Should Phils Follow In Footsteps Of Flyers?

The pain of the game 5 loss to the Cardinals is still fresh in my memory.  I can't watch the ALCS or NLCS, I can't talk about the Phillies without getting upset, and I just can't get over the fact there won't be a parade down  Broad Street this year.  But after a full week of digestion, I'm starting to feel a little better and slowly realizing that there will be baseball next year.  And early playoff exit aside, the Phillies still have a very bright future.  The core of Rollins (we'll see), Victorino, Howard, Utley, and now Pence will be here next year along with the fabulous pitching staff of Halladay, Hamels and Lee.  So the Phillies should just take their bruises, be happy they set the franchise record for wins this year, and just get ready for next year with the exact same core of players right? WRONG!  Case in point take a look at the Philadelphia Flyers.

Now before I go on I just want to point out that I don't think that Flyers GM Paul Holmgren is a genius by any stretch.  But I think that he has found a reasonably solid blueprint to get a contender team over the hump.  Let's go back to 2010.  For the Flyers 2010 is comparable to what 2008 was to the Phillies.  Although the Flyers came up short, they got to the Stanley Cup and put on a pretty exciting show in the process.  But then last year after an early playoff exit, the Flyers organization changed the entire look of the franchise.  They traded away core players Jeff Carter and Mike Richards to free up room for elite goaltender Ilya Bryzgalov.  They brought in new players, and the old ones that couldn't get it done were shipped out of here.  And instead of Jeff Carter and Mike Richards as the faces of the franchise, Chris Pronger and Ilya Bryzgalov now lead a fundamentally sound group followed by young stars Claude Giroux, JVR and ofcourse Danny Briere.  Now I know it's only been 3 games, and for all I know the Flyers could go 3-79 and Holmgren will look like the biggest idiot ever.  But even if the Flyers don't make the playoffs, which I don't foresee happening, at least they took what they thought were the best moves to make a contending team into a championship team.

Getting back to the Phillies, the front office can't do much more than what they have done so far.  Since 2008 they have brought in Cliff Lee, Roy Halladay, Roy Oswalt, and Hunter Pence all in an effort to take the Phillies back to the World Series.  But something hit me after the Phillies Game 5 loss to the Cardinals.  I was listening to Phillies analyst Ricky Botalico and he plainly stated that the current Phillies simply aren't the 2008 rock em' bop em' Phils that could win the game with one swing of the bat.  These guys are getting older and 2011 Chase Utley simply isn't the same as 2008 Utley.  2011 Ryan Howard isn't 2008 50 homerun Ryan Howard and so forth.  These guys are getting older and maybe it is time for the Phillies to, similarly to what the Flyers did this past offseason, completely change the makeup of their team.

In regards to exactly what those changes should be at this point I'm not entirely sure.  I think that first off the pitching staff of Halladay, Hamels, and Lee should remain in order.  But in regards to how the Phils should go about changing this team, I'll leave those decisions up to the Phillies brass in the front office.  If the Phils go into next year with the same Rollins, Victorino, Utley, and Howard core, I think that will be a big mistake.    This core group of players have had three years with great pitching and they have yet to bring another World Series title to this city.  It's time for some big changes.  It's time to bring in some young and fresh offensive firepower to get this team going once again.