NL East

It's no question that the best rotation in the MLB belongs to the Philadelphia Phillies.  They started this offseason with Roy Halladay, Roy Oswalt and Cole Hamels.  Now, the Phillies have lured Cliff Lee into their rotation.  Does this give them one of the best rotations of all time?  Let's take a look at baseball's greatest rotations, and you can decide for yourself.

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Cliff Lee was officially introduced as a member of the Philadelphia Phillies this afternoon in a press conference at Citizens Bank Park. 

Given the extreme interest in the pursuit of Lee, the offseason's most prized free agent, this comes as huge news to fans of the Phillies and Major League Baseball. 

With the way Lee's five-year, $100 million deal went down, there were plenty of things to learn in the official introduction of the star left hander.

Here's what we learned: 

As everyone has heard, Cliff Lee returned to Philadelphia.  The Phillies have added another star player to their already great team. 

When news broke, Mets fans' stomachs turned.  As if Mets fans haven't had it hard enough, the pain just keeps coming.  The Phillies have won the NL East Division four years in a row, and it seems like that trend will continue.

Even a case of short-term memory loss can’t erase the memory of Jason Bay’s first season as a New York Met. Granted, it wasn’t a full season due to the concussion he sustained at Dodger Stadium, but it’s just too early to call Bay a free-agent bust.

Every season, the MLB Winter Meetings give rise to dozens of fascinating rumors about blockbuster trades or surprising free-agent signings. Some come to fruition, but the majority of them leave us wondering who on earth ever thought such a thing would actually happen.

Trade rumors sometimes spring fully formed from the heads of sportswriters. At other times, teams make cursory inquiries on players they have no real intention of acquiring, and writers misunderstand.

If the Florida Marlins brass thought they were in the driver's seat in order to compete with the Philadelphia Phillies and Atlanta Braves, think again.

After Philadelphia remained fairly quiet in the news last week after their former outfielder Jayson Werth signed a mega deal with the Washington Nationals, they now have attracted the spotlight for all the right reasons.

Shocker alert: With pitcher Cliff Lee signing with the Philadelphia Phillies, Vegas now considers the Phils the heavy betting favorites to win the 2011 World Series. Online betting giant Sportsbook.com currently has them listed at +160 to win it all.

A pitching rotation as hellacious as the one the Philadelphia Phillies are currently possessing rarely happens in baseball. Many of us are still wondering how the negotiating process went down. And why Cliff Lee didn't announce his decision on a one-hour special.

Everything about this negotiation suggested that Lee and Braunecker were playing perfectly in terms of maximizing the money. Now it appears money was never really a factor.

The Philadelphia Phillies have been one of the most successful baseball teams in the MLB the past three seasons. Recently, as most of you have heard, the Phillies lost their all-star left fielder, Jayson Werth, to the Washington Nationals for a ridiculous amount of money, but also gained the most coveted free agent in the 2010 class, Cliff Lee.

Cliff Lee is a happy man.

Forget the fact he swindled himself out of more than $30 million to sign with the Philadelphia Phillies. Okay, maybe not swindled, because Lee voluntarily left that money on the table.

He knew what he was doing. He knew he’d be the most at peace in Philadelphia. His trial run there in 2009 — despite the fact the Phillies failed to sign him that time around — was nothing short of magical.