the state of the phillies

i think that the phillies are legit this year. i predict 92 wins, it will be a tight race with the mets, and the phils will prolly get the wildcard if they don't get the division. the mets starting pitching is suspect, but it was last year and you can see where that got them. the only team in the nl that will be a problem in the wildcard race might be the dodgers. andywho, the phils upgraded their starters. last year at this time, they had lieber and myers at the top, then lidle madson and floyd. this year, still lieber and myers, but followed by cole hamels, who had a good year last year, freddy garcia, who had a good year last year, jamie moyer and adam eaton. which is a huge improvement. moyer is a work horse and will be a reliable guy. eaton and lieber are question marks. as it looks now, one of the two is going to the bullpen. eaton has some good stuff but is injury prone, and lieber is in a contract year. you can't have too much starting pitching. i think the phillies are hoping that someone will need a starter close to the start of the season that is willing to give up a good reliever. fat chance i think, looks like lieber or eaton is going to the bp. i think it should be eaton, lieber would be terrible in the bp, but eaton does take an inning or two to get going. so in reality it's a toss-up. i'm starting to like the looks of the bullpen, i think it needs some help, but all-in-all it doesn't look that hopeless. flash geary and madson are all solid pitchers. i did like matt smith's performance last season and i like him as the lefty specialist. he will most likely make the bp. they will also go with alfonseca. i believe that leaves 2 spots left. i really like fabio castro, he had some good numbers last year. they are a little deceptive though, he didn't pitch in any pressure situations and was only on the staff because he was a rule 5 draftee. the phillies have to decide if they would rather have him be a reliever in philly or a starter in AAA. i also like brito, he pitched for the first time this spring on sunday. he retired all three batters he faced, it looked really good concidering that he was in an automobile accident in late december and was unable to lift a spoon to eat for the first three weeks. there are some other pitchers that are making a bit of a splash, germano, happ and bisenius are showing that they might have some major league stuff, however they will most likely not play in the big leagues until september. but they are certainly worth watching nonetheless. that's about it for phils pitching right now. keep in mind that it's still spring training and that means almost nothing for pitchers. or almost any other player for that matter. the only other thing to discuss with the phils is the remaining two bench spots. werth and helms have guaranteed spots on the roster and with dobbs and garcia doing well and the aquisition of ruiz in the off season, a spot on the phils bench is look bleak for chris coste. that is really a shame, he had quite the cinderella story for 2006. he was on the 25 man roster up until the night before opening day in 06 until the signing of delucci on the eve of the opening game. he was then later called up and caught most of the games towards the end of the season when fasano was released and lieberthal was hurt. i really like coste. he hit over .300 last season and is a good catcher. however, his chances are slim with the garcia and dobbs doing well. one is a left hander, which they want on the bench, and the other is just flat out doing better. at the very least, we will see him in september. it really is a shame after what he was able to do for the phillies last year, but the phillies are gearing up to win this season, i think. i would not be surprised if you see the phillies in the world series. we have the best infield offensively, most likely the best starting rotation in the nl, and i think burrell will have a good season so the phils are going all the way, well at least to the world series, the al looks better than the nl again this year so yankees/red sox/detroit/white sox against the phils in the world series is going to be tought. just to reiterate, the phils 92 wins, close race for the division, guaranteed post season spot with the wild card at the least. the dodgers threaten a little bit, but i don't think that more than one team in the nl central will get close to 90 wins and the nl west is a joke other than the padres. the dodgers could do something, but if lieberthal plays more than 45 games, they are in trouble. anyway i think that is it for the phils in the time being. let me know what you think.

btw beer o' meter = 8 just fyi.