If it were My Team...

If it were my team, I would have kept Placido Polanco at 3rd base over David Bell.

David Bell had a career year in 2004 batting .291 with 18 HRs and 77 RBIs. His average was about 30 points higher than his career average... his stock was high. It was time to trade him and get something out of it...

If that would have been done, then last year's fiasco at 3rd base with Nunez, never would have occurred. Polanco would have given us his .295 average and solid defense... which is better than what Bell gave us last year.

But.. if it were my team, I would have coddled Scott Rolen from the beginning and payed him what he was worth and give him more than just Abreu and Burrell as company. If I would have done that, then we never would have traded for Polanco, nor would we have needed Bell, and the whole Nunez experiment never would have occurred, and we'd still have a great hitting, gold glove 3rd baseman.

If it were my team, I'd still have Curt Schilling. He, like Rolen, would have been given his fair share, and I would have surrounded him with other talented pitchers. It's not easy being the King when you don't have any Knights to protect you. Though I'm not sure if I would have taken a chance on a young kid with a mustache like that. He might still be an Oriole, if it were my team.

If it were my team I would have hired Jim Leyland over Charlie Manuel. Ed Wade made the wrong decision there. But we'll have to live with it. On that note...

If it were my team I would have gotten rid of Ed Wade years ago... and the decision of Leyland vs. Manuel would have been a whole lot easier because I would have never gotten rid of Larry Bowa.

If it were my team, Ed Wade would not have stayed as GM as long as he did.

With Ed Wade out of the picture, my team never would have tried to sign J.D. Drew, knowing from the beginning what a prick he was. And since we weren't set on J.D. Drew, then we never would have been given the chance to draft Pat Burrell and some other team would have had to deal with him.

So.. if it were my team, and I didn't want to deal with JD Drew, I probably would have picked the next best outfielder in the draft, Vernon Wells, chosen 5th by the Blue Jays.

(http://www.baseball-almanac.com/feats/1997draft.shtml)

Vernon wells consistently hits 25-30 homers, 100 RBIs and bats .300 every few years. And he strikes out less than 100 times a year. And he's rarely hurt. Burrell, on the other hand... well we know about Burrell.

To sum it up.. if it were my team, I would have Larry Bowa as my manager, and I'd have Vernon Wells, Scott Rolen, Curt Schilling and Jimmy Rollins.

I'd still have Rollins because he was drafted in the 2nd round in 1996. Since Ed Wade, who I might have hired considering he came up through the ranks and earned his chance to be a GM, took the job as a right of passage in 1997, the Rollins thing still would have occurred.

Also...looking back. If it were my team I still would have brought in Mitch Williams in Game 6 of the '93 World Series. So we probably still would have lost... I'm not one of those jokers who claims he was yelling at the TV to leave in Larry Anderson... that's bull... you wanted Mitch, just like the rest of the Phillies' Nation.. it just didn't work out.

If it were my team, would we still have been given the opportunity to have Chase Utley and Ryan Howard? Would my team have done more to make the playoffs in years past eliminating the chance to draft such studs as Utley and Howard? I don't know.

What I do know is that is always fun to imagine what I'd do, if it were my team.