Roy Oswalt

The Houston Astros arrive in Philadelphia on Monday as a team to watch only if you're wondering how all the young talent they have acquired from the Phillies in recent years is doing. If the Phillies do not begin a turnaround from their dreadful start soon, more and more people are going to look at the young, developing players who were used to acquire Cliff Lee, Roy Halladay, Roy Oswalt, and Hunter Pence and wonder if standing pat (no Gillick pun intended) in some instances would not have been the more prudent decision.

BRADENTON, Fla. - It is the other what-if from the Phillies' all-too-brief trip to the postseason last October. We all know the main one. What if Cliff Lee, who had chosen Philadelphia for just this moment, had held that four-run lead in Game 2 of the division series against St. Louis? Cole Hamels would have started Game 3 at Busch Stadium with a chance to close out the series. You have to like that scenario. Even Lee, with his gunslinger swagger, acknowledges he was haunted by that one. "It was on my mind [over the winter]

CLEARWATER, Fla. - Life changes fast. You go to bed as Shemp and you wake up as the fourth stooge. You go to bed as Kathie Lee and you wake up as the lady that Kelly Ripa replaced. You go to bed as Chris Brown and you wake up as, well, Chris Brown. Joe Blanton knows the feeling better than most. Last spring, he was sitting at a table fielding questions about how it felt to be a part of one of the greatest rotations ever assembled. By early August, he was working out in Clearwater wondering if he would ever pitch as a Phillie again.

ROY OSWALT has told major league teams that he might pull a Roger Clemens and skip the first half of the season, then return at midseason, a source told ESPN.com. A skeptic might say the 34-year-old righthander already skipped half a season last year, when back issues and hurricane relief limited him to 139 innings with the Phillies. Oswalt became a free agent when the Phillies chose not to pick up his $16 million option for this season. The three-time All-Star was 9-10 with a 3.69 ERA in 23 starts last year.

Reconcile these two facts. One: Roy Oswalt has the 15th-best adjusted ERA of all-time among pitchers with at least 2,000 innings, according to Jeff Passan of Yahoo Sports. The first 10 already are in the Hall of Fame. The other four are Pedro Martinez, Roger Clemens, Roy Halladay and Randy Johnson. Two: Roy Oswalt is unemployed as spring training camps open across America. The problem is, the former Phillie only wants to pitch near his home in Weir, Miss. Maybe he should take a ride across the state to Kiln and work out with ol' Brett Favre.

BEING RUBEN Amaro Jr. is kind of like being Tom Hanks, Bruce Springsteen or even the late Steve Jobs. You are constantly in competition with your previous hits, your biggest headlines, your biggest surprises. When you are asked what you are up to and you say, "Not much," maybe even your own mother has trouble believing it. Which brings us to Roy Oswalt, still out there shopping his services. Whether it was real courtship or something drummed up by an agent earning his keep, Oswalt's name has been linked this winter to, in no particular order, Boston, Detroit, Texas, St. Louis, Cincinnati, Pittsburgh and this past weekend, back to the Phillies.

THE PHILLIES will return seven of eight position players - once Ryan Howard recovers - and four of their five starters from last season. But that does not mean the team has not undergone important changes this offseason - the bench and the bullpen have been substantially overhauled. Beginning today, the Daily News will provide snapshots of the key Phillies newcomers as the days until spring training continue to dwindle.. The Phillies also have a large pool of players invited to spring training but not on the 40-man roster who could win jobs - outfielder Juan Pierre and righthander Joel Pineiro among them.

FORMER PHILLIES righthander Roy Oswalt will meet with the Texas Rangers today, ESPNDallas.com reported yesterday. Oswalt, 34, was traded to the Phillies at the 2010 trade deadline, and helped them advance to the NL Championship Series. Last season, plagued by lower-back issues, Oswalt was 9-10 with a 3.69 ERA. In his 11-year career, most of which was spent in Houston, Oswalt is 159-93 with a 3.21 ERA. Other teams that have expressed interest in the free agent recently are Boston, St. Louis and Detroit.

THE DAYS until spring training continue to dwindle and Roy Oswalt remains without a team. The former Phillies righthander rebuffed interest from the Detroit Tigers, according to CBSSports.com. The report said the Tigers even had American League MVP and Cy Young winner Justin Verlander call Oswalt. Reports have circulated for weeks that Oswalt will land with Boston, but that the Red Sox first needed to clear salary. Boston traded Marco Scutaro and his $6 million salary to Colorado for pitcher Clayton Mortensen.

If we could rewind the clock just one year, we'd be 16 days away from perhaps the most shocking news in Phillies hot stove history: Cliff Lee is coming back to Philadelphia . Twelve days before Christmas, the Four Aces were born, and a celebration that stopped just short of a parade down Broad Street ensued. We now know, of course, that the actual parade was canceled because of a National League division series loss to the eventual World Series champion St. Louis Cardinals.