In the most surprising news of the baseball off season (sorry Jayson Werth, your insanely large contract with the Nationals that was a couple million too much isn't as big as this) Cliff Lee signed with the Philadelphia Phillies for 5 years and $120 million dollars. Lee rejected bigger offers from the Yankees and the Rangers to join Roy Halladay, Roy Oswalt and Cole Hamels in arguably the greatest pitching staff ever assembled. The best thing about this deal is that Lee took a smaller deal even though the Yankees dangled more money in front of him. Lee had played in Philly for half a season in 2009 and loved the city. The Phillies let him go after that 2009 season and signed Halladay but Lee loved Philly enough to take less money; refreshing to hear in this day of "who can sign the biggest contract."
With the signing of Lee the Phils have four legit number one starters in one rotation. Some teams in the MLB would kill to have just one of those guys. With this signing, it cancels out the loss of Werth, and makes the Phillies the clear cut favorite for National League. Looking at the Phillies on paper is unbelievable. Here are some samplings from 2010 of the newly dubbed, "Phab Four."
Halladay: 21-10, 219 K's, 2.44 ERA, Perfect Game, Playoff No-hitter, NL Cy Young AwardLee: 12-9, 185 K's, 18 BB's, 3.18 ERA, Led Rangers to World Series
Oswalt: 13-13 (7-1 w/Philly), 193 K's, 2.76 ERA
Hamels: 12-11, 211 K's, 3.03 ERA
Assuming that Zack Grienke is traded from the Royals in the last big deal of the offseason, the Royals number one starter at this point will be Kyle Davies. Davies is a 26-year-old righthander who posted an 8-12 record with an ERA over 5.00 last season. You think the Royals would love to have one the Phillies starters? The Miami Heat had an impressive offseason by signing Dwyane Wade, LeBron James and Chris Bosh but the Phillies offseason may be more impressive with this one signing. It's that big of a deal.
Consider that in the NLDS, which the Phillies are almost sure to make, a team only has to win three games to move on to the NLCS. That means that if there was a sweep, Hamels wouldn't even see the mound. This is by far the most impressive pitching staff since I've been born but can they produce the results expected of them? The pressure is on but these four are hardly ever phased by it. Out of the four, Hamels is the only one with a World Series ring but Oswalt and Lee have both been there. Halladay has two Cy Young awards to his name while Lee has one. In the Phillies World Series year Hamels won the NLCS and WS MVP award and Oswalt won the 2005 NLCS MVP award. The group comes in with impressive credentials and it won't be surprising to see them rack up many more in years to come.
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