The NHL Winter Classic will be played tomorrow at Fenway Park in Boston between your Flyers and their Bruins. Given the Flyers woes, this could be the most exciting game they play in the first half of 2010. The first Classic featured 900,000 people in Orchard Park, New York watching the Sabres and Penguins go to a shootout. That game ended on a goal by S. Crosby which resembled Brett Favre’s cowtowing to Michael Strahan’s sack record (yeah, the goal was scripted so back off, Pens fans). Last year’s game featured Wrigley Field, the Red Wings, the Blackhawks and plump kielbasas.
Ignorant donkeys who don’t get hockey because they grew up in suburban Atlanta may not be watching tomorrow, but we certainly will be. Assuming the ice doesn’t turn into a pond (questionable weather is in the forecast), it should be a lot of fun. And if you’ll entertain this silly prognostication for a moment: Fenway Park will be the scene of the baseball teams from both towns playing for the World Series in October. So there’s a little foreshadowing in the works. Let’s hope the Flyers can get the Phillies off on the right foot with a win.
Let me start by saying that I will certainly not be unhappy in any way with Roy Halladay as the Phillies’ ace. I argued extensively last season for the Phils to make a move to get him and he is one of the top-5 pitchers in baseball, perhaps made even better in the short run by being a veteran of baseball’s best division. And now Halladay will land in the N.L. which by recent experience should mean he’ll get even more of a boost. From a performance perspective, Halladay probably becomes the best pitcher in the National League going into 2010.
But there are questions surrounding this move and its timing that can’t be ignored. First and foremost is the issue of what the Phillies have given up to acquire Halladay. Because Cliff Lee is gone as a result of this trade, the Phillies are simply replacing one ace with another. Let’s start with the trade that rented Cliff Lee for 12 starts to close out the 2009 season (and 4 brilliant playoff starts). According to mlb.com the Phillies will part with previously “untouchable” top pitching prospect, Kyle Drabek, as well as outfielder Michael Taylor and catcher Travis d’Arnaud. Combine that with the players they sent to Cleveland in the Lee deal (pitchers Jason Knapp and Carlos Carrasco, catcher Lou Marson and infielder Jason Donald) and you have a pretty high price paid for what amounts to be one pitcher.
In fairness, prospects are exactly that: an unknown commodity. But emptying close to your entire minor league tank to fill one rotation spot seems to be a bold gamble, even moreso when you consider the fact that Roy Halladay is negligably better than Cliff Lee. To boot, Roy Halladay has pitched 4 more seasons than Cliff Lee and has pitched exactly 850 innings more than Lee, meaning his treads are a lot more worn than Lee’s.
Johnny Goodtimes did all of our sentiments a service with his great piece on how things feel today and how they’ll be remembered going forward. The only thing I can add to that is the expression of a sense of pride I have in how well this team performed and how gracious and classy Philly has been in defeat. When you think about it objectively, the odds of winning a World Series are never good, no matter how strong a team is on paper. This Phillies team not only won 1, but they returned to the big stage and showed not only how good they have been but how promising they are for the years to come.
The odds for next year’s World Series champion are out. The Phillies stand at 10-1. In shocking fashion the yearly ritual, the Yankees and Red Sox are the favorites to win at 3-1 and 7-1, respectively. Like the Phillies the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim of Orange County of California are listed at 10-1 as are the Cardinals, the other N.L. team in the top-5. Other N.L. aspirants are the Dodgers (12-1), the Cubs (15-1), the Rockies (20-1) and the Braves (20-1). And in case you were wondering, the Mets are listed at 15-1.
So our favorite sport here at iSportacus is in hibernation for the next 3 months which gives us time to refocus on a very good Flyers team, an Eagles team that is as inconsistent as my putter and a Sixers team which we’re forced to cover periodically. Penn State football should get a boost here in the coming weeks; they have a huge game at home this Saturday against Ohio State in which they’re favored by 3.5. Because they have a loss to Iowa on their card and the Hawkeyes are undefeated, hopes for a trip to the Rose Bowl are distant but hey, they could finish their season with 1 loss which is pretty damned good. And finally, look for a little Temple football coverage. Quietly, they’ve won 6 straight and are bowl eligible for the first time in a long time.
It’s been a great baseball season. Until the proverbial pitchers-and-catchers date, let’s try and enjoy the bounty of other quality sports taking place around Philly.
The Post quotes some nincompoop man-on-the-street as saying “Philly fans are a bunch of whiners and should learn how to dress. They should try reading GQ.” As far as I can tell, Yankees fans either dress like sophomores at Penn or blinged-out clowns with their caps at a 30 degree tilt. I’d like to see a comparison of the sartorial failures of Yankees fans vs. Mets fans. We know the preferred costume of the Mets fan: white sneakers, tube socks, jeans shorts and neck hair. Is that better or worse than the Yankees fan uniform which is just a facsimile of whatever hip hop video is currently in vogue?
I will give this to the Post: their headline after Tupac got shot: “It’s a Rap.”
There are some voices of hysteria being heard around these parts talking talk of a Phillies’ collapse. Despite the fact they’ve gone 5-5 in their last 10 games folks are nervous and thinking that they might just be playing themselves out of a playoff spot. Despite the virtually insurmountable 5-game lead they hold on the Braves with 7 games to play, unstable clowns are worrying about the Phillies losing their playoff spot. Well, let me let the numbers do the talking.
Here are the records through the last 10 games of the 8 teams in both leagues that would be going to the playoffs if the season ended right now: Yankees 7-3, Detroit 5-5, Angels 5-5, Red Sox 5-5, Phillies 5-5, Cardinals 5-5, Dodgers 6-4, Rockies 6-4. As you can see, the Phillies are hardly in a nosedive as compared to the recent play of their postseason colleagues. Of course, Atlanta is 8-2 in its last 10 but aside from being 5 games back in the division, they’re also 2 back in the loss column to the Rockies. Still worried about the Braves? Let the number below assuage your fears.
99.9. That’s the percentage likeliness as of today that the Phillies will make the postseason according to coolstandings.com which simulates the Major League season 10,000 times every day for each team in baseball. See, they might not be going lights-out right now but you have to remember that the 162 game season is comprised of 162 games. As boring as it is, the old adage that games in May are as important as games in September is true.
So take that 1 tenth of a percent and put it in the trash. The Phillies are a statistical lock.
The college football season is going to kick-off in a few weeks and the only thing I’m hearing about it in the media is that Urban Meyer got a $750,000 raise from the University of Florida. Ah, the NCAA and the purity of amateur athletics. Only the NCAA could thinly veil and weakly justify using the barter system to compensate football and basketball players who generate 8 and 9-figure revenues annually for big programs. And only the NCAA is capable of putting its football championship in the hands of alcoholic sports writers, rigged computer programs and blatantly exclusionary and financially lopsided post-season pairings.
But enough with this social consciousness crap. After all, does anyone in Texas, Alabama, Florida or Oklahoma really even know how to spell “amateur?” No, what’s really exciting is the game on the field. So to give all 8 of our readers the perspective they crave, we’ll be doing a little season previewing, focusing of course on your Penn State Nittany Lions. While I’d like to focus on Notre Dame, I realize that most people in this area are mysteriously hostile to the Irish, much in the same way they’re hostile to the Red Sox and Buffalo Sabres. With all the persecution I feel, it’s a wonder I still live in the area.
Anyway, be on the lookout for our predictions for PSU’s season, the Joe Paterno bicuspid valve watch as well as our top-10 and the iSportacus National Champion forecast. What will be unique about our predictions is that it will include at least 1 team from the Mountain West or WAC who will get screwed-out of a shot at the title because they play in a state with a population smaller than the capacity of the Swamp. So until then, adieu!
With the clock winding down on the media frenzy surrounding Roy Halladay, the only thing Phils fans need to do is wait with fingers crossed. Rumors are popping-up like crazy about whether or where Halladay will land. Yesterday it was Boston and today it’s the Los Angeles Dodgers.
People are quick to point out that the addition of a starter to a team impacts one out of every five games. But when you’re talking about teams with at least two quality starters already there, the arrival of a front man takes pressure off the rest of the rotation and makes the 3-5 spots that much stronger.
I’m not going to suggest the Dodgers have a better top-3 with Kershaw, Billingsley and Halladay but I will say I’d prefer not to test that theory. The danger in getting Lee with 2 days to go before the deadline is that the Jays’ price is now lowered since their previous best-bet is no longer an option. The hope has to be that the Jays are going to sit on Halladay another year. If that happens, Amaro looks like even more of a genius than he already does.
The New York Times is reporting that Manny and Papi were on the 2003 list of failed PED tests. Apparently that means the Red Sox championships are tainted. Of course, the test results are sealed under court order but that doesn’t seem to stop some unnamed lawyers from revealing them. It’s ironic that the violators from 2003 (who weren’t violating MLB rules at the time) are being cast as cheaters (which they are) and yet their legally-sealed test results are being leaked by lawyers. I guess cheating doesn’t count if it’s the law you’re breaking.
Clifton Phifer Lee (that’s Cliff Lee for all you Eagles fans) is 12-2 with a 3.18 ERA against the National League. Here’s every stat imaginable on Lee. This is going to be fun.
It’s been a strange season for the Mets, to say the least. In the process of trying to explain why he fired shirtless locker room brawler, Tony Bernazard, Omar Minaya does his best to fire himself.
Cliff Lee is now the Phillies ace. The 2008 Cy Young winner in the American League will be now be pitching to only 8 hitters per game. In addition to Lee, the Phils get right-handed bat, Ben Francisco. This trade killed two birds with one stone and cost the Phillies exactly nothing. They traded away Carlos Carrasco, Single-A pitcher Jason Knapp, catcher Lou Marson and shortstop Jason Donald. Lou Marson is the only one of the bunch with Major League experience, having played in 8 games for the Phillies over the past two seasons.
Lee is a stud and one of the top-5 lefties in baseball. This is a great trade for the Phillies as they didn’t have to part ways with Michael Taylor, Dominic Brown, J.A. Happ of Kyle Drabek. Kind of makes you nervous that Roy Halladay is still out there, just waiting to get snatched-up by the Red Sox, Angels, Yankees or Dodgers. Or is he?
The fact that Ruben Amaro got a Cy Young winner without having to give up any of his top-3 minor league guys or Happ has to make you wonder whether the Halladay trade is still in the works for the Phillies. This may sound crazy, but the same deal that J.P. Ricciardi and the Jays rejected earlier in the week is still intact. Let me repeat that: the Phillies just got Cliff Lee for nothing and can still take on Roy Halladay.
Maybe I’m thinking like someone who lives in New York or Boston, but if they did do that (if for no other reason than to block Halladay’s trade to a rival), your playoff rotation would be Halladay, Lee and Hamels (in no particular order) and Joe Blanton. For as great as the Lee acquisition is, think about how a Beckett-Halladay-Lester top 3 would be. Or a Sabathia-Halladay-Burnett trio. What about Halladay-Carpenter-Wainwright?
The reality is that some team the Phils will most-likely face in the post season will have Roy Halladay on it. When you add that to the fact the Ruben Amaro is still holding all his high cards, it’s not unreasonable to imagine the Phils’ front office still having some designs on Roy Halladay.
If the Phillies don’t pull the trigger on this trade and Roy Halladay ends up in Boston, either team in L.A. or St. Louis, the Phils are going to have themselves a potential p.r. disaster on their hands. Imagine the outcry if the current front-runners for Halladay pass on the deal only to see him traded to a playoff contender whom the Phillies end up facing in the postseason. Then try and get your head around Halladay beating the Phillies twice in a playoff series with one of these teams. If that happens, Ruben Amaro might as well hide out in an underground bunker with Dick Cheney in some undisclosed location.
There are some voices of hysteria being heard around these parts talking talk of a Phillies’ collapse. Despite the fact they’ve gone 5-5 in their last 10 games folks are nervous and thinking that they might just be playing themselves out of a playoff spot. Despite the virtually insurmountable 5-game lead they hold on the Braves with 7 games to play, unstable clowns are worrying about the Phillies losing their playoff spot. Well, let me let the numbers do the talking.
With the clock winding down on the media frenzy surrounding Roy Halladay, the only thing Phils fans need to do is wait with fingers crossed. Rumors are popping-up like crazy about whether or where Halladay will land. Yesterday it was Boston and today it’s the Los Angeles Dodgers.
