Ed Barkowitz
AT SOME point, optimism gives way to reality. That's where we are with the Phillies.
Ryan Howard is more than two years removed from his crippling Achilles' injury. But he's four years away from his last monster season. Howard always has been the key to this lineup, but it feels as if he's closer to being a platoon player than a guy who can anchor an offense.
The fact that the rest of the division has gotten better also is working against the Phillies. I wanted to believe that this team would turn around last year's disappointing 89-loss season, but the tea leaves just aren't showing it.
Whether it's Cole Hamels' shoulder, Jimmy Rollins' perceived unhappiness or Freddy Galvis getting MRSA, for heaven's sake, the next good thing to happen this spring feels like it will be the first. Oh, wait, Bobby Abreu was not able to make the team. That's a relief.
Professionally and personally, a return to the playoffs would be extremely strong. The town is always more fun when the ballpark is jumping in October. But I just don't know if getting 90 wins is possible.
Pray for the Power Ball numbers all you want. Sooner or later, reality must set in.
Sam Donnellon
TWELVE MONTHS ago, every Eagles headline seemed to garner little more than a shrug. Beaten down by years of organizational chest-thumping and near and not-so-near misses, they had devolved into what seemed to be an unmanageable mess.
Did they need a quarterback? Yes, they needed a quarterback.
Did they need better people to cover passes? Better tacklers? Linebackers? To block better? To get to the quarterback more regularly?
Yes, they needed all of that.
The task seemed so overwhelming it was hard to get worked up over free-agent signings, draft picks and draft orders and most importantly, prospects for the upcoming season. If you thought the Eagles might win eight games, you were dubbed a hopeless optimist.
So there's your hope for the Phillies. That all their ifs - and they have them in so many places it was hard to get excited about anything they did this spring - will be answered positively and they will somehow put together a surprise run to the playoffs.
Me? I'm thinking 79 wins, 81 if they get a few calls.
Then again, I'm a hopeless optimist.
Marcus Hayes
THE DREAM TEAM Phillies are a wistful memory; this edition could serve as a case study in arrogant self-evaluation. It's as though the Phillies pay their aging players just to prove the Eagles wrong.
Still, the team is not without talent, nor does it lack motivation.
Ryan Howard, Chase Utley and Jonathan Papelbon seek to justify their inflated contracts.
Jimmy Rollins and Mike Adams seek to justify another well-compensated year of employment beyond this one.
Cody Asche, Ben Revere and Domonic Brown seek to secure their futures.
Cole Hamels needs to make 30 starts. Ryne Sandberg and his henchmen need to let the clubhouse develop.
And Howard needs to be healthy. They always are a winning team with him in the lineup, regardless of his production.
Rich Hofmann
There will be a stretch this season, a stretch of six weeks or so, when the Phillies will play as if someone has been listening to Ruben Amaro Jr.'s nightly prayers. There will be good health and timely hitting and excellence through the starting rotation. During this stretch, the doubters will be chastised and the veteran chests will thrust forward just a little bit, and the operative thinking will be about a proud core of players making one final, proud run.
During this stretch, hope will spring - but not eternally.
Because baseball seasons are not made up of six weeks, but of six months. And the Phillies just don't have enough, starting with the depth of their starting pitching, continuing on with their vital extra players (because of the age of that proud core of players, the bench will have to play), and finishing up with a lineup that will have to defy something even stronger than gravity - age - if it is to produce at the requisite level.
For a while, yes. And if the while is right out of the chute, the first half of the season has a chance to be fun/interesting. But there isn't enough there to pull it off. There isn't enough to make .500 more than a goal.
Ryan Lawrence
CONTRARY TO popular belief, the sky was not falling in Clearwater this spring - although a tornado did pass through the greater Tampa Bay region before one game and Freddy Galvis was diagnosed with MRSA before another. And Cole Hamels showed up behind schedule on Day One of camp. So, maybe the sky is in danger of falling. The Phillies' ability to not only rebound from its first losing season in 11 years, let alone contend, depends on a laundry list of "ifs," most of them involving players either beyond or nearing their 35th birthdays, with their best playing days behind them. But every major player other than Hamels was healthy this spring. Their bats looked alive in the last week of camp, when players want to be peaking. If - there's that word again - Hamels returns in late April and is healthy for the duration of the season, the Phils may surprise some people. Still, they need way too many things to go right in Ryne Sandberg's first year, and it's too much to ask. They may stay in striking distance of a wild card for a bit, but they won't be playing relevant baseball in September.
David Murphy
All of what follows comes with a caveat: If Cliff Lee, Cole Hamels or A.J. Burnett sustains a serious injury, the Phillies will once again be picking in the Top 10 of the MLB Draft.
Right now, though, the Phillies do not look to be in nearly as bad of shape as they were at this time last year. They have more talent, and fewer question marks, than the Mets, Marlins, Cubs, Padres and Rockies. Injuries have robbed the Braves and the Diamondbacks of young, top-of-the-rotation starters.
The Pirates have some serious pitching question marks. And that's just the National League. The race to the top: Washington, St. Louis, Los Angeles. The race to the bottom: Colorado, Chicago, Miami, New York.
The Phillies will fall somewhere in between. I wouldn't be surprised if the rotation and the lineup both exceed expectations. But I suspect the bullpen will once again be a problem on most days that a starter does not dominate.
John Smallwood
Even if you are a complete optimist about the Phillies, it's hard to see this team as a legitimate contender in what is expected to be a tough National League.
The hitting is suspect with so many ifs: If Ryan Howard has anything left and can finally get back to hitting home runs and driving in runs. If Jimmy Rollins can become a successful hitter again and will even be here past the All-Star break. If Chase Utley can bounce back. If Ben Revere, Domonic Brown and Cody Asche can step up to be major contributors.
There also are questions about the pitching staff. Who is the real Cole Hamels? Who is going to replace Roy Halladay? Who will be the fourth and fifth starters? Who is going to emerge out of the bullpen?
It's one thing to be a veteran team like the Boston Red Sox. It's another thing to be a veteran team like the Phillies, with veterans who bring so many concerns about how much they have left.
When you throw in Ryne Sandberg, who will be in his first full season and looking to instill his culture into a bunch of former stars who are used to their own culture, it doesn't look like the formula for a cohesive unit looking to make one last run. The Phillies have enough talent to stay on the fringe of the playoff hunt but not enough to make a run for it.
A third straight season out of the playoffs will officially turn the page on what was the most successful era of Phillies baseball.
