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 WHIP from that point on.

Moving Happ to the rotation and Park to the ‘pen makes sense. If Taschner can provide some adequate situational pitching to spell Scott Eyre, this trade may be looked at eventually as more than the passing footnote it currently is for the casual Phillies fan.

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Phillies Nation completed their list of the 100 Greatest Phillies of All-Time. They have a handy page that gives easy navigation through the whole list. While I disagreed on some of the picks – Pete Rose was too low in my opinion at 54 and Bobby Abreu too high at Number 10 – the list overall was well done and clearly the result of a ton of research. Kudos to Tim for making it happen.

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Can Eric Bruntlett continue his hot hitting into the regular season? He hit .217 last year, but is mashing the ball right now in the Grapefruit League with a gaudy .350 average. I’d be thrilled if he met .217 and .350 in the middle.

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Beerleaguer catches up with Jayson Stark to get his take on the 2008 Phillies, a subject the ESPN writer has chronicled in a new book, Worth The Wait: Tales of the 2008 Phillies

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The Fightins has video of the Phils broadcast team mimicking Chris Wheeler’s silent freakout after the Phils won it all. If it wasn’t for meech.one and company, I would never see some of this stuff. Love it.