End of baseball

The Phillies lost yesterday. Got swept actually. They just didn't have it this post-season. And I'm sure people would expect me to be more upset (maybe I should be), but the fact of the matter is, I'm relatively calm about the loss. There are several reasons why:

1) My enthusiasm for different sports varies. I am fanatical about football. I live and die with it. And though I do enjoy baseball and was extremely excited about us getting into the playoffs, among the four major Philly sports teams the Phillies are my least favorite.

2) I had low expectations for this Phillies team. As much fun as they were to watch, they weren't built for the playoffs. They hit a lot of home runs... which means a lot of strikeouts. We don't really work counts and create runs. We SUCK at small ball. And say what you want, you need patience to survive in the post-season. Add to this the fact that our starting pitching is horribly sub-par and that we only have three relief pitchers that don't make me cringe every time they throw a pitch, and I didn't see us going all that far. Not to mention...

3) We were playing the Rockies. Undoubtedly the hottest team in the league going into the post-season. They've won like 17 of their last 18 or some shit like that. They got hot at the right time. Good for them... bad for us.

4) We were happy to just get in. 14 years without getting into the playoffs will do that for you. Should you ever be happy to 'just get in'? No. But it happens.

5) This Phillies team is young. Rollins, Hamels, Utley and Howard are just entering their primes. This was the first post-season for all four and hopefully it gave them some much needed expereince handling pressure. This will be a big off-season for the team now. We need pitching. Hamels and Kendrick are keepers. What about Moyer? Can he continue to pitch effectively in his mid-40s? What about Garcia and Eaton? Can they come back to be decent or will we add them to the ever-growing list of highly paid free agent busts? Something needs to be done to the bull pen. For the love of all that's holy, please get rid of Jose f'ing Mesa (seriously, I didn't know he was still in the league... I was fucking mortified to see him come out of the bullpen to pitch for us!!).
After pitching, what about the outfield. Burrell had arguably his best year as a pro, but do we bet on him to continue to progress or try and trade him while his value's high (this is, of course, assuming that he is tradeable with that ridiculous contract we gave him.) What do we do with Aaron Rowand? I love this guy and so does the rest of the city, but you know he's gonna be commanding a 10 mil-a-year contract after this season. It's a good free agent center field class, but Rowand is obviously better than Mike Cameron, and after the shit season Andruw Jones had, I'd say he's better than him too. Compare Rowand's numbers to Torii Hunter's. Hunter's are a little better, but Rowand's also 2 years younger. Seeing as you can probably get Rowand for a couple million cheaper, who would you rather have? This all gets complicated by the fact that we have Shane Victorino and Michael Bourn ready to play in the outfield. Something has to give. I for one hope we keep Rowand. Considering we're gonna have to give Howard his money, it's gonna be difficult.
Last of all is what to do with the manager, Charlie Manuel. He has definitely made more than his share of questionable decisions, but he did get us in the playoffs, and, more importantly, the players like him and will play hard for him. I think you have to keep him at this point rather than risk the problems that could arise with a regime change.


All in all, I am in no way disappointed with the Phils season. The playoffs could've gone better, but I didn't think we were beating any team in the AL anyways. For years I've said 'there's always next year', but for once I actually believe it.