In the first inning of yesterday's Opening Day game against the Nationals, Roy Halladay got touched up for a run on a combination of Nyger Morgan running and Ryan Zimmerman hitting.  After Zimmerman's RBI double, you got a clear look at one of the things that makes Roy Halladay so good.  When Nyger Morgan crossed the plate to take the 1-0 lead, Halladay didn't even blink.  Didn't shrug.  Didn't frown.  Didn't smile.  Nothing.

He simply walked back to the mound, struck out Adam Dunn and closed out the inning a batter later on a pop-up.  Business as usual.  Morgan was all jacked up, the stadium was rocking with Opening Day hopes, but Roy didn't seem to notice at all.  From them on out, he mowed down hitter after hitter, fanning nine hitters over seven innings, leaving with a 11-1 lead and the game in hand.  Not much more could have been expected from the Doc and he didn't disappoint in the least.

Offensively, it doesn't get more exciting than Jimmy Rollins spending the entire day on base.  Two hits, two walks, and a stolen base set Rollins on a much better path than last season when he struggled mightily throughout April.  Couple in a Ryan Howard bomb and a Placido Polanco grand slam and it was nonstop excitement for the Phils.  Every Phillies starter had a hit (including the pitcher) and every position player scored a run (excluding the pitcher) in the rout.

A potentially overlooked bright spot was the bullpen.  Bastardo, Baez, and rule-five draftee David Herndon combined for three easy innings of work to close out the game.  I was especially impressed with the new guy, Herndon.  Despite allowing two hits, his ball had great life to it and he pitched with a presence on the mound.  I hope he finds a way to stay around a little longer once Romero and Lidge return from injury, but we'll just have to wait and see.

Next game: Wednesday, 7:05, Cole Hamels v. Jason Marquis in Washington.

I'd like to thank Will & Rory for helping round out the WTTTB Fantasy Baseball League.   Categories are: OPS, HR, R, RBI & Steals.  Pitchers: Wins, WHIP, K's, Saves & ERA.  Check out the teams and feel free to post your opinion on who has the most stacked team.

Team Benny B

Team Will H.

It was a big day in Philadelphia, as the Phillies headed home to Citizen's Bank Park (oh, I got chills when I wrote that) for their first exhibition games of 2010 against the Pittsburgh Penguins.

The game started off rough: Cole Hamels disappointed fans, allowing three earned runs in his three innings at the mound. The dark streak ended wit Kyle Kendrick as a replacement, who pitched three scoreless innings, followed by Andrew Carpenter for two, and finally closer Danys Baez.

Ryan Howard, who has spent spring training mastering breaking balls and perfecting his already miraculous swing, hit a two-run home run in the third, tying up the game. Chase Utley got the bell ringing for the second time in 2010 with another home run in the fifth. The Phillies ended the game with a 5-3 win.

Charlie Manuel beat out Jimmy Rollins' usual yearly predictions today, being the first man on the team to claim a 2010 World Series victory. He also had high hopes for Cole Hamels, who has been performing less than admirably this spring

"Cole's in tremendous shape. He's ready to pitch." Manuel said, in an interview with the Philadelphia Inquirer before the game against the Pirates. "Of course, I'd like to see him go out there and be sharp with his command, throw quality strikes. That's what I'd like to see... I think he's ready. But I can sit here and say that all I want. The season's going to tell."

Hamels wasn't too concerned about the way his last game of spring training played out.

"I feel confident now that I can throw it again and again for strikes," Hamels said. "My whole goal was just to go out there and try to throw strikes, just try to work both sides of the plate."

Hamels will be starting on April 7th in Washington D.C. and I'm certainly not too thrilled about that. I wasn't too reassured while following Hamels this spring, especially after 2009 and the World Series. As one of the lucky players that hasn't faced any surgeries in the last year I expect a lot more from him, but maybe that's just me being unrealistic. Plus, I'm really eager to see what Roy Halladay has to bring to Philly.

Unfortunately, I couldn't find the game on TV, but I did get to check out some pregame action on the news. The Phillies were looking dapper as usual, with the exception of Jayson Werth who ditched the grizzly man beard for his frat boy-esque landing strip once again. I'm sorry to all those facial-hair-loving men out there, I just will never be able to like that thing; but I'll always love Jayson.

The Phillies play the Pirates one more time tomorrow night at the Park to what is expected to be a sold out crowd. Let's hope they bring spring training down with a bang.

Daniel Murphy, the Mets quasi-first basemen, was diagnosed with a grade 1 sprain of his MCL and will be out 2-6 weeks. In other news Mets management has decided to be prudent for a change and "take it slow" with Jose Reyes. He will only appear in Minor League rehab games in order to make his DL stint retroactive.  If all goes according to plan, Jose will be in uniform the 6th game of the season vs. the Washington Nationals.

First, Daniel Murphy:  I like him. It's hard not to.  He is always working hard trying to improve his game offensively and defensively.  He was just starting to get hot after a dreadful spring training.  And now he is out 2-6 weeks.  I feel bad for him, I really do.  But lets get real.  Everyone including Murphy's mother knows that it is only a matter of time before Ike Davis is manning first base.  I don't know how to say this without sounding like a dick, but here goes:  If someone said one Mets player is going to be injured to start the season, and I had to choose, I would choose Murphy.  Ike Davis absolutely murdered the ball this spring going .480/.536/.960 with 3 HRs.  Yes, spring training is spring training, BUT, there is not a single Mets fan that isn't excited about this kid.  And if Murphy's injury helps him get to the bigs a little quicker, so be it.  So it looks like Mike Jacobs is slated to be the starting first baseman.  BAD IDEA.  Yes way back when he hit 32 Homer Runs.  Yippie!  But that is all he does, and he was cut by arguably the WORST team in the AL, The Royals.  Ted berg put it best here:

...be it Jacobs or Catalanotto or (fingers crossed) longshot candidate Chris Carter — will see some time at first. If it’s Jacobs, he’ll hit home runs and play poor defense. If it’s Catalanotto, he’ll get on base and play better defense than Jacobs. If it’s Carter, he’ll likely hit more home runs than Catalanotto but fewer than Jacobs while playing better defense than Jacobs but worse defense than Catalanotto.

I too am hoping for Carter.  He's relatively young (27) and has also been mashing in his limited playing time .407/.448/.926 with 4 HRs. At the very least, he should be the last bench spot.  But instead, it looks like Jacobs and his .194 batting average will be starting there because of past accomplishments.  It's foolish move by management, but I see this as a win-win.  If Jacobs starts mashing, great!  He helps the team.  If he is stinks it up, great!  Cut him.  He helps the team by facilitating the arrival of "We like" Ike Davis.

Now Reyes:  Would I have liked to see him opening day? Sure.  Could he have possibly been ready to play Opening Day?  Yup.  Am I upset about the decision?  No.  5 games is a small price to pay to ensure that Jose's strength is at full capacity.  He is in great shape and will most likely be batting lead off, but hopefully Jerry has not trashed the logical idea of hitting him 3rd until Beltran returns.  The move to start him on the DL is not a surprise--many conservative bloggers and beat writers have lobbied for this.  However, if you read the NY papers today you would think that the entire Mets team plane crashed into the Andes and are now eating their departed teammates to survive (too bad Ramon Castro and Livan Hernandez weren't on the plane...they would have fed the entire team till the summer thaw).

All in all, the Mets have had very few injuries this spring.  Escobar was an injury risk when they signed him. Reyes thryoid is a non-baseball related matter, and you know how I feel about Murphy.  Beltran is obviously the biggest loss, but reports are that his is on/ahead of schedule.  He took indoor batting practice for the first time yesterday and I hope to see him patrolling center field mid-may.  Yes, the bullpen is "unsettled", but I could care less.  The Mets have more options and depth in the pen than they have had in a long time.  In fact, the Mets have depth this year across the board with young MLB-ready talent waiting should starters falter/get injured...that is everywhere EXCEPT the starting rotation which is the biggest question mark.  It would be wise for the mets to acquire a legit #2 starter as soon as possible.

The Mets have flaws, as do most teams....maybe more than most teams.  This is an important year for the entire Mets organization.  I know it is painful for the Mets-faithful, but check out this graphic. The Mets were in first place May 18th, and were in contention until the middle of June.  From there it was a slow & painful decline which does not have to be recounted.  If they can stay healthy and the pitching is satisfactory, they should be in the mix all year.  Regardless, I am tired of all the guessing and the analysis.  It's time to get this show on the road.  It's time to play ball.  LETS GO METS!

Baseball Prospectus, a home of fantastic technical and sabermetric baseball analysis, ran a few numbers and concluded that no player as young as David Wright has faced such a drop off in power production as he did in 2009.  The long and short of their number crunching is that they took the average home runs from every MLB season and calculated where every player fell in terms of standard deviation from that mean.  Basically, it assigned a small manageable number to the amount of home runs a player hit in comparison to the home runs hit in that year to make for easier era-to-era comparison.

From 2005 to 2008, David Wright finished between .68 and 1.51 standard deviations away from the average amount of home runs hit by a single player.  More simply, he hit more home runs in those season than 75.1-93.5 percent of ballplayers in those years.  Then in 2009, DW finished at a standard deviation of -.60! Which equates to hitting less home runs than 77.4 percent of the league.  This sort of drop off has only happened five times in baseball history and the other sob stories include: Don Baylor, Vinny Castilla, Sam Crawford and Del Ennis.  The kicker is that David Wright was at least five years younger than them when in happened to him.  Opening up the search to smaller drop offs and drop offs over shorter periods of time (not five years) gives some more names, but still none as striking as David Wright.

Granted, he's only going to be 27 this year and he was hurt and the whole team was hurt and he had no protection and he was pressing and blah and blah and blah.  I'm sure he'll be fine Mets fans I'm not pretending that Wright is suddenly some slap hitting Sally who'll never hit home runs again.  I'm just relaying the facts found by smarter men than I.

Raul Ibanez is struggling this spring, mightily.  His batting average is sub-.100.  He's only got four hits.  His OBP and SLG are both sub-.250.  He's got more strikeouts than hits.

Why do we care?

The man is a 14 year veteran who is a lifetime .285 hitter who struggled with some injuries in the second half of last season.  Can't we cut him some slack?  I'm reading all over that Raul will have to be traded because he's old and he's clogging Dom Brown's outfield space and he's clogging Jayson Werth money, etc., etc.  Yes, Raul is old and we knew that signing him, but you didn't hear about it when he carried the Phillies through the first half of last season.  His second half was without a doubt dreadful and mostly due to injury.  Is there reason for 2010 concern... not really.

Fourteen seasons as a consummate professional on and off the field should grant Ibanez a little leeway.  Do people freak out when Brett Favre misses training camp?  Nope.  If Raul didn't even play during training camp would we be complaining?  Most likely not.  So what's the big deal.  It's time to let Raul do his thing and we can assess his value on this team mid-season or postseason.  Let's not ship him away because he's swinging and missing in pointless exhibitions in the spring.

Eventually, I do think that Raul will be the odd man out and some part of me hopes he will be because that will mean that Jayson Werth is still around.  However, in the near future I couldn't care less if Raul didn't have any hits in Spring Training.  He's been around so long that's it's basically irrelevant information at this point.

In 2009, the NL East looked depleted with the Mets a dead team walking and the Braves and Marlins in rebuilding years of sorts.

Now it's 2010, everybody seems reloaded and we could be in for an awesome division race.  All three runners up have a the pieces in the place to make a run at the Phillies and the champs will have their hands full holding everyone back.  Let's take a look at the contenders (and the one non-contender) individually:

The Champs

The Phillies are riding high and mighty after back to back trips to the World Series, not to mention Philly's first title in a quarter century in '08.  The Phillies sport arguably the best lineup in baseball, definitely in the National League.  One through six presents a devastating road for any starting pitcher.  Rollins-Victorino-Utley-Howard-Werth-Ibanez is a murderous row with new-addition Polanco shoring up the back-end or potentially the two-hole.  Carlos Ruiz fills in the eight spot and if he can find his playoff form for a full season, he's not to be slept on either.  The Phillies problems don't lie within this offense, they reside on the defensive end, namely on the mound.  Roy Halladay should dominate the NL and has Phillies fans buzzing about what he can do for the club this season.  However, Brad Lidge and Cole Hamels need to return to from if there's any hope for a three peat as NL Champs, but that goes without saying.  The other problem areas are the fifth starters role and the bullpen as a whole.  There are worse problems to have, but in a tough division pitching problems can become gaping holes as the season moves along.

The Mess

That's the only word that can describe the Mets of 2009 -- a downright-sloppy-hide-the-children-cover-your-eyes-mess.  It was a daily grind of front office madness and injury bugs biting everyone in sight and replacement player scrubs embarrassing the good name of Citi Field in its inaugural year.  If you were a marquee player for the Mutts, you missed some portion, probably a significant one, of the season and/or struggled when you did play.  The good part about all of your problems being injury based -- they're easily left behind.  That New York Mess is over and done with in 2009, this is a new year.  Wright, Beltran, Reyes and co. are all back in action and the squad is a World Series contender again! Right!?! Wrong.

Yes, last year was an abomination, however you've got to walk before you can run and the Mets need to prove a lot between April and July before we can start talking seriously about the Mets.  The core of the offense coupled with Johan as the ace and K-Rod closing games is fantastic.  However, what else can the team count on?  This is where questions start flooding the discussion of the current Mets team.  Which Jeff Francouer is going to play right field -- the failed Brave or the .300 hitting Met?  Can Mike Jacobs do enough at first base?  Is there a catcher on the roster worth a damn?  What pitcher other than Johan can get outs, let alone wins?  Tons of questions, not too many answers.  I wouldn't be surprised if the Mets won 70 games and I wouldn't be surprised if they won 90 and that's their main issue right now.

The Transition

2010 could be the end of everything the Braves have been for the last decade.  Bobby Cox could be retiring, Chipper as well.  After that, the new company will take over and it'll be Jayson Heyward's (or so they hope) show for the next decade.  The Braves have got one of the best pitching staffs around and that alone should keep them in the division race.  If their offense comes alive, they'll give the Phillies everything they can handle for the crown.  The only thing that keeps me from being truly worried about them is the fact that they're the it team this year.  Everybody's hoping on their bandwagon and picking them to win this, this, and that.  And the team given that honor to begin the season, usually falls on their face.  Is that a surgical, explicit breakdown of the Braves this year?  Well, if you come here regularly you weren't expecting one, so you're not really disappointed anyway.  I will say though, Jayson Heyward and Tommy Hanson scare the shit out of me.  If they blossom into a new style Griffey and Big Unit in a few years I'll be thoroughly terrified (then again, those are two sure-fire hall of famers, that's asking a lot -- let's take it slow).

The Unknown

Anyone who tells you they know how well the Marlins are going to play in a given year is either lying or guessing or both.  Ignore them, they don't have a clue.  Maybe the Marlins will get hot and fight for the title.  Maybe they'll flop and fight to stay out of the basement.  For years they've jettisoned newly expensive young guys for more young(er) guys and started over repeatedly.  For the first time a two decades they're showing people the money, namely Hanley Ramirez and Josh Johnson, their best offensive and defensive players.  Will this translate into some consistent success for a change?  Most likely not.  There are some good pieces in place, but a lot of questionable role players.  But, if we've learning anything in the last decade, it's not to sleep on the Marlins -- they're most dangerous when you take your eye off them.  They have a ton of young guys who I'm not sure I could pick out of a lineup and that's probably their plan.

The Basement

The Nationals are a team slowly moving in the right direction.  Slowly, but surely they seem to be putting some useful players and parts together to field a competitive ball club.  The only problem is that this isn't looking like the year that they're going to put it together and make the leap into competition.  Stephen Strasburg will join the big club at some point and the organization is counting on him being the second coming and carrying the franchise into the future.  If the pick (and sign) Bryce Harper in the upcoming draft, the future will brighten even more.  If you haven't this years problem by now, we're spending all of our time talking about what could be in the future and not what is right now.  Because the right now doesn't have a realistic chance at winning this division.

Jose Reyes has spent the last few weeks kicking back and wearing out his home DVD collection, waiting for his thyroid levels to return to normal, so he can return to Spring Training.  Today, the levels leveled (?) out and he's on his way down to Florida to hit the field.  I don't know a thing about thyroids and/or Jose Reyes' taste in movies but this has got to be great Mets related news.  As any Mets fan can tell you, great Mets news is not easy to come by!  So if you see any of your Metropolitan fan friends out and about share this little nugget of excitement with them and put a little pep in their step.  Because most likely they'll be a sad, shell of themselves come May when Citi Field collapses into a black hole and David Wright loses his leg in a near-fatal jenga accident.

Smile Mets fans, the season hasn't started yet!

Added By Benny B.

That is all.  As you were...

There isn't a lot going on in Spring Training for Phillies fans to be interested in other than how slimming Roy Halladay's red pinstripes are.  The only real storyline is that of the fifth starter's role.  The battle rages now between Kyle Kendrick and Jamie Moyer.

You've got to assume that Moyer had the inside track leading into the Spring and still most likely does now.  However, Kendrick's strong spring has to be complicating matters.  He's threw nine scoreless innings to start the spring and has only allowed two runs in his fourteen total innings.  He's allowed seven hits and K'd six guys.  Moyer conversely has thrown five innings, allowing one run and striking out six.

The funny part about the last starting role is that for most teams it ends up being a carousel of sorts regardless of who begins the season.  If I remember the stat correctly, only two teams had fifth starters make 25 starts last season, the Cubs and Brewers.  The Phillies certainly weren't one of them with Moyer, Kendrick, and Pedro all seeing time in the spot.  Honestly, I don't think it matters which of them gets the job.  Both have their upside and downside and will most likely get double digits starts for the club in one way or another -- possibly through fatigue or injury if not the starting role.

The thing to take from this is that Kyle Kendrick might be making a pitcher out of himself and that is great news for a team that's always looking for a few good men on the mound.