Welcome back, J-Roll, you lazy, selfish loafer. And tonight, you had three hits, including the icing on what had been a 4 -3 bundt cake going into the ninth inning. Your three run homer in the ninth inning surely made the Knicks Mets fans tear at their own flesh.

The night started with mixed signals. The Phillies started Cliff Lee on the bump, but supported him with a lineup that included Juan Pierre, Mike Fonten't, Brian Schneider, and Ty Wigginton. You had to wonder if Charlie Manuel was scorning Clifton for his recent dugout dustup with the Red Skull. But Ty Wigginton had another ridiculous night: 2 - 4 with 2 RBI, and a walk. And Juan Pierre was...pesky. And at the right moment, Charlie, showing Clifton tough love, but still wanting to win, went to the well of Chooch and pulled out a game-tying 2-run homer in the seventh inning. Te quiero, Senor Octubre. Man. Crush. In the same way that Hulk smash!

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It was Pat Burrell Day today in Philadelphia. It was recently announced that Burrell would sign a one day contract and retire as a Phillie. Despite his sometimes stormy relationship with fans, their wives, girlfriends, and mothers, Pat came, and thousands stood, erect, and lustily, cheered. It was an electric celebration of a productive career that matched the arc of the rebirth of the Phillies, resulting in the most-fertile era in their long history.

The Red Sox rained on the parade, of course. Mike Aviles started things out, spanking a Joe Blanton pitch for a home run during the first at-bat of the game. In the second inning, the Sox plated two on a single by Jarrod Saltalamacchia, a double by Ryan Sweeney, an error by Joe Blanton (who, covering first, dropped a ball from Freddy Galvis), and a double play ball hit by Jon Lester which plated the second and final run.

The Phillies, perhaps inspired by The Bat, scored in the third. It started when John Mayberry stroked a hard one to left. He cruised into home from first after a harder one to left by Shane Victorino, but Victorino couldn't get past second base as Hunter Pence fisted a ball foul, and flied out harmlessly, ending the affair prematurely.

The Red Sox continued to spank Blanton like they were Christian Grey on an evening when he had forgotten the safe word. In the fourth, Will Middlebrooks hit a solo home run to start off the inning. Saltalamacchia followed with another. The Phillies spent themselves scoring three times in the bottom of the fourth, with two runs scoring on a home run by Freddy Galvis. This quick recovery by the Phillies caused Charlie Manuel to let Blanton stay in the game and keep grinding. It was not the best decision of Manuel's career. Taking Blanton out as a prophylactic measure may have been the safer call, but it was not to be...

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So I guess that Jake Diekman is not the answer to any question that I want to ask.

Tonight found the Phillies in Chicago playing the second game of an abbreviated two game series, and trying to secure a third straight series win as well as a season-high fifth straight win. A win would also push the Phillies over .500 for the first time since the Pleistocene. It all happened, but just. With a huge sigh of relief, the Phillies slunk out of Chicago tonight to come home to face the Boston Red Sox for a weekend of miscegenation.

It all started calmly, as per the formulaic and tiresome 2012 Phillies narrative - Roy Halladay versus Chris Volstad. Rather than dwelling on the metaphysical question ("How does Chris Volstad exist as a starting pitcher in Major League Baseball?") the Phillies focused instead on kicking his ass, even without erstwhile Volstad-beater, Ryan Howard.

Volstad made it through 2 innings, surrendering. No line necessary; he's apparently French, and it is therefore axiomatic. The knockout blow was probably the Hunter Pence single in the second which scored two runs, but Volstad was lifted for the third rather than being replaced mid-catastrophe by Dale Sveum, whose name I accidentally spelled correctly.

A series of horrifying Cubs relievers ensued, but they managed to keep a lid on further damage until the fifth when Carlos Ruiz, man among men, singled, scoring Hunter Pence.

At this point, I need to make a brief digression on the topic of Hunter Pence, so let's jump.

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Admit it. You feel lust in your heart. You love the Phillies, but they are so familiar. Sometimes you see that other baseball team giving you a look across the room, and you want it. Badly. The old, established slugger...the ingenue...a cool town with a sleazy edge of weird...a great stadium...maybe a clever executive that's just smart as a whip. They are comers -- hungry -- not so "establishment."

I mean, we were once Phillies fans. Anticool. Now, it's like, so FanSince2009. We're all maybe subconsciously looking for the new new thing. It's been five long years at the top, and now we're getting complacent.

So, on this Night Without Baseball, it's not Fantasy Baseball - it's Baseball Fantasies. Tell us yours...what other team do you dream about? It's ok...nobody will know. It's just you and me...

It is pitch black. You are likely to be eaten by a grue.

> what is a grue?

The grue is a sinister, lurking presence in the dark places of the earth. Its favorite diet is relievers, but its insatiable appetite is tempered by its fear of quality starters. No grue has ever been seen facing a starting pitcher, and few have survived its fearsome jaws to tell the tale.

> use bullpen

You were eaten by a grue. Play again? (y/n)

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So long, Maurice. It's been a wild rumpus.

...

There was once a man named Pierre
When caught stealing would say, "I don't care!"
Read his story, my friend, for you'll find
At the end that a suitable
Moral lies there

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This evening found the Philadelphia Phillies in Atlanta playing the Braves. IT WAS A PLAYOFF ATMOSPHERE, meaning, of course, that the stadium was packed with several Braves fans desperate to enjoy nearly division-leading baseball from the Braves and to spend an evening with a hometown Hall of Fame third baseman, though Juan Francisco's career trajectory is admittedly not yet obvious.

Cole Hamels pitched for the Phillies, and his performance was less than crisp, though the results through five innings were decent. His pitch count hit 90 through the fifth inning, but he had surrendered only one run on a homer to the lumberjackian Brian McCann. In the sixth, Hamels loaded the bases, partly as a result of a walk to McCann and a "just missed it" ball off the bat of Matt Diaz that Freddy Galvis couldn't quite rope in. When Hamels left after the sixth, the game was tied and his line was: 6 IP, 2 R, 2 BB, 6 K and 1 HR surrendered, all on 108 pitches.

His opponent for the evening was on Brandon Beachy, who was Beachyian, except for the fourth inning where he was slayn not by the Phillies so much as friendly fire resulting from the "defense" of Matt Diaz, who lollygagged a single by Hunter Pence into a double, and Martin Prado, whose minor error robbed Ty Wigginton of an RBI when Hunter Pence (who would have scored anyway) was ruled to have scored on the error. Otherwise, Beachy managed to control the explosive Phillies offense to the tune of 7 IP, 2 R, 0 BB, 2 K, and 0 HR.

Given Hamels' inefficiency tonight, it was inevitable that the game would be decided by bullpennery, which did not appear to favor the Phillies, especially with the Braves possessing the last turn at bat and a pretty awesome bullpen. So how did the bullpen death march work out?

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It all started auspiciously. Vance Worley got a one (hiccup), two, three inning to start the game off tonight. The Phillies came up to hit against one of those pitchers who has created many happy memories for Phillies fans: Chris Volstad. Volstad, who appeared to be someone other than Chris Volstad this year, did not disappoint.

The Phillies, starting with a bunt single by Jimmy Rollins, proceeded to bury Volstad with a succession of titanic blows. With five singles and a walk, the Phillies brought all 9 batters to the plate, plating four of them and staking Worley to a 4 - 0 lead. The big blow was a two run single from Carlos Ruiz.

Worley had it going tonight. He ultimately went seven innings, giving up 5 hits and 2 walks while striking out 5. He gave up just one run in his final inning. Including the first inning, when he gave up the leadoff single that was erased on a throw from Hunter Pence to Jimmy Rollins to get David DeJesus, Worley had 4 innings of 1-2-3 baseball. He faced the minimum through the first 11 hitters of the game before Starlin Castro reached on a single in the fourth inning. As we shall see (Foreshadowing! You pay extra for quality writing like this!), Worley should sue Qualls for conversion -- this win was rightly his.

Volstad, after the first, settled down. On a "mulligan" basis, he went 5 more innings, giving up just 3 more hits and two walks. Overall, he struck out 4, walked 3, and gave up 4 runs. Not a great night, to be sure, but not awful after the first. But we'll always have the first, Chris. Right?

So. It looked great for the Phillies. Until the the bullpen happened.

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Opening Day found the Phillies in Pittsburgh, where the Phillies have been tortured during recent seasons. With spring giving even the cursed Pirates hope for renewal, Roy Halladay took the mound. Clearly inspired by the love and admiration of his legions of fans, Halladay started the season off with a gem.

Halladay went 8 innings today, giving up 2 hits, 0 walks, and striking out 5, including Nate McLouth to end the 8th inning. There was some question about whether Halladay might pitch the 9th inning, having thrown only 92 pitches. Perhaps wanting to test drive the Shiny New Thing or perhaps out of concern for the cumulative effects of years and pitches, Charlie Manuel brought in Jonathan Papelbon at the top of the 9th for a 3 out save.

Halladay was never really challenged at all, except perhaps in the first inning, when he allowed two singles to start things off, with the second hit of the "swinging bunt" variety. After inducing a ground ball double play from Andrew McCutchen, Halladay got a fly out from Neil Walker, and ended the first without any nicks.

The lack of stellar strikeout numbers may conceal the death by smothering that the Pirates suffered today. Aside from the first inning "excitement", the only notable Halladay weakness was seen in (perhaps) the two batters he plunked, the last being in the eighth inning, perhaps leading to Manuel's decision to send Papelbon out in the 9th.

If you recall the pitching line above, Halladay gave up two hits. Both were in the first. He walked nobody. He hit 2 batters. He pitched 8 innings. That means that after the first two batters he faced, he did not allow a hit or walk for the next 25 batters that he faced. Dominant? Oh, yeah.

Papelbon's save was uneventful: K, GB, GB, ballgame.

Halladay didn't win the game by himself -- the Phillies had to score at least one run. They did. One. Let's hear it for third order wins! Right? How, you may be wondering, did this Phillies offense manage to score even one run?

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*Or, rather, why this is a really stupid (and unlikely) idea.

Since all the Phillies' hitters have simultaneously contracted bubonic plague and are unlikely to survive April, much less an entire season, the theory of the day is that the team should explore the possibility of trying to trade one of the team's pitching assets (or Domonic Brown) to shore up its perceived weak hitting. Besides, the People Who Demand That Something Must Be Done are demanding that Something Must Be Done.

These hyperventilating fans (straw man alert!) are suggesting that the Phillies need to git them some bats! And yesterday! Hamels, Brown, Blanton, and Lee have all been suggested as bat bait, but let's just duck Brown now, since that raises all sorts of other problems, like, you know, the future and stuff.

I wrote about 2,000 words about this in two stabs at this theme, but it really boils down to this: Scoring runs alone doesn't matter. Preventing runs alone doesn't matter. Run differential matters. The larger the run differential, the better it is for your team. No, really. It's that simple. Hang around here for a while -- this is a topic we all circle back to repeatedly. It needs to be revisited from time to time, even though I would rather be writing "Phillies All-Time Playoffs Heroes #5: George Brett's Hemorrhoids."[1]

A poorly-conceived trade doesn't help increase run differential. It is hard to imagine a set of circumstances where a trade, right now, could be arranged that would not be a bad one for the Phillies. I'll work out the specifics below. I note that Petzrawr did the Lord's Work on this recently, shooting fish in a barrel, but there's a lot of stupid out there to fight, so I'm all for piling on here.

Before we get to possible trade targets, let's look at where the Phillies are now. They gave up 529 runs in 2011, which was the lowest number of runs allowed by any team in MLB since 1969.[2] That was a staggering accomplishment. They did not need to pound teams into submission, a la 2008. Suffocating them quietly was just as effective (actually, it was more effective because they were better at suffocating teams in 2011 than they were at beating them to death in 2008). It seems more humane, too, somehow. I think of Cliff Lee smiling kindly as he holds a big pillow over Chipper's face, sending his soul to Cthutley to devour. It just seems like an appropriate and welcome ending to a spent, weary spirit. Besides, it would probably be comforting since Chipper and the Braves are already used to choking. [3]

Any attempt to help the Phillies win more by trading pitching to get a bat must result in a larger run differential to accomplish the stated goal of helping the Phillies win more games. Any hitter(s) obtained for Cole Hamels, for instance, will cause the Phillies to lose Hamels' rWAR of 5.4.[4] Maybe the Phillies get an internal replacement pitching performance from the next body in line for the Starting Pitcher 3 slot on the depth chart that results in 2 WAR if they are lucky (Kendrick? Blanton?). But the obtained hitter has to hit (and field) for the team to make out on the deal.

To net a gain out of a Hamels trade, the Phillies need to get back a player that would generate more than the remaining 3.4 WAR to break even. It would take more WAR coming back to make the trade result in a net gain, without even getting into contract/salary cap considerations. Maybe 4.0 WAR? Any less and it's pretty much just noise. Really complicated, right? The new player has to be better than what you give up. See, this is really hard, isn't it?

The 4.0+ WAR would also have to play a non-blocked position, so not center, right, shortstop, catcher, first, second, third, or...I guess it has to be a left fielder, huh? Here's your list -- pick the guy you want over 4.0 WAR who the Phillies could pry loose. Ok, maybe nobody is really available. Let's get creative. How about a third baseman, and then the Phillies could move Polanco to second till Utley is resurrected, okay? Here's the list. Ok...maybe a RF could be converted for use in LF. Here's your list. Which of any of these players do you think is able to be had for Blanton? For a rental of Hamels? Jose Bautista, right? Justin Upton? Evan Longoria? Are you high?

Then knock it off with the trade talk. Besides, Hamels is going nowhere.

[1] You young 'uns missed some great times.

[2] BANDBOX!!!!!!

[3] That's just your pride, Braves fans.

[4] I'm obviously using WAR as a proxy for runs added/prevented. I think that's a fair approach.

Cole Hamels has been with the Phillies since coming up in 2006. In this, his seventh season in Major League Baseball, we might be seeing his last year in a Phillies uniform. During that time, a partial list of the memes and themes he has inspired includes Cole Hamels Facts, unstoppable 2008 playoffs and World Series robot of death, "soft" Warhol-esque Mr. Bizarro who just wanted to end it all in 2009, and fist-pumper. And until last June happened, I thought he might be better than Cliff Lee in 2011.

Hamels' evolution has cycled him through every stage (except the last) of Philadelphia's psychotic adulation of athletes process, and he has survived it all. And he has become a far better pitcher than he was when he first arrived in Philadelphia. The thing that is perhaps hardest to believe about Cole Hamels is that he just turned 28 a few months ago. Since his first season with the Phillies in 2006 through the 2008 World Series MVP year, and on to today, he has been maturing and getting better.

He has evolved from a skinny kid with a killer change up and enormous potential into a skinny front line starter who is one of the elite left-handed starting pitchers in MLB. Among all pitchers in 2011, he was 17th in fWAR at 4.9. A mix of fastball, change, and an erratic curve has given way to fastball, cutter, change, and a show-me curve. The now-effective cutter got better in 2011 after an erratic first year in 2010, and his change remains uber-elite. Hamels has two good pitches, one awesome one, and, well, he can throw a curve. Pitch values here, courtesy of Fangraphs.

Hamels' groundball rate has increased every year, starting with 2008, going from 39.5% to 52.3% in 2011. His fly ball rate stayed the same or decreased every year since he entered the league, helping Hamels to drive down his HR/9 from 1.29 to .79 in 2011. His BB/9, despite a hiccup in 2010, has been trending down since he entered the league, bottoming out at 1.83 in 2011. His K/9 rate has varied, but has bounced around between the high sevens and low nines for the length of his career. These trends have contributed, as you might imagine, to a FIP that has...you guessed it...declined every year he has been in the league. Every year.

Herniated discs on a 28 year-old are something to be cautious about, especially a pitcher, but Hamels has been durable. He has been able to average about 200 innings a year since his first full year in 2007. And in any case, he appears to be reasonably flexible.

And, oh yeah, there's the contract thing.

So...what can the Philadelphia Phillies expect from Cole Hamels in 2012? Is he an ace? Is he great, or just good? Is he done cooking, or will he, like Cliff Lee, take a leap forward and give us a breathtaking second act that transcends the good first act?

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Whittling away at our mortality, most of us spend the salad days of our youth engaged in utterly worthless tasks that we later regret. Jimmy Rollins may be wondering now where those salad days have gone, but he's far from cooked, as his rebound in 2011 showed. Jimmy Rollins is a really hard player to project to begin with, and complicating the forecasting of his upcoming season is trying to figure out how many games he'll be able to play, and at what level of effectiveness.

The uncertainty is the result of the injuries he has sustained each year starting in 2008, his distinctiveness, and his advancing age. Perhaps the best that can be expected is to assume that he will sit out perhaps 20% of the Phillies' games, and hope for a repeat of 2011, when he bounced back to put up 3.7 rWAR following seasons of 1.0 in 2009 and 2.0 in 2010.

If he produces 3.7 WAR on his contract of $11M for the year, the Phillies will once again make out on one of the most-productive players in their history. Something between 2.0 rWAR and 3.7 rWAR seems more plausible, though, because of the injuries and his age-related decline. Those two caveats are obviously not mutually exclusive -- they are likely two sides of the same coin. The man is baseball old, but not dead. That just means to be realistic, not fatalistic.

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I love Brian Schneider. I love him so much that I spent like $50.00 on a brown bag with an autographed ball in it to get an autographed ball raise money for cancer, knowing telepathically that it would be a Brian Schneider ball. See, I didn't want a Cole Hamels or Chase Utley signed ball. And I specifically remember telling my son to throw the ball at the ball girl if it was a Juan Castro ball. But no, the Brian Schneider ball was awesome. Just...awesome... Like Brian is.

A Brian Schneider retrospective follows beyond the link, which I suggest you click, unless you are looking for hardcore analysis that tells you that Schneider is, at 35, going to hit better than he did when he was 34 and had an OPS of .502. That performance with the bat was worse than what Cliff Lee did with the bat. The only thing that prevented Schneider's rWAR from going below -0.7 was his limited number of innings played. But let's accentuate the positive, ok? Besides, he's a backup catcher.

Just pray that Chooch doesn't miss an extended amount of time, and we can just laugh, right? And click the link...

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When I picked Jonathan Papelbon as a preview player for TGP this spring, I promised myself I wouldn't write about Jimmy Carter, the Bhagavad Gita, and meeting my cousin's first husband. Despite that promise, it's happening. Sorry folks. I will talk some numbers and do a Madson comparison, but I just can't duck the X factor here. Something about Jonathan Papelbon just demands that all the extraneous stuff comes out. It's a story of coming of age, loss of innocence, and regret, and it has to be told.

Papelbon's season with the Phillies will be viewed, fairly or not, through a green filter. The contract he signed didn't write itself, and he can't be blamed for it. Still, if he struggles, he will no doubt bear the fans' ire for a contract that Amaro wrote. As is the case with Ryan Howard, dissatisfaction over his piles of lucre really should be directed at the Phillies executive who was on the other end of the deal.

With the preemptive contract whining out of the way, what exactly are the Phillies likely to get this year from Papelbon, and how might his body of work compare to the closing services provided until recently by Ryan Madson, whom he is replacing?

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Are you there God? It's me, Ruben. We're not trading today. I'm so scared, God. I've never kept prospects before. Suppose I hate them? Suppose all the fans hate me? Please help me God. Don't let Jack McCaffery be too horrible. Thank you.

...

Are you there God? It's me, Ruben. My new friend, Sandy Alderson, asked me if I think David Wright is cute. He's so dreamy. David, I mean. Sandy used to be ok, but now he's kind of smelly. He just turned twelve, and I think he needs to start using deodorant. At the meetings, I see some of the other GM's sniffing under their arms. They always seem to do that when it's hot and humid. I guess they must be using deodorant now. Sandy doesn't. I think someone should talk to him.

...

Are you there, God? It's me, Ruben. Sandy won't leave me alone. He keeps telling me that if I trade him Domonic Brown, that he''ll leave me alone. At recess, he started chanting, "You must - you must - you must trade me your bust!" All the other kids stared at us. I'm worried that they think I have a crush on him or something. I have to admit that he wasn't nearly so smelly today. He told me Dom showed him some awesome soap, and that helped.

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NOTE: Bumped back to the top, this great piece got overshadowed by the Conlin news and the Christmas holiday, two very not at all similar things. - WholeCamels

The Phillies gave up 529 Runs in 2011 over 162 games, for an average of 3.27 runs per game. Baseball-Reference.com tells us that no Phillies team that played 162 games ever gave up fewer runs. The closest was the 1976 version of the Phillies, which surrendered 557 runs. In fact, only 12 teams in Phillies history (out of 129 such teams) gave up fewer runs during a season. Two of those seasons were 1981 and 1994 - strike-shortened seasons of far fewer than 162, or even 154, games. Every other Phillies team that surrendered fewer runs played far fewer than 162 games and they all played during 1918 or earlier (during the Dead Ball Era).

How did the Phillies pull this off in 2011? Pitching and defense, of course. But with Raul Ibanez and Ryan Howard on the field along with nearly a full season of combined plate appearances by Michael Martinez and Wilson Valdez, how were the Phillies a good defensive team? Three-eighths of the eight position players were atrocious defenders. And Ben Francisco was pretty bad, too. The team UZR was in the bottom third of the league. Maybe it was all just pitching,,,

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 Dear Phillies:  At TheGoodPhight.com, Associate Blog Lords depend almost entirely upon our salaries earned working in the sweatshops newsroom above Mrs. Camels' kitchen to pay for food for ourselves and our families.  Those salaries come from the exceptionally lucrative advertisements and endorsement deals that inevitably flow from the boundless coffers of the Phillies' financial juggernaut. Still, given the ennui and "meh" of this eight-game losing streak (the longest since the epic 65-97 season in 2000), those dollars have dried up. And desperate times have led to desperate measures. It's bad.

Out of necessity, and in an attempt to motivate you to, you know, win a game before the season ends, the Associate Blog Lords have been placed on starvation rations been forced to begin a hunger strike to encourage a change in attytood, hustle, grit, and gristle (mmmmm...gristle). And our poor children...the children are "hunger striking" too. I know Shane Victorino cares about the children.  Please, Shane...I know you care about our Associate Blog Lord children. If you guys can't pull a win together before long, there may be a Donner Party footnote to this historical Phillies season. It's not for nothing that I've always called my precious seven year old daughter my "little sweetie."

And those aren't boos you are hearing, Phillies. Those are the grumbling tummies of hungry, sad children. So hungry. So sad. And they are weak. They can barely hold their Wii controllers anymore. My own children are left to scavenging the raspberry and strawberry beds for leavings. Picking walnuts off the ground at the bus stop with their weakened, shriveled fingers. Eating the last dregs of tomatoes from the garden. And they are too weak to fight off the slugs, so they have to eat the tomato, slug and all. And they are grateful for the protein.

Phillies, I could use a little weight loss.  Too many cheese steaks, too many crab fries, too many $8.00 beers. But the children, think of the children. Before it is too late.

Baseball is a game of failure. And perhaps no game this season captured the meaning of that more than a game last night between the Atlanta Braves and the Florida Marlins. Following a soul-crushing, walk-off home run by former Brave Omar Infante, the Braves fell to within two games in the loss column of the pursuing St. Louis Cardinals.  The game is summed up better here than I could possibly do it, even with my snark on.

At the end of all things, Dan Uggla reached out to comfort his Baseball Friend, Craig Kimbrel. This is a gem of a photograph, and it deserves a special caption, or more than one caption; they just write themselves. Actually, they don't -- you'll need to write them for us in the comments section, because this is a "Write the Caption" contest. And don't feel limited to just one effort. If your caption receives the most "recs" by the end of Wednesday, you will win absolutely nothing other than the satisfaction of a job well-done.

And please, nothing egregious, mmm-kay?  Even though this has more than a little of the look of Golden Boy and Wez from the Road Warrior crossed with some of the worst, most overwrought of Sam and Frodo. I mean, we're talking real fanfic potential, folks. Have at it!

A film adaptation of Michael Lewis' book "Moneyball" is about to explode onto movie screens around the country in a release no doubt coordinated intentionally with the onset of the playoffs for Major League Baseball. Moneyball was a game-changer for many baseball fans, myself included.  I now know about Bill James, "sabermetrics", and the value of statistical analysis of baseball. When I read Moneyball for the first time, I had been following baseball for twenty-five years.  Stats people, other than the superficial Elias and sports page people, were completely alien to me. I had no idea that a Saber Nerd subculture existed. Now, I am one.

I was familiar with Michael Lewis, having read Liar's Poker.  I have friends who work on Wall Street and in suburbs now (for hedge funds).  Lewis' description of the bond desk at Salomon Brothers in the eighties was an epic read in the finance department of my college after it was released.  Oddly, despite the tremendously unflattering portrait of Wall Street, it inspired some of my friends to want to work there.

I was pushed into reading the Moneyball by an acquiantance who knew I was a baseball fan.  After grudgingly agreeing to "take a look at it," the book sat on my credenza for several months. I picked it up one weekend, and I read it cover-to-cover in one sitting. Moneyball hit me in the face in a way that completely transformed the way I looked at sports, baseball, and business.

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Because stupid people deserve to eat crow, I've been saving this one. Back on June 9, 2011, the following was posted on this site:

While I would be pleased to see a 100+ win season by the Phillies, I am still more inclined to believe that the Phillies will end up in the low to mid nineties of wins, as I predicted earlier this year mainly as a result of my discounts for injuries and age.  I think the Braves will start to catch more breaks and will be right there at the end because, dang it, they are really good, too.  But what fun would a baseball season be without cardiac events in late September?

What a doofus. On a related note, as proposed by the same doofus around the same time, the Phillies no longer resemble the 1985 Royals.  Instead, they are nearly identical to...

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In his house at R'lyeh, dead Cthulhu waits dreaming. He will return, and reduce the mighty Phillies to dust.

The Phillies are old. Older than Cthulhu. Older than the Precambrian. Older than Jamie Moyer, Phil Niekro, and Satchel Paige. Older than Jose Contreras' real age. Older than owners of Oldsmobiles. Older than the Over the Hill Gang. Older than the Wheeze Kids. Older than customers of that stodgy steak house in your town where everyone has blue hair. Older than condiments in my fridge. Older than Danny Almonte.

And, oh!, the contracts!  The horror, and, specifically, the horror...

How can this team possibly be competitive in 2012, or 2013, or further down the line?

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The Phillies have a very good shot to set a team record for franchise wins in the regular season.  They have an excellent shot at team winning percentage for a full regular season.  Currently, they are 83 - 45 following a listless afternoon game with the Mets today August 24, 2011.  Their winning percentage is .648 and 34 games remain.

The focus of many has been "WORLD SERIES OR BUST" but we all know that it is far more likely that the Phillies WILL NOT win the World Series this year -- the team with the best record in baseball has won the World Series in the Wild Card Era precisely 3 out of 16 times ('98 Yankees, '07 Red Sox -- tied with the Indians, and '09 Yankees), or 18.75% of the time. [fixed from 2 out of 16 times per phillyinportland's sharp eyes] "Hover" over the teams shown on the link to see the regular season record for each.

There are 8 playoff tournament entrants each year, four from each league, which suggests that all things being equal (but they aren't), there is a...12.5% chance that any team will win it all.  The likelihood is that the close match of those numbers (SSS as they are) is merely a coincidence.  Still, it is a nifty coincidence, isn't it?  

Mathematical modeling shows (and I am too lazy to reproduce it here) that the team with the best record might have something like an 18% shot to win it all.  Essentially, give the better team in each series a 54% chance of winning each game for three successive series.  The "best record" team wins it all more than 12.5% of the time, but certainly nothing like 50.1%, or even anything approaching "more often than not."  And that method of analysis can fail, since the team with the best record very well may not be the "best" team.  "Best record" is a useful proxy for "best team" but this is not necessarily a 100% accurate approach for many reasons.  

OK, Dr. Wet Blanket, you ruined my season.  I'll just surrender now, ok?  No.  Enjoy the playoffs, but recognize them for what they are.  And focus instead on enjoying the brilliance of an historic Phillies season. You are among the lucky few over 129 years of largely futile Phillies baseball to:

1. Live during and enjoy the longest and best sustained period of success the team has ever had, and
2. Enjoy what could well be the best regular season performance of the franchise, ever, and
3. Enjoy the thrill of another post-season lottery ticket, and
4. Enjoy a team that has the financial resources to be competitive for a long time, rather than fear (a la 1993) that the present moment is merely a lucky flash in the pan.