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Today’s very early guess on who starts the year with the Phillies. Barring new injuries, I think we can count on these 12 hitters:

Notable no-shows on that list include Ryan Howard, still recovering, Domonic Brown and Michael Martinez.

Assuming you don’t count Wigginton, there are just four outfielders on that list including one, Nix, who can never, ever be used against lefties. On a related note, I have some trouble buying completely into the idea that Wigginton is the nearly every day first baseman while Howard is out. If Thome can play first at all (he probably can’t) he’s clearly the better choice. I think Mayberry is a better choice offensively as well, but to give him much time at first the Phils are going to need someone who can man left field against left-handed pitching. Maybe someone like Ben Francisco? Oh, wait.

I see one or two hitting spots as open, depending on how many pitchers the Phils decide to carry. I think one of them is filled by a fifth outfielder, either Domonic Brown or someone not currently on the roster who hits right-handed.

I think these 12 pitchers are likely to start the year with the Phils:

That assumes Contreras is healthy enough to start the year, of course, which is far from a sure thing. After Contreras, Stutes and Herndon seem like the two pitchers with the least solid hold on their slot. Brian Sanches, Phillippe Aumont and Justin De Fratus seem like the most likely candidates to squeeze past them or take Contreras’s spot if he’s not ready to go.

I have trouble seeing the Phils carrying more than two lefties out of the pen to start 2012. Unless Bastardo or Willis get hurt, or are consistently and resoundingly awful in spring training, I’d be surprised to see Joe Savery or Jake Diekman start the year with the Phils.

Joe Blanton says he’s feeling and throwing well. If he’s healthy he seems like a lock for the rotation. If he’s not I’d guess Kendrick takes his turns in the rotation, barring a big effort in the spring from NRIs Dave Bush and Joel Pineiro.

If the Phillies went with 14 hitters to start the year, my guess would be that Stutes and Herndon would be fighting for the eleventh pitching slot, advantage Stutes.

Cesar Hernandez was fifth on MLB.com’s list of the top ten second base prospects. Sebastian Valle ninth on the list of catching prospects.

Thome says that Spring Training will be the true test for his back in terms of when and how often he might be able to place defensively at first this year. I’m going to be surprised if we see much at all of Thome at first in 2012.

This says the Phillies are one of four teams still in the mix to land Francisco Cordero.

Update: Wilson Valdez was traded to the Reds for 26-year-old left-handed reliever Jeremy Horst.

Trying to guess who the Phillies might have playing third base next year is kinda fun, but what kind of year the Phils have in 2010 is going to have a lot more to do with what they can do to improve their pitching this off-season.

In 2009 the Phillies used 22 pitchers. They combined to throw 1,455 2/3 innings and allow 709 runs.

Ten of the 22 pitchers that the Phillies used had a percentage of the team’s 1,455 2/3 innings that they threw that was higher than their percentage of the team’s 709 runs that they allowed.

They are in the chart below. For each of the ten there are columns for the percentage of the team’s innings that they pitched, the percentage of the team’s runs that they allowed, the percentage of the runs allowed over the percentage of the innings pitched and the rank of that column compared to the other players in this group. The list is ordered by the number of innings that the player threw for the Phils in 2009.

So, for example, Joe Blanton threw about 13.4% of the Phillies innings this season and allowed about 12.6% of the runs. 12.6 over 13.4 is 0.94, which is tenth best among the ten players who allowed a percentage of runs that was lower than the percentage of innings they pitched.

Please note that the rounding of the two percentage columns makes the math look wrong. For example, Eyre’s row shows 2.1 and 0.8, but .8 over 2.1 equals about 0.38 and not 0.41 — that’s cause the numbers are really 2.061 and 0.846 and not 2.1 and .8.

When you look at the difference between the percentage of the runs allowed and percentage of innings pitched it’s important to take into account the number of innings pitched. Eyre had the most dramatic difference between the two numbers, but Blanton was a lot more important to the team despite the worse difference since he threw more than six times as many innings as Eyre.

There were 12 pitchers for the Phils this year who allowed a percentage of the team’s runs that was higher than the percentage of the teams’ innings that pitcher threw. Here are the 12, using the same categories as above (the ranking continues from where the top list left off):

Again, the number of innings that the pitcher threw is critical. Andrew Carpenter was miserable compared to the rest of the group, but he only threw 5 2/3 innings. Guys who threw more innings, like Lidge and Moyer especially, obviously hurt the Phils more.

Article here about what some Phillies prospects have been doing in the AFL and winter leagues. If you don’t know who Sebastian Valle is it might be time to find out.

It sure seems like there’s a big opportunity for Mayberry these days. He’s hitting 314/390/521 in Mexico with seven home runs in 121 at-bats. It wasn’t a great year from him at Triple-A, but it’s nice to see him taking more walks in 2009 than he did in ’08 or ’07 — take a look at his minor league numbers.