I’m moving.

Thanks so much to the few of you who have started reading me here.  I am now hosting my own blog.  You can find me at www.mikeonthephillies.com.  Hopefully I can do things bigger and better there.  Thanks again for the support.

Spring Training Thoughts III

Today is the Phillies’ final off day until the season starts and things are starting to come into focus a little bit as far as what the team will look like come Opening Night.  I’ve been gallivanting off watching the World Baseball Classic and March Madness over the last few weeks, so it’s time to focus my attention back on the Phillies.  The regular season starts in 10 days.  Here are my thoughts on the state of the team right now.

• I don’t think the Cole Hamels thing will be a big deal, unless it is… Everything seems fine with Cole and his inflamed elbow, and he pitched again without any pain.  It looks like he probably won’t start opening day, but may end up starting on April 10, which means he basically won’t miss any starts.  I’m not sure how many Phillies fans are with me on this, but I’m secretly terrified.  We’re not repeating without a healthy Hamels.  We’re just not.  And the track record for young pitchers who exponentially increase their innings from one season to the next without being injured or ineffective or both the following season is not good.  I don’t mean to be alarmist about this, and all of the reports are good.  But I wouldn’t be terribly opposed to Hamels starting the season on the DL and coming back somewhere around April 20th.  At the very least I wouldn’t mind seeing Charlie Manuel go with 5 starters right out of the gate, even though we technically wouldn’t need a 5th starter until April 20th.  The more innings we can save on Cole’s arm (and Jamie Moyer, while we’re at it) the better.
• The 5th starter race is getting interesting. Kyle Kendrick got sent down to the minors and Carlos Carrasco still clearly could use some more seasoning, so it is now a two horse race between JA Happ and Chan Ho Park.  Both have been impressive this spring, which will make for an interesting decision for the Phillies front office.  My heart is still with Chan Ho because I love his story (and the changeup he’s learned from Jamie Moyer), but everything I hear is that the team will go with Happ.  I guess this makes sense, as they have more invested in Happ as a prospect and Park is a veteran on a one year deal who pitched almost exclusively out of the bullpen last season.  With the way both of these guys have pitched I don’t think they can go wrong, but I’m still hoping for Chan Ho.
• The final bench/bullpen spot is now probably just the final roster spot. That is to say, how the bottom of the roster shakes out will probably largely depend on whether the team decides to keep 11 or 12 pitchers and who wins the 5th starter job.  If they go with 11 pitchers to start the year, Miguel Cairo will probably make the team.  Marcus Giles and John Mayberry have kind of crapped out of late, and Jason Donald and Lou Marson were both sent to the minors.  Pablo Ozuna has hit very well this spring, but for some reason the team just doesn’t seem that into him.  I can’t say I blame them; Ozuna has had 200 ABs in a season just once in his career, and that was 4 years ago.  He’s not as versatile as Cairo and doesn’t have the major league track record.  If the Phillies go with 12 pitchers, Gary Majewski has a very good chance to make the team, though Dave Borkowski and Mike Koplove have made decent cases for themselves as well.
• It looks like Chris Coste has dodged another bullet. Coste may be the favorite for the backup catcher spot under the “devil you know” clause.  Both he and Ronny Paulino have not been very good this spring, with Paulino looking to be a terrible defender.  At least Coste has some familiarity with the staff and is a fan favorite.  With Lou Marson set to be the full time catcher in Lehigh Valley in ‘09, there doesn’t appear to be a spot in the organization for Paulino. He could be traded or released.
• Completely baseless trade rumor. The Rangers are potentially looking to deal Frank Catalanotto to find ABs for Andruw Jones. We have an redundancy of lefty power hitters off the bench in Matt Stairs and Geoff Jenkins.  Jenkins and Catalanotto both have cumbersome contracts that make them difficult to deal and expensive to release.  Perhaps a swap is in order?  Catalanotto is guaranteed $6 million in the last year of his deal; Jenkins is guaranteed $8 million (both figures include ‘10 buyouts).  Catalanotto can play a few different positions and could provide some pop from the right side.  Jenkins could be a decent lefty DH in the AL.  Catalanotto would be an instant fan favorite in South Philly.  Maybe if the Phillies threw in some cash to even the salaries…alright, they’re not all winners.  I do like Catalanotto, though.  Ten days until Opening Night!

Japan 9, USA 4

Team USA’s run in the World Baseball Classic came to an end last night, as they lost to Japan in the semi-finals.  The Americans fatal flaw, that their pitching just wasn’t as far along as the rest of the top countries in the tourney, was ultimately the reason for their ouster.  Manager Davey Johnson was his usual, terrible self, but ultimately the credit should be given to the Japanese.  They pitched very well and put together some great at bats on their way to victory.  The truth is that the United States probably made it as far as they could in the tournament.  Japan is a superior team and deserves to be in the finals.  Their win over the US was not an upset.  Team USA probably could not beat Korea either.  The two best teams are in the finals, and from that perspective the WBC was a success.  From the perspective of a Team USA fan, it was frustrating.  I will come back later in the week with a final review of the WBC, but for now here are my thoughts on last night’s game.

• Let’s get the Davey Johnson bashing out of the way up front.  As I have said before, any success the US had was in spite of him, not because of him.  Of course, he played Jimmy Rollins at DH and Derek Jeter at SS in an elimination game, which is beyond stupid, but I’ve written about that ad nauseum.  But then, he took things a step further by inexplicably playing Mark DeRosa at 1B, a position he has never started at in the major leagues, and Adam Dunn in RF.  Now Adam Dunn is never in any lineup because of his defense, and he actually has played decently enough in RF in this tournament.  But Dunn actually plays some 1B, and in fact may actually be playing first full time for the Nats this season.  Meanwhile, DeRosa is an above average rightfielder and played there quite a bit last season for the Cubs.  Yet for some reason Davey Johnson insisted on putting the worst defensive team possible on the field for a game to determine who goes to the finals.  Unacceptable.  Listen, a good rule of thumb is that if your firstbaseman has to get a glove FedExed to him before the game by the real firstbaseman of his major league team, maybe you want to look somewhere else.  If Davey Johnson is the manager of Team USA in 2013, I will think long and hard about whether or not I will follow the tournament.
• I’m actually willing to give Johnson some credit for using Roy Oswalt to start the game over Jake Peavy.  Oswalt is clearly further along than Peavy and gave Team USA the best chance to win.  Of course, Johnson let Oswalt get his brains beat in by Japan in the 4th, instead of turning to, say, Ted Lilly, a lefthander who could have gone multiple innings against a Japanese lineup featuring 7 left handed hitters.  The lefthanders out of the US bullpen pitched 3.1 innings of shutout ball and kept it close enough for a potential rally.  But when Johnson had no more lefties (well, except for Lilly) to go to, Japan pulled away against our righty relievers.  Shouldn’t this have been an all-hands-on-deck game?  This just feels like a giant middle finger to US fans.
• It was an interesting move by Japan to bring the infield in with a runner on third and one out in the 8th inning of a 6-4 game.  I can’t actually think of a good reason why they would do this.  However, they were bailed out once again by Davey Johnson, who decided to pinch hit Evan Longoria, a right handed hitter who had just flown in from spring training as an injury replacement, for Curtis Granderson, a lefty.  There was a stiff wind knocking down everything hit to left field, so what was the point of bringing in a righty?  Wouldn’t Granderson or Shane Victorino have had a better chance of hitting a fly ball to right, or hitting a ground ball to the right side that got through a drawn in infield?  And then by taking Granderson out you lose your best defensive outfielder in what was at the time a close game.
• It was also interesting to me that the Japanese 2-5 hitters were all Japanese league professionals, as opposed to playing in the American major leagues.  I don’t know anything about these players, but I’d love to hear from someone familiar with Japanese baseball about what kind of players these guys are.  Are they better than guys like Fukudome and Johjima?  Are there a lot of Japanese professionals who are good enough to play over here but choose to stay in Japan?  I’m curious as to how Japanese baseball compares to American baseball in general.  From what I saw in this tournament, the quality of baseball being played in Japan (and Korea, for that matter) is very high.
• Finally, it was nice to see a decent amount of American fans in Dodger Stadium, as opposed to almost no one showing up in South Florida.  It’s too bad USA baseball chooses to jerk around what loyal fans they have by treating these games like exhibitions when all of the other countries are clearly playing to win.