Phast Phive: Pheeble Attempts

So here’s a pretty dandy Phillies preview written by a handsome gentleman whose literary talents are as sexy as the expensive cologne he wears, even to bed.  Don’t like thoughtful, drawn out narrative insight on your favorite baseball team?  How about four dudes carefully laying out points that indicate the Phillies are great?  Either way, there is a vast sea of Phillies previews out there for you to sample.  Will the Phillies surprise you with dominance? Or vindicate you with worthlessness?  Get your voice heard now, while everything’s still fair game because nothing has technically happened yet!

Justin Klugh

If anybody is going to analyze the Phillies, what better medium than the press representing a town which has spent all offseason trying to keep us out?  The Washington Post recently illustrated our top three pitchers financially in block form.  Fortunately, they did it for everyone else too, probably to get the sympathy vote, so we don’t have to run over to Twitter to talk about how little we care about things Nationals fans do.

The size of those red rectangles tells us one thing:  It ain’t 2003 anymore.  And to put a cherry on that, here’s Showtime’s The Borgias, using Philadelphia as a symbol for greed.  It’s true, though.  I mean, we have all the cheesesteaks.  Isn’t that right, every video montage of Philadelphia, ever?

John Ricco

Two weeks or so ago, I made a feeble attempt to summarize a human being in chart form. That person is Freddy Galvis. Whereas I didn’t really provide any real insight, Bradley Ankrom does a fantastic job of introducing our opening day second baseman in his first-ever post at Crashburn Alley. With a little help from Baseball Reference’s Play Index, Bradley succeeds in finding some possible comparisons to Galvis.

Yes, Joey Votto just signed a contract that almost makes Howard’s look bearable. But let’s not forget that hours beforehand, Matt Cain signed an also-pretty-damn-huge deal worth $110 million over five years. Why should we care? Well, Grant Brisbee believes Hamels can now “make a pretty good guess” as to what his future paycheck is going to look like.

John Stolnis

So, the Reds awesome 1B Joey Votto, at age 28, signed a 10-year, $225 million contract extension that will keep him a Red until he’s 38 years old. He wasn’t a free agent until the end of 2013.

Now, I have been a big critic of the Ryan Howard extension. Joey Votto is a much better player, at 28, than Howard was at 28. Howard has always been a pretty one-dimensional player, although at his peak, that one dimension was earth-shattering and game-changing. Votto is a power hitter with a much more well-rounded game than Howard.

He’s a better defender, baserunner and overall hitter, and still hits more than 30 HRs a year. He’s the best 1B in the NL by far. But a 10-year deal at 28 years old, two years before free agency? Why is this deal not getting killed the same way the Howard deal was justifiably killed? The whole idea was overpaying for future performance, right? Aren’t the Reds going to regret this contract in four or five years? I realize Votto is younger now than when Howard signed his deal, but still. Seems to me the Votto deal is escaping a lot of criticism.

And to anyone playing ESPN Fantasy Baseball, notice anything weird about the list of pitchers on this page? I’ll give you a hint… scroll down to the middle of the page and think 1990s Atlanta Braves and retirement speeches.

Tony DiStefano

There is something to be said for the mustache. In the 1980’s it seemed that baseball’s biggest stars had mustaches and chins that looked like butts. Maybe it was only Wade Boggs and Don Mattingly that fit into these two categories, but regardless, they both had extremely boss facial hair. As the son of a Yankees fan, I am all too familar with the ascendance and fall of Donny Baseball. If Chase Utley’s knees bring an premature end to his career, I will find a way to blame George Stienbrenner. I also think that Chase Utley should grow a mustache.

I can only assume that “pleased” is Ozzie Guillen speak for “I just had a fist fight with Jose Reyes and Carlos Zambrano is dead in the trunk of my car.” If things do not start well in Miami, it is going to be awesome.

Ethan Seidel

Looks like Juan Pierre will be the Phillies leadoff man to open the season. We all know he is there for his speed (or former speed) and not his power. Bill Baer broke down just how powerless Pierre has been throughout his career. Looks like the Phillies will be playing small ball after all with Pierre’s career 16 homers at the top of the lineup.

It’s prediction time across the wide world of baseball. ESPN polled their top 48 “experts” for division winners, and world champions. The Phillies were picked to win it all by 5 of them or about, so naturally this proves that the Phils have a 10% chance of winning the World Series. ESPN writers are never wrong about these sort of things right?