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The Champs Return

by E. James Beale

Near the end of the 19th century, Princess Maria Feodorovna was married to Alexander III, who reigned as the Russian emperor. As czarina, Feodorovna once saved the life of a man by transposing a single comma in a warrant signed by her husband, who had exiled a criminal to imprisonment and death in Siberia. On the bottom of the warrant, the czar had written: "Pardon impossible, to be sent to Siberia." The czarina changed the punctuation so that her husband's instructions read: "Pardon, impossible to be sent to Siberia." The man was set free.

The moral, of course, is that small changes can often have huge impacts (and perhaps something about the life-or-death nature of punctuation). It's a happy anecdote for the freed man, a frustrating one for the emperor, and a potentially cautionary one for future generations of would-be leaders. It may be an especially apt one for the World F. Champion Philadelphia Phillies, who, after an offseason that began with a long, slow ride down Broad Street waving to fans and ends this week at Citizens Bank Park, will start their quest to become the first National League team to repeat as World Champions since the Cincinnati Reds in the late 1970s. The Phillies come into this season with the same basic cast of characters as last year — same big stars, same versatile role players. The seemingly minor changes will be the ones that will determine if the team can adapt to a changing league, and if 2009 will be a championship honeymoon, or a championship hangover.

On one hand, replicating last year's success seems simple. The Phillies had a good blueprint, and by bringing back nearly every major player on the team — seven of the eight starting position players, the first four starters, the closer and back end of the bullpen all remain unchanged — they have a chance to use it again. Unlike recent champions who either rode aging veterans to one last hurrah of a title, or lost key contributors to free agency, the 2009 Phillies are a spitting image of the 2008 version. Jimmy Rollins, Chase Utley, Ryan Howard, Jayson Werth, Shane Victorino, Cole Hamels, Brett Myers and Joe Blanton are all 30 or younger. Brad Lidge is 32. All are old enough that we shouldn't expect drastic leaps forward, but also young enough that Howard's decline and Utley's move away from second base are still several years away. Will every Phillie duplicate his 2008 success? No, of course not. Some might be better.

Still, the Phillies aren't the exact same team. The first and most obvious switch is the departure of left fielder Pat Burrell and the arrival of his replacement, Raul Ibanez.

Offensively, Ibanez and Burrell are comparably valuable. But Ibanez plays a very different game. Less patient at the plate, Ibanez tends to see fewer pitches than his predecessor, which results in fewer walks, fewer strikeouts and more contact hitting. While Burrell had turned himself into a three-true-outcomes hitter (someone who can be expected to walk, K or hit the ball very, very far), Ibanez works gap-to-gap, peppering line drives where guys aren't. Batting sixth on a Phillies team that will put men on base ahead of him, this change in style could be a welcome upgrade — it probably isn't a fluke that Ibanez has more RBI than Burrell three years running despite playing on inferior teams in a less offense-friendly ballpark. Yes, Keith Law, lead baseball analyst for Scouts Inc., describes Ibanez as "a far worse defensive player" than Burrell, and yes, the three-year, $30 million-plus deal he signed was bigger than most would have wanted, but as far as 2009 goes, you should expect a slight but noticeable upgrade in left.

Another structural change could be more subtle. In 2008, Cole Hamels materialized as a true Major League ace, but stressed his body far past its previous limits in doing so. Last year, including the playoffs, Hamels pitched 72 more innings than he ever had in any previous season. The central question surrounding the Boy Wonder is whether the heavy load sustained during last season's joyride to championship glory will take its toll this season. This is less a question of motivation — Hamels' work ethic is lauded throughout the organization — and more of health. Still. Last season Hamels predicted that if he could get through just one season injury-free, all the questions about his fragility would expire. Well, he did and they haven't. Already this spring, questions have arisen about whether Hamels' increased workload will lead to increased time on the sideline, decreased effectiveness or worse.

The fears aren't unfounded: The extra work is catching up with the young ace. Two weeks ago, Hamels felt tightness in his pitching elbow and was examined by the team physician. The tightness turned out to be simple inflammation, likely the result of normal wear and tear. This sounds reassuring until you remember that normal wear and tear usually develops toward the end of a long season, not at the beginning of one. Jay Jaffe, one of the authors of the annual Baseball Prospectus tome, explains, "Over a three-year period any given pitcher has something like a 50 percent chance of getting hurt." According to him, for Hamels, a stint or two on the DL would be "pretty par for the course." If he's right, the Phillies, compared to last year, just got quite a bit worse.

Speaking of dangerous trends, the Phillies' bullpen is also unlikely to have the type of season it pulled together in 2008. Behind closer Brad Lidge and his perfect 48-48 in save opportunities, the Phillies not only won every game they were leading after eight innings, but were also ranked by BP as having statistically the best bullpen in baseball. Part of that was skill, but a bigger part was good timing. Lidge, Ryan Madson, J.C. Romero, Chad Durbin and Clay Condrey, the Phillies' first five arms out of the bullpen, all had ERAs well below their career averages. Out of the group, Madson (3.94 to 3.05) was the only one within a full run of his career mark. Regression is likely. "Historically," Jaffe warns, "relievers just haven't held up."

Still, Jimmy Rollins can be expected to bounce back from a down year, Ryan Howard is having his best spring ever and, in preseason, an injury-free Chase Utley has been looking more like he did in the first half of last year (25 home runs, 69 RBI and a .955 OBS) than when he was plagued by a hip injury toward the end (8, 35, .855). And the Phillie with the most potential for positive gain may be Brett Myers, who will improbably make his second consecutive opening-day start on Sunday.

Myers' 2009 season had more ups and downs than Nailin' Paylin. Myers opened the year struggling badly, both with his mechanics and his mind-set. After being repeatedly shelled, and openly pining for a return to the closer role, he eventually accepted a demotion to Triple-A Lehigh Valley to get his game on point and his head on straight. The results were phenomenal: Myers returned to win seven of his final 13 starts with an ERA just over 3. This makes Myers the closest thing the Phillies have to a true Charlie Day (Wildcard, bitches!): If he's the version the Phils saw before his demotion, their rotation will be a source of stress, but if the second-half starter shows up, the Phillies will have a legitimate top-shelf 1-2 punch in him and Hamels. The good news is that the latter seems more likely. His head back in starting mode, his body where it needs to be (Myers dropped 30 pounds over the winter by making smarter choices while out drinking: "Instead of pizza, eat salad," the right-hander told press this spring, "play for the tie, you know,") and, entering his walk year, his motivation at an all-time high.

In short, if the Phillies aren't as good as they were last year, a shortage of talent probably won't be to blame.

However — and we know this sounds counterintuitive when talking about a team that won the World Championship a year ago — last season's level of success just might not be good enough. By most analytical measures, the Phillies weren't the best team in 2008. They were good, sure, but they were also lucky. Among the stat-geek crowd, the fact that the best team doesn't usually win has turned into a sort of snarky conventional wisdom ("of course [the playoffs are] a crapshoot," Jaffe says), but last season may have been an especially palpable example. All season long, the Chicago Cubs and Boston Red Sox dominated the standings and battled for first in BP's ranking system. By both metrics, they were better than the Phillies, and by quite a wide margin. In the playoffs, the Home Team managed to avoid playing either.

Nor was it just the playoffs. Last year's Phils had some help in the form of the eight-inning Mets. As Cole Hamels reminded the world this offseason, the Mets had quite a bit of trouble holding on to late leads. Put simply, they choked. Again. That said, in order to choke, you need to have a lead. The Mets were good enough to lead the Phillies in the standings for most of the regular season. BP ranks their three stars — shortstop Jose Reyes, third baseman David Wright and center fielder Carlos Beltran — among the top six hitters in the majors, and, Jaffe explains, "those are three guys who play excellent defense at premium defensive positions." What's more, the Mets got better. Last year, the Phillies won the division by three games, due in no small part to New York's inability to close out. After former Phillie Billy Wagner went down with an injury, the Mets didn't have a single reliable reliever. The result was predictable: They lost close games late. If last season's games had been eight-inning affairs, the Phils would have finished six games out of first — no title, no parade. Now, it's worth noting that games are not eight innings long, and that the pressure and strategy of the ninth inning is unlike that of the first eight. But the Mets' offseason additions — Francisco Rodriguez and J.J. Putz, two All-Star closers — are wearing blue and orange specifically to address this issue. BP's projections have the Mets surpassing the Phils in the East.

There's more. The Atlanta Braves are probably not yet in the same tier as the Phils, but they've done more to improve their team than anyone else in baseball. They added Derek Lowe, Javier Vasquez and Japanese import Kenshin Kawakami, all of whom are steps up for them. It isn't glib to suggest that these improvements, as well as Florida's, could end up hurting the Phils in the playoff hunt. The NL East should be the toughest division in the National League. If it is, the Phillies may have to win it outright to even have a chance to defend their crown. They certainly can win it outright, but twice in a row now they've relied on the Mets choking. With Rodriguez and Putz on board, they may not have that luxury.

The biggest change between this season and last is the trophy itself, and the title of World Champions.

A recent study by Jonah Berger and Devin Pope, twoWhartonprofessors, showed that teams and individuals play their hardest when they're losing slightly. The study was meant for in-game situations, but according to the professors, it could plausibly translate to teams that perceive themselves as close to championship level. "The fact that the Phillies won the World Series may make some lesser opponents feel discouraged, and lead them to give up more easily," Berger explains, "but other teams who believe they were just as good as the Phillies, or believe they could havewon it all last year,might bear down and work harder." Berger points out that this same phenomenon — working harder as you approach your goal — happens all the time in the workplace, or even as someone nearsthe end of a buy-10-get-one-free punch card for a cup of coffee. Now the Phillies are that free coffee. Could the title tangibly increase other teams' motivation to beat them? "Well, we haven't proven that directly," Pope hedges, "but our evidence is certainly suggestive that could be the case."

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As for the team, emotionally, there are two basic ways to react to the spoils of glory: Adopt the mind-set of "The Champs," puff up their chests and defend their turf, or get fat and happy.

This offseason, the Phillies signed many of their regulars to substantial pay raises. Remember how Brett Myers turned down those pizzas and showed up to camp in such great shape? That's in no small part because he's playing for a contract. Unfortunately, he'll be the only significant player on the Phils who'll be doing so. The contract year phenomenon, where players increase effort and production as their original contract ends, may not be as prevalent as conventional wisdom will have you believe, but it's there. As the Wharton study suggests, motivation matters, and on a team where everyone got paid, everyone did the talk show circuit and the Phillies stars appeared in every magazine from Sports Illustrated to Playboy, there just is less motivation to be better. Last year the Phillies were consummate underdogs, members of a tortured franchise trying to buck the odds: This year you recognize Eric Bruntlett on sight.

Of course, that doesn't mean the Phillies won't take their work seriously. Despite the ring and the contract, Ryan Howard did report to camp in the best shape of his life. He had dropped 20 pounds and reportedly been working on his fielding more than ever. Chase Utley's comeback from injury has been inspirational, and Jimmy Rollins hit the cover off the ball for America's World Baseball Classic team. Effort is largely a personality trait, and a team motivated enough to win a championship might just be motivated enough to ignore the distractions that come with it.

So, what to expect? Well, as the clinching Game Five of last year's World Series proved, you can't prophesy too much before you risk looking like a fool. That said, the Phils should be talented enough to compete and flawed enough to compete with. Last season's 92 wins seems like a reasonable number to shoot for. If they get to that number, they'll probably be in the aforementioned crapshoot. From there, whether the season ends with the headline Championship, Impossible Season Ends or Championship Impossible, Season Ends, we won't know — but it's probably fair to assume the answer will be in the details.

E. James Beale knows all and tells you at citypaper.net/sportscomplex.