2006 Philles Season Thread

[PoopyfaceMcGee]

and 3 games does not a slow start make.

I agree.  1-2 would have been a slow start.  0-3 means they haven't even gotten out of the blocks yet.

[ice grillin you]

but what do you expect them to say?  we're farged?

i expect them to say that getting swept at home in your opening series is unacceptable and wont be tolerated...one of the big problems with this team is the laissez faire nothing is ever wrong leadershipless attitude they have...

and 3 games does not a slow start make.

never said it was

[SunMo]

i expect them to say that getting swept at home in your opening series is unacceptable and wont be tolerated...one of the big problems with this team is the laissez faire nothing is ever wrong leadershipless attitude they have...

well, for you to ever expect Charlie Manuel to speak a complete sentence like that is on par with me expecting to live on the moon.

and the so-called "veteren leadership" on this is team is laid-back.  but i think Utely and Roward are going to change that a little bit this year.

[ice grillin you]

and the so-called "veteren leadership" on this is team is laid-back.  but i think Utely and Roward are going to change that a little bit this year.

i dont think its laid back it doesnt exist...the rowand leadership thing is overrated...hard to come into a locker room in year one and take over...unless youre a superstar...utley tho i agree needs to step up big...tho as hard as he plays i dont see a fiery attitude with him...reminds me a lot of rollins

the wild card here is howard...yes hes in only his first full year but they traded a superstar to give him a position on the team and after seeing him go off on beckett he has what it takes it would seem...plus hes a big motherfarger who can snap necks

[PoopyfaceMcGee]

Howard would appear to have big problems with lefties.

[reese125]

...well it starts from the top and it looks like its having a trickle-down effect on all the players again this year. I know its way too early, but to see Manuel start the season off with some of his tactics is simply amazing. LaRussa was laughing in his sleep last night with the way Manuel set his lineup. I swear to god, if he had a bright idea it would be beginners luck.

[ice grillin you]

i agree manuel is a terrible inlfuence on this club from pampering of players to his incompetant managing

[reese125]

its almost kind of the way you feel about your boss growing up and now. Thats  the way the players feel about him.  As long as he's cool, makes life easy for u and leaves your ass alone, you love him and would never rat him out. BUT, you would think in professional sports--especially the Phillies--WINNING--would be a top priority since your already paid. Some body needs to step up, walk over to Gillicks office and say, "Um, my manager just $htein his pants again..please help."

[BigEd76]

Part 2 of that article on the Phils

[SunMo]

From today's Daily News:

**************************************************

Centerfield?

David Dellucci stayed in the game and played rightfield yesterday after pinch-hitting in the bottom of the seventh inning.

Bobby Abreu moved from rightfield to centerfield in the top of the eighth inning. It was the first time Abreu has been out of rightfield since 2002... or the first time since March, depending on how you see it.

Fresh off winning his first Gold Glove award, Abreu played centerfield for Venezuela in the World Baseball Classic in March, which raised some eyebrows. He was asked whether he would have considered the move to facilitate, say, keeping first baseman Jim Thome in Philadelphia and moving rookie of the year Ryan Howard to the outfield.

"No," Abreu said.

Manuel said that he didn't consider moving Abreu into centerfield until he decided to keep Dellucci in the game, and that any action Abreu gets there this season will be rare.

what a team player.

[MDS]

maybe because he knows he sucks in cf, and that that outfield would be god awful

[ice grillin you]

now you know why they tried to trade him in the off season

[PhillyPhreak54]

The catcher position:

Carrying this over from the Abreu thread... Some people suggested that Sal Fasano and Chris Coste would be better than Mike Lieberthal and Sal Fasano. I disagree. As much as I HATE Lieby, leaving the catchers spot in the hands of a true journeyman and a career minor leaguer would've been bad. Maybe it pays of early on, but as the season goes on and Fasano gets to the 100+ games plateu, he'd likely be exposed for what he really is - a guy who can catch maybe 70 games a year. And as much as I liked Coste in the spring, he recently took up catching to bolster his chances of making the team.

Now would they be better with Carlos Ruiz and Sal Fasano? Maybe.

I know this - I like Fasano because he is great defensively and calls good games. I watched a lot of O's games last year and several of them had fasano behind the plate.

What should've happened is once the word got out that Bengie Molina wasn't getting his long term cash and would sign for 1 year Gillick should've signed him with a quickness. Then cut bait with Lieby even though they are on the hook for his money, just flat out cut his ass.

A duo of Molina and Fasano would've been excellent. Hell, I'd even take Greg Zaun from TOR if he asks to be dealt because of Molina being there (they are sharing time now, I believe).

But the sad fact is that Fasano & Coste wouldn't have gotten it done. We are stuck with Lieby. Unless it becomes so bad that Gillick gets fed up and trades for a catcher - which we cn only hope for.

[PhillyPhreak54]

Dodgers :

Furcal SS .286
Cruz LF .538
Drew RF .385
Kent 2B .556
Loney 1B .167
Mueller 3B .545
Repko CF .417
Navarro C .000
Tomko P .000



Phillies:

Rollins SS .250
Rowand CF .200
Abreu RF .333
Utley 2B .385
Burrell LF .364
Howard 1B .273
Bell 3B .143
Fasano C .000
Floyd P .000


WHY IS BELL IN THE GODDAMN LINEUP?!?!?!?!

Facing a RHP = Nunez should be in there.

[PhillyPhreak54]

Great article on Howard from Jayson Stark

"You ever picked up his bat?" asks his buddy, Rollins. "Wheee-ooooh. Are you kiddin'? Let me go get one."

A few seconds later, Rollins is back, dragging what looks like half a forest.

"Look at this," he says. "This thing's 35 inches, 34½ ounces. But look how small it looks in his hands. We say, 'Is it really that big? Or is it just that big when we pick it up?' This thing is like a tree. But it's like a toy to him."

Yeah, how does he manage to swing that bat? That's just one of the great Ryan Howard debates that seem to erupt in the Phillies' locker room about every 10 minutes.

Then there's this fun little topic: In a spring in which Howard crunched 11 titanic home runs, which of those swats was the most ridiculous/awe-inspiring/gargantuan?

Was it the Apollo shot in Clearwater against the Yankees that cleared the fence, and a 30-foot grass berm, and a walkway behind the berm, and the back wall of the stadium -- and came down in a retention pond between the ballpark and the highway?

"With two strikes," says hitting coach Milt Thompson with a laugh. "Against a lefty [Ron Villone]."

"And he had a 103 fever," Rollins says with a chuckle.

Or was it the meteor at Disney -- the one Howard's teammates claim was still going up when it left the park, just to the right of straightaway center, on its way to Splash Mountain?

"That ball," Thompson says, "was three-quarters of the way up the light post. If he'd hit it to dead center, it would have been over the batter's eye."

"Somebody's car alarm probably went off when that ball came down," Rollins says. "I've never seen a ball hit that far. That was the beauty of it -- 'cause there was no stadium to catch it. It was just, 'How far is it gonna go?' And it was far.'"

"And the wind," says Mike Lieberthal, with a shake of the head, "was blowing in."

"Negative, negative," Howard says, "because all I did all spring was come in, do my work, play baseball, go home and sleep. And that's it. It hasn't been hard to tune it out. I just try to stay focused on what's going on on the field, and not on everything else. To me, that's all [the other stuff] is -- is everything else. So I just leave it that way, because if you're worried about everything else, you're not focused on what matters."

This is a guy who has always focused on what matters. His father is an executive at IBM. His twin brother, Chris, is an associate athletic director at LSU.

"His family is all high achievers," says Phillies assistant GM Mike Arbuckle, who presided over the scouting department that drafted Howard in the fifth round in 2001. "They expect themselves to succeed."

Well, from the look of things, the ballplayer in the family isn't going to disappoint. Just consider Howard's career path since he arrived in Double-A in 2004:

Two years ago, Howard cranked 46 home runs and drove in 131 runs between Double-A and Triple-A, making him only the fifth player since 1957 to pile up that many homers and RBI in a minor-league season.

Last year, at the point the Phillies called him up to stay on July 1, he was leading the International League not in homers, but in batting (.371), on-base percentage (.467), slugging (.690) and OPS (1.157).

From July 2 on, Howard hit .296 with 21 homers and 65 RBI. The only National League players who hit more home runs in that span were Andruw Jones and Derrek Lee. But Howard had a higher slugging percentage (.585) in that period than Paul Konerko, a higher OPS (.950) than Vladimir Guerrero or Gary Sheffield, and more intentional walks (eight) than Manny Ramirez.