Monday, April 5, 2004 - Page updated at 12:00 a.m. Pacific
 

KATHY WILLENS / AP Jim Thome AL West AL Central AL East NL West NL Central NL East 1. Philadelphia Phillies 2. Florida Marlins 3. Atlanta Braves 4. New York Mets 5. Montreal Expos Baseball '04 main

1. Philadelphia Phillies
 
He's here: LHP Billy Wagner, LHP Eric Milton, RHP Tim Worrell, RHP Roberto Hernandez, INF-C Shawn Wooten, OF Doug Glanville.

He's outta here: RHP Jose Mesa (Pittsburgh), RHP Terry Adams (Toronto), RHP Brandon Duckworth (Houston), RHP Carlos Silva (Minnesota), C Kelly Stinnett (Kansas City).

Ranking the rotation: 1st in the division, 6th overall. None of the five starters has turned 30 yet. Four of them won at least 14 games last season, and the other, Eric Milton, averaged 14 the previous two years with the Twins before missing most of last season with a knee injury.

Written in Stone: The Phillies, oh so close in '03, did what they had to do this winter. They kicked Jose Mesa out the door and replaced him with the BAC (best available closer), Billy Wagner. They re-signed free agent Kevin Millwood and added Milton to an already-strong rotation. They propped up the bullpen even more with Tim Worrell and Roberto Hernandez. Now they've just got to hope that volatile manager Larry Bowa doesn't get in the way, because this is a team equipped to go deep into October. The biggest key is Pat Burrell, who went into an inexplicable season-long funk last year. If Burrell can approach his former self and give Jim Thome a little help in the power department, the Phillies are on their way. Oh, yeah — third baseman David Bell needs to get healthy and show why he played a key role on a 116-win team in 2001 and an NL championship team in 2002.

Lineup card

P Hitters Avg. HR RBI CF Marlon Byrd .303 7 45 2B Placido Polanco .289 14 63 RF Bobby Abreu .300 20 101 LF Pat Burrell .209 21 64 1B Jim Thome .266 47 131 C Mike Lieberthal .313 13 81 SS Jimmy Rollins .263 8 62 3B David Bell .195 4 37

TH Starters W-L ERA SO RH Kevin Millwood 14-12 4.01 169 LH Randy Wolf 16-10 4.23 177 RH Vicente Padilla 14-12 3.62 133 LH Eric Milton 1-0 2.65 7 RH Brett Myers 14-9 4.43 143   TH Closer W-L ERA SV LH Billy Wagner 1-4 1.78 44