Last week on Phillies Five, we took a look at five things fans should watch for this Spring Training. Taking that a step further, with the full-squad workouts underway and the first Spring Training game a week from today, let's take a look at five things fans should be excited for in regards to the 2014 season:
5. A Better Papelbon?
Papelbon has definitely been vocal in positive ways thus far in Spring Training, saying: "If I was a gambling man I would take us to go all the way," and, "I came here to win a world championship."
Expect him to return to his Boston Red Sox form providing the Phillies remain in contention. If they fall out quick in the first couple months of the season, there's no reason to believe he will not have the worst season of his career.
4. Domonic Brown and Darin Ruf
Other than Ryan Howard, and I guess you can say Raul Ibanez, the Phillies haven't had much power coming out of their lineup since Jayson Werth was let-go to the Washington Nationals at the end of their disappointing defeat to the San Francisco Giants in the 2010 NLCS.
Domonic Brown and Darin Ruf showed last year that they have the potential to put up huge numbers in the power categories. Ruf, 27, and Brown, 26, are entering their prime years as baseball players. 2014 will be the all-telling whether they can live up to this stature or not, and be good contributors to the offense.
Expect many home runs this Summer out of the two, along with Howard who claimed in recent days he can get 58 home runs again like he accomplished in his Rookie of the Year season in 2006, eight years ago. Marlon Byrd should also put up decent numbers if he mirrors his previous season with the New York Mets and Pittsburgh Pirates.
3. New Coaching Staff
While we are all sad to see Charlie Manuel leave the dugout for other roles in the franchise, you can't help but be estatic for the new energy and reinvigoration that will come from manager Ryne Sandberg, and especially bench coach Larry Bowa.
Let's be frank here. Charlie demanded very little out of the players. Not because he didn't care, that was just his style. And hey, it worked as it brought Philadelphia its only championship in umpteen years.
Sandberg is the polar opposite of Manuel, however, as we saw during the last few months of the 2013 season. He expects uniformity, with all players in linear fashion at the dugout for the National Anthem, and a consistent game-day report time for pre-game activities. Honestly, this was exactly the Phillies needed, and with Larry Bowa added to the 2014 staff, expect an even more focus on the day-by-day essentials.
2. Instant Replays in Stadiums & Manager Challenges
Newly implemented just this offseason by commisioner Bud Selig is manager challenges that resembles the challenge system in the National Football League.
With this new twist comes the ability for stadiums to display instant replays of events in the game that just occured. This is for both the dugouts if they determine that a certain play is challengeable or not. How could you, as a fan, not be excited for this improvement to the in-stadium baseball experience?
It's important to get the calls right, and the new challenging system will greatly decrease the faulty calls. Sadly, it will also likely decrease the entertaining manager arguments with umpires and the subsequent ejections that will follow. Of course some plays are unchallengable like the fake tagging of second base on the force-out, so manager arguments will not totally become nonexistent as of yet.
1. The Rotation
When healthy, the projected 2014 Phillies rotation in some semblance in order of Cole Hamels, A.J. Burnett, Cliff Lee, Kyle Kendrick, Roberto Hernandez and/or Miguel Alfredo Gonzalez is one of the best in the National League, if not baseball.
The signing of A.J. Burnett took the rotation to a whole other level, a much improved one in fact. In 2013 Burnett went 10-11 with a 3.30 ERA in 30 starts for the Pittsburgh Pirates. The year prior, he went 16-10 in 31 starts with a 3.51 ERA. From 2006-2011 in his tenure as a member of the Blue Jays and Yankees, Burnett posted a combined 4.39 ERA in 178 starts. Clearly the National League is much more favorable to the right-hander during the later stages of his now 16-year career.
Burnett's former teammate, Roy Halladay experienced the same improvement as he transitioned from the American League (Toronto) to National League (Philadelphia) in 2010. Will we see a perfect game and a playoff no-hitter from Burnett like we saw in Halladay that season? Chances are slim to none, however you get the point.
The 2011 Phillies rotation succeeded because in any given day, one of their aces could be facing a number-four or number-five starter in an opposing team's rotation, i.e. Oswalt being the number-four starter opposing the Braves' number-five. That was a huge advantage, and the main reason, along with their offense, why they clicked and went on to win a franchise high 100+ wins that season.
I'm not saying Miguel Alfredo Gonzalez, Kyle Kendrick, and Fausto Carmona Roberto Hernandez are the next comings of Cy Young, however who knows how they will fit in slotted in the latter parts of the rotation. Perhaps fans will be surpised how well the rotation succeeds once Hamels returns healthy at some point in April.
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Matt Rappa is a contributor to Philliedelphia. Follow him on Twitter @mattrappa
