I don’t know if any else experiences this, but when I’m watching the big league team these days and following guys like Michael Taylor, Dom Brown, Kyle Drabek and others in the minors, I find myself wondering if this is all really happening. If what’s going on now isn’t baseball heaven for Phillies fans, it’s damned close.

On the Blanton trade, to me, with the possible future exception of Cardenas (we could use another capable middle infielder), it was a fantastic trade because it brought us a WS (without Blanton, I don’t think we win, and might not have even made the playoffs), and even if the players traded turn out to be very good, they did not have a ready place on the team. I mean, really, even if he was healthy, would we have needed Outman on this staff? Likewise, even if Spencer continues to thrive, does anyone here place him above Werth, Victorino, Ibanez, Taylor or Brown? He was a perfect trade chess piece – something very valuable to someone else, but a mere redundancy for the team making the trade.

But so far the Lee trade is working out really well, obviously. I was extremely happy when it was made because I felt like having Lee, Happ and Drabek is much better than having Halliday and Knapp. I’m surely not changing that opinion at this time.