dajafi wrote:The Grantland/BP guy is right that they'll age out of contention at some point. They know this. The drafting strategy of the last two years, and the new aggression with signing the international guy, is clearly designed to minimize the time in the valley. Think 2006-08 Braves. As Floppy points out, they now have some durable strengths. We're in a new normal, so long as the f/o stays hungry.

I agree with this, except for your first line. There's no reason a team with the Phillies' current revenue stream should *ever* be out of contention. Not that it's impossible, but being a hot commodity and playing in a large market, combined with competent management should be sustainable forever. Not that they'll always make the playoffs but they should be able to be in contention every year.

They have Halladay & Lee signed through 2014, those 2 alone can practically keep them competitive until then. I mean look at the Giants, they have the worst offense in baseball but they're at least sort of in the race just from their pitching. And it's nearly impossible to predict what's going to happen 4 years from now. They may have a couple all stars who haven't even been drafted yet or quite possibly one of the guys they drafted this year. Their only really downside is the Howard contract, but that could work out ok.

And don't forget, we've got Howard locked up until 2099!

As long as Montgomery keeps Amaro flush with stacks of 100 dollar bills that he can sign players and trade for stars and light up his doobies with -- the Phils will be just fine. Jazzercise needs to go back to coming up with more formulas like Hitter Getting Tired Points that tells you how many Hitter Getting Tired Points a guy has and interesting stuff like that.

Grantland has to post articles like, every day right?

You're not going to get quality stuff all the time at that site.

How nuts is it that for all the talk of the Four Aces, Vance F. Worley is two wins from tying Lefty's consecutive wins streak

Grotewold wrote:How nuts is it that for all the talk of the Four Aces, Vance F. Worley is two wins from tying Lefty's consecutive wins streak

Lefty won 15, I believe.

But Worley's season is still nuts.

swishnicholson wrote:

Grotewold wrote:How nuts is it that for all the talk of the Four Aces, Vance F. Worley is two wins from tying Lefty's consecutive wins streak

Lefty won 15, I believe.

But Worley's season is still nuts.

Twitter says that's 13 straight Phils wins with Worley on the hill, two shy of Carlton's 15 in 1972

Grotewold wrote:

swishnicholson wrote:

Grotewold wrote:How nuts is it that for all the talk of the Four Aces, Vance F. Worley is two wins from tying Lefty's consecutive wins streak

Lefty won 15, I believe.

But Worley's season is still nuts.

Twitter says that's 13 straight Phils wins with Worley on the hill, two shy of Carlton's 15 in 1972

Ah, I was thinking of the fact that Lefty got the W in all of those wins*. Should have been clear since Worley has only actually won 8 straight decisions.

They have records for everything nowadays.

Edit: okay, in 1972 Carlton won fifteen straight decisions AND the Phillies won 15 straight when he started, but it's a slightly different set of games. I'll just shut up now.

Edit edit: Let me just add that Carlton's streak (of the team winning) could have reached 20 if he hadn't lost a game 2-1 inwhich he pitched an 11 inning complete game and lost another 1-0 in which he pitched 10 shutout innings only have Dick Selma give up a home run with none out in the 11th.

Worley's pretty good at getting those backwards Ks. Anyway that's a repeatable skill? You'd think guys would have caught on to his one trick vs lefties.

smitty wrote:You're not going to get quality stuff all the time at that site.

I now know what Grantland is based solely on people pointing out awful articles posted there. Good job Jazzhands.

this reminds me that we need a Henny Youngman "They can't all be gems!" GIF. (Or was it Groucho?)

Soren wrote:Worley's pretty good at getting those backwards Ks. Anyway that's a repeatable skill? You'd think guys would have caught on to his one trick vs lefties.

At this point, I'd say it is repeatable. I mean, early on in the season he had a relatively small sample size while splitting time with Kendrix... At this point he's 10-1 with a sub-3 ERA and 104 IP, and to me that's well outside of fluke territory. He won't get ROY but he will get votes, and that's good enough for me.

Interesting piece of information I stumbled on this afternoon.

The Brewers do not have a lefty in their bullpen.

I expect the Phils to roll over the Diamondbacks, and I expect the Brewers to win a long series with the Braves thanx to their home field advantage and amazing home splits.

A Phillies/Brewers NLCS matchup would be ideal. Long Braves/Brewers series plus short Phillies/D'Backs series means we line up our rotation the way we want and the Brewers don't get to line theirs up. The Phillies have homefield advantage and Brewers road splits have them with a 31-38 road record and then on top of all that they don't have a lefty reliever in their pen.

I really, really want to play the Brewers in the NLCS.

5th Round Pick wrote:The Brewers do not have a lefty in their bullpen.

That's particularly weird to me because they had three lefties in the pen in the 2008 NLDS.

I don't think it really matters a whole hell of a lot who we play, but my choice is Arizona then Atlanta in the LCS. Jurrjens and Hanson are hurt. Dunno why anyone would prefer playing the Brewers to them.

because if they somehow have a lead after the 7th inning, the game is over.

FTN wrote:because if they somehow have a lead after the 7th inning, the game is over.

We pwned K-Rod this year and can do it again.

Swiggers wrote:

FTN wrote:because if they somehow have a lead after the 7th inning, the game is over.

We pwned K-Rod this year and can do it again.

he is talking about the braves.

FTN wrote:because if they somehow have a lead after the 7th inning, the game is over.

Hudson-Lowe-Beachy as their 1-2-3

I'll take my chances

Also I'm pretty sure if we play them in a series we will win a game off Venters. Call it game 3, enter the 8th trailing 3-2, exit it ahead 5-3. They win game 4 to stretch it to 5 staving off the sweep, but Doc ends it there.