Lennon: Unlike Mets, Phillies willing to spend
PHILADELPHIA
It's difficult to figure out exactly when the Phillies started to make the Mets feel like the junior varsity in the National League East.
Was it when they overcame the seven-game deficit with 17 games to play in 2007? That certainly got the ball rolling.
How about 2008? That's when the Phillies again passed the resurgent Mets, who got a second-half boost from the Willie Randolph firing, only to spit back a 3 1/2-game edge with less than three weeks remaining. That ultimately became a springboard for a world championship for the Phillies.
Or maybe even 2009, when the Phillies pulled off a midseason trade for Cliff Lee and made it back to the World Series before losing to the Yankees. Talk about a nightmare Fall Classic for the Mets.
Even this season, despite a number of key injuries, the Phillies are serious contenders again, having made another deadline trade for an ace - this time Roy Oswalt - to strengthen their chances.
Which brings us to the main problem for the Mets. It's bad enough that their own issues, including back-to-back collapses, have dragged them to the sorry state they're in at the moment. But their misery has coincided with the rise of the Phillies.
It goes beyond the standings, too. As the Mets have looked to pare payroll, cutting back from $149 million in 2009 to roughly $130 million this year, the Phillies have climbed from $98 million in 2008 to $113 million last season to their current payroll of $138 million.
That's never the only reason for success, but it sure helps. The willingness to add dollars, when needed, is what allowed Phillies general manager Ruben Amaro Jr. to work out a deal with his old boss, Astros GM Ed Wade, for Oswalt, who is due another guaranteed $25 million through 2011.
Wade agreed to pick up $11 million of that tab, but the $14 million left is considerably more than the zero dollars the Mets added before last Saturday's non-waivers trade deadline.
That's a fact not lost on Mets general manager Omar Minaya, who cited the Phillies' newfound financial clout as the biggest reason for their wheeling and dealing. They lead the NL in attendance with an average of 44,924; the Mets are eighth (12th overall) at 33,124.
"I think when you win like they have, there's a little bit more certainty of their revenues," Minaya said. "And I think that helps you be more aggressive in procurement of higher-end players."
The "certainty of revenue" was an interesting detail for Minaya to bring to light, especially with the Wilpons under fire for their supposed financial woes in the wake of the Bernie Madoff catastrophe. The Mets should be a big-market bully, second only to the Yankees, but they find themselves unable to go toe-to-toe with much smaller Philadelphia.
The Mets can boast having everything that New York has to offer - but the Phillies can give players something their division rivals cannot, and that's a legitimate shot at the World Series.
"I give them a lot of credit because they're taking a chance, they're going out and getting the guys," Jeff Francoeur said. "In baseball, there is such a small opportunity. But they're selling out every game, so money is not an issue. It's like Boston and the Yankees. When you do that, you pretty much have unlimited resources to go get who you want."
That said, this weekend, the Phillies still will be without Ryan Howard, Chase Utley, Shane Victorino and Jamie Moyer. Somehow, that hasn't stopped them from pulling to within two games of the first-place Braves. They are six games ahead of the Mets.
"Now we're kind of going in there as underdogs," Minaya said. "But things can change and things will change."
