Phils have the right to think bigger

By JACK McCAFFERY
February 13, 2009


PHILADELPHIA — Ever welcome and far too rare, more memorable than some of the greatest on-field plays in sports, easy to monitor and easier to someday regurgitate, it is the good, healthy, honest preseason boast.

For the Phillies, as they turn now toward Clearwater with a world championship pennant flowing from the antenna of the team bus, that honor has gone to Charlie Manuel. In previous years, it was Jimmy “The Team To Beat” Rollins’ job; in other times, there were Buddy Ryan promising championships, Jeffrey Lurie setting standards and, in the classic of all preseason-boast classics, Moses Malone. That’s when the Sixers’ center, caught in the enthusiasm of the 1983 NBA championship, declared, “We will repeat, and peat, and peat.”

So there has been Manuel, more than occasionally since his accurately predicted “grand parade” concluded last fall, saying that the 2008 Phillies were good, but that the 2009 Phillies will be better.

Better?

Better than the team that just won the World Series?

“There is no reason in the world for us not to get better,” the manager said.
“We are going to compete. I can tell you that right now.”

He’s right, too.

The man is right.

It is difficult if not senseless to start posing the Phillies — or the Yankees, or the Mets, or the Rays — for the 2009 championship team photo, for if any of them reach the postseason, they are still going to require good health, fortunate bounces and perhaps even lengthy rain delays to snake successfully through three playoff rounds. The postseason is its own monster. Eight teams enter, all good. One survives, and it is not always the post-time favorite.

So put aside the postseason for now.

But as for the regular season — as for those 162 games for which they soon will be preparing — there is one reason the Phillies can be better this time than the last. And that’s because, once all the spent champagne corks are shoveled away, the 2008 Phillies’ regular season will be revealed as something less than flawless.

In other words, somehow none of these relevant facts managed to pop up in those many commemorative videos, magazines or books:

n The 2008 Phillies won 92 games, placing them fourth —- not first —- in baseball.

n Cole Hamels, his shiny NLCS and World Series MVP plaques aside, was 14-10, meaning that Warren Spahn’s legacy is OK for a few more hours.

n This is the complete list of 2008 Phillies everyday players who hit at least .300:

n Ryan Howard, who led baseball in home runs and RBIs, struck out once or twice.

n The team batting average for the 2008 World Champions? It ranked 23rd in baseball, at a robust .255. (No. 22? That would be your Pittsburgh Pirates.)

n And even Hamels went on New York radio and accurately pointed out that the Mets, once in command of the N.L. East, “choked.”

Don’t start readying the protest torches, for those relevant tidbits are not at all to diminish the Phillies’ ultimate 2008 accomplishment. It happened that they led all World Series participants in wins, with four, and for that, they deserved every clap from 5.2 million hands on Broad Street. Rather, it is to support their claims — they’ve made plenty already, and likely will reset the world record by the time they head back north — that it is much likelier that they will improve in 2008 than regress.

“Chase Utley is going to he healthier this year,” Manuel said. “And Jimmy Rollins can definitely have a better offensive year. So we can do better than that .255 that we hit. If we do that, we are going to score a lot more runs.”

It’s possible. But if so, it will take some batting-order creativity from Manuel, who never has been reluctant to cut and shuffle that deck. Raul Ibanez has replaced Pat Burrell as the regular left-fielder, theoretically blessing the Phils with more speed and defense without compromising the offense. But he is left-handed, meaning he’d have to be separated from Howard and Utley in the lineup. But Jayson Werth or Shane Victorino can slide somewhere into that mix. It’s not exactly a NASA-level brain challenge.

Yet while the 2008 Phillies saved room for improvement, they also maxed a few accounts out. Jamie Moyer won 16 games at age 45 — good luck topping that at age 46. Brad Lidge didn’t blow one save opportunity all season. And in sports, only Donovan McNabb stays perfect forever.

J.C. Romero will miss the first 50 games for allegedly misunderstanding the concept of the juice bar. Utley underwent offseason surgery on his hip, and no one knows how deep that scalpel cut.

Then again, at least So Taguchi doesn’t play here anymore, so for the Phils, more is looking up than down. If nothing else, that parade left them motivated, not satisfied.

“I still say we can get better,” Manuel said. “And that’s basically what I’ll push. That’s what we’ll concentrate on. But we will just play them one at a time. And if we do that, we can cross the finish line and can look back and say, ‘We won again.’ And that’s kind of what it is all about.

“We’ll have another parade.”

It’s February, it’s pitchers-and-catchers time, it’s almost spring and it’s OK to be optimistic.

For the Phillies, in fact, it is more OK than ever.

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