http://www.baseball-reference.com/awards/awards_1998.shtml#NLcya

Phillies:
Halladay – 7.5, 6.9, 6.9
Lee – 7.9, 5.0, 4.3 (god bref.com isn’t as impressed with Lee as fangraphs is)
Oswalt – 6.2, 5.6, 5.3
Hamels – 4.7, 4.4, 4.1

Braves:
Maddox – 8.8, 8.4, 7.3
Glavine – 7.4, 5.6, 5.6*
Smoltz – 6.1, 4.7, 4.7
Neagle/Avery – 4.1, 4.0

’71 Orioles:
Palmer – 7.9, 7.6, 6.4
Cueller – 6.5, 4.5, 4.3
McNally – 4.7, 3.8, 3.1
Dobson – 4.3, 3.1, 2.8

Strictly at their peak [Hamels gets shafted since he doesn't have the years the others have], I think the Braves have a slight, slight advantage, but the Phillies are a lot closer than it appears.

Maddux, Glavine, and Smoltz are all in the top 5 in all-time postseason wins. Something tells me it wasn’t their fault in most cases. It takes 25 men to win the World Series, not 3.

Where did I take the position that Philly won’t win another title? I’m just not in the “Oh it’s a shoo-in!!!” crowd. Injuries, under-performance, bad luck, any of those can derail a sure-fire World Series winner. I mean hell, Seattle had the best regular season ever in 2001 and got whooped in the ALCS.

Admittedly, it won’t be easy to sustain as sort of success like the Braves did. I’d bet that such a run of division titles won’t be repeat by this current Phillies run of success, especially given the ages of most of the Phillies core players at this point. But it would be only slightly less foolish for you to take the position that this Phillies WON’T win at least one more World Series before this team gets torn apart.

I see too many people placing the “blame” for only winning 1 championship on the rotation. The Braves didn’t have anything close to resembling a potent offense. That was the problem more than anything. You won’t find too many Atlanta hitters on the all-time postseason leaders lists.

(sorry to repost, it didn’t attach to the comment last time)

Rollins has declined every year since his MVP season. If we go by his career averages, his average season would be slightly worse than his ’08, which was considered a disappointing year.

Ruiz had a career year, hitting 40 points above his previous high and got on base 40 points above his previous high. Can he repeat a career year?

Utley and Howard will need to surpass their average years to make up for Werth. Even if Ibanez and Rollins top theirs. They lost a much bigger bat than their fans want to admit. That all changes if Brown matches his potential.

They’ll still be a very good-to-great team. But they still need a lot to go right for them to reach that high level.

If I’m a Philly fan I’m crazy excited. But the road to the championship last year went through the Embarcadero.

We won’t know for sure if that will happen again. The Phillies Aces have a longer track record. But that could be the problem. That track record is maybe getting too long.

The only thing that’s certain is that there is a lot to look forward to this year, unless you’re a fan of the A’s or Orioles or Royals or Pirates. But hey, I’m 20 minutes from AT&T. I’m looking forward to seeing Lincecum vs. Doc, Cain vs Lee, etc.. That’s baseball. Think the house will be full? Get those garlic fries ready, cause I’m ready right now.

All that just makes for a pissed-off existence. The playoffs are a crapshoot; it’s all about matchups and who’s hot. In a short series, anything can happen.

A Braves fan is proud of the Braves rotation of the 90′s. They were dominant, I agree. But they also won exactly one world series with 10+ years of Smoltz, Glavine, and Maddux. Shoot, the Phillies won one world series with Hamels, Myers, Moyer and Blanton…LOL.

A Phillies fan watched his team have the single greatest month in baseball history last September, with 3 pitchers who pitched like no other 3 pitchers have ever pitched for a month in history. And their ace threw a no-hitter in his first postseason game. And the season was an utter failure. Complete. Utter. Failure. You will never hear me brag about how good they were, because they didn’t win it all. I don’t care about the offense not showing up. Throw shutouts then and stop whining.

If in 4 years, the Phillies do not win another World Series, then the next 4 years will have been a failure. I don’t care if they win 120 games a year. I don’t care if all 4 pitchers have a combined 1,000,000,000,000 ERA+. Win it all, or it’s a failure.

It’ll definitely make for an interesting season.

also, expect a bounceback offensive season out of the phils to complement The H20Lee Quartet.