Regardless, Utley took some hacks in the cage today, but apparently wasn't available for reporters. When asked about the likelihood of Utley starting the season on the DL, Ruben Amaro replied: "I would think so. I haven't seen him on the field yet and we're a week away."
Using my handy-dandy Ruben Amaro To English translator, that's a sure thing.
Still, no reason to panic.
As I've been telling friends recently, 97 games is still my prediction for the W column.Why? As Phillies Nation originally pointed out, take a look at the 2011 WAR projections from Fangraphs...
WAR, for those who don't know, stands for Wins Above Replacement. What it means is that in 2011, Jayson Werth is expected to be worth 4.2 more wins over the course of a season than a minor league replacement level player would be. Replacement level players are those who are worth 0 wins. Oddly enough, there are guys in the majors who are actually worth negative wins for their team. The Phillies have employed more than a handful...
Simply put, a full season of Roy Oswalt and Cliff Lee is more than enough to balance out the loss of those they respectively replaced, Jayson Werth and half a season of Chase Utley. In fact, an even trade of the 4 positions yeilds the Phillies a 3 game improvement over last season.Since there are no predictions for Jamie Moyer or John Mayberry, I just used their 2010 numbers. For the new RF position, I simply averaged their collective WAR. For my prediction of 97 wins, I'm giving the rest of the team a 3.5 win downward curve (while at the same time I think guys like Ryan Howard and Jimmy Rollins are going to have better seasons than their 2010).
It's quick and dirty math and they're all optimistic figures of course, but what's wrong with a little optimism with the first game still more than a week away?
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