The 2011 Phillies at the Trade Deadline

Hunter Pence. It’s going to take the rest of the sea­son for me to decide how he improves this team. I know peo­ple are excit­ed, but I think there are oth­er issues, notably the pres­ences of Wil­son Valdez and Ben Fran­cis­co, who have late­ly become sur­plus to require­ments. Remov­ing Dom Brown from the every­day line­up does­n’t improve the Phillies chances come post­sea­son play.

I still think the Phillies match up well against any team they could face in the play­offs, but I hate to think that banged up vet­er­ans like Polan­co or Ibanez could come up short when it mat­ters most.