Philadelphia Phillies

Power Rankings

Date	Ranking	Previous
01/26/2012	7	5
Good business: Ty Wigginton remains reliably near-mediocre at a plethora of defensive positions. Bad business: In a buyer's market for closers, they overpaid Jonathan Papelbon by $30 million. Ruben Amaro Jr. ping-pongs between inspired contracts (Halladay, Lee) and bone-dumb ones (Howard, Papelbon) with greater frequency than any GM in the biz. Prognosis as of 11:14 a.m. GMT on Jan. 26, 2012: So long as the limbs of the Big Three starters remain attached to their torsos, there's only so far the Phillies can fall.
10/31/2011	5	1
2011 eulogy: Three crummy October games do not a sublime season soil. Offseason to-do list: Resist the temptation to give Jimmy Rollins the five-year deal he wants, regardless of the dearth of Plan Bs. Or is it "Plans B"? Plurals are a tricky species ... Invent a time-collapsing device that allows the team to pair the 2008-2009 version of the offense with the 2011 pitching staff ... Administer mood-stabilizing medication to the "passionate" fanbase. Odds of achieving Cardinals-like glory in 2012: Yes, contention windows slam shut quickly nowadays and yes, the everyday guys are aging and infirm. But that rotation top-three obscures an awful lot of flaws. Halladay-Lee-Hamels is the baseball equivalent of hair dye.
09/28/2011	1	1
What went right: The pitching somehow managed to finish in the top nine of several major statistical categories ... Whether it was the lineup-balancing deal for Hunter Pence or Chase Utley's return to full health (or whatever counts as "full health" for the game's most notorious injury-denier, who once played with a shard of glass impaled in his eyelid), the offense righted itself in the second half of the season. Apparently playing well correlates with feeling well. Who knew? What went wrong: If you want to pick nits, Roy Oswalt wasn't all that hot ... During the last-week swoon, fans were forced to entertain the possibility, however slim, that their baseball heroes might not be God-kissed after all. This prompted more than a few renouncements of organized religion ... Meanwhile, now seems an appropriate time to mention that I have tons of family in Philadelphia, dig the city so much that I got married there, and own a copy of The Hooters' Amore on vinyl. You're okay in my book, "passionate" Phillie fans. Regular-season epilogue: Quiet, matter-of-fact domination is so much cooler than chest-thumping rants and sing-song "scoreboard!" chants. It really is.
09/20/2011	1	1
It took me four months of watching this team, but I finally found something to worry about: A .275 mph downtick in the magnificent Antonio Bastardo's fastball velocity. This is totally going to ruin Phillie fans' Rosh Hashanah. ... I loved the post-clinch celebration, which combined the enthusiasm of a stroll to the mailbox with the emotional outpouring of a shampoo purchase. This team has a greater mission in mind than claiming another NL East title. ... I respect the dickens out of Charlie Manuel for continuing to use his regulars -- given that St. Louis is still playing for keeps, he doesn't want to compromise the integrity of the pennant race -- but I couldn't disagree more with the move. Baseball is a physical game and the world is a random place. For all anyone knows, Shane Victorino could pop a hamstring and Cliff Lee could be attacked by feral, disoriented seagulls. Why risk it?
09/13/2011	1	1
Tiger fans keep saying, "You don't want to play us! We've got Verlander!" D-back fans keep saying, "You don't want to play us! Nobody expected us to be here and we have nothing to lose!" You know who I don't want to play? The Phillies, because they're better than everybody else at baseball, by a lot.
09/06/2011	1	1
They're downshifting into nap mode, which is fine. Assuming that the rotation core remains upright, nothing that happens between now and September matters ... Alas, the rolls of history will say the Phillies lost two games last week, but that's just because the rolls of history are as bias [sic] against the Phillies as the national media and the federal government ... It was a Phillies fan, not a Marlins fan, who interfered with the maybe-home-run ball on Sunday afternoon. Marlins fans aren't "passionate" enough to inject themselves into game action ... Ryan Howard has hit the 30 HRs/100 RBI perfecta yet again. Yay! He's the best hitter ever.
08/30/2011	1	1
If the Phillies had gotten stuck in the hurricane after Friday's rush-job nightcap, could Roy Halladay have navigated the team bus to safety? Could Chase Utley have fashioned a crude life raft out of twine and driftwood? I say yes. These 2011 Phillies are just that heroic ... Clearly Roy Oswalt isn't healthy. Just ask Phillies fans, board-certified exercise physiologists all, who have noticed him "laboring," "favoring either his right knee or his left foot," and "not pitching as good as he pitched when he first started pitching for us, when he pitched really good." You can't slip anything by those guys ... The Cole Hamels pics from last week's Shane Victorino Foundation's Fashion Show and Celebrity Clam Bake aren't going to get the critics off his back. Heck, they might as well have narrated the online slideshow: "Come on, man. You're on the DL! You should be home resting up, not fancying about in culottes! ... Aw jeez, Cliff Lee would never wear a brightly hued blazer over a striped shirt! We're doomed, ain't we?"
08/23/2011	1	1
But they lost a series! To a Nationals team that doesn't deserve to be mentioned in the same Internet as the Phillies, much less in the same sentence! And now Jimmy is hurt and there was that thing last week with Ruiz's junk and oh it all adds up to horrible horrible trouble. ... Everything old is new again, as fans lit up sports-radio consoles to reopen the investigation into Ryan Madson's closerworthiness. Remember that one? For years, even-keeled, attentive Phillie fans speculated that he was constitutionally incapable of navigating the inning that comes last, owing either to a psychological deficiency or some kind of numerical hex issued by a gypsy priestess. ... Maybe the Phillies can artificially alter the scoreboard so that Madson always thinks it's the eighth inning. And then when he gets the game's final out and wonders why all his teammates are congregating around the mound, they can be all "psych!!!" And they'd all enjoy a hearty laugh, and go out for ice cream and groupies.
08/16/2011	1	1
It's easy to run down Jimmy Rollins for what he's not (a legit leadoff hitter) or compare him unfavorably to the force he was during his MVP campaign (when he wasn't the most valuable player on his own team, much less the entire National League). But then you survey the state of shortstop around the league, and then you see Rollins kick off a game with a 15-pitch at-bat, and realize that even a diluted brand of his offensive menace remains quite useful ... Speaking of the aforementioned every-year Phillie MVP, I wonder how Chase Utley feels about the flood of Jason Kipnis comparisons. The similarities, as I see them, don't extend beyond hitting handedness (lefty) and positionality (second base). Phillies fans are quick to dismiss analogies that don't make much sense, even as they're crafting impossibly stupid ones of their own (Ryan Howard = Hank Aaron + Lou Gehrig + Arthur Ashe). Why haven't we heard from them on Utley/Kipnis? They must be out at the opera.
08/09/2011	1	1
I owe Phillies fans an apology. All season long, I've been dogging them about their inability to take a top-three ranking as a compliment in itself, which has elicited a host of responses that appear to have been typed while wearing protective mittens. But after reading the comments left on columns written by our awesome NFL team of Pete Prisco and Clark Judge, I realize that I was wrong to label Phillies fans the most insecure and self-doubting in pro sports. No, Eagles fans are far worse. Anyone who intimates that the Eagles might be less than a Super Bowl favorite gets ripped up and shouted down. Factor in their twin in-stadium persecutions of the Easter Bunny and Jay Novacek and, well, you've got a fan base that's equal parts daffy and dangerous ... So please accept this mea culpa in the warm, penitent spirit that it's intended, Phillie boosters. You are not the neediest fans in sports. And your team is very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very good, and you are really, really great at cheering for it. Yes you are! Yes you are!