Breaking it Down the Day After

Of all the things that can and will be said about the 2009 World Series, one cannot be denied:

The Phillies didn’t play well enough to win. The Yankees did.

Any number of things can be blamed for the Phils demise, including an inconsistent bullpen, untimely defensive miscues and pitch selection. Speaking of which, why did Pedro continually feed Matsui fastballs when he had just made Johnny Damon look bad on a nasty changeup? The decision ensured Matsui the World Series MVP trophy.

In a bit of irony, a pitcher who may have thrown his last pitch in a Phillies uniform put in on a tee for a player who may have played his last game in a Yankee uniform.

It disgusts us to say it because we loathe the New York sports scene, but the Yankees deserved to win. They played better. And when you’re able to spend half a billion dollars on three players (Sabathia, Teixeira and Burnett), you probably should win the whole thing. Even though we strongly feel that the Phillies were more than capable of winning this Series.

Allow us to agree with the lots of people better than us that have called for a more level financial playing field. How on God’s green earth is it fair for one team to be able to spend more than $200 million a year on salaries and drop half a billion in future obligations in one offseason? It’s real easy to look like a genius when you have infinitely more money than everybody else.

Is Joe Girardi a good manager? It would be hard not to be with a roster like that. Is Brian Cashman a bona fide personnel guru? When you can wave obscene amounts of money around, anyone can look like a guru.

If you’re thinking we have sour grapes, you haven’t thought hard enough about these issues. Even though we despise giving credit to Yankees, the truth is they played better and therefore deserved to win. However, it is a worthwhile exercise to look at the reasons why the Yankees were in the position to win a World Series.

Baseball needs exactly what the player’s union doesn’t want: a salary cap. Bud Selig – who we’re not particularly fond of – does deserve some credit for initiating a revenue sharing program for the first time in the sport’s history while under his watch, but it’s not enough. Not when one team can blow the market out of the water by bidding against itself for the best players year after year.

The NFL managed to put a system in place that allows the franchise in Kansas City to compete with the franchises in New York for the best talent available. The Royals can’t even compete with the Yankees for the best grounds crew members.

It’s not sour grapes. It’s just the truth.

**

Could not bear to watch those peachy New York fans and the Yankee players celebrate last night. As soon as the final out was recorded, I escaped into the arms of “Batman Begins” on AMC before heading off to bed, thinking about what had just happened. Mostly, that the Phillies were no longer World Champs.

This was a team that went through a great deal this season, from the high of celebrating last year’s title to enduring the untimely death of the beloved Harry the K a few days into the schedule. Jimmy Rollins’ first half slump was as bad as Raul Ibanez was good.

Cole Hamels’ inconsistencies, Brad Lidge’s nightly implosions, bullpen injuries.

A lot happens in a baseball season, and it seems to us that this group endured a great deal to get to the World Series. Losing the World Series is a profound downer any way you add it up, but the fact that the team was able to deal with its own issues while fending off everyone else is still impressive. After all, not many National League teams have been in a position to win back-to-back World Series titles.

And not many have been built to make multiple runs for the Commissioner’s Trophy. The Phillies have a superstar core of players firmly entrenched in their primes, and signed for the long term. Chase Utley, Ryan Howard, Jimmy Rollins, Jayson Werth and Cliff Lee will all return next year. That’s not including Ibanez, Madson, Victorino and Hamels, who we expect to bounce back in a big way next year.

The farm system is in splendid shape. Domonic Brown, Michael Taylor, Kyle Drabek and Travis D’Arnaud are highly regarded prospects who will filter onto the big club over the next few years. Ruben Amaro, Jr. has more than proven his worth as one of the top executives in baseball. For evidence, consider his signing of Ibanez, the long-term deals for Werth, Howard and Hamels and his masterful poker face at the trading deadline. Amaro likely gave Toronto management the final straw on J.P. Ricciardi for his handling of the Roy Halladay trade talks.

The fiscal bottom line could not be better. The Bank is filled to capacity on a nightly basis, and significant amounts of cash is being dropped at ballpark concessions and clothing retailers, to say nothing of the fans who pay for Phils garb everywhere else.

The future shines bright, even if it’s cloudy today.

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