So does the fact that what the Phillies have accomplished in the past three years – three Eastern Division championships, two National League championships, one World Championship – is more than the San Francisco Giants, the team of my youth, have accomplished in their 51 years in the Baghdad by the Bay, make up for my disappointment on Wednesday? No. Not really.

Already the mind starts to ponder just what the Phillies will need to do next year to (a) get back to the World Series and (b) be better than the Yankees (or whomever) when they get there. Seven of their eight everyday players have been there for two straight years and all eight should be back next year, although the Phillies have had a tendency of rotating out one outfielder per year, with center fielder Aaron Rowand going to the Giants two years ago and Pat Burrell to the AL champs in Tampa Bay last year. With Michael Taylor & Domonic Brown waiting in the minors that could happen again this year, tho my guess is not. Rather I think that they’ll start next season with the same outfield (including Ben Francisco as the fourth man), but bring Taylor up the instant something happens to Raul Ibañez. I don’t expect Ibañez to finish next season as a starter, but that’s okay. He’ll be a big improvement in Matt Stairs’ slot as primo pinch-hitter.

Stairs is just one of the bench players I don’t expect to see back next year. In fact, catcher Paul Bako & Francisco are the only bench players I do expect to return. The Phightins (you have to live in Philly to use that term, long i on the first syllable) had the worst bench of any team in the playoffs and it showed. It’s time to sign a better class of back-up players.

But the pitching is the real muddle. Brett Myers and Joe Blanton are, I believe, both at the ends of their contracts. Jamie Moyer is the oldest player in baseball. Pedro Martinez is gutty but running on fumes – less than half a season was more than he could handle this year. That leaves the Phils with Cliff Lee, one of the best pitchers in baseball, Cole Hamels, one of the most talented players in the game, J.A. (pronounced Jay) Happ, the probable rookie-of-the-year, as definite starters. I would actually anticipate seeing the Kyles in the number 4 & 5 slots next year: Kyle Kendrick, a young starter who got shoved into the minors by the crowd of pitchers on the mound this year, and Kyle Drabek, the Phillies’ top pitching prospect. If I’m Ruben Amaro, Jr., the Phillies’ general manager, I recognize that Myers won’t attract a big salary coming off a year in which he was injured, so I offer him a one-year contract with a club-option for a second and lots of incentives (both as starter & reliever) to motivate him. And if I’m Charlie Manuel, he’s my number three starter behind Lee & Happ. That leaves me with six quality starters, which is the minimum you need given the proclivity for injuries that come with throwing a ball 90 miles an hour.

Hamels is the real reclamation project here. He is one of the most talented players in the game from the neck down. But it’s what’s on top of his shoulders that keeps causing him to self-destruct the instant something goes wrong in a game. He reminds me, more than anything, of a very young Randy Johnson, the Randy Johnson of the Montreal Expos or the first few seasons in Seattle, all promise and very little to show for it. Johnson was 30 years old when he finally had his first good season with the Mariners and 34 when he first won 20 games. That could very easily be the Hamels story as well, but he won’t be 30 until the 2014 season. If I’m the Phillies I basically sit him next to Cliff Lee for the next few years to see how it’s done when it’s done right. Or, in their cases, left.

Jamie Moyer has one more year on his contract. If he doesn’t retire, I would offer him back to Seattle for that very famous player-to-be-named later, picking up much of his salary to improve my options as to which player that might be. If he does retire, I make him my roving pitching instructor in the minors in about two seconds. The man has forgotten more about pitching than most pitchers ever know.

The bullpen is an even bigger problem. Between Brad Lidge & Ryan Madson, the Phillies blew 17 saves during the season. Had they won them all (as they did the previous year), the Phils would have had 110 wins in 2009 and been the obvious favorites in the playoffs. Had Lidge not blown the hold in game three of the World Series, there very probably would have been a game seven on Thursday & the Phils just might be World Champions again. This is not a problem that can solved with just the players on hand.

There are several relief pitchers who probably deserve to come back – Ryan Madson, Chan Ho Park, Scott Eyres and Chad Durbin. I would want to hold onto J.C. Romero and see what happens when he can pitch in a whole season again. But Lidge lost his job as closer in the middle of the World Series once and for all. With the season on the line in the eighth inning in game six on Wednesday, Cholly – as the Phils call their manager Charlie Manuel – went with Madson. Can Lidge win the job back next spring? I’m skeptical and he’s got one more very expensive year on his contract, so I doubt that the Phils can move him. But I don’t think that Madson is the solution there either, nor Brett Myers (whom they could not use without re-signing Blanton). If I’m the Phillies, I’m taking whatever I might save on Blanton & Moyer & going out & getting the best closer available on the market. I might even toss in Ibañez or Victorino if somebody wanted to deal. Next year my bullpen looks like Lidge in the sixth inning, Romero in the seventh, Madson in the eighth & X as the closer. Barring major injuries (Chase Utley, Ryan Howard, Jimmy Rollins, Jayson Werth, Cliff Lee), I think the 2010 season will depend very much on just who X is, and how good they are. Without a good closer, the season will be a long six months with a very sad end.

What it came down to, finally, was the fact that the Phillies almost never use the exaggerated shift that was created originally to counter the late Ted Williams, the apotheosis of the left-handed pull hitter, with the third baseman taking over at short, the shortstop playing second, the second baseman playing a short right field so that the right fielder can more or less literally back up to the right field wall. After Williams retired, nearly 50 years ago, the shift disappeared until it was resurrected against Barry Bonds during his enhanced era. Now it gets done by a lot of clubs on a number of hitters. But it’s not a great move and if the pitcher doesn’t know that he needs to cover third on any stolen base attempt or play that sets on-base runners into motion, it can lead to disastrous consequences.

So that when Yankee Johnny Damon stole second base, Chooch, the Phillies catcher (given name Carlos Ruiz), was throwing to a “shortstop” unfamiliar with the position and nobody covering third. When the throw pulled the displaced third baseman, Pedro Feliz, to the right side of the bag, the quick-thinking Damon hopped up from his slide and ran to third before anyone could get there to cover the bag.

And with the runner on third in the ninth inning of a tie game, Phillies closer Brad Lidge was afraid to throw his slider, a ball that drops into the dirt and can squirt away from the catcher. This left him in the position of throwing only fast balls to Mark Teixeira, the American League home run champion, & Alex Rodriguez, who will eventually hold baseball’s all-time home run mark. In short, batters who live off the fastball. Very quickly the Yankees were ahead 7 to 4 and it took Mariano Rivera just eight pitches to retire the side, putting the Bronx Bombers up three games to one.

From that point forward, the Phillies’ weaknesses – leaving men on base, hitting solo homers, and a pitching staff that was questionable once you got past Cliff Lee – became too apparent. The Phils held on to what had been a six-run lead in game five to eke out a two-run victory, but didn’t look especially good doing so. The Yanks twice had the tying run at the plate in the ninth inning.

Back in New York for game six, the Phillies looked like a composite of their weaknesses all year. Starting pitcher Pedro Martinez couldn’t bluff his way past Yankee designated hitter Hideki Matsui. After Matsui had driven in four runs, the Yanks tacked on three more (two of them driven in by Matsui) off the bullpen. Only one of the seven Phillies who walked off not-great Yankee pitching managed to score. Pedro Feliz failed to drive in any of the five men who were on base when he came to bat. And the Phils two biggest bats in this series coming into the last game, Chase Utley & Jayson Werth, were a combined zero for five at the plate, albeit with three walks. Jimmy Rollins & Shane Victorino, the two hitters who have to get on base for the power hitters to have runs to drive in, were a combined one for eight.

So the New York Yankees – who spent over $400 million (not a typo) in the off-season last winter to sign Teixeira, and starting pitchers C.C. Sabathia and A.J. Burnett – have won their 27^th World Series, having made the post season in 40 of the 106 years the majors have had one. Until baseball has some kind of true spending cap, those kinds of numbers will be pretty typical. All I can say is congratulations.