A Day in the Life

My article for this week was going to be fucking awesome. I was simply going to post my day’s itinerary. It be something like this:

9am: Go to Nifty Fifty’s for breakfast.

10am: Do routine daily chores. (Unfortunately, you guys are cheap so the Wriz can’t afford a maid)

1pm: Stop at beer distributor.

2pm: Pack cooler.

3pm: Arrive at Holiday Inn parking lot for pre-game festivities

7pm: Make my way into Citizen’s Bank Park to watch the Phillies put a hurting on Cliff Lee and the Texas Rangers

But, alas, I’ll spend my day off as I have most of my free time since this past Saturday night. Debating in my head what went wrong, how (and if) the Phillies can fix it. And occasionally staring at two 2x5 pieces of cardboard that are now useless. It’s a shame too because they were sweet seats. I know from time to time I jump the gun and declare the Phillies as “done” or “season over” prematurely, but I think I do this because I keep waiting for the best team in Phillies history to be nothing more than a mirage. I can’t help it. I live in a city where since I was old enough to root for my hometown teams I’ve seen three championships in 30 years. Three in 120 tries. To put it in perspective, the Marlins and Diamondbacks had 3 in their first 14 years of existence.

I know baseball is a business and you must continually try to improve the team. Some of my friends were disappointed when Chris Coste was released and J.A. Happ was traded. Both were just supporting players on the 08 Champions. This off-season could be devastating to them. Romero’s option has already been declined by the Phillies making him a free agent and I have no confidence that Jayson Werth will be back. None. People are already clamoring for Cliff Lee. That’s not going to happen either, so forget it. Besides the Phillies starting pitching was good, no, great last season especially after acquiring Oswalt. The bullpen struggled early but I feel it was very good down the stretch. So that leaves the bats. Without Werth, the Phillies will need another RH bat for RF. Don’t fool yourself, Brown is not ready. He only batted .210 overall and looked lost batting .077 verse lefties. I wouldn’t be surprised if the Phillies went cheap and used Francisco but he is only batting .267 lifetime against lefties. Otherwise, all other changes would need to come through trades. With the salaries of Victorino, Rollins, Ibanez, Utley and Howard and the depletion of the farm system, I think the Phillies would get the short side talent-wise on any trade.

This leaves me with one final point. The Phillies had the best overall record in baseball this year. I, and most likely you, am still disappointed. We’ve gotten awfully spoiled.

Jay Wrizight
jaywrizight@yahoo.com