“What’s there to be mad about? I picked a great year to be here. I wish it worked out better and I could be with them, but I don’t regret one minute. I wouldn’t change a thing being with these guys going through what we went through last year.”

Todd Zolecki has more on Geoff Jenkins’ release as the Phillies purge another player with a bloated contract from the team.

The Jenkins deal won’t go down as one of Pat Gillick’s finer moments, but he’s another bit player in the 2008 soap opera that we’ll never forget. His unerring support of his teammates while riding the pine was trumped only by his double against Grant Balfour during Game 5.2 of the World Series. My lasting memory of Mr. Jenkins will be his euphoric fist pumping after delivering the big hit. I hope he finds a good home.

There has been talk today about Gary Sheffield being a fit for the Phils given his right handed power bat. Luckily, Andy Martino of the Inquirer says it’s unlikely that Sheffield will don red pinstripes.

Getting more power from the right side would be nice, but I don’t see Sheffield helping this team, even at a bargain basement price. He is an American League hitter if ever there was one. Sheffield played 6 games in LF last year. If the Tigers couldn’t find room for him WITH the DH, what makes us think he’ll help us without it?

And character matters. Chemistry …

The Phils made a move last night, sending backup catcher Ronnie Paulino to the San Francisco Giants for lefty Jack Taschner.

Good news for Chris Coste in the short term, certainly. Additionally, The Good Phight says that the trade makes Lou Marson’s eventual trip to the show less crowded.

Besides the obvious catching implications with this trade, doesn’t this pretty much sew up the Number 5 spot for J.A. Happ, despite his less than stellar Triple A outing today? I don’t see the point in trading for another lefthander if the Phils planned on giving the 5th spot to Chan Ho Park. If Park was destined for the rotation, wouldn’t another lefty be one too many with Happ headed to the bullpen and Romero 50 games away from returning?

Park has pitched well in spring training for the most part, but there is definitely value in having him in the bullpen. Park is capable of providing the type of quality relief and ability to eat innings that we relied on from Chad Durbin in the first 4 1/2 months of 2008 (1.79 ERA, 1.14 WHIP). After August 9th, Durbin was not himself anymore. It may have been overuse, or perhaps Durbin just regressed back to what he had been before his inspired first half – a career 88 ERA+ pitcher. Regardless, Durbin started to show cracks during the Phillies West Coast swing in mid-August, and finished up the year 1-2 with a 6.04 ERA and a 1.90 …

When Scott Rolen was traded, within 24 hours of the deal I had already removed his name and number from the back of my batting practice jersey.

I’m not saying it was the right thing to do, but truth be told, his name represents a largely frustrating period in Phillies baseball, at least during my lifetime. Seeing his name on the back of a Phils jersey just conjures up too many annoying memories.

I have similar feelings about Curt Schilling; another monster talent who chirped his way out of the city. To say the Phillies got the short end of the stick in both deals would be to grossly understate the shittiness of the trades.. I guess shotgun marriages rarely involve a hot bride.

I’ve watched Schilling’s career with more than a passing interest over the last 8 years, and I can’t say that I was pulling for him or his teams. As a die-hard Phils fan, I didn’t want to see him wildly succeed on the mound, or his teams achieve greatness during his time with them.

I went 0 for 2.

3 World Series rings, and 3 Cy Young runners-up saw to it that Schilling would not regret getting traded away from Philly in July, 2000.

Now that he has retired, and the Phils have shiny new World Series rings of their own, can I forgive and forget? Can I look objectively at Schilling’s career and not get all salty about the bad times?

I’ll try.

All that’s left to …

Matt Stairs, regardless of whatever happens in 2009, has already secured his place in Phillies lore with his moon shot homer in Game 4 of the NLCS off Jonathan Broxton.

But it’s time to ask ourselves whether or not Stairs belongs with this team in 2009. Does he deserve one of the precious bench spots? With all indications being that the Phils will carry 12 pitchers, a 5 man bench looks very likely. Greg Dobbs, Eric Bruntlett, Coste/Paulino, Geoff Jenkins and one other player.

Miguel Cairo, Marcus Giles, John Mayberry Jr., Stairs and Pablo Ozuna have all been vying for one of those precious roster spots. All are right-handed except for Stairs.

With a roster that is already weighted toward the lefties, the Phils need to let Stairs go, even if it means eating his contract. A trade, even if it were for cash or a player to be named later would be a more suitable alternative to opening 2009 with Matt Stairs on the bench.

Matt Stairs seems like a likable everyman, and his game winning homer in Game 4 of the NLCS makes being objective about him difficult.

But roster spots are precious things, and a one-dimensional player who gives you homers and only homer is often the player you pick up after the non-waiver trade deadline. A guy like Stairs fills a need near the end of the season when Lady Luck has shown her bitchy side in the dog days of summer. Stairs is not a guy you open the season …

This is hardly the time for fans to start overanalyzing the Phillies up and down spring so far. The World Baseball Classic, as well as a large number of pitchers in camp looking for a home has made for some lopsided box scores in the early part of spring.

I didn’t see a lick of of the Phillies’ 12-0 lambasting at the hands of the Yankees yesterday, but I sure liked Charlie’s expletive-filled response.

Winning, whether it is in a meaningless game in mid-March or an October thriller, means something. Losing big means something, too. You can’t just turn it on. The Phils have had some lackluster springs in recent years, and coming out of the blocks has not been their specialty. With a motivated Mets team looking to get off to a fast start, the Phils cannot afford a pedestrian start to the season.

Kyle Kendrick got hit around pretty good, but by all accounts, he was failed by shoddy defense. Beerleaguer says he’d be better served finding his changeup in AA as opposed to trading him. I say trade him if the opportunity is there. If the Phils could convert Kendrick into needed draft picks for June, go for it. I just don’t see Kendrick finding his way back into this rotation. Even if Myers is gone next year, is Kendrick the replacement? There are better options in the system. Kendrick has won 21 games. I just wonder how long it will take him to win …

The Fightins have the scoop on Pat Burrell’s ultra-classy full page ads in both of the Philly daily papers.

Burrell experienced the rarest of Phillies careers – big expectations, big slumps, storybook ending, fan love. I’ll never forget squirming in my seat during many a 2003 game when pat came to the plate. It was uncomfortable watching him struggle through his season-long slump.

If you looked at his career stats, and lined them up against his contract with no other context, you’d have to assume that it ended badly.

Instead, it ended on a Budweiser truck with his wife and dog.

There was a comment on Beerleaguer the other day that perfectly summed up my feelings on Burrell. I wouldn’t even try to write it my own way:

I’ll be honest: Pat is the one player I don’t really care about being perfectly objective about. I love the fact that he’s a guy who did his thing in Philly and just kept doing it.
…….

I don’t care what Pat’s numbers will be or what they could be if he stayed in Philly. I don’t know what he’ll do. I know that he’s the man and I wish he was a Phillie.

***************************************

The Phils dropped a game yesterday to the Pirates, 6-5. Joe Blanton had a very Joe Blanton-type game. 4.2 innings, 5 H, 2 ER, 2 K, 0 BB. Joe Blanton is the least of our worries. As a No. 3 or 4 pitcher, he’ll be just fine. I wrote more …

Kendrick’s line today:

3 IP, 10 H, 8 ER, and 2 base knocks for Jo-Jo Reyes.

Yikes.

Kyle Kendrick is a nice kid. It’s really a shame to see him struggling like this, but I wonder how much longer Manuel should keep him in the mix before declaring him as out of the running for the 5th starter’s spot.

The Phils head north in about 3 weeks. Should Kendrick be given 2 more turns? If he pitched lights out, would Charlie and Rich forget his early spring troubles and give him the spot? What if Happ and Park continue to impress?

I have no confidence in Kendrick to be able to turn this around in time to give the Phillies a chance to win every 5th day. A spot in the Iron Pigs rotation seems inevitable at this point.

Is it time to pull the plug on Kyle? Or am I prematurely evaluating his spring?

The Phils lost to the Atlanta Braves today by a score of 7-2.

Carlos Carrasco was the main culprit in this one, giving up 5 runs, 3 of them earned, in 2 innings of work. According to Todd Zolecki, Carrasco hasn’t been able to put together all of his pitches in the same outing. Zolecki does think there is still time for both Carrasco and Kendrick to turn things around.

I wonder what both of these guys would need to do to grab the last spot. Carrasco is young, and not many folks expected him to snag the 5th starter spot.

I don’t see Kendrick putting it all together in time to take this spot away from Happ or Park. The question is, what the Phils will do with him if he doesn’t land in the rotation? I think he needs to go to Lehigh and work on his stuff as opposed to coming out of the bullpen, where he has just one meaningless relief appearance in his career.

The Phillies cannot go into the season with a shaky 5th starter. Carrasco just needs seasoning. Kendrick needs more than that. No one counts on a 5th starter for much more than 12 wins or so, but does anyone feel reasonably comfortable at this point that Kendrick could pull that off? I don’t.

**************************************

I picked up a copy today of the Phillies 2009 Annual at my local Barnes & Noble. It’s well worth the $12.99 asking …

Todd Zolecki has an article up on phillies.com highlighting Ryan Howard’s leaner build and encouraging spring thus far:

Howard is hitting .267 (4-for-14) with three homers and seven RBIs this spring.

“Howard is following the ball good right now,” Manuel said. “He’s taking some pitches and he’s getting good balls to hit. He’s staying in the middle of the field, and of course, he’s hitting some balls out to left field. That’s a good sign.”

Howard is a notoriously slow starter in the regular season, a .230 hitter in April compared to his .279 overall career average, but he appears relaxed at the plate in the early going of the Grapefruit League schedule.

Good stuff, right?

Well, maybe. Howard started the 2008 spring training in good shape also, based on some deep digging on Beerleaguer around the same point last year:

The big man has connected for seven hits in 16 at bats (.438) and tallied 13 total bases – with just three strikeouts.

According to Zolecki, Howard doesn’t attribute his cool approach to his new 3 year, $54 million contract. But I definitely wonder to what extent Howard has been able to leave his contract status at the locker room door and focus fully on getting more athletic, more competent at first and better prepared to start the season on a positive note.

How can Howard not be in a better place mentally after he signed his deal? I certainly don’t expect him to admit it to the …

I’ve been tied up for the last couple of days with too much “real” work. So, what’s been going on with the Local 9?

1. Kyle Kendrick looked like he has no business being in the Phillies starting rotation, and was then publicly chastised for his histrionics on the mound by Rich Dubee.
2. Jimmy Rollins helped with Letterman’s Top 10.
3. Chan Ho Park is try to save Korea’s state of mind with his pitching.
4. The Phils dropped 2 games yesterday to the Blue Jays.
5. Brett Myers pitched and got hit around pretty good, although in fairness to him, he was focused on trying to improve on a changeup that he used infrequently last year.
6. Phils fans threatened to beat up Geoff Geary’s fiancee in 2007? Really? It must have been during that stretch from May to August when he rocked a robust 8.17 ERA and a opponent’s BA of .339. Yikes.
7. Phillies Nation is getting close to their Top 20 Phillies of All-Time.
8. The Fightins reported on an interview that Howard Stern did with porn star Sophia Rossi, who dished on dating Pat Burrell back when he was “immature”. As a Sirius subscriber and Stern devotee, I had heard this earlier in the day, and figure that if anyone was going to follow up with a good post on it, it was The Fightins. They never disappoint.
9. Marcus Giles says he is not interested in a utility …