The Phils are starting to look like they have a ‘type’.

Not that there’s much variety when it comes to bench players, but Ross Gload is about as close to a Greg Dobbs clone as you can find in baseball. Of course, before Dobbs, Wes Helms held it down as the Phillies’ average-hitting corner infielder/outfielder for one season.

This isn’t a bad move from Rube, even though Gload’s average has sunk each of the past four seasons. Then again, I don’t know how motivated I’d be playing for the Royals for two of those seasons either.

He’ll take Matt Stairs’ place on the bench — which right now looks like an upgrade — and is cut from that professional hitter mold of guys that put the ball in play (a la  Jim Eisenreich), doesn’t strike out much and seems to hit better with runners in scoring position which will always win points with fans on this team.