Phillies to Start Winter Meetings with Barely a Whisper

“Man, life without baseball is unbearable,” says you.  “I guess I’ll go drown my sorrows in a Phillies six pack.”

It is only seconds later when you remember that there is no such thing as Phillies novelty beer; and putting a regular beer in a Phillies coozy doesn’t count like you keep saying it does.  No, the “Phillies six pack” in question refers to tickets, you remember, the ones they just jacked up a smidge.  So try to remember that next time you get immediately excited about something that seems too awesome to be true.

The past few years, the Winter Meetings of GMs has been jarringly interrupted by the Phillies wrecking ball; bursting through the concrete wall with Ruben at the controls, crane swinging wildly, shit getting torn up.  We were buyers, buyers, buyers, and everyone was going to know it.  Long periods of silence or cryptic, ambiguous wordplay kept our interests tethered long enough for the front office to drop a hammer.

There will be no hammers in 2010.  There will be no tethers.  The Phillies’ acquisition machine has been decommissioned for now; lying dormant in that warehouse where they put the Ark of the Covenant, waiting for its chance to rev to life and arrange a three-team trade from nowhere.

I know what you’re thinking.  “What?  ‘Dormant wrecking ball?’  What does this have to do with–” and you’re right, the Phillies don’t really need a blockbusting deal this year.  Plus, do we have, like, any money left?  I thought I saw we were in balls deep in the red even while signing Roy Halladay, but maybe that doesn’t make any sense.

The point is, we can’t have much money, and also what are we ideally going to land on here?  What’s the best case scenario?  Jayson signs somewhere where we don’t have to look at him every day and Domonc Brown comes  motoring into the picture and takes the league by storm.  Or some grizzled veteran new guy shows up and gives the hotshot kid some guidance, “old-timey mentor” style, and in time, their original conflicts are forgotten.  Or Jasyon never leaves and Jimmy never leaves and Ryan never leaves and everybody is just one big happy championship-caliber family that will always be together and never decline, ever.

Ideally.

Of course, MLB.com seems to think these Winter Meetings are just going to be the social event of the century.  With the deadline shifts, they believe the usually calm crowd of handshakes and ambiguous comments will descend into a slobbering mob of panicked baseball execs, tearing apart the Swan and Dolphin Hotel before spilling into the streets to continue their murderous rampage.

We’d like some bullpen help and maybe a spare outfielder, Ruben!  Let us know what you come up with.  We’ll be here, drinking our delicious Phillies six packs.