If he is telling the truth, and he is 100% healthy, then it has to be mechanical. Would I rather him not have to work through such a thing on the big stage? You’re damn skippy. Can he? If anyone can, it’s him.

Don’t worry, unlike you, I’ve watched every single pitch, instead of just looking at his line waiting to be a snarky little wanker.

Am I worried? Sure, I am. Am I going to overreact after his second start if he is still saying he is healthy and half of his pitches look great and the other half are terrible? That is a resounding no.

Don’t get me wrong here, I’m not expecting a miraculous return to ace type stuff, but I would also be surprised if he can’t bring himself back to being a productive #3 starter pitching out of the #2 spot to keep the lefties broken up.

Now, if there is an issue he isn’t mentioning with his shoulder, then he may never get back to even #3 stuff, but I don’t know that, so I have to keep thinking it is mechanical. If you actually watch him pitch you will see that he is not repeating, but that would be too much for you, I know.

Oh yeah, is it June yet? How is that bunker coming along?

His curve and change looked good, though, and if he can get control of his fastball he will be just fine.

Keep pointing the bad out in the beginning of the season. You probably believed the world was gonna end last December. Was that you I saw on “doomsday preppers” the other day?

We are still here, and Halladay has time to figure out his issues. So like I said in my last response to your snarky ass comment, get back at me in JUNE, not after his first outting. Don’t you have a bunker to build?

Lemme know what you feel in June. Til then, get away from me kid, you’re bothering me.

I would point out that being objective doesn’t make you a hater but it would fall on deaf ears.

I like Halladay. I think he’s a great teammate, an exemplary talent, a hard worker and carries himself the way a big leaguer should.

But I have eyes and am not blinded by being a Phillies fan.

He’s not right. He is NOWHERE near what we’ve grown accustomed from him.

And that is bad news for the Phillies.

Open your eyes.

But if I must, he didn’t actually look that bad today for the one inning he was out there. But his face was redder than normal so maybe they are telling the truth about the stomach virus. Pap seems to have the same thing.

The fact of the matter is, they still have not said anything about an injury. If he is healthy, he will be fine.

Get a life. It wouldn’t have matter if it was today or 2 months from now. If Halladay had a bad day you were gonna come back and say it proves your point, yet it proves nothing, except that you don’t know baseball of course.

How’d Doc look today?

This is not to say that they can’t make adjustments, get healthy for a couple more years and roll out another dominant season or two, but it’s just more difficult for them to do so.

Guess what, it won’t work. We know when our team is doing good and when they aren’t. I feel a lot better now than I did before spring training. I know it is only spring training, but Halladay is healthy, Howard is healthy and hitting, Utley is healthy and hitting, Dom Brown is mashing, etc etc.

I love having a logical rebuttal for all these guys that cherry pick stats that don’t even make sense or just use totally ridiculous premises for their reasons why the Phillies won’t succeed this year. They are really gonna hate it when we slide back into the playoffs for the 6th year out of 7.

We missed the two most important offensive pieces on the team for pretty much the first half of the year. Just going by how many player days the team missed doesn’t even approach sensible reasoning.

And gee, what do you know, when we got Utley, Howard, and Doc back, we played the rest of the year on a pace that would win about 95 wins throughout 162 games. Coincidence? I doubt it.

Howard and Utley being in the lineup changes the way that every other player in the lineup is pitched, in turn making them more effective. Howard wasn’t even close to being 100% and he still had what, 14 homers and 56 rbi’s in 71 games?

Then to the point about the bullpen. Last year we ended up having to rely on a lot of young arms in high leverage situations. We lost 13 games in which we entered the 8th inning with a lead, and that number jumps to 20 when you include going into the 8th inning tied. The second half of the season we had a couple guys brought up from Triple A and Bastardo started throwing MUCH better in the 2nd half.

1st half- 5.34 ERA, .725 OppOPS, 1.465 WHIP
2nd half- 3.09 ERA, .581 OppOPS, 1.029 WHIP

Aumont, Valdes, Horst, and DeFratus did pretty good in the latter portions of the year as well. So with all those young guys getting some much needed experience, and the Phils adding one of the best setup men in baseball, our bullpen will be pretty damn good this year.

Papelbon was definitely overpaid, but that doesn’t change the fact that he is one of the best closers in baseball. Now that we have Adams to solidify the 8th, I would bet that we would have held 10 of those 13 leads that we lost in the 8th inning last year. That would have made us a 91 win team, and in the playoffs, even with all the other problems we had.

Say what you want, because you obviously have no idea whats going on with the Phillies, but you will see soon enough.

By the way, if the Nats aren’t you’re team, then who is? The Mets, Braves? Marlins?

I’m not saying we will overtake the Nats for the division, and honestly, I don’t care. If we get into the playoffs, and I really do think we will, watch out.

But yeah, you’re right, Halladay is cooked. Stick a fork in him.

The Phillies had a rough go of it but other teams had it just as bad (or worse) and still made it into October baseball.

The Phillies need their “aces” to be aces and not get hurt for so much as a couple weeks. Unlikely.

Their offense is a shadow of what it used to be.

Utley is one groundball away from the DL.

Howard is looking good this spring..but it’s spring.

The bullpen is pretty much crap. Papelbon’s deal was the dumbest thing handed out in some time because there were no less than 15 or so closers/former closers on market.

The Nationals (not my team) are going to run laps on the Phils & the Braves will be better than them too.

http://www.fangraphs.com/leaders.aspx?pos=all&stats=pit&lg=all&qual=0&type=8&season=2009&month=0&season1=2000&ind=0&team=0&rost=0&age=0&filter=&players=60,1303

Also, their W-L records, when you look at the actual Win% it goes against what you are saying…

Pitcher
Win% (2000-2009)

Halladay
66.8%

Johnson
64.7%

Help me out, which is better?

Other notable stats for those who don’t click the link…

Pitcher
FIP
ERA
BABIP
BB/9
HR/9
HR/FB
GB%
fWAR

Halladay
3.32
3.40
.293
1.79
0.72
10.3
56.2%
53.8

Johnson
3.13
3.34
.298
2.31
1.01
12.1
43.2%
55.7

Yes, I know that some of those stats had Johnson leading, but my point is that the difference was small. It goes to show that RJ was not by far better than Doc throughout the 2000′s.

And don’t get me wrong, I think that Randy Johnson was much more dominant than Doc ever was from 2000-2002 and 2004 because he was a strikeout pitcher, but as far as pitchability goes, Doc was always better. You could see that once Johnson didn’t have his best fastball anymore…say from 2005-2009. There is a reason that all those accolades you pointed out stopped during the second half of the decade. Take a look at the stats from 2005-2009, which is 5 seasons, or HALF of the decade that this debate is about.

http://www.fangraphs.com/leaders.aspx?pos=all&stats=pit&lg=all&qual=0&type=8&season=2009&month=0&season1=2005&ind=0&team=0&rost=0&age=0&filter=&players=60,1303

And again for those of you that don’t click the link, some notables…

Pitcher
Inn
ERA
FIP
BB%
ERA-
FIP-
tERA
fWAR

Halladay
1072
3.01
3.26
4.0%
67
74
3.58
30.6

Johnson
767.1
4.28
4.00
6.1%
97
91
4.00
14.0

As you can see, Halladay was much better than RJ throughout the second half of the 2000′s. And interestingly enough, if you remove just one year (2000, an outlier for Halladay where he had a 10.64 ERA in just 67.2 innings) which was before he really learned how to pitch, the results tilt back to Halladay’s side with the strikeouts being one of the few exceptions.

http://www.fangraphs.com/leaders.aspx?pos=all&stats=pit&lg=all&qual=0&type=8&season=2009&month=0&season1=2001&ind=0&team=0&rost=0&age=0&filter=&players=60,1303

I think that if we are talking about careers, then Johnson most certainly gets the nod. The guy pitched over a span of 3 different decades and 20+ years, becoming dominant in the early 90′s and, with the exception of a few outlier seasons, dominated until 2004. The thing is, I’m solely speaking to the best pitcher from 2000-2009, and I simply can’t put him in front of Halladay because of those last 5 seasons.

Other than 2000, Halladay was as consistent as anybody I have ever seen in one decade, and did it without throwing 100mph. Instead, he learned how to pitch with pinpoint accuracy and intelligence which, in my opinion, was unparalleled in that decade.

If I have failed to sway your opinion, then I suppose we must agree to disagree. Thanks for the debate though, I live for this shit. haha

Anyway, “Not Cy Young Caliber” can still be “really good” and is certainly not “phucked”.