Kuzul

Ordinarily, you could answer a question like this via simple process of elimination. What do you already have? Once you know that, you know what you need.

Except, with this Phillies team, the answer to the primary question is a bit troubling.

The Phillies have a young, dynamic center fielder in Ben Revere. After that? You tell me.

Maybe you can say they have a young left fielder with some upside left in Domonic Brown. But after tearing it up at spring training, Brown is back to his old underwhelming self, hitting .240 in the early going, or just a few ticks above his career average.

Beyond Revere and Brown, the Phillies do not have an everyday player younger than 30 years of age.

If the Phillies were a dynasty league fantasy team, its owner would making three-for-one and four-for-one trades for keepers and playing for next year.

Good luck to the Phillies there, though. Only in fantasyland would Ryan Howard be tradeable with three seasons and $85 million left on his deal while hitting .245 and slugging .377 thus far this season.

Perhaps the only really good news for the Phillies as far as the upcoming Major League Baseball draft is concerned is that, with so many players (Roy Halladay, Carlos Ruiz, Chase Utley, Michael Young) reaching the end of their contracts, major league spots will become available for some of the talent in the system.

When that happens, minor league spots open up for the Phillies’ new draftees—one of whom figures to be the 16th overall pick.

As such, it bears considering what the Phillies already have in the minor leagues by way of players that might be ready to play for the big club sooner than later.

From a raw-skills perspective, catcher Tommy Joseph and shortstop Roman Quinn may be the most ready to make the leap in the short term.

Quinn is blocked next season by incumbent Jimmy Rollins…in theory. In fact, Rollins might be willing to accept a trade to a contender rather than sit through a rebuild.

Quinn has six errors in 11 games at Single-A Lakewood thus far in 2013, though, so it would probably behoove both the Phillies and Quinn for Rollins to play out his contract in Philadelphia. Regardless, the Phillies do not need to spend this first-round pick on a shortstop.

Joseph is off to his own slow start at AAA Lehigh Valley, but with Ruiz likely to be gone after this season the 2014 job seems like it is Joseph’s to lose. And Sebastian Valle is in the wings behind Joseph. Catcher is another position where this pick makes no sense.

Third base prospects Cody Asche (Lehigh Valley) and Maikel Franco (Single-A Clearwater) look to be the future at that position. Asche, particularly, is really struggling at Lehigh Valley—he is hitting under .200 in the early going—but he will have all year to sort things out while Michael Young plays for a new contract.

With Utley likely leaving after his deal expires, second base will be open. But Freddy Galvis could slot quickly and cheaply there, and he is still a very young player.

We already addressed the ugly logjam at first base.

At least for a couple of seasons, the Phillies’ starting pitching situation seems largely settled. Cole Hamels and Cliff Lee will be anchoring the staff for the next two seasons (at least).

Help is on the way from the minors, as highly regarded prospects Jonathan Pettibone, Ethan Martin and Adam Morgan have all risen to Lehigh Valley.

And the best arm in the system, Jesse Biddle, is already at AA Reading.

So with all of that said, it seems process of elimination will work just fine after all. The Phillies have reasonable plans for every position on the diamond except for the corners in the outfield.

The Darin Ruf left field experiment failed miserably in Clearwater, and as of this writing, he is hitting .279 at Lehigh Valley. With no home runs.

The Phillies should spend their first-round pick in the upcoming draft on a corner outfielder. Preferably one who can hit for power and average.

Whether one of those players will still be on the board at No. 16 remains to be seen.

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Roy Halladay’s 2013 spring training performance has been just shy of disastrous.

Halladay was cuffed around again in his most recent trip to the mound, a four-inning, 81-pitch seven-hit slog against a lineup comprised of Triple-A hitters, per Jayson Stark of ESPN.com.

How bad was it? He only retired seven out of 18 batters. One of the innings was halted by Philadelphia Phillies pitching coach Rich Dubee with the bases loaded and two out—presumably because the Phillies did not want Halladay rearing back to get out of the exhibition jam only to hurt himself for real.

Take a minute and think about how desolate things have become for Halladay when his corner man has to temporarily stop the fight against a Triple-A lineup.

This was hardly the step forward Halladay or the Phillies were hoping for, following consecutive appearances that saw Halladay touched up by the Detroit Tigers and then removed after one inning against the Baltimore Orioles complaining of a stomach virus.

Spring training statistics are meaningless, but spring training radar-gun readings? They do not lie.

Halladay himself conceded Saturday, for the first time meaningfully and honestly, that he will have to pitch for the foreseeable future (perhaps until he is done) with a diminished arsenal.

Halladay’s candor is admirable, though there probably was no point in denying the obvious.

Per Todd Zolecki of MLB.com, Halladay rarely touched 90 mph with any of his pitches. Perhaps the most disconcerting part of that reality is that Halladay said after the game that he feels great.

“My goal today going in was to feel good, be strong all the way through, to feel like my arm slot was repeating, and I felt like that was there,” said Halladay.

The Phillies would probably rather have heard that Halladay was “still building arm strength” or even that he “is still not 100 percent back.” At least that would have given some hope that the Cy Young version of Halladay is in there somewhere.

But if Halladay feels great and cannot hit 90 on the gun with his fastball, what next?

Stark’s blog piece (even more cautionary than the overview story he filed) included some four-alarm-bell quotes from Halladay.

“I don’t know of any guys throwing harder as they got older,” Halladay said. “A lot of the guys I’ve played with, I’ve watched…I’ve watched (other older pitchers) evolve and do different things. I’ve never seen a guy that threw harder as he got older.”

So Halladay is going to become Greg Maddux now?

The curious part of Saturday’s debacle and Thursday’s upcoming “final tuneup” for Halladay before he faces the Atlanta Braves in a game that counts is the opponent.

The Triple-A outfit that handed Halladay his head Saturday belonged to the Toronto Blue Jays.

Halladay will face the Blue Jays’ major leaguers (some of them, anyway) on Thursday.

Baseball is a funny game. Half a generation ago, Halladay was throwing seeds and BBs for the Blue Jays, winning two Cy Young awards for them in 12 years but never sniffing postseason play.

Halladay accepted a trade to the Phillies for the 2010 season and signed a contract extension with them because he figured it was an E-ZPass lane to the playoffs.

“It was an easy decision for me. Once the opportunity came up for me to be part of this, it was something I couldn’t pass up,” Halladay said at the time (per ESPN.com).

Look at the picture three scant years later.

The Phillies are coming off an 81-81 season and are solid favorites in the National League East…for third place.

Halladay is struggling mightily.

Conversely, the Blue Jays are favored to win the American League East and maybe even the World Series (per Bovada).

And in a few days, in an otherwise mundane preseason game, the Blue Jays have a chance to put another blemish on Halladay’s hope of finding what he has lost.

When Blue Jays general manager Alex Anthopoulos traded Halladay, he tacitly admitted that by the time his team would be ready to contend, Halladay would probably not be “that pitcher” anymore.

Quickly, the Phillies and the Blue Jays are finding out how prescient he was.

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If it became a movie, Cliff Lee‘s Philadelphia story would be a romantic comedy with scenes of brilliant light and unbearable darkness.

The first time the Phillies dealt for Lee, in 2009, the deal was viewed as “adding another top starter to join Cole Hamels,” per ESPN.com.

No one could have known, though, that it would be Lee and not Hamels who would be the unhittable one in the 2009 playoffs.

In five postseason starts, Lee went 4-0 in 40.1 innings pitched. He gave up seven earned runs in that entire postseason.

So, naturally, the Phillies did what any sensible club would do with a pitcher who had done what Lee just did.

They traded him to Seattle.

History has proven this trade to be as dumb as it seemed at the time. None of the pieces the Phillies received in return (right-hander Phillippe Aumont, outfielder Tyson Gillies and right-hander Juan Ramirez) have the look of big-time major league contributors.

In fact, only Aumont seems to have a future in the big leagues at all.

The Phillies righted the wrong by signing Lee to a long-term contract in December 2010.

When the Phillies signed Cliff Lee to that five-year, $120 million deal, the prevailing narrative was that the fans never wanted Lee to leave Philadelphia in the first place. 

At Lee’s December 2010 press conference announcing his return to Philadelphia, Lee said things that Phillies fans always wanted to hear. 

“I don’t know what the fans do to create that much more volume and excitement in the stadium, but it’s definitely something extra here,” Lee said. “They’re passionate fans. They understand what’s going on. They don’t need a teleprompter to tell them to get up and cheer.”

It was a feel-good story and a feel-good time for both Lee and the Phillies.

Since that day, though, the good times have been fewer and further between.

Lee’s fingerprints were all over the Phillies’ loss in the 2011 National League Division Series to the St. Louis Cardinals.

Staked to a four-run lead in Game 2 with his team already leading the best-of-five series 1-0, Lee gave it all back and the Phillies’ stranglehold on the series was gone.

It never returned.

And then last season, Lee posted his first losing record (6-9) since going 5-8 in 20 starts for the 2007 Cleveland Indians.

All of the peripheral numbers were fine. Lee’s earned run average of 3.16 was easily among the top 10 in the National League. He struck out 207 hitters in 211 innings. His WHIP was 1.11.

Which leads, ultimately, to the moral of the story.

One way or another, Lee accepted a discounted rate to sign his one-time-only mega-free-agent deal with the Phillies.

Only two years of the five guaranteed are gone, and in that short time, the Phillies have gone from perennial favorite in the National League East to the division’s consensus third-place team behind the Washington Nationals and the Atlanta Braves.

And if the 2013 Phillies cannot improve on last season’s 81-81 and get back to the postseason, significant personnel changes are very likely.

In fact, even if the Phillies do find their way back into the October championship tournament, the likes of Roy Halladay, Chase Utley, Carlos Ruiz and Michael Young (all on expiring contracts) are probably going to leave.

Which brings us to the big question.

If Cliff Lee knew in December 2010 what he knows now, would he have come back to Philadelphia?

And if he had the chance to leave now, would he?

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Straight up front, please save your “it’s only one game!” remonstrations. Of course it’s only one game, and of course it’s only the preseason.

Know how you know that preseason results are meaningless? The Philadelphia Eagles went 4-0 in the preseason in 2012. And you know how that turned out.

So, yeah, right, it’s ridiculous to take anything away from a preseason game in February (even one against the terrible Houston Astros) where Jimmy Rollins sat and Cole Hamels left after two strong innings. You’re right.

Yeah, but still.

If you wanted to look for concerns following the ugly 8-3 loss to the Astros, the box score is rife with them.

Consider:

—Golden boy prospect Darin Ruf went 0-for-3, but his error on a routine single that put runners on second and third (rather than first and second) was more troubling than his inability to get a hit.

The double play was no longer in order, two runners were in scoring position, and perhaps predictably the chorus of concerned citizens who think Ruf might not be able to play left field in the major leagues now have an early warning sign to point to.

—The Phillies had eight hits, and only two were for extra bases. Pete Orr’s home run was nice, but like so many Phillie home runs in 2012, it was a solo shot. Ruf, Michael Young and Ryan Howard went 0-for-9. Howard, in midseason form, struck out twice.

So, um, about that power surge in 2013…

—The Phillies had four errors. Michael Martinez’s gaffe is a non-concern since he has little-to-no shot to make the team. But Ruf‘s error is not an encouraging development.

And the other two errors were made by Ben Revere, a supposed defensive upgrade in center field, and Erik Kratz, who is supposed to be the starter at catcher for most of April while Carlos Ruiz serves out his 25-game suspension.

—The Phillies’ middle relievers got slapped around again. B.J. Rosenberg, Jeremy Horst and Justin De Fratus surrendered five earned runs on 10 hits and three walks in five innings against a pretty lousy offensive team.

Mike Adams had better be really good.

Again, right, it’s just one game. The Phillies have over a month in Florida to sort it all out.

From the looks of things, though, they’ll need to use all of it.

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Pitching prospects will not decide the Philadelphia Phillies‘ fate in 2013.

If Roy Halladay, Cliff Lee, Cole Hamels and Jonathan Papelbon do not perform as expected, the Phillies have virtually no chance to contend.

But the emergence of a young arm or three could mean the difference between just contending and a return to the playoffs.

Antonio Bastardo was a question mark coming into the 2011 season. He made 64 appearances, posted a gaudy 6-1 record with a WHIP under one and an ERA of 2.54. Bastardo‘s performance was a huge factor in the Phillies’ fifth consecutive National League East crown that year.

So while you have likely heard of the following pitchers, none is as of yet an established member of the Phillies’ staff for 2013.

By the season’s end, though, any one of them might become a key contributor.

As indicated above, the first three slots in the starting rotation are locked down, and Kyle Kendrick would basically have to implode in Clearwater, Fla. not to be the fourth starter. The fifth spot in the rotation, though, is an open position.

Pressed into service due to Cole Hamels’ sudden illness last season, Tyler Cloyd ended up making six starts, winning twice and losing twice.

Cloyd‘s sample size at the major league level is thus limited, but the 30 strikeouts against just seven walks were certainly encouraging.

Cloyd and former Washington National John Lannan are likely to battle for the fifth spot in the rotation and may end up sharing it in 2013.

As per Todd Zolecki of MLB.com, there is just not much room for young players in the Phillies’ bullpen. 

“Papelbon, Mike Adams, Antonio Bastardo and Chad Durbin are locks, which leaves a good group of talented pitchers fighting for three spots,” Zolecki correctly noted.

Zolecki‘s piece profiles Jake Diekman, who is definitely one to watch in camp. 

Diekman combined two very good months with two bad months, leading to pedestrian numbers for 2012.

Here were Diekman‘s earned run averages per month for May, June, July and September (he did not pitch in August): 5.68, 2.08, 7.11, 1.80.

Diekman will need to show the Phillies much more consistency to make the team out of spring training given the addition of Adams and the presumed health of Bastardo.

Another young left-handed reliever worth a look is Jeremy Horst.

Horst’s 2012 was a revelation for the Phillies, who can use all the good left-handed relief pitching they can find.

Horst’s numbers in 2012 were high-quality, though the sample size was limited. In 31.1 innings, Horst struck out 40 batters. His earned run average (1.15) and walks and hits per innings pitched (1.12) were outstanding.

From the right side, the relief pitcher who most bears monitoring is Philippe Aumont.

Aumont made 18 appearances for the Phillies in 2012, even saving two games along the way. His 3.68 earned run average and his 1.295 walks and hits per innings pitched were reasonably competent.

Unfortunately, Aumont also walked nine batters in his 14.2 innings, muting some of the effect of his 14 strikeouts in that same amount of work.

Again, the Phillies’ chances to return to the playoffs hinge in the main on the performances of Hamels, Lee, Halladay and Papelbon. Those four pitchers will earn over $77 million in 2013.

But some cheap, young help would be welcomed enthusiastically.

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The Philadelphia Phillies’ failure to sign B.J. Upton and Dan Haren in free agency may ultimately doom their 2013 playoff hopes.

It is not only that the Phillies will be without the benefits of those players’ services. It is that their division rivals, the Atlanta Braves and the Washington Nationals, ended up with them.

Upton would have provided the Phillies with both a credible right-handed power threat and above-average defense in center field.

For the past decade, Philadelphia has had center field manned by excellent defensive players who could also hit. First Aaron Rowand and then Shane Victorino provided serious production from a position where good defenders who contribute offensively have traditionally been scarce.

The Phillies did plug the gaping hole Victorino left in center field by acquiring Ben Revere. This was not an altogether insufficient move. Revere is a terrific defensive outfielder with more than enough foot speed to play center field at Citizens Bank Park. And he projects to steal plenty of bases, too.

Unfortunately, his next major league home run will be his first, and as of this writing the Phillies are still not exactly sure where Revere should hit in the order.

Revere is a prototypical lead-off hitter. but Jimmy Rollins—who has led off for Philadelphia since before they began winning those five straight division titles—has resisted moving down in the order for anyone. Revere could end up hitting second or eighth as a result.

Acquiring B.J. Upton would have defused this issue. Upton would have slotted nicely into any number of slots in the lineup, from second to fifth to sixth on occasion.

Upton piles up three things: home runs, stolen bases and strikeouts (1,020 of them in 3,568 at-bats). His .256 career batting average compiled over seven seasons suggests that he is what he is and that potential is no longer a real consideration.

Just know that the Phillies would have lived with the empty at-bats from Upton given what the good at-bats could bring.

In 2013, the Revere acquisition will rise and fall on whether Rollins, Chase Utley and Ryan Howard have one last healthy, productive campaign in them collectively. Revere can be counted on to score runs but he should not be expected to create them.

It is fair to ask why it says here that the Phillies missed an opportunity by seeing Dan Haren go to the Washington Nationals.

The Phillies are already paying over $20 million apiece to Cole Hamels, Cliff Lee and Roy Halladay in 2013. At some point, the spending on starting pitchers had to stop, right?

Maybe. But Dan Haren on a one-year contract for $13 million is a very wise upside investment from a Nationals team that, like the Phillies, already has excellent starting pitching.

Stephen Strasburg, Jordan Zimmerman and Gio Gonzalez led the Nationals to the playoffs far more than Bryce Harper and Jayson Werth did.

Adding Haren to that staff puts the Nationals in position to run well above average starting pitching at the opposition four out of five nights.

Maybe Haren is not what he used to be, coming off a subpar season that saw his ERA lurch over four for the first time since 2010.

Then again, in 2011, Haren won 16 games.

Regardless, the Upton and Haren acquisitions starkly underline the fundamental difference between the Phillies and their division rivals in Atlanta and Washington.

The Phillies had already committed eight-figure salaries to seven players before free agents began signing after the 2012 season ended. The Phillies are stuck hoping that Utley, Howard, Halladay and others are still good enough to yield a return on the money they will be paid.

Comparatively, the teams the Phillies figure to chase in 2013 have money and time in their corner. The Nationals (Harper, Strasburg, Ian Desmond) and the Braves (Freddie Freeman, Jason Heyward, Craig Kimbrel) have a lot of young, inexpensive talent on the roster.

So, the Braves can commit $75 million to B.J. Upton and hope that his attitude and his production will not dip now that he has been paid.

And the Nationals can gamble $13 million on Haren. If it does not work out, well, the team they had without him won the division last year.

At some level, the real missed opportunities for the Phillies came well before the 2012 offseason.

When they had the opportunities NOT to sign Howard to his $125 million extension, NOT to sign Lee to his $120 million deal, NOT to give Utley $15 million for 2013, they chose otherwise.

This offseason, those long-ago choices left the Phillies unable or unwilling to sign two premier free agents who ended up elsewhere in the National League East.

The Phillies likely feel no regret now.

But it may be coming.

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Delmon Young has been a Phillie for a very short time, and per Ruben Amaro Jr., already Young is being penned in as the Phillies‘ starting right fielder in 2013 (h/t hardballtalk.nbcsports.com).

Young hit .267 with 18 home runs and 74 runs batted in for the Detroit Tigers in 2012. Young is a right-handed hitter, he is only 27 years old and he’s coming off ankle surgery.

For all of those reasons, and because Young is kind of a jerk, a guy who once drove in 112 runs in a single season and was the American League Championship Series Most Valuable Player in 2012 took the Phillies’ low-ball offer of one year with a $750,000.00 base salary.

Incentives could push the deal’s value to $3.5 million, per mlb.com.

For weeks, Phillies fans were hearing that the Phillies were interested in signing right-handed outfielder Cody Ross, who instead went to the Arizona Diamondbacks for three years and $26 million.

Ross’ 2012 slash line of .267/22/81 is not much different from Young’s 2012 slash line of .267/18/74. And Ross is four years older. Is Ross really $25 million better than Young at this stage of their careers?

The clear and fair knock on Young is that he supposedly cannot play right field (or perhaps any position) adequately, and thus he is best suited for the American League.

But the 2008 Phillies won the World Series with a decomposing Pat Burrell chipping home runs into the short porch in left field. The 1993 Phillies won a pennant with Pete Incaviglia and Wes Chamberlain staggering around the AstroTurf at Veterans Stadium. None of them were ever confused with Garry Maddox in the outfield.

It didn’t matter, because they all hit.

Above all else, though, Young’s addition to the roster tells you that Amaro has seen all he needs to see out of John Mayberry Jr. and Domonic Brown—and not enough from Darin Ruf.

Amaro Jr. has concluded that none of them can hit in the middle of the lineup for a Phillies team that is trying to make one last playoff push with the core of the teams that won the National League East in 2008 and 2009.

Ryan Howard, Chase Utley, Jimmy Rollins and Cole Hamels have been with the Phillies through mostly thick and not much thin. But last season’s 81-81 season, marred by extended absences from Howard and Utley, could be seen as either a temporary setback or the beginning of a trend.

Amaro has seven players on the 2013 roster guaranteed to each make eight figures’ worth of the Phillies’ money in 2013 (Roy Halladay, Hamels, Howard, Cliff Lee, Jonathan Papelbon, Rollins, Utley.) Michael Young is also going to make $16 million in 2013, but $10 million of that is coming from the Texas Rangers.

Every one of those players but Hamels is over 30 years of age.

If the 2013 team does not make the playoffs, significant changes are likely in the very near future. For that matter, if the team falls out of the 2013 race early, the likes of Halladay, Utley and Young (all of whom have contracts that will end after 2013) could be dealt to contenders.

And that means this is no time to be relying on “maybes” and “could-bes” in the outfield.

John Mayberry Jr. is 29 years old. He is a lifetime .254 hitter with a career on-base percentage of .313.

Domonic Brown is still a young player at 25 years of age. But his numbers are worse than Mayberry Jr.’s (.236 lifetime average, .315 career on-base percentage) and he is another left-handed hitter in a lineup loaded with them.

If either Mayberry Jr. or Brown had “it,” it stands to reason the Phillies would have seen it by now.

Fans clamor for 2012 minor league sensation Darin Ruf, who was his league’s Most Valuable Player at Double-A Reading in the Eastern League.

Ruf had a nice stint with the Phillies in September last year. But that is all it was: 12 games and 37 at-bats on a team playing out the string of a dead season.

To project Ruf as a No. 5 hitter on a team with a win-now-or-else imperative based on 37 at-bats would leap over “optimistic” and land on “foolish.”

Maybe Ruf can be a productive major league hitter, maybe he can’t. If Ruf was starting the season in Miami, or even with the New York Mets, plugging him into the starting lineup from the jump would make a ton of sense.

Not in Philadelphia, though. Not in 2013. Not with a team whose shelf life gets shorter with each passing day.

So the Phillies spent on Delmon Young’s 2013 season approximately what a single Cole Hamels start will cost in 2013. For that money, they secured a right-handed power bat who is not a “maybe” or a “could be.”

Young is a proven right-handed hitter at the major league level.

The Phillies could not afford to go into 2013 without one of them.

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At the MLB Free Agent Bar and Night Club, it is 1:50 a.m. The bartender rang the bell for last call 20 minutes ago, and the “ugly lights” just came up. For Ruben Amaro Jr. and the Philadelphia Phillies, there is still time to leave with someone…but the clock is ticking.

Most of the really prime targets have gone home with someone else.

Josh Hamilton took generational money to hit behind (or ahead of) Albert Pujols in Los Angeles. B.J. Upton got five years and $75 million from the Atlanta Braves to try to beat the Phillies 19 times a year. Nick Swisher is apparently content to play the rest of his career out of contention in Cleveland.

Zack Greinke got a contract from the loose-walleted Los Angeles Dodgers that beat even Cole Hamels’ epic free-agent deal. Anibal Sanchez somehow pried $80 million from the Detroit Tigers even though his career record is 48-51.

The big names, per this very handy cbssports.com free-agent tracker, have for the most part settled on partners.

So who’s left?

Michael Bourn is the biggest name unsigned, but he does not figure to fit in the Phillies’ plans after they traded for Ben Revere. Bourn and Revere in the same lineup would never work, as neither one hits for power.

The name the Phillies need to look at again is Delmon Young.

Young hit .267 with 18 home runs and 74 runs batted in for the Detroit Tigers in 2012. Young is a right-handed hitter; he is only 27 years old, and he’s coming off ankle surgery. He could be signed for short years and/or short money.

For weeks, Phillies fans were hearing that the Phillies were interested in signing right-handed outfielder Cody Ross, who instead went to the Arizona Diamondbacks.

Here is the thing, though—Young might actually be a better player. Ross’ 2012 slash line of .267/22/81 is not much different from Young’s 2012 slash line of .267/18/74. And Ross is four years older.

The knock on Young is that he supposedly cannot play left field (or perhaps any position) adequately, and thus he is best suited for the American League.

But the 2008 Phillies won the World Series with a decomposing Pat Burrell chipping home runs into the short porch in left field. The 1993 Phillies won a pennant with Pete Incaviglia staggering around the AstroTurf at Veterans’ Stadium. Neither of them could catch a cold. It didn’t matter, because they hit.

Young could do something very similar for the Phillies in 2013.

The Phillies could also use one more starting pitcher. Everyone loves Hamels, Cliff Lee and Roy Halladay, but that leaves nearly 70 starts for the likes of Kyle Kendrick and John Lannan to cover.

Wouldn’t Shaun Marcum or Joe Saunders fit neatly in that No. 4 slot in the rotation?

And since Francisco Rodriguez, Jose Valverde, Matt Capps and Kyle Farnsworth are all still unsigned, it appears that the market for their specific services (late-inning pitchers with experience closing games) is glutted. The Phillies could definitely afford one of them on a one-year or even a two-year deal.

If the Phillies are really serious about winning in 2013, another wave of free-agent signings even this late in the process is in order.

Leaving the scene alone as the barkeep locks the door should not be an option.

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The temptation to take an unlikely premise for success and sarcastically run with it—”throw Chase Utley in the Wayback Machine and set it to 2006″ or “throw Ryan Howard 1,000,000 left-handed sliders until he is immune from their hypnotic effects”—is great.

For that matter, there is also “petition Bud Selig to move the Phillies from the National League Eastern Division, where they are third-best, to a more hospitable division like the National League Central.”

But we deal in reality here.

So if the Phillies are going to take this semi-broken-down, paying-too-much-money-to-almost-shot-players team to the promised land, extreme measures are not just in play—they are the only way home.

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Hot-stove banter can be fun. If you are an Atlanta Braves fan this week, you have a lot to talk about.

Your team made a big splash in free agency, landing B.J. Upton to play center field for the next five seasons and paying $75 million for the privilege, according to Yahoo.com and the Associated Press.

Then the Braves turned around and moved downward, trading right-handed starter Tommy Hanson to the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim for erstwhile Angels closer Jordan Walden, per the Los Angeles Times.

These are the sorts of moves that keep baseball fans interested through the desolate winter months.

If you are Phillies fan, though, suffice it to say that this past week was not quite so thrilling.

The two big developments in Hot Stove Land this week for the Fightin‘ Phils were a trade that did not happen and a drug suspension to a key cog in the Big Red Phillie Machine.

Wilton Lopez was going to be a Phillie, came to town for a physical examination and suddenly he wasn’t going to be a Phillie any more, per hardballtalk.com.

Phillies fans got their hopes up briefly. Lopez looked to be a credible answer to the question of what to do about the eighth inning, what with his earned run average just over 2.00 in 2012 and his penchant for throwing strikes.

Lopez’ acquisition was going to take some of the sting out of Carlos Ruiz’ 25-game suspension for violating Major League Baseball’s Joint Drug Prevention and Treatment Program rules by taking a banned amphetamine, per ESPN.com and the Associated Press.

These developments of the past week underscore what every Phillies fan already knows, even if the die-hard nature of most Phillies fans precludes admitting even a shard of weakness.

Sad to say, but the Phillies are now the mediocre also-ran that they reduced their rivals to during their five-year reign in the National League East from 2007-2011.

Think about it. This week the Braves spent $75 million on a career .255 hitter with a career OPS of .758 and no All-Star Appearances. In seven full seasons in Tampa, the only category B.J. Upton led the American League in was times caught stealing.

Upton is 28 years old. The Braves are not paying Upton all this money based on his potential. Upton is a finished product. They’re are paying him generational cash figuring that what they see is what they will get.

And here’s the thing. When you have Jason Heyward in right field, Freddie Freeman at first base, Dan Uggla at second base and Martin Prado in left field, you do not need your marquee free agent to overachieve. You just need him to do what he has done before.

This is especially so given Atlanta’s pitching staff. The Braves will roll out Tim Hudson, Kris Medlen, Mike Minor and Paul Maholm. Some combination of Randall Delgado, Julio Teheran and Brandon Beachy will combine to fill the fifth-starter role. Those are seven credible major league arms.

Atlanta’s starting pitching was so deep that they traded 26-year-old Tommy Hanson, he of the 45-32 career record, to the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim for their former closer, Jordan Walden.

That the Braves could trade a viable major league starter with some upside for a relief pitcher who will not close for them (not with Craig Kimbrel still drawing breath) tells you just how much pitching the Braves have.

The foregoing analysis relates to the Phillies in three ways, and none of them are good if you are a Phillies fan.

First, the Braves have plenty of money to throw around if they choose to. Upton instantly became their most expensive player at $15 million per season. Uggla will make $13 million this year. McCann will make $12 million and Hudson will earn $9 million. Those are the Braves’ big earners in 2013.

Contrast that with the Phillies, who have well over $100 million tied up in six players next season (Ryan Howard, Chase Utley, Roy Halladay, Cliff Lee, Cole Hamels and Jonathan Papelbon.) Even Jimmy Rollins is set to make $11 million in 2013, and he is way down on the list of high-priced Phillies.

And despite spending all that money, the Phillies are still not quite sure who will be playing center field, left field or third base on Opening Day.

Second, the Braves have pitching to burn. Their rotation is deep enough that they could afford to part with Hanson for what is essentially a spare part in Walden. The Braves’ bullpen already had three of the most intimidating arms in baseball with Kimbrel, Jonny Venters and Eric O’Flaherty. Adding Walden is the equivalent of putting a sun room on a 35,000 square-foot vacation home.

By comparison, the Phillies had no one they could much rely on to get the ball to Jonathan Papelbon in 2012. They sent out the likes of B.J. Rosenberg, Joe Savery and Jakob Diekman in high-leverage situations in 2012, with predictably sorry results.

Finally, this week’s goings-on illustrate what is possible when a team like the Braves has affordable talent at several spots on the diamond.

Freeman and Heyward, two of the most promising young hitters in the National League East not named Bryce Harper, both made less than $600,000 in 2012.

Going into 2012, would you rather have had Freeman and Heyward at those prices, or Howard and Hunter Pence at $20 million and $10.4 million, respectively?

The bottom line for Phillies fans is this, and it is not pretty: since the Phillies are not going to catch the Washington Nationals in 2013, passing the Braves for a wild-card spot is probably the best the Phillies can hope for.

But this week’s hot-stove action illustrates just how far the gulf between the Braves and the Phillies really is.

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