Talking with the Enemy: Off-Season Cheesesteak Edition

I continue my off-season infiltration around the NL East with a stop in the City of Brotherly Love and Toxic Contempt for Anyone Who Underperforms in Professional Sports... or Philadelphia. Peter Baker of The Good Phight was nice enough to trade five questions with me about our respective teams. Here are his answers to my questions about the Phitin' Phils.

Q. If you are unable to resign Aaron Roward, and with the departure of Michael Bourn, do you wish the Phillies had signed Andruw Jones to play center field?

A. No, but they should have, especially for the deal he got from the Dodgers. Jones is still just 31, even though he's been around forever, and is much more likely to give you value for the contract than Hunter and Rowand, in all likelihood.

Q. Was Jimmy Rollins the MVP of the 2007 Phillies? Some people, including me, thought that Chase Utley was more important than Rollins.

A. You're absolutely correct, and but for that errant inside fastball in July, Utley should have been the hands-down winner. An elite offensive force who plays an excellent second base -- seems like a no-brainer. Rollins might have been the fourth or fifth best hitter on his own team, and while you need to take into account positional difficulty, and while Rollins is a terrific player, he was not the MVP of the team, much less the league. Still, I'm glad he's on our team! He's an easy guy to root for.

Q. What are your biggest needs this off-season?

A. First and foremost, what else? Pitching. The Phillies will always be handicapped in their efforts to recruit quality pitching due to the legends and the reality surrounding Citizens' Bank Park and its homer-licious tendencies, so they need to be both very creative on the trade market, and work on developing talent from within. I'm all in favor of emptying the farm for Erik Bedard, to be honest. This team should be in "win now" mode. In addition to pitching, the team needs a solution at third base, which has been an offensive black hole since the Scott Rolen trade in 2002. David Bell, Wes Helms, Abraham Nunez, etc. etc.  Ugh.

Q. I saw on your MDT you listed Smoltz, Chipper and Francoeur. Why the hate, man?

A. With Smoltz and Chipper, you have to consider that the Phillies and their fans spent over a decade breathing the Atlanta Braves' exhaust in the standings, and so we developed a healthy amount of distaste for those teams and the players, especially stalwarts Smoltz and Chipper, who in addition to being excellent players have been on the team forever. With Francoeur, and I was fairly candid about this in the piece I wrote, it's completely irrational. Maybe the origin was the 2005 season, when there was a Rookie of the Year "debate" going on between Francoeur and Ryan Howard, and I was obviously pulling for Howard.

Q. Does Philly have the right environment to sign a big name free agent?

A. This is a pretty good question, and the fans discuss it amongst themselves quite often. It's a tough place to play, especially if you're a pitcher these days, and it took someone like Golden Boy Jim Thome to come in and steal the town's heart. One wrong word to the press, dogging it on one groundball, etc., and you're pretty much cooked with the fans. I think the local media contributes disproportionately to the toxic atmosphere -- when your manager feels a need to pick a fight with a radio host, there's something amiss. On the other hand, I think good players should want to come here; there's a terrific core of elite talent (Howard, Utley, Rollins, Hamels), and whichever professional sports team brings this city its first championship in 25 years will be worshipped forever.