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I decided to have a round table of sorts with some other fun people who enjoy going about their daily business with their pants off. I’ve compiled a series of questions that will break this team down and by the time you are done reading you’ll have a good idea of what team we’ve got. We’ve assembled around the table that Cliff Lee left all that money on this winter and we’re ready to party. The participants are:

Cranekicker of Crane Kick Chronicles

Steve @Estebomb and Max @uublog of Fire Eric Bruntlett

Coal Hammels enthusiast @FanSince09

Justin @TBOHBlog of That Ball’s Outta Here

Jeff @Utley4God

Ryan @petzrawr aka @Sl_JonHeyman (RIP)

and resident douche, Danny Cohen @dmc0603

Here we go.

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The popular thing these days is picking against the Phillies not only for the National League, but for the NL East. Apparently the Phillies have the oldest average age of any team in the MLB. Is that why talking heads are picking against the Phillies? Nope. They are picking against the Phillies for made up reasons that they think will make them look brilliant. So the following is a transcript of what I hear when I watch Baseball Tonight on ESPN.

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Since the Winter Meetings started on Monday pretty much all Phillies fans have heard is that Rube had his sights set on Jeff Francoeur as a righty bat to platoon with Domonic Brown for 2011. Now I don’t really have to explain how stressful this was for a Phillies fan. But no worry, Dayton Moore to the rescue!

Of all of the righty bats out there Francoeur, to me, was the worst possible option. He’s good against lefties, but not nearly as good as say Matt Diaz, who decided to waste away in Pittsburgh. The obvious target now has to be either Josh Willingham or Magglio Ordonez. Washington is apparently asking for a lot for Willingham and Scott Boras is of course asking for 2 years at $10M per for Ordonez.

My main worry is any player Rube decides to get goes on some small hot streak and Charlie rides him out, taking away at bats from Dom Brown. It just seems like something that is more than likely to happen.

I just ate a heaping mound of steamed broccoli with cheese sauce and the size of one of said broccoli was reminiscent of Placido Polanco’s huge dome. It was then I realized I still hadn’t done my WAR predictions for the line-up yet. So lets have at it, shall we?

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You may know him from Twitter as @BigStevie. If you don’t go follow him and stop being a bitch about it. Big Stevie answers some pressing Phillies questions while he sweats in the sun and rocks some sweet orange Ray-Bans. If you leave this video slightly offended in any way then he has done his job.

Todd Zolecki has always been a favorite writer of mine. His blog The Zo Zone from back in his Philadelphia Inquirer days, which was later turned to Phillies Zone, was pretty much the reason I first started blogging. Now Todd is the beat writer for MLB.com and was able to re-open The Zo Zone and has always been a constant source of breaking Phillies news. For the fastest news follow him on Twitter HERE. Todd recently answered some questions for me about the Phils and his new book The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly: Heart-Pounding, Jaw-Dropping, and Gut-Wrenching Moments from Philadelphia Phillies History. Here they are:

What was your favorite moment covering the Phils, aside from the ’08 WS win?

I really enjoyed covering their comeback late in 2007. They were dead in the water. They were talking about the wild card. The Mets had a huge lead. Then the Phillies went on this ridiculous roll and the Mets went in the tank. I remember how the Phillies were like, “Holy cow. Is this really happening?” while the Mets kept trying to tell themselves they would turn things around. They never did.

Who is the most accessible Phillies player to the media?

That’s tough. It’s a pretty accessible clubhouse, but I’d say Brad Lidge is at the top. He made himself available after every blown save last season. I give the guy a ton of credit. We kept asking him questions about his struggles, and he kept coming up with answers. It was not an easy situation to be in, and he handled it better than anybody I could imagine. A great guy.

How hectic was it covering the whole Halladay/Lee trade?

Very hectic, very long, very brutal. Glad it’s over.

Are you aware that you single handedly set Twitter ablaze when posting that picture of Werth’s beard and how much we love you for it?

As soon as I saw Werth’s beard I grabbed my camera and headed to the field for the team stretch. Werth gave me a hard time about having a camera, but it had to be done. I snapped a few pictures, downloaded the photos to my laptop, posted it on my blog and Twitter. I have about 6,000 Twitter followers. A typical picture might get anywhere from 500 to 1,000 views. The Werth picture got more than 16,000. Crazy.

When did you get the idea for The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly and how long did it take you to get to the finished product?

Triumph Books actually came to me with the idea. “The Good, The Bad, & The Ugly” is part of a series. They have these books for the Flyers, Giants, Vikings, etc. I had never written a book before and I wanted the experience, so I gave it a shot. It took a lot of work because I tried to interview a lot of people to give some new life to some old stories. I also did some new things that haven’t been done before. I started in Feb. 2008 and finished in Nov. 2008, but they held the book a year because they figured it would get lost amongst all the Phillies World Series championship books. I’m glad it came out when it did. It seems to be doing pretty well.

Lastly, do the ailing bullpen pitchers (Lidge, Romero) realize that the Phillies Bullpen Opening Day isn’t until April 7th and that they don’t need to press too hard?

They do. I don’t think Lidge or Romero will be ready by Opening Day. I think they’re shooting for the home opener April 12 against the Nationals. I think the bullpen can get by six games without those two, but there’s no doubt they need them back and healthy for most of the season.

Thanks to Todd for taking the time to fill the questions out. Here’s a listing of book signings Todd has coming up in the near future:

- Borders in Center City (1 S. Broad Street) from 11:30 a.m. – 1:30 p.m. on April 17.

- Barnes & Noble in Rittenhouse Square (1805 Walnut Street) at 6 p.m. on April 29.

- Citizens Bank Park from 2 p.m. – 3 p.m. on May 1.

- Coca-Cola Park in Allentown from 4 p.m. to 4:45 p.m. on July 10.

Buy his book from Amazon.com below, it’s a great read.

Time for part two in my WAR prediction series, up this time: Bullpen. Relief pitchers are very hard to predict anything about, each year someone can be amazing and then be complete trash the next. But I am going to do my best to give it a shot. So follow me after the jump for the predictions…

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This was Verlander’s reaction. Brown took a 3-2 pitch from Verlander and absolutely crushed it. The ball went out of the stadium and reportedly hit Chris Wheeler’s Prius. OK, maybe it didn’t hit Wheels’ car but we can pretend.

Not much Phillies stuff to talk about today other than Kendrick turning in another solid four innings in a 4-3 loss to the Orioles, so here’s a picture of Jayson Werth stroking his glorious beard in deep thought.

Since apparently doing a series of posts has become the thing lately here at Long Drive I figured I should do one as well. These series of posts will have my predictions of the Phillies player’s WAR and whatever other random stats I might feel like predicting. For pitchers I will do WAR and ERA. I’ll probably drag this out a little and break it into sections so I don’t do one incredibly long post. Said sections being: starting rotation, bullpen, infield, outfield, and finally bench.

Let me also start by saying I have little to base these predictions on and these predictions are just that, predictions. First up: starting rotation, except for 5th starter because really it will probably be several people this year. So follow me after the jump for what I expect from our starting rotation  in 2010.

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