don't have the money to play. If a white person made these arguments, they'd be the most racist person since Jefferson Davis. I need to get away from the Confederate comparisons, though, seeing as now I'm in their capital. OK, that's enough of that.

So, anyway, back to what I was talking about. The Padres are playing well right now, but that's against the really crappy Marlins. The Phillies pitching staff should be a perfect remedy to their random offensive outburst. I'm sure the Padres are getting very uncomfortable with all of their scoring, so hopefully we can make them feel right at home from now through Monday.

Before I preview each game, here are a couple random things worth noting from around the league. Be prepared to find out my definition of "worth noting"

If you didn't catch SportsCenter today, the Mets landed themselves in a familiar spot...the Not Top 10. In the video "SportsCenter's Not Top Plays", at around the 1:10 mark you can catch the Mets' Angel Pagan actually throwing the ball to the other team. In baseball. Classic Mets.

The Angels recently called up highly-touted prospect Mike Trout. You may think that he's been up before, but you're just thinking of former-Angel and fellow fish Tim Salmon. Or maybe the pitcher from Angels in the Outfield named Whitt Bass. How do these guys end up on the Angels and not the Marlins? (If you didn't get it, those are all types of fish. Try to keep up here, people)

Game 1: Cory Luebke (3-3, 2.57 ERA) vs. Cole Hamels (11-5, 2.71 ERA)
Luebke is making his 5th start of the season and 8th of his career. He's seen the Phillies in 3 innings of relief this season, giving up 3 hits and striking out 3. Being a lefty, he has an advantage against us since we have 3rd-worst OPS in the NL against left-handers. Too much can be made of that, though, as in the case with Domonic Brown. Uncle Chuck pinch hit Mayberry for Brown the other day for a better matchup against a lefty; however, Brown is batting .300 this season against lefties and just .235 against righties. I think the Phillies can take advantage of his inexperience, especially on what is supposed to be a very hot night. Hamels dominated the Padres in his first start against them, going 8 innings and giving up 4 hits and no runs. He has a 2.42 ERA against them in his career. The two guys he most needs to look out for are Ryan Ludwick (.333, 2 HR) and Chocolate Devil (.313, 3 2B).
Prediction: Phillies 6 Padres 0
Keep an eye out for: the Phillies bats staying hot and the Padres cooling down very quickly. Domonic Brown gets a multi-hit game

Game 2: Mat Latos (5-10, 4.02 ERA) vs. Kyle Kendrick (5-4, 3.34 ERA)
Latos really struggled in his first start against the Phils this season, lasting only 4.1 and walking 5 batters. He went 14-10 last season with a 2.92 ERA but has come nowhere close to regaining that form this season. How bad is he? Ben Francisco is 1 for 1 with a home run off of him. Kendrick has been largely successful against this Padres lineup, but has a 5.91 ERA against San Diego in his career. I have doubted Kendrick for much of this season, and he's used that tough love to make himself into a respectable 5th starter (3-2, 3.86 ERA). I have always liked Kendrick, but his inconsistencies make me very hesitant to pick him to win.
Prediction: Padres 7 Phillies 6
Keep an eye out for: home runs all over the place in this hot afternoon game, including another one from the red-hot Jimmy Rollins.

Game 3: Tim Stauffer (6-6, 2.83 ERA) vs. Roy Halladay (11-4, 2.57 ERA)
For someone I've never heard of, we actually have a good amount of experience against Tim Stauffer. We've played against him twice - once this year where he pitched well, and once in a game I don't remember from 2007 where he pitched...uh...not so well. For Halladay, this is the closest he came this season to my precious complete game shutout. He made it through 8.2 before giving up an RBI single to some jerk named Will Venable. For this game, I have a feeling that (you guessed it) he can finish it off this time. The reason I'm not really addressing his last game is because I think it was a total freak accident, and I blame the satanic All-Star Game for it. And isn't it funny that Halladay's worst start yielded just 3 runs?
Prediction: Phillies 5 Padres 0
Keep an eye out for: Halladay getting his first complete game shutout of the season. And, for when that inevitably doesn't happen because the baseball universe hates me, I'll predict a Ryan Howard home run. He's 4 for 8 in his career against Stauffer with 2 home runs and 6 RBI.

Game 4: Aaron Harang (8-2, 3.29 ERA) vs. Cliff Lee (9-6, 2.83 ERA)
Harang is a guy we've seen a decent amount over the years, mostly as a Red. We have generally enjoyed facing him, considering his 5.22 ERA against the Phils. Current players who have had success against him include Utley (.450, 1.300 OPS) and Howard (3 HR, 1.242 OPS). While those 2 stand out, our current roster has a .311 average against him. Lee is our only starter (of our original 5) to have missed the Padres the first time around. Hopefully, he can make up for what surely would have been a great start back then with one this time around. It's about time he proves that he can be awesome even if its not June.
Prediction: Phillies 8 Padres 2
Keep an eye out for: Utley and Howard coming out of their July slumps in a big way, each with a multi-hit game, including a home run for both of them.

Completely random side note for those of you who have made it this far: I talked in one Male Bag about how Dumb & Dumber is the greatest comedy of all time because, basically, it is impossible to take it too seriously. Well, I have been proven wrong.

Hitting Our Stride

As the trade deadline approaches, teams are looking for ways to fill all kinds of needs that will, ideally, win them a World Series this season. The problem with that is, there's really no set formula for building a championship team. And there's definitely no telling how much a deadline deal will actually matter. Just look at the past 5 World Series:

2010: Giants 4 Rangers 1
A team completely built around pitching ends up winning games 1 and 2 by scoring 11 and 9 runs. Game 3, more of a pitchers' duel, the Giants lost 4-2. They really didn't have much to rely on offensively going in other than the 23-year-old rookie Buster Posey, who had no experience with this type of situation. He ended up batting just .250 in the World Series. The guys who did shine for them? Well, as we remember all too well, Cody Ross got them there, and journeyman shortstop Edgar Renteria batted .412 for them in the Series with 2 home runs, despite hitting just 1 and batting under .250 in his previous 61 postseason games. They made no real noise at the deadline and ended up winning it all because the right guys got hot at the right time.

2009: Yankees 4 Phillies 2
Once again, a year we remember all too well for what it was. The Yankees were a team built mostly on money it would seem. They had Sabathia, Burnett, and Teixeira, new acquisitions to the team, lead them through the regular season. Sabathia, Burnett, and Pettitte made up a 3-man rotation for them in the playoffs. They had 7 guys with 20+ home runs and 80+ RBI. A great lineup, great rotation, and great closer got them where they needed to be and won the World Series for them. Their deadline deal? Jerry Hairston. He went 1 for 6 in the World Series. It was Hideki Matsui, one of their "worst" offensive players (.274, 28 HR, 90 RBI not that impressive on this team), who won MVP for them. No one would have predicted that.

2008: Phillies 4 Rays 1
Our team was also built completely on its offense. Along with that, though, we had the best back-end of the bullpen in the majors. If we got to the 8th inning and were winning, the game was all but over. If we got to the 9th, it was definitely over. But it was our ace, Cole Hamels, that won MVP of the series. Joe Blanton, an acquisition that was criticized, ended up being solid for us through the playoffs and actually hitting a home run in Game 4 of the World Series while picking up the win.

2007: Red Sox 4 Rockies 0
Another team with great starting pitching, a great closer, and a high-powered offense. They had 3 regulars hitting .317 or better and 3 others at .270 or better. Their big midseason acquisition was former great closer and total juicer Eric Gagne. He had the highest ERA on their team in the regular season and pitched 1 shutout inning in the World Series. Mike Lowell, who had a fantastic season, won MVP for them.

2006: Cardinals 4 Tigers 1
This Cardinals team didn't have great starting pitching, didn't have a great bullpen, and didn't have a very powerful offense. Jorge Sosa, one of their deadline deals, did not pitch for them in the World Series. Ronnie Belliard, the other one, went 0 for 12. It was stupid little David Eckstein, Christopher Wheeler's favorite player, who batted .364 and took home MVP. Their team wasn't anything all that special, they didn't make any difference-making deals, but they just came together at the right time and won the World Series.

The only trend that we might see here is that the AL is really good at putting together more complete teams, but they seem to be average at winning the World Series. National League teams that some might consider inferior have won 3 of the last 5 Fall Classics, and their acquisitions throughout the season don't seem to make all that much of a difference on that road. So what matters? The best answer is just getting hot at the right time.

This is something that the Phillies are doing right now...getting hot. Is it the right time? Not exactly. But take a look at this scenario and tell me how you think we'd be doing in a month where these things are true:

Polanco is hurt
Victorino is hurt
Howard is hitting .210 with just 1 home run
Utley is hitting .250
Halladay's most recent start lasted just 4 innings
Lee is 0-1 with a 3.80 ERA
Hamels has a 4.43 ERA

This is our July. And we are 10-5, winning every series 2 games to 1. And we're doing this without the "complete team" that every team out there is trying to trade for. We don't have a lights-out closer (at least not to any of our knowledge). We don't have a powerful right-handed bat that we feel like we can count on. We can't seem to stay healthy all at once. But we are definitely proving right now that none of that matters. In the same way that teams like the Giants in 2010, us in 2008, and the Cardinals in 2006 proved that it didn't matter.

As I said, we're 10-5 in July and have not lost a series. Here's a look at how some of our players have fared in that time:

Jimmy is batting .382, including 9 multi-hit games out of the 15 he's played. He also has scored 14 runs and has 11 RBI in 68 at bats. It took him 49 at bats to get 1 RBI to start the season, and that's when he was batting 3rd.

Michael Martinez is batting .297 and has become our everyday 3rd baseman in Polanco's absence (close enough to my prediction). He's got 11 RBI in just 12 games, and hit his first career home run.

John Mayberry is doing his best to prove that he deserves to stay in the big leagues by driving in 12 runs in just 9 starts during Victorino's absence.

Domonic Brown is trying to secure his starting spot even with the possible addition of an outfielder. He's hitting .320 with a .433 OBP this month and 11 runs scored in 14 games.

Ibanez has cooled off recently, mostly because he sucks, but he still has a .283 average with 14 RBI in 14 games.

Vance Worley has gone 3-0 with a 0.89 ERA in 3 starts this month. He also became the 2nd Phillies pitcher since 1920 to have 5 straight starts of 5+ innings and 1 ER or less, joining Steve Carlton.

Antonio Bastardo has ignored our need for a closer by going 4 for 4 in save opportunities this month with a 1.23 ERA (bringing his season ERA up to 0.99. Gross)

And the people who aren't mentioned here? Chase Utley, Ryan Howard, Roy Halladay, Cliff Lee, Cole Hamels. These are our guys. These are the guys we need to rely on. If we are looking at what to trade for, we know we are fine with at least those guys and their positions.

Except they've struggled this month with batting averages in the low .200's and ERA's in the high 3.00's and mid 4.00's. So even without these guys doing what they normally do, we have managed to hold down our spot as the best team in baseball. We're scoring 5.7 runs per game in July, up from the 4.0 we were scoring up until the end of June.

Although I talked about different trade possibilities, and I'd love to see some different things happen, I kind of wonder how much of a difference it would even make. It seems that, for us, the most important part is figuring out how to hit our stride at the right time. We're 10-5 right now this month. You only need to go 11-8 in October to win the World Series. If only it were October now.

Cubs Preview

Because of the Male Bag that I posted earlier today, I am going to try to keep this preview relatively short. The Cubs really aren't that good, so I shouldn't have too much to say about them/this series anyway.

We took 3 out of 4 from them in our first series against them, with our lone loss coming in an extra-inning, rain-delay game in which Kyle Kendrick had pitched 3 shutout innings before having to come out because of the hour and 17 minute break. Our starters absolutely dominated in that series, pitching 25 innings and giving up just 4 earned runs (1.44 ERA). The Cubs, on the other hand, had their starters last just 19.2 innings and compile a 5.95 ERA. This hopefully means that we can jump out to early leads in each of these 3 games and let our pitchers do what they do best.

Game 1: Roy Halladay (11-3, 2.45 ERA) vs. Rodrigo Lopez (1-2, 4.02 ERA)
You all know what's coming with this prediction, so I'm not even going to talk about the Halladay aspect of this game. Lopez has struggled against this Phillies lineup through his career. As a team, we have a .353 batting average against him, including .333 for Suckhole, .364 for Baseball, .545 for the Big Man, and .600 for Chooch. We haven't hit for a whole lot of power against him, mostly singles really. That tells me that we shouldn't be shocked if we don't exactly light him up tonight, but at the same time I think we got this. This should not be a fun night for the Cubs fans at Wrigley (if they have any)
Prediction: Phillies 7 Cubs 0
Keep an eye out for: Roy Halladay throwing his first complete game shutout of the season

Game 2: Cliff Lee (9-6, 2.82 ERA) vs. Matt Garza (4-7, 3.97 ERA)
This is the same matchup as our first series against the Cubs, and we won the game 7-1. Lee pitched 8 innings, giving up 4 hits, 1 run, and striking out 7. Garza, although he got the loss, only gave up 1 earned run (and 1 unearned) in 6 innings. His bullpen, however, gave up the other 5 runs in just 2 innings of work. Garza is 1-1 with a 1.29 ERA against the Phillies, and Lee is 4-0 with a 1.59 ERA against the Cubs. This should be a pitchers' duel. The only person that really should be successful in this game, according to the numbers, is Raul Ibanez. He's on an 8-game hit streak right now, batting .326 in July, a .333 hitter against Garza with 2 home runs, and a .375 average against the Cubs this season. None of that means anything, though, because it's Raul Ibanez, and he's garbage.
Prediction: Phillies 3 Cubs 2
Keep an eye out for: Ibanez going 0 for 4 with 3 strikeouts. Take that, statistics!

Game 3: Vance Worley (5-1, 2.15 ERA) vs. Ryan Dempster (7-6, 4.68 ERA)
Dempster may have a tough time getting through Utley and Howard, who are hitting .636 and .333 against him, respectively. Howard has 2 home runs and 6 RBI in just 12 at bats. His ERA is a bit deceiving because he had a 9.58 ERA through his first 6 starts of the year. Since April ended, though, he is 6-3 with a 2.95 ERA. With Utley and Howard's success against him and Worley's recent hot streak (3-0, 0.89 ERA last 5 starts), I think the Phils can take this game and sweep the series against an inferior Cubs team.
Prediction: Phillies 7 Cubs 4
Keep an eye out for: lots of runs off of bullpens. Worley may exit early because of his struggles keeping his pitch count down, and our bullpen has been suspect against the Cubs (5.54 ERA)

Male Bag: Volume IV

I will be doing a Cubs preview before the game tonight, separate from the Male Bag

Who would've thought I would make it to a 4th edition of the Male Bag? Isn't this so exciting? This is unofficially the longest I have kept a blog going in now my 3rd season attempting it. I have had posts after July 18th, but they have never been in rhythm with the rest of my posts. And I love the word "rhythm." Where are all the vowels?! "Y" is just hanging out in there like it's a legitimate vowel. What makes a vowel anyway? I would answer that, but I don't feel like looking it up, and it's time now for me to answer YOUR questions, not mine. LET'S GOOOOO!!

No slicked back hair for Chase? Is this a new look for 2011?

I am answering this question first for a number of reasons
1) I absolutely love Chase Utley. Like, I'm in love with him. It's unhealthy
2) I oddly find myself judging the hair of men way too often. It's probably because I'm just so comfortable with my sexuality. (...said the single guy who just moved out of his parents' place and in with his pregnant sister and brother-in-law)
3) My mom actually texted me this question. If you don't realize how incredible this is, just take my lack of an explanation as this being essentially a miracle in my mind with few words to describe it.
4) I didn't respond to the text. What a jackass.
As a warning to all of you out there who may text me a question or comment, I sometimes don't respond and then justify it to myself because I am going to the put it in the Male Bag. Although that is truly the reason, it's really not a good one at all. Sorry, Mom. I realize the hard work you put into that, and I really dropped the ball. I should call you soon. Like yesterday probably.
Utley's hair has always been something I've admired despite some peoples' disdain for it. His in-game look is one that, as my mother pointed out, has always included a very slicked-back style to the point where it looks like he is wearing a thin Saran Wrap helmet. I think it works for him, and I don't want to try to find a flaw in Baseball. His off-the-field look is much better, though. Look at that hair and tell me you don't want that on your head. Or, ladies, your significant other's head. It's glorious. Unfortunately, I cannot find a current picture of Chase's in-game look. At least not a hat- or helmet-less picture. It does appear, though, that his hair is a bit shorter than normal and not as shiny and curled up in the back. I guess Jen is keeping him pretty well groomed this season. It's definitely something I'll be paying more attention to as I watch games now, though.

Is Chase purposely sporting gray in his beard for hopes of getting a gig with Just For Men, or is he actually getting old on us?

If he's seen this commercial starring Emmitt Smith or this commercial starring Randy Johnson, there is no possible way that he could ever desire to someday become a spokesperson for such a majoke of a marketing campaign. Although I haven't noticed his gray, I have feared for quite some time that Chase is much older than we all think. He'll turn 33 at the end of this year, but sometimes I feel his age will always be equal to his jersey number. Despite the fact that he's getting up there a little, one article that came out on Sunday says that Utley is still our team's MVP. Without agreeing with that statement, there's also no way I will disagree with it. And when did I become the go-to guy for questions and comments about Chase Utley's hair?

That was the most entertaining thing I've read all week! Kudos to you!
Fantastic as usual
So your blog on Canada was pretty impressive
It was the most enjoyable piece of writing I have read since The BFG, no joke.

These are some of the comments I got in response to my Blue Jays preview. If you missed it, it is definitely one of, if not the, most well-received posts I've ever had. Although I don't like to use these Male Bags to brag about myself, I totally love using these Male Bags to brag about myself. Seriously, though, this is a great place where I can put out a sincere "thank you" to those people who provide me with constant encouragement. I've said it before and I'll say it again...it really means a lot hearing from you guys about how much you enjoy the blog. It helps keep me going and makes me happy knowing that you're happy. And have you people read The BFG? That may be easily the highest compliment I've ever received. It's certainly up there. The BFG? THE BFG?! That book is unbelievable! I don't know about you, but Roald Dahl knew exactly what second-grade Cameron Koehler's sense of humor was.

How many times on average do you flip your grilled cheese?

Easy. Once. I don't make mistakes

Who is the Phillies ace?

To me, this question does not require me to look at any type of stats. I love numbers, and I will swear by them all day, every day (unless, of course, they tell me that Raul Ibanez is good). But this comes down to one question for me: If the Phillies were in Game 7 of the World Series and everyone was on normal rest, who would you want starting? And that is easily, to me, Roy Halladay. How can you want anyone else? He's just so good. ... ... ... I just started typing another sentence like 9 different times without having any idea how to back this up in words. He's just so good. I don't even want to give examples because it almost feels insulting to Halladay. He has done everything anyone could ever want. He's just so good.

You have to give him credit in your next blog
Rauuuuuuuuuuuul

Both of these comments came after his walk-off homer against the Braves. I gave him a (very) little bit of credit in the next post about trade possibilities. Here's the deal, though. He bites. Something I failed to mention in my trade possibilities post is that I'm scared crapless that he will still start even if we trade for a right-handed hitting outfielder, and we will instead sit Domonic Brown. The rumors recently have us veering away from the right-handed bat and more towards just relief pitching, but who knows? I just don't want to get someone that I think will replace Raul to then instead replace Brown. "But Cam, he's been hot lately!" Big deal. He was in May, too. You know when he wasn't? April and June. Here's his batting average by month:
April: .161
May: .315
June: .211
July: .326
So that's fine, right? No. No it's not. Because guess what that means:
August: bad
September: good
October: bad
I don't need that on my playoff roster

Who is your least favorite of the 3?

This is not referring to the Yankees, Mets, and Braves. Nor is it referring to West Virginia, Ohio, and New Jersey. No, it is referring to, if you couldn't guess, Thomas McCarthy, Christopher Wheeler, and Sarge. This is an easy answer for me.
It's not Sarge because I borderline love Sarge now. He's so stupid that it's funny. And I'm pretty sure he thinks the other guys are annoying. He fits in so much better with Franzke and LA. Sarge wants to have fun so badly, but he's being held back by the 2 of the 3 biggest fun-suckers in the history of media.
It's not Thomas McCarthy because he's just stupid. It's like he doesn't really know what to do, and he's so overly excited about actually being employed that it's at the point where I have to think he might know how bad he is.
My least favorite (a term I am uncomfortable using because it has the word "favorite" when talking about our broadcast team) is EASILY Christopher Wheeler. He is almost as smug as Bill Self. And me comparing anyone's smugness to that of Bill Self's is absolutely unheard of. You're not better than me just because Thomas McCarthy spends three quarters of a game doing nothing but prodding you for interesting historical baseball facts. An almanac that can talk is not interesting. There's still no personality...it's a book of facts and lists basically. That's all Christopher Wheeler is. The only shred of personality that he has is his constant judgment of anyone who is not him. He says everything in a way that tries to make you feel inferior while at the same time acting like he thinks you're on his level. Neither of these is true. Just before the All-Star break, the Phillies had played 3 straight extra-inning games going into the Sunday game with Atlanta. As we kept scoring and scoring and scoring, Thomas McCarthy said something about how we would not be playing a 4th straight extra-inning game for the first time in franchise history. Christopher Wheeler said something like "Yeah they've never done that in the regular season, but we all remember that playoff series with the Astros back in '80 where they played in 4 straight. What a series that was." (Can't you just hear his dull, stupid, disinterested voice saying those words? Ugh). A lot of people probably don't know about that actually. Including Mets enthusiast Thomas McCarthy. So please don't assume we all do when you know that we don't. And he always throws in some stupid word or phrase like "we all remember" or "obviously" or something like that to make you feel like a moron for not knowing what he's talking about. Take that time to hit us with some interesting trivia rather than just calling us all idiots in a roundabout way. That's why he sucks the hardest of all of them. Because he knows what he's doing and decides to be a jackass about it. I guess that's what happens when you lack any semblance of people skills.

What were your top 5 favorite cartoons growing up?

This is one of my favorite questions ever because I think this is the question that made me fully realize this blog is about much more than the Philadelphia Phillies. It's like how my classes this past year were about much more than just psychology, sociology, or world cultures. I think it just became a game for some students to see what they could get me to talk about. "Hey Mr. Koehler, how was your weekend?" "Mr. Koehler, buy any new LEGOs recently?" "What do you think about NASA, Mr. Koehler?" "I wasn't here when you told the story about your roommate getting hit by a car, can you tell it again?" What am I supposed to do, just ignore those questions? Doubtful. This question was texted to me as a specific Male Bag request. Most of the time I just decide randomly that I will put random everyday life questions in here. Not this time. Disclaimer about my answer: I am only talking about TV shows, and "growing up" means basically anything before middle school as I interpret it here. So, my top 5 cartoons growing up (in no particular order):
- Darkwing Duck - I referenced this in my last post and will include it here. That show was awesome. You know how any time you fake shoot something you just use your thumb and index finger? At the most, you will put both hands together and do this. Well in one episode, I can vividly remember Darkwing Duck's daughter, Gosalyn Mallard, holding one hand out with her finger gun pointed, then grasping her forearm with the other hand and acting as if her whole arm is a machine gun. If you can picture that, you know how awesome it must look to a 6-year-old.
- RECESS - This show is thebomb.com. It's as simple as that. My friend Adam and I used to watch this basically every day after school in elementary school while eating 4 Oreo's and sipping on a nice cold can of Coca-Cola. I watched the show so much that I could tell you every single thing that happened, including pulling out direct quotes from the episode, all within the first 15-20 seconds of every single episode.
- Goof Troop - My love for this show is actually best manifested in A Goofy Movie, one of my top 5 Disney movies (a list for another time). I barely even got to watch this show because it was only on the Disney Channel back when it was a premium channel, and you had to rely on that free preview every year or so with Al Borland trying to convince you to order the channel in between each show. Despite this fact, I absolutely loved Goof Troop. It also holds a special place in my heart because the most bonding I ever did with my dad usually occurred while playing Goof Troop on Super Nintendo, him controlling Goofy while I controlled Max, trying to save Pete and PJ from the evil pirate Keelhaul Pete.
- Wild West C.O.W.-Boys of Moo Mesa - Here is another show that I don't necessarily remember watching that much of, but I was totally obsessed with it. I wanted to mention it here and put it in my top 5 because I feel like not a lot of people know about how awesome it was. First of all, I wanted to be a cowboy when I was younger, so this was a perfect show for me in that sense. And although I have no idea what channel it was on or anything like that, I can remember like it was yesterday playing with all of the action figures and coloring in my C.O.W.-Boys of Moo Mesa coloring book. With freak nasty character names like Marshal Moo Montana, The Dakota Dude, and The Cowlorado Kid, what's not to love?
- Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles - TMNT defined every young boys' life and personality in some way or another. If you couldn't identify with one of these characters, you were probably a serious outcast and still are today (sorry, the truth hurts). And if you like Raphael, you have bigger issues to deal with. I have always been the biggest fan of Michelangelo, and it is obvious why: He takes nothing seriously and is constantly trying to get his hands on more and more pizza. Oddly, though, I had a purple mask as a kid (probably my dad's choice, am I right?). That's Donatello's color, not Michelangelo. I used to wear it around and imagine I was one of the turtles. My mom called me Cameronello.
Can I just say that narrowing this down to 5 was near impossible? I didn't really think it through as much as I should have probably, and I want to give a shout-out to those shows that didn't quite make the cut without any justifiable reason: Hey Arnold! (a show I still watch today), Pinky and the Brain (an unbeatable duo), Looney Tunes (still hilarious today), Animaniacs (a little bit of everything), Chip 'N' Dale Rescue Rangers (amazing theme song), The Weekenders (very underrated), Muppet Babies (watched every day when I was really little), Tiny Toon Adventures (I can remember cracking up watching this when I was far past the target demographic age), and others I'm surely forgetting
And here are some others that would not make it into my top 5 even with more thought, but I feel they deserve mentioning anyway: Doug, David the Gnome, The Littl' Bits, Rugrats, TaleSpin, Inspector Gadget, The Jetsons, DuckTales, The Rocky & Bullwinkle Show, Pepper Ann, Bobby's World, and many more that I just can't think of right now. Cripes that answer took forever to type and find stuff, but it was awesome reliving my childhood.

What do you think about the All-Star game meaning home-field advantage for the World Series?

It's the dumbest thing ever. OK, not the dumbest thing ever, but it's pretty dumb. The All-Star game and the World Series are 2 complete separate things. You don't play the World Series to win it for the National League, you want to win it for your individual team. I was not more excited last year that the Giants won. If the Mets made the World Series, there's no way I would want them to win. Even if they played the Yankees, I would just hope that the World Series was cancelled, and I wouldn't watch any of it. But the All-Star game has now become the indicator of who gets home-field advantage? That makes no sense. In this year's game, Carlos Beltran scored a run, Matt Kemp scored a run, Andre Ethier had an RBI, and Hunter Pence scored a run. With the exception of trades, none of those guys have any hope of playing in the World Series this season, yet they were in some way responsible for 4 of the 5 runs that the NL team scored to win and get home-field advantage. Why do I want those guys deciding where we would play the World Series if we make it? If that is the case, there should not be a requirement that each team be represented. I do, however, think that every team should be represented because the game should be fun. So just don't make it decide home-field in the World Series. If anything, choose an AL park and an NL park for the next season's All-Star game to occur in, then have the result of this year's game decide which park it's in next year. That's stupid and pointless for the most part, but if we really need to assign meaning to the game so it doesn't end in a tie, can we at least make it something that doesn't actually matter for some teams? It's ridiculous. If we just had 2 pitchers help get home-field advantage and then the Braves make the World Series, I will be incredibly pissed that we had those pitchers in that game. I would guess Braves fans would feel the same way about their players if we made the World Series. It's STUPID.

Do you write that blog about the Phillies? I read it, and it sounded very Mark Titus-esque.

First of all, this compliment is up there with the BFG comparison.
Since school ended and I became facebook friends with waaay too many teenagers, I have gained a bunch of readers. Kids talk to me about the blog all the time now it seems, which I think is pretty cool. They always knew how awesome I was, but now it's been kicked up a notch because of how hilarious and good my writing is (just kidding. But seriously). Much like Mark Titus. If you don't know who Mark Titus is, he's the writer of one of my favorite things I have ever read, Club Trillion. He takes a hilarious look at life as a walk-on for a major college basketball program (Ohio State). I first started reading Club Tril back in the spring sometime and have since read all 3 years' worth of posts and ordered both t-shirts. A big reason I kept reading is not because I thought I could model my writing after his. I kept reading because he has almost the exact same sense of humor as I do, and it comes out in my blog as well as his. I would say that I have definitely gotten to be a little more like him with this season's blog, but I think I was already very close. If you haven't read any of that blog, do yourself a favor and start. Go back to the beginning and start there. You won't regret it.

I have "Kiss Kiss" by Chris Brown (ft. T-Pain) stuck in my head. Am I going to die?

At first glance, this question is completely random. But I do have the song on my iPod. Not that great of a song, so why would I? Geoff Jenkins, that's why. Jenkins played for the Phillies in 2008, a slightly significant year in Philadelphia's sports history. My friend Matt and I are all about walk-up songs, and we made a playlist that included every player's walk-up song that we could find. Sometimes we would play the songs while watching games on TV, but the main purpose was for something to listen to on the way to games. When you look at Geoff Jenkins, you would think that he would have a hard rock or maybe country song. Or whatever song Brett Favre would choose. But no, Jenkins loves his hip-hop apparently, because he chose "Kiss Kiss" by Chris Brown (ft. T-Pain) as the song to get him pumped as he walked to the plate. It worked well enough for him to hit a crucial double to lead off Game 5 Part II to help us win the World Series. So I doubt that this song leads to death. It seems to me that its effects are actually pretty positive. (Although, we never did hear from Geoff Jenkins again, did we? Not just on the Phillies, but anywhere. So, uh, I guess...be careful?)

Who do you want as your 5th starter?

To me, the options here currently are Blanton, Kendrick, and Worley. I will immediately eliminate Kendrick from the question. Although he has not been bad this season, he works as a reliever and is pretty inconsistent as a starter. Even when he's pitching well, I'm always nervous he'll have to face 3 lefties in a row and give up 5 home runs in those 3 at bats. So that makes it between Blanton and Worley. And this is assuming that Oswalt is back as our 4th starter or we trade for Justin Verlander as our 4th starter. I wouldn't put it past us. Blanton has always been a very good second-half pitcher for us. It's tough to just give him the boot. What do we do with him if he doesn't start? Keep him on the DL forever? I guess that's a possibility, but I might still feel kind of bad about it. I think he can do some good things for us if he comes back; however, I think I have to go with Vance Worley on this one. Let's face it, our 5th starter isn't that important. With Halladay, Hamels, Lee, and a hopefully healthy Oswalt, our race to the playoffs will not be dependent upon who our other starter is. So I think I would rather continue getting Worley the experience. Although I still doubt his potential because of a general lack of "stuff," I think this season is a great time to figure that out. And if he begins to struggle consistently, we can have Blanton to fall back on somewhere. Or we could trade Blanton. Or we could trade both of them, depending on what we get in return. Although this is a good question, the answer is something that I'm not SUPER concerned about. I feel like anything could happen with these 3 guys and, no matter what, I wouldn't be too upset about it. Is that mean?

How's the move going?

I have been here for almost 2 days now and have yet to unpack a single thing. The stuff is all moved into my room, but it's totally random the way its been put in there. My dresser is still empty, my clothes are all in boxes, I don't have my sheets on my bed, and I think I need to buy new deodorant. I live in Virginia. How weird is that?

What crazy awesome junk are we going to do to celebrate 5,000 page views?

Cheese asked this question a long time ago, like back when I was at maybe 2,000 views. Since former students and basketball players started reading, though, the numbers have skyrocketed. We may end up at 5,000 by the end of the season...who knows?! So what should we do to celebrate? Just as Cheese said, I feel like it should definitely be some crazy awesome junk. But what could that be? Do you guys have any ideas? Let's start thinking now. Something where we look back on the history of the blog? Highlights from our favorite posts? Look at an old random post and make fun of how stupid I was in writing it? Do a reverse Male Bag where I ask questions and get you guys to answer them? Let's get some ideas flowing! Five thousand is coming. God knows when that day will come, but we don't want to be unprepared!

Include something about Hope Solo's looks

A suggestion from a basketball player upon hearing a Male Bag was coming up. Hope Solo is a looker and all, especially when blowing kisses to people during games, but she's not my favorite. She's 5'9", and I'm more into somewhere around 5'1". And have you seen Alex Morgan? She's gorgeous, and she's only 22, so I feel like I have a real shot with her (no pun intended). She's also supposed to be the future of US women's soccer. I've heard that she has a boyfriend, but I'm not worried. I think she'll come around when run into her in August while I'm out in California. She's 5'6" though. Ugh

Mets Preview

What should I be doing right now? Packing. What am I doing instead? Writing a preview for the weekend series in New York against the historically and hilariously desperate Mets.

I move to Virginia in about 24 hours. I currently have an empty dresser, empty drawers, and a few empty shelves packed to go down there. That only leaves me with EVERYTHING ELSE I OWN to pack in under a day. And, preferably, I can have all of that done by 5:00 tonight so I can actually do something with my last night in Pennsylvania. And do you remember how much I hate packing just for a weekend trip? Well, this is for the foreseeable future. Yikes. For all of you Yahoo! Pool enthusiasts out there, I have 2 letters for myself. G L

So, rather than worrying about the hell that I will be experiencing for the next undisclosed amount of hours, I will focus on the Phillies and the start of their post-All-Star-break run to another World Series title. Step one: the New York Mets.

We are currently 6-3 against the Mets this season, and we've scored double-digit runs in 3 of those games. That is a good sign for a team that has often had a tough time getting an offense going, to say the least. Here's a look at what our lineup should look like over the weekend, along with how they've fared against the Mets this season.

Rollins - .306, 6 stolen bases, .409 OBP (for Jimmy?!)
Polanco (hopefully) - .333, 3 2B, 13 RBI
Utley - .429, 1.127 OPS (has only played one series against them)
Howard - .273, 3 HR, 11 RBI, 1.005 OPS
Ibanez - .219, 2 HR, 1 hit-by-pitch (hopefully another one this series, breaking his hip)
Brown - .714, 1.571 OPS (once again, in only one series against them)
Mayberry - .273 (not much to speak of for John against the Mets)
Ruiz - .154 (yikes, really bad here)

As you can see, most guys have been pretty successful against them. If Polanco can't play, we will more than likely put Valdez in his place, and there's not at all a drop off there in terms of success against the Mets. Valdez is hitting .389 with a .921 OPS against them. As a team, we are hitting just .250 this season. Against the Mets, we have a .291 average (although that average does not include pitchers batting, which would surely bring that average down a few points).

There is a bad side to all of this, though, and that is the fact that Halladay and Lee will probably not be starting in this series. This season against the Mets, they have pitched 23 innings over 3 games, compiling a 2-0 record and 0.78 ERA. Still, we average almost 2 more runs per game than the Mets in our season series, and a few non-ideal pitching matchups should not take away from our dominance of them.

This series may also be a good indicator of the rest of the season for the Mets. They recently traded closer Francisco Rodriguez to the Brewers, mostly because they could not afford to have him close for them the rest of the season (he had something in his contract saying if he finished a certain amount of games this season, they would have to pay him 17.5 million next season. Hilarious). Some people, though, think this is a start of a complete overhaul of their roster possibly. Carlos Beltran is one person who has been mentioned a lot in trade rumors, including ones that could possibly send him to Philly (interdivisional trades are rare, though). If the Mets can take 2 out of 3 or even sweep, they may feel much more optimistic and actually become buyers at the deadline. If we take the series, it will be another step toward trading their good players come July 31. That's just a fun underlying story line in what will hopefully be another series win for us.

Game 1: Vance Worley (4-1, 2.20 ERA) vs. R.A. Dickey (4-7, 3.61 ERA)
Worley has been great lately, going 2-0 with a 0.45 ERA in his last 3 starts. His only real struggles this season, including his only loss, have come against the Mets. His first start saw him pitch 6 shutout innings, but his second had him leave after just 3 innings, giving up 12 hits and 8 runs. Does this mean that Worley is going to struggle when seeing teams a second, and now third, time around? Or was that one game just a fluke game in which he imploded? I am hoping it's the latter, but I think this game will be a great test of that, showing us what he will be capable of as the season progresses. R.A. Dickey has managed to miss the Phillies in each of our 9 games this season, and he has pretty good career numbers against us (2-2, 2.25 ERA). Dickey also shares my birthday. His last name is also Dickey. OK, wait a second, and let me talk a little bit about this guy's name. R.A.? Seriously? So we can just make any initials into a first name? I thought that was reserved for D.J. and A.J. and basically anything with a "J" as the second letter. But I feel I've seen nearly every letter combination you could ever think possible (ok, not really). But here are a few: F.P., R.P., A.Q., E.Z., J.A., J.D., A.C., C.T., T.S, C.C., D.L., E.B., Y.A., I.M., J.B., W.C., R.T., J.R., K.T., P.T., R.C., and D.W. All right, so D.W. is actually just what Launchpad McQuack used to call Darkwing Duck, so that one doesn't count. But the rest are real, I swear. What is up with that? It does not in any way feel natural to walk up to someone and say, "Hey, what's up Y.A.?" Especially when the guy's last name is Tittle! Which brings us back to R.A. Dickey. He's a knuckleball pitcher, and it would seem to me that that means we are either going to have a very hard time figuring him out or else we'll be able to get on him often and score a bunch of runs. I honestly am not sure which way to go with this game because of how hit-or-miss I think both pitchers could possibly be. Because of that, I'm going to say that the better team gets off to a better start to the second "half" of the season.
Prediction: Phillies 6 Mets 4
Keep an eye out for: I don't even know. I just spent so much time thinking about initials as first names that I can't think straight about this game. Go Phils?

Game 2: Cole Hamels (11-4, 2.32 ERA) vs. Jon Niese (8-7, 3.88 ERA)
Don't let Hamels' numbers against the Mets this season fool you. Much of his 7.45 ERA was acquired in his 6-run, 2.2-inning start to the season. His other start against them was a 7-inning, 2-run, 10-strikeout gem in a 5-2 win. Niese has actually gone the opposite way of most pitchers against the Phillies. The first time he faced us this season, he gave up 6 in 4 innings of an 11-0 loss. He has since pitched 12.2 innings and given up just 2 earned runs. The fact that he hasn't gone more than 6.1 against us, even in good starts, is a good sign. The Mets bullpen, now lacking K-Rod, has a 6.55 ERA against us this season, giving up 26 total runs in just 33 innings. Between Hamels' success ever since that first start and our tendency to work the count against Niese (122 pitches in 6.1 in his last start against us), I think we have quite an advantage in this game. And, really, any game that Hamels pitches at this point.
Prediction: Phillies 4 Mets 2
Keep an eye out for: all of those runs coming after the 6th inning

Game 3: Kyle Kendrick (4-4, 3.58 ERA) vs. Mike Pelfrey (5-8, 4.55 ERA)
Kendrick has yet to start against the Mets this season, but, in 3 appearances, he has pitched at least 2.1 innings each time, compiling a 2.16 ERA. He will want to look out for Beltran, though, who has a .316 average against him with a home run. I don't know why the Mets bother throwing Pelfrey against us, seeing as they are 0-3 when he starts. Although he was solid in his last start against us, I think we ride the momentum from our first 2 games and take the sweep at Citi Field. Also, Howard and Utley love taking this guy deep, combining for 7 home runs against him. Also, the Mets suck.
Prediction: Phillies 7 Mets 3
Keep an eye out for: Utley hitting a ball into "Utley's Corner," the unofficial name for that right field corner of the stands where he's been known to hit his fair share of homers since the park opened up. Between his 5 career home runs there and 4 against Pelfrey (and .313 average against him), I expect some serious power coming from Baseball.

The Phuture

Before getting into the meat of this post, I wanted to say that we are due for another Male Bag pretty soon. After tons and tons of questions and comments for last month's, I'm severely lacking enough material for a good Male Bag right now. This is more than likely my own fault for not recording all of your questions or comments as well as I have in the past, but because of this I want to encourage everyone to hit me with a question or comment at some point in the next few days so we can get a July Male Bag. It'll also make my job easier as I'm moving stuff in in Virginia this weekend.

So on Monday we looked at what our roster could potentially look like a few weeks from now. Today, though, I want to take a look at what our roster could potentially look like a few years from now.

In seasons past, I have followed a handful of minor league players throughout the season and tried to give you guys random updates on them. That totally sucked and was boring for everyone (except me). I found myself updating statistics every week or 2 and barely ever using those statistics for anything other than my own weird satisfaction, and it wasn't even that satisfying because I could, at any time, just check their stats online and not waste my time typing them into a spreadsheet.

Today I plan on looking at a few minor league players in a much different way. I want to look at what our roster could be in 2014. Why 2014? Because I said so. Some players will almost definitely still be around then, and other spots we will need to fill. Obviously, much of this ends up getting done through trades and free agency, but I'm going to take a look at the Phillies if we only used players coming up through our system. That means we have to deal with crappy guys like Utley, Howard, Rollins, Hamels, and Ruiz. Not cool guys we can get in free agency and trades like Adam Eaton and Raul Ibanez. (Ok so obviously trades and free agency have been awesome for us (Lee, Halladay, Oswalt, Polanco, etc.), but I think it's more awesome that the core of our team for our 4 straight division titles is full of true Philles - guys we drafted, developed, and called up to the bigs).

To do this, I'm just going to go around the diamond, starting with pitching.

Our 5 starters:
Roy Halladay
Cliff Lee
(not) Cole Hamels
J.C. Ramirez
Jarred Cosart
Jesse Biddle

I think that Halladay, Lee, and Hamels will still be around then. Halladay and Lee are almost certain because of their contracts. Halladay has a vesting option (or some other made up baseball contract term) for 2014, and Lee is signed through 2016 (I think) with a vesting option (there it is again) for 2017. Hamels is wishful thinking at this point. You know what? I don't think we can afford him. I'm changing that. Cole Hamels probably won't be around. He is going to be worth a lot of money as a free agent, and with the big contracts we currently have I just don't know that we can make him happy monetarily despite the fact that I think he is a priority for us. That's a shame. So that leaves us with J.C. Ramirez, Jarred Cosart, and Jesse Biddle. One question you may ask: Where's Vance Worley? I actually fear that Vance could be traded as early as this year (doubtful, but his value may be at its highest because I don't know how good he is going to end up being), and, if not, I think he won't really last as a starter for us. I can't give you great reasons why, I just feel like his success now is not indicative of his future.
Ramirez, Cosart, and Biddle are all in the minor league system right now. Ramirez was a part of the Halladay/Lee trade, and he is currently in Reading. Although he is not one of our top prospects, I think he gets to the majors quicker than anyone else because of his current position and can lock down a spot in the rotation for a little while.
Cosart and Biddle are the more exciting guys, both of them currently top 5 prospects for the Phillies. Cosart is actually predicted to arrive in the big leagues in 2013.
Coming into this season, he was the 34th ranked prospect in the country. Right now he sits at #2 in our organization and is in Clearwater. He's just 21 years old and has been solid in 16 starts this season, compiling a 3.23 ERA and holding opponents to a .220 average. Biddle was our first round pick in last season's draft, and he's a Philadelphia native. He's a left-handed pitcher, so I think he has an advantage getting into the starting rotation. The Phillies love good lefties.

As for the bullpen, we should see some familiar names, but also a couple you may not know as well.
Michael Stutes
Antonio Bastardo
Drew Carpenter
Ryan Madson
Mike Zagurski
Phillippe Aumont

Aumont is the only one here who has spent no time in the majors, and he is another we got in the Halladay/Lee deal. He could potentially end up as a closer, but that is a tough thing to figure out sometimes in the minors because you don't know how a player will respond to that role until they get to experience it on a bigger stage. Also, Aumont is Canadian, so I don't know if he's mean/crazy enough to close.

Now, on to the position players:

Catcher: Sebastian Valle

I think that Chooch will still be around and starting in 2014, but he will surely be on his way out at that point. Valle has become his successor nearly by default since we have traded away our 2 best catching prospects in the past 2 seasons. He is doing very well right now hitting the ball in Clearwater with a .324 average. He doesn't hit with a ton of power, but we don't really need that out of a catcher. Valle is actually projected to get to Philly in 2013, and it will be interesting to see how well he handles big league pitching.

First base: Ryan Howard

Howard is clearly a priority for this organization, and I expect him to be here throughout his career. His contract will keep him here potentially through 2017.

Second base: Chase Utley

My hope is that Utley can stay healthy and continue to be our second baseman long into the future. He is set to be a free agent in 2014, but I can't imagine Utley and the Phillies not doing everything they can to keep this great relationship alive.

Third base: Aaron Altherr

This 20-year-old may be the worst prediction that I have here, mostly because he is actually an outfielder. He has been put in at 3rd base a few times, and I'm hoping that the Phillies decide to try him out there some more and end up keeping him there. For some reason, the Phillies have avoided 3rd base prospects like the plague ever since Scott Rolen came and went. It has consistently been a position that we have simply had no one waiting, resulting in players like Wes Helms, Greg Dobbs, and Abraham Nunez. I honestly have no clue who will end up at 3rd for us, but I'm hoping it's one of our own for once.

Shortstop: Freddy Galvis

He's only 21 years old and playing in Reading this season. Although he has not fooled anyone into believing he is a spectacular hitter in the minors, I have heard great things about his glove at arguably the most important defensive position on the field. If not Galvis, this could end up being 2nd base prospect Cesar Hernandez. Either way, I think that Jimmy's days in Philadelphia will be just about numbered as soon as we even think we have a replacement that is ready.

Left field: Jonathan Singleton

Singleton is the #22 prospect in the country, the #5 outfield prospect in the country, and the #1 prospect in the Phillies organization. He's just 19 years old but has shown a lot of promise as a complete hitter who can also swipe a few bases if needed.

Center field: John Mayberry, Jr.

Victorino could very well still be here in 2014, but you know all about him. You also probably know all about Mayberry, so I won't talk about Mayberry too much because you all have heard way too much about him from me (if you forget, reference any post from this season). A few people he may be blocking, though, would possibly include Altherr as well as a center fielder in Clearwater named Jiwan James. Mayberry will be 30 in 3 years, and that is usually somewhere around a baseball players' prime (see: our entire roster 2 years ago). These other guys are currently projected to get up to the majors in 2013 or '14, so it all depends on how ready they are and how well Mayberry is doing. I think one of them will be up as a 4th outfielder on the team, though.

Right field: Domonic Brown

If Dom makes it to the beginning of next season as a Philly, I think he will be here for a long time. Not long ago, he was the 3rd ranked prospect in the country. He has shown flashes of everything you could want in a player, and I think he is one that we can start to build the future of the Phillies around much like we did with Rollins, Utley, and Howard. The question will be: Who else will join him?

Although this is an absolutely impossible thing to do, I hope predicting a roster for 2014 is a more interesting way to look at some of our current minor league prospects. The time will be coming all too soon that we need to start making some real changes within our organization. My hope is that we can continue doing it in true Philly fashion by sticking with mostly our own guys.

Trade Possibilities

As the "first half" of the season comes to a close, a lot of people start trying to predict a lot of things for teams going into the post-All-Star break portion of the year. Although games don't count any more than they did before, they now seem a lot more important as races are coming down to the wire. Also, teams like the Pirates and Nationals will have a chance to show if they are actually winning teams or not. (Yeah, that's right, the Pirates and Nationals are both at or above .500)

One thing that starts to happen that changes the future of different teams is trades. The Phillies will surely be looking to add a bat to the lineup or an arm to the bullpen as the July 31st trade deadline approaches. Our immediate future looks to have a big change or 2 in it. But, let's be honest, the Phillies don't need to be overly worried about the immediate future in terms of making the playoffs. So, I want to take a look at some possible trades as well as looking at what the distant future could look like for a team filled with 30+ year-old talent. Today, I'm going to go with the trade options. Tomorrow or Wednesday I'll look into the more distant future.

So first, some trading options:

I am going to start by talking about a relief pitcher because that's MUCH less exciting to me than what I will be writing about below this. Oh my gosh how exciting that is. So relief pitchers (yawn). The only person I've really heard anything about is Heath Bell of the Padres. Yes, the Padres will be willing to give some people up because they suck. And Heath Bell has been a very nice closer for them this season. He has a 2.43 ERA with 26 saves in 27 opportunities (2nd most in baseball). He would give us a proven closer (47 saves, 1.93 ERA last year; 42, 2.71 in 2009) going into a postseason where it seems like our only weakness might be a proven closer. Brad Lidge will be coming back sooner than we are all comfortable with, and we can never be too sure about how well he will contribute late in games. Madson has been great for us this year, but do we know at this point in his career that he can really be a closer? Bastardo is the best reliever in the major leagues right now (seriously), but I don't want to count on someone so inexperienced in such a big role come playoff time. So Bell would be a great addition. I have no idea what we would have to give up for him because I haven't heard anything about what the Padres are looking for. I would assume that it's prospects though, and ones that I have managed to stay pretty unattached to this season. Other than him, I don't know how much extra help we would need. We have Bastardo, Stutes, Madson, Contreras, Lidge, and Perez. Add Kendrick to that and the possible addition of Bell, and I'd be more than happy with our playoff bullpen. We would probably actually have to leave one of those guys behind, so we could see how the 2nd half of the year goes and decide from there. I think, though, that bullpen is our secondary concern right now.

It is no secret that the Phillies want a right-handed bat with some power to head into the late months of the season and to help us out in the playoffs. While I've written several times that John Mayberry could be a fine solution for this (yes, mentioned that in at least 8 different posts this year, this 9th one making it about 1 out of every 5 posts. Yikes, that must get annoying for you guys), and my man Ricky Botallico even suggested the same thing a few nights ago on Phillies Pre-Game Live, it is hard to tell at this point whether or not Mayberry will be even considered as our answer to this problem. Although in the last 4 games in which he started each one, he went 6 for 18 (.333) with 4 doubles, 2 home runs, and 7 RBI. While everyone loves Domonic Brown (and rightfully so), Mayberry has actually been better this year. Say whaaattt?!?! Yes, that's right. Johnny has played in 7 more games this season but has 24 less at bats than Dom. That means he's constantly being used as a pinch hitter, a role that is very tough for hitters to handle. Sit around for 2 1/2 hours, then go up and get a hit. Still, Mayberry has as many home runs (5) more RBI (19 to 16) and a higher OPS (.765 to .735). While his numbers aren't drastically higher, doesn't it seem like there is a drastic difference in the confidence we have put in each of them? They seem to me to be basically the same player, only with Brown having a higher ceiling (if he has one). I understand the projections of Dom as a big-time player, but why are we ignoring someone playing just as well as him? (Oh boy, here I go again. Someone please stop my constant John Mayberry campaign?)

Since we're unsure of how much we can count on Mayberry, it seems likely that we'll be in the market for a right-handed bat. One name I have heard a few times is Michael Cuddyer of the Twins. He's played well this year, batting .298 with 13 home runs and 43 RBI for a Twins team that has struggled mightily. He would definitely look nice in some red pinstripes.

More exciting to me, though, is a guy who leads his current team in just about every major offensive category. And he plays for a team that we love to trade with. I'm talking about Hunter Pence, the rightfielder for the Astros. In my perfect world, we trade a pitching prospect or 2 (and hopefully throw in Raul) and get Pence in return. His .323 average, 11 home runs, 60 RBI, and .860 OPS would be a very nice 5-hitter for us, protecting Ryan Howard and playing rightfield. We can then move Brown to left and completely stop playing Ibanez. He's bound to get arthritis any day now anyway. So, I'm guessing, this is what a lineup could look like for us come August 1st if we do trade for him. Brace yourself, this is really really exciting.

SS Rollins
3B Polanco
2B Utley
1B Howard
RF Pence
CF Victorino
LF Brown
C Ruiz
P Fill-in-the-blank-because-we-have-the-best-rotation-in-history

Look at that! Is that not unbelievable to you?! Can you even comprehend that?! I'm not suggesting that one player will give me unimaginable confidence in our offense suddenly, but, WOW, one player certainly gives me unimaginable confidence in our offense suddenly! A big problem we've had this year has been health. There have been something like 7 or 8 games with our projected opening day lineup. Another big problem has been Raul Stinkin' Ibanez. I was told that I needed to give him credit in this post because of his performance against the Braves. Walk-off homerun, sweet deal dude. Six RBI, that's awesome. Credit over. Now get out of my lineup. Make way for Hunter Pence.

So you may be thinking a lot of things right now about that possibility. And I don't want to get anyone's hopes up (yes I do, the blog is freakin' called High Hopes who are we kidding?). What is he going to cost us? Do we really want to give up a lot for someone we'll have for just a few months?

Well, first of all, we would have Pence for another year after this one (!!!). Secondly, the price might be high, but not so high as to have me fearing what we would have to give up. As some of you may know, I am obsessed with Phillies minor league players. I don't, however, I have a problem giving up some of our current guys. I made the mistake of doing some research the other day and starting to fall in love with a few of them. I can't just love 'em and leave 'em. I never could. But the deal that I've seen has us giving up Jarred Cosart, our top minor league pitching prospect. The guy projects as a number 2, possible number 1 pitcher in the big leagues. He's just 21 years old and down in Clearwater right now, so who knows how he could turn out. I would be ecstatic, though, if we could get away with a straight up trade, Pence for Cosart. The Astros want to build a solid rotation, and we aren't really lacking in that area right now. Perhaps we'd have to throw in another pitcher like Trevor May or Julio Rodriguez, and I'd be OK with that, too. Pence would be a HUGE addition for us, and our pitchers are pretty well set for a few years now. But more on that in the next post...