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Phillies manager Charlie Manuel said he plans to keep Pat Burrell in the fifth spot in the order at the beginning of the spring. The club still doesn't want to flip Chase Utley and Ryan Howard around, so Burrell is the best choice on the roster to hit behind Howard. If he gets off to a slow start, Manuel could move him down in the order and give Wes Helms ( ) a try.

I remember looking at Howard's stats on my league update page end of last year. His stats were usually something like this: 4BB, 1HR, 2 RBI, 1 Run. When Howard is getting on base 5 times a game and scoring only once--when he drives himself in, that is some kind of problem. I have no sympathy for them getting snubbed on the playoffs again.



To put it another way, he had 58 homeruns and 104 Runs. He drove himself in more than half the time. That has to be some kind of reecord, particularly for a guy who had 232 non-homerun hits and walks. Not even counting sacrifices, hit by pitches, etc. he scored 46 times in 232 opportunities (19.8%). By way of comparison, Pujols scored 70 timess in 220 chances (31.8%). That's like the difference between a batting average .198 vs. .318.

I feel like the Phillies are a 5th hitter away from being a legitimate World Series contender. I thought A-ram would have been perfect (no disrespect to Helms ). As a proud Howard owner last season, that scoring line from Bjoak, was all too familar. My feeling is that, there most not have been any market for Burrell. They still have a starting pitcher to deal (Lieber), so maybe once spring training rolls around something will happen.

Burrell is what he is a 6th hitter who will murder mediocre pitching- Gillick has not been able to work the contract magic with him like he did with Thome and Abreu (although this offseason may cause a few people to rethink Abreu).



A right handed bat in right field makes all the sense in the world.



[ January 24, 2007, 02:05 PM: Message edited by: Chest Rockwell ]

Originally posted by Joe Sambito:

I feel like the Phillies are a 5th hitter away from being a legitimate World Series contender. I thought A-ram would have been perfect (no disrespect to Helms ). As a proud Howard owner last season, that scoring line from Bjoak, was all too familar. My feeling is that, there most not have been any market for Burrell. They still have a starting pitcher to deal (Lieber), so maybe once spring training rolls around something will happen. Teams move a lot of people during spring training, but I am not sure how many teams have guys who can hit in the five-hole that they would want to give up. Houston and Ensberg, maybe? They could use the arm (Lieber).



Jenkins could be had for a song and USED to be something of a number five hitter, but I am not sure he would be an upgrade and I do not think Milwaukee would have any use for Burrell (and after signing Suppan, probably not Lieber either).



Tough one.