City of Pain

As most of you know, City of Pain is always ahead of the curve.  If you scour back through our archives you’ll see many great predictions we’ve made become truth.  We said the Phillies would not win the World Series last year (true), we predicted the Flyers would be a better team this year (true), we predicted Andre Iguodala would be a big pussy and not make the All Star Team (very true), and we predicted that OJ would beat the living shit out of his girlfriend and then blame it on her being drunk and falling down at gas stations.  This guy is good.  Go get ‘em Juice!  We do not advocate murder in any way (unless it involves helping one of the Philly teams actually win something), but we would pay anything to watch another Ford Bronco chase scene on TV involving OJ and Al Cowlings.  Please.

While Pat Burrell is also a murderer (in the bedroom), he’s also on the cusp of being your next NL MVP.  It’s all setting up perfectly for him.  He’s in a contract year, he understands his leadership role on the team, he should sense the importance of each and every at-bat being on a World Series caliber team, and he appears to have finally learned how to take pitches.  The team has made up ‘Man or Machine’ Pat Burrell T-Shirts for the season (how can we get our hands on one of these?) which shows who your new team leader is going to be.  Also, this is the first season in which Burrell will be married so maybe when he’s on the road he won’t be up until 4am every night playing MILF hunter.  Just think of how much extra energy he’ll have the next day when he gets to the ballpark. 

It seems that every year Burrell is one horrible month (usually May) away from being in serious MVP running every season.  If they gave out a second half of the season MVP award, Burrell would have probably won it last season, but he ended up finishing with basically the same numbers he had the previous year due to his terrible May.  It also doesn’t help that he is pulled from every game in the seventh or eighth inning for defensive purposes, causing him to lose a good 3-5 at bats per week (last season in 155 games he had 472 Abs, or 3.05/game).  If 2007 is any indication of what Burrell is going to do this year, all factors point to him having his best season since 2005 (32HRs, 117 RBIs).  Or maybe his best ever.

Last year Burrell reached career highs in walks, on-base percentage, and sacrifice flies, and complemented those stats with career lows in strike outs and double plays grounded into.  He’s always going to hit .260, hit 30 HRs, and drive in 100 RBIs, but what is noticeable about his career as he progresses is his ability to have more quality at bats.  Has he finally learned how to see pitches?  Looks like it.  It’s a shame that for the past few years Burrell has generally been hitting in front such abortions as David Bell, Abraham Nunez, and Wes Helms.  If Pedro Filiz can get some hits this season you can guarantee Pat’s runs scored will increase from last year’s misleading total of 77.  In other words, having the worst offensive production at third base for the past 5+ seasons hasn’t done Pat any favors.

All in all, if Burrell is getting on base and not striking out more than he ever has, one would think his numbers should improve on a better team.  But it’s more than that….last year Burrell had something he’s never shown before, and that was the emotion as a team leader.  He’s 30 years old now, he senses he has his best opportunity to win a World Series, and he knows he’s the leader of one of the best teams in all of baseball.  That’s right, the guy who has been booed for years is now the undisputed leader of HIS team.  There’s no coincidence that he was the first player to greet Taguchi at home plate against the Mets in that late season thriller, and it’s no coincidence that he was the first player to jump into the arms of wife beater Brett Myers when they clinched the division.  Through the few good seasons and more bad seasons Burrell has produced in a Phillies uniform, he has earned the right to finally lead.  And the players recognize it.

Man or Machine?  We certainly know Burrell is a machine in the clubs, on the dance floor, in random hotel rooms, in hot tubs, in gang bang circles, you name it.  But we also have learned that he is also part human.  Like RoboCop, Burrell was a hero early on, only to be gunned down, beaten into submission, and discarded like a piece of trash.  He was forgotten.  Yet through the miracle of human spirit and technology, he was built back up stronger than ever and ready to do what he had originally came here for.  Win a championship.   People may look to Chase Utley, Ryan Howard, or even Jimmy Rollins to take home the Phillies’ third straight MVP in 2008, but everyone seems to be forgetting one guy.  His name is Pat Burrell, and in 2008 he will be known as RoboPat, and he will win the NL MVP.