The Sound of Philly

Despite the Phillies losing to the Yankees in this year’s World Series, this season was another excellent campaign. A lot has been made of where the team needs to improve, and some points are more valid than others.

The bullpen, which was the team’s strong suit in ‘08 definitely had a lot of holes this year. Most obviously, Brad Lidge went from being perfect to being historically bad. Additionally, the bench wasn’t very deep (umm, Eric Bruntlett) and third base was an issue, or at least you can take it that way by the Phillies not picking up Pedro Feliz’s option for 2010. Although Feliz is an excellent defender, it’s apparent that the Phillies want someone that is skilled with both the glove and bat.

Knowing that the team needs to make improvements to get back to the World Series, I asked my Twitter followers what one player they’d add for 2010. I got some predictable answers (“Cole Hamels from 2008″), but some of the responses were interesting. Chone Figgins would be a definite upgrade at third, and as well, could even become our new leadoff guy.

Many teams are in the mix for Roy Halladay, and while I’d love to have him on the Phillies, is he worth giving up proven talent like J.A. Happ or top-flight prospects like Domonic Brown and Kyle Drabek? In this case I would say no, but it’s a point that can be debated for hours.

Ryan, who runs Fire Ruben Amaro suggested Joakim Soria, which intrigued me enough to ask more about it. Here’s what he had to say:

“The Phillies need relief pitching, badly. Lidge had a historically terrible season for a relief pitcher last year, and though he may recover it is certainly no guarantee. Eyre is looking less and less likely to return, Romero was wild as hell before going on the DL, and the rest of the bullpen was filled out by guys like Tyler Walker, Chad Durbin, Taschner, etc. In my book, Madson is the only 100% reliable reliever right now. We need another. Soria has been putting up amazing numbers in the AL, in particular the numbers that best predict future performance: K/9 (11.72), BB/9 (2.72), and HR/9 (0.85). Coming over to the NL would only make those better.

The problem is, I don’t think he’ll be on the table. He’s only 26, and he’s under contract cheaply until 2011, with options for 2012 through 2014 that also aren’t a bad deal. Unless the Royals are in extreme cost-cutting mode I don’t see any reason why they’d move him. And if they were, it’d probably take something like Taylor + May + Valle or something. I would even say that would be worth it, it’s just unlikely the Royals are even going to hear offers for Soria to begin with. So I guess my off the cuff answer was not really viable.”

It’s probably not a viable answer, but it’s this type of out-of-the-box thinking that makes front office careers and builds World Series-caliber teams.

Soria would look great in a Phillies uniform.