Thank God, baseball is back ! 

Pitchers and Catchers reported a day early as the Phillies get geared up to try to make it 4 in a row.  The role that used to belong to the Atlanta Braves as the perennial team to beat seems to have been handed over to our Phitens.   The Braves and Marlins both made off season moves that indicate the team in their sights is in fact the Phillies.  The Mets also signed Jason Bay for 66 million for four years to improve their chances at being competative.  They may finish 15 games out instead of 24, but will never seriously challenge.

I believe this year the race is a two team one.  The Braves and the [...]

With Pitchers and catchers having reported to Clearwater, Fla., Spring Training is officially underway.

The Phillies, who are coming off of consecutive trips to the World Series, return much of the same core from the previous two years with newcomers, Roy Halladay, Placido Polanco and Danys Baez now on as additional reinforcements. There will be plenty of debate about how the team’s offseason will affect the team this season. The biggest question is did the team improve?

The Philadelphia Daily News’ Paul Hagen took a stab at answering that question today and the result was a mild yes. Hagen points to the rotation, bench and catcher position as upgrades, with the bullpen a downgraded and the infield and outfield remaining the same.

In regards [...]

Chase was one of the few athletes that made it on to all the Phillysportsblogs writers ballots at about the same spot, and he arrives at number 6 after playing 7 seasons in the past ten years with the Philadelphia Phillies, only 5 of those years as a starter.  He was signed as a first rounder in 2000 as the 15th overall pick, and made an impact in his first game in 2003 by getting his first hit, which happened to be a grand slam !

At first, his path to success seemed blocked by the recently re acquired Placido Polanco but by 2005, the Phillies had traded Polanco and Utley became the second baseman of the future.  Since that time, [...]

Man the Phillies are moving fast!

The Phillies filled their primary offseason need today signing Placido Polanco to a 3-year deal worth 18 million. Polanco’s primary position is second base, but he will shift over to third full time.

Palonco is the type of player the Phillies desperately needed – a .300 hitter, who takes pitches and doesn’t strike out.

With third base now taken care of we turn our focus to rounding out the bench. As we mentioned on Tuesday, the Phillies have four parts of the bench in place with Greg Dobbs, Brian Schneider, Juan Castro and Ben Fransisco under contract. The Phillies will likely us their final bench spot on a player that can give them depth in the outfield [...]

If the Phillies want to become a dynasty, I offer 5 suggestions to send them on their way. They have a good balanced ball club, one that has won the National League east three times in a row, been to 2 World Series and won one. That is a good 500 or so games for the team. But to truly become a dynasty, they need to sustain this level of play for 1000 or so more games.

That is tough in an arbitration filled, salary capped, league unless they plan on spending half a billion dollars each and every off season like the Yankees seem to do. Frankly, as much support as the Phillies get, I still  [...]