Probably worth mentioning though, it’s always good to keep an eye on teams with a lot of players in their contract year…and the the Phillies have Halladay, Utley, Ruiz and Young all pushing for new deals….

for the nationals, i can definitely see bernadina and zimmerman making an impact, but when you have amazing athleticism and struggle to apply it, and when you punch someone while blowing out your shoulder, it’s kind of tough to give these two the benefit of the doubt. werth’s has a fragile wrist and harper gives himself black eyes. strasburg would sit out of the fight because he’s too important to their future. let’s be honest, gio is an amazing talent, but he seems like kind of a bitch.

i think it’s pretty clear who will beat who up when it’s all said an done. if you can’t agree with this, then i can’t take you seriously.

It was so bad it was endearing.

Not the point. No they probably would not have. Rollins might be trying to say that they could win 100 again. But I’m not. You Nats fans say that not only are they not a 100-win team, but they’re an 86-win team at best. And the reason they’re an average team had nothing to do with injuries.

I never said Halladay was still a Cy Young contender, did I? But if you say he wouldn’t do better than what Kendrick did in his absense then I’ll stop because I’ll be fkin’ LOL’ing or something.

Because those were the starts in place of Halladay. You’re using WAR right? Doesn’t the R stand for replacement?

1. His BB rate was, by far, the highest it’s been since 2004
2. His HR rate was the highest since 2000
3. His K/BB rate was the by far the lowest since he began his run of dominance in 2008
4. There has been a significant decline in his velocity, especially in his cutter
5. He’s going to be 36!

I feel very confident in saying there is not a snowball’s chance in hell of Halladay winning the Cy Young next year. There is a very good chance that he’ll still be very good. But he posts a 2.30 ERA, and a 6/1 K/BB rate, I will personally paint your house (note: no I won’t).

Also, I am always wrong. So factor that in when considering my prediction.

The Phillies are an old team (and old teams on average get hurt a more and take longer to recover) without much depth….so they finished .500. There isn’t much reason to expect a now older Philly team to be less injured or more productive this year.

So, you’re saying that Ryan Howard, Jimmy Rollins and Roy Halladay are still MVP and Cy Young calliber players?

Howard and Rollins no (although neither was the best player when they did win MVP, but I digress), but Halladay yes. He did win the CY in ’10 and was second in ’11. Was ’12 an off year or a portent of things to come?

You do know that Roy Halladay posted a 4.49 ERA in 2012, right? He wasn’t very good (and yes, before I get the more sabermetrically inclined turned against me to, I know many other factors go into ERA). ALso…I mean, Kyle Kendrick had a better season in term of ERA. You just happened to pick out his worst stretch and say “See, I proved my point!”. Whose to say Roy Halladay wouldn’t have also had his worst stretch then. Or his best?

The point everyone seems to miss is that, a healthy version of the 2012 Phillies almost certainly would not have won 98 games.

But Morse and Storen missed half a season each. Weth miss at least 8 weeks. Zimmerman spent time on the DL and wasn’t “right” half the year. Desi also spend time on the DL. So I see his point.

Yeah, that has happened more times than I can count. The 06 Cardinals, the 02 Mariners, 98 Yankees, 94 Giants, 91 A’s, 89 Mets, 87 Mets, 86 Cardinals….

…should I go on? Sometimes team have a lot of really great players peaking right before they start to decline. 2011 saw Halladay, Lee, Hamels and Worely at their best, got far better output from Hunter Pence than he ever provided before, had a career year from Shane Victorino….

A lot of things have to go right to be a 100 win team, and a lot of things went right for the 2011 Phillies, who were an excellent team. The hypothetical “healthy” 2012 Phillies still would have been good…86 wins is good, but it’s pretty naive to say that all those players who have matched their career years without any new, young additions who might have upside.

Uh…huh. Again, Phillies fans are so * sensitive*.

So, you’re saying that Ryan Howard, Jimmy Rollins and Roy Halladay are still MVP and Cy Young calliber players? Because I will absolutely stop talking in that scenario because I won’t be able to stop laughing long enough to get any words out.

All in all, even WITH key injuries, the Nats managed VERY well by having, due to luck or good management (those two can be indistinguishable), just the right fill-in to keep things going.

“Roy Halladay missed about 8 starts, +0.4 wins”

With Kyle Kendrick starting from June 1 to July 6 they went 2-5 and he had an ERA of 5.72 and BAA of .284 and a WPA of -0.54. Going by your WAR they only win 0.4 more games in those 5 losses. I think a healthy Halladay does much better than that.

and you just can’t talk about injuries and every team having them. Does every team have CY Young award winners or runners up who were hurt? How about any league MVP’s who missed half the season? or multiple all stars???So please save it, what Rollins said is the truth. They will be back on top this year.

Sitting in the Vet, sweating in the sun, and watching Travis Lee swing and watching Mike Lieberthal as the Phillies best player.

Was the Vet that shitty? looking at some attendance numbers for the last few years of it, we get:

01 – 24th – 22,846
02 – 24th – 20,482
03 – 14th – 28,973 (last year of the Vet)
04 – 4th – 40,626 (CBP opens)