I don’t feel bad about left. R2D2 would be an improvement over Ibanez, so this is certainly addition by subtraction even if Mayberry & friends have an average year.

2013 will see a new face a third base; of that we can be sure. It may even see Mayberry in center, a productive Brown in left, and Victorino traded for infield/catching depth. Who knows? I can’t get worked up on so many individual performances when I see the total team result.

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I think it was Larry Bowa that said that in any season, you are guaranteed to win 50 games and lose 50 games. It’s what you do with the other 62 that matter. The 2011 Phils were 52-10 in those games. The manner of victory may not have been what we are accustomed to, but it’s really frikken hard to improve those results. Entire seasons go by with no 100-win team; the 2010 Phils were tops in the majors at 98? (97?)

Certainly, looking past 2012, we’re seeing that core pieces of the 2008 championship team are going to need replacing. I don’t think 2012 itself will present much of a concern. And drawing conclusions off a 5-game playoff series in which we outscored the opponent and lost is just not possible.

The thing is, there is a real possibility that this is going to be a more general trend. Jimmy has been going down. Utley has been going down. Howard, even healthy, has been going down. That does not make them bad because they were once the most feared at their positions in the game, and they may bounce back. But if they do, that will mean bending the curve the other direction. If they don’t, the the Fish look better, 1 through 4, than the Phillies.

Remember last winter when we were all talking about having four 20 game winners? The question is, Why didn’t we have three? Why only one, and barely at that? Especially when every other team in our division was gutted by injuries. I am not “wowed” by the number of wins we had last year; given our pitching, why weren’t there more?

I think the answer is the lineup. The lineup that folded at the end of the regular season. And for the 3rd year in a row, the post season.

I just wanted Amaro to make the line up better. He didn’t. Maybe all of the guys who have been down bend the curve the other direction, but that is an awfully large maybe. Hunter Pence isn’t good enough to make up for the individual curves continuing to bend down.

His power was down, curiously especially against lefties. He didn’t hit a home run against lefties in all of 2011 and slugged just .337 against them.

He was undeniably miserable in the post-season elimination series against both the Cards and the Giants, going 4-for-35 with a 114/225/200 line in those two sets combined. That’s obviously a tiny number of chances and I’m not sure there’s much you can do about it.

I do hope we see his power return some in 2012. Using isolated power as the measure, among the 29 NL players with at least 150 plate appearances as a catcher, his isolated power in 2009 was 7th best. In 2010 he was 12th of 26. Last year he was 19 of 27.

Even if he isn’t, replacing Ibanez in left gives them a big opportunity to create offense.

Domonic Brown is still a guy with huge offensive potential.

I’m excited to see what they do with Thome and how often, if ever, he gets on the field defensively at first. The Phils also play nine DH games before June 18 this year.