Reality Check

The signing of Cliff Lee is undeniably awesome. I doubt any city (or person, as in, um, myself) has ever had such an intense, whirlwind love affair with a particular professional athlete—been so heartbroken to see him go and overjoyed at the Christmas miracle of his return. Of course it's great. But in the midst of all the kissing and making up and making out that's been going on, a few of the less heartwarming points have been left out of the picture. As great as it is to have Mr. Lee back home in Philly, his addition doesn't exactly fill any holes in the Phillies' roster. With three aces, we don't really need a fourth. What we were missing was the right-handed power bat of Cliff's bitter buddy Jayson Werth (U MAD).

Like I said, I don't particularly care to wade through the depths of obscure statistics and look up each dude's VORP or whatever else might be relevant to this comparison. But what I do find troubling is Ruben Amaro Jr.'s assertion, at Tuesday's press conference, that starting pitching is what wins championships.

Anyone who watched the Phillies battle the Giants in this year's NLCS and who is familiar with one "rodeo clown Cody Ross" knows that starting pitching did not win those games. Starting pitching on either side was mediocre at best. Doc's second outing only seemed to live up to his legend once we realized he was playing hurt, and the Giant's Snivellus Snape didn't work all that much of his dark magic.

What won a championship for SF was a couple of bearded bullpen creeps and inexplicably hot bats.

Who knows how this will all actually play out, but it does beg a few questions. Will some combination of Dom Brown/Ben Francisco/Ross Gload make up for the loss of Jayson Werth? I wouldn't screenprint too many of those "R2C2" novelty t-shirts; I'm not completely convinced either Roy Oswalt or Cole Hamels is here to stay.