Posts Tagged ‘Rube’

As many in the blogosphere already know, the Phillies have supposedly kicked the tires on one Donald Zackary Greinke. CSN’s Jim Salisbury first reported it here. For the price of your entire farm system, you could have a right-handed version of Cole Hamels.

My fears with Greinke is that due to his past history, he’ll turn into Brendan Fraser’s character in “The Scout” and climb up onto the roof of CBP during the World Series.

Yup.

All kidding aside, I do appreciate Ruben’s enthusiastic approach at bringing in talent. It’s encouraging to know that we’re not twiddling our thumbs, which is more than Ed Wade did. Haven’t heard prices from the Royals, but it’s initially thought that they would need a king’s ransom to move him (or essentially whatever is left of our farm system). Doubtful that anything serious will happen, but bravo to Ruben for at least giving it the old college try.

I’ve just about had it. The Cliff Lee deal has been lambasted by thousands of fans, ESPN analysts, bloggers, Curt Schilling, and now Jimmy Rollins. Everyone acts like Ruben has silently hidden from the media when questioned over this. In reality, he’s probably one hundred times more frustrated than I am about the repeated criticism. Let’s break down what happened again so we can see the logic.

• Phillies trade 3 advanced prospects (and highly touted Jason Knapp) for Cliff Lee
• Phillies determine they can’t sign Cliff Lee to the kind of contract they want
• Phillies determine they CAN sign Halladay to that kind of deal
• Phillies consider trading 3 advanced prospects for Roy Halladay
• Phillies realize that would leave them with 1 advanced prospect
• Phillies need advanced prospects to be competitive in 2011 and beyond
• Phillies decide to use Cliff Lee to add 3 advanced prospects

Does everyone follow the logic? The Phillies wanted to lock up an ace to pitch in front of Cole Hamels. Cliff Lee was not that guy. Roy Halladay was. And as we saw in the payroll series, the Phillies are desperate for cost controlled talent. If you add high priced veterans to an utter dearth of advanced prospects, what you get is the Cubs or Mets. Does any fan want to watch the Phillies turn into the Cubs or Mets? I didn’t think so.

Let’s take this from Ruben’s perspective. Most fans seem to think that the General Manager’s job is to put together the best roster possible. That’s not exactly correct. A GM’s job is to make the ballclub money. The biggest weapon in the GM’s arsenal is the MLB roster. The better the roster, the more money people are willing to pay to see it play. So it is in Amaro’s best interest to field a team today that is likely to compete in the playoffs. Today’s Phillies roster is such a team, even without Cliff Lee.

Ruben also needs to worry about future revenues. Looking at what the Phillies have on paper, they MUST find some cost controlled all-star talent or else they risk being surpassed by the Braves. And as friendly as the fans are today, how long do you think they will financially support a .500ish ballclub? I’m setting the over/under at 50 games. With only Dom Brown, Kyle Kendrick, Antonio Bastardo, Drew Carpenter, and Scott Mathieson as plausible minor league contributors, it’s obvious more talent was needed. Especially since four of those names are rather fringy.

With every passing day, I’m happier with the haul we got from the Lee deal. The injuries Lee’s suffered couldn’t entirely be predicted, but he’s never been the picture of health. Tyson Gillies appears to be a very exciting player in the Shane Victorino mold. Aumont and Ramirez should both factor in at the ML level, whether or not they’re back of the rotation types or front of the bullpen fixtures is still up for interpretation. We also got $8 mil of payroll flexibility. For all that we lost 1 season of Cliff Lee and (probably) a late first and supplemental first round pick.

Cliff Lee, like it or not, was expendable. The Phillies should enjoy the same level of success in the regular season without him. Sure, they may take a 5% hit per round to their playoff chances, but if that’s the price for a competitive roster in 2011, 2012, and beyond, then I’ll take it.

Ruben's smitten!

This is the final installment of a series in which I attempt to objectively evaluate Ruben Amaro’s performance as general manager. Part I can be found here, and Part II here.

I concluded Part II with a paragraph that I probably should have saved for the end of this post. Unfortunately, there is no such thing as a “edit” function on this blog, or a “delete” key on my keyboard, so my slight error will live on in infamy. Still, when you examine Ruben’s dealings with other ballclubs, as I will today, it remains apparent that he is capable of alternating strokes of genius and mediocrity. The trades, and accompanying analysis, after the jump.

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This is the second in a three part series that attempts to objectively evaluate the performance of Ruben Amaro as general manager. For Part I, click here.

As I mentioned in my introductory post, I’m more of a harsh critic on Amaro than most Phillies fans. After all, the man is batting 1.000 in NL pennants per season at the helm, and we’re still less than five years removed from the Dark Ages of Ed Wade (hard to believe, isn’t it?). You might call me spoiled by recent success, even unappreciative. That couldn’t be further from the truth; I simply like winning and want our front office to continue putting us in the best possible position to do so for many years to come.

In Part I, I discussed Amaro’s handling of arbitration-eligible players and extensions, where the overwhelming majority of his best work has occurred, so I may not have seemed particularly critical of his performance. Today, however, I’ll be examining his forays into the free agent market, and I have some serious issues there. Read on after the jump…

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Shortly after our glorious World Series victory, Pat Gillick stepped down as general manager and was replaced by Ruben Amaro. There was, understandably, some trepidation among discerning Phillies fans. Not only did this lead to long-time assistant GM and respected scouting guru Mike Arbuckle leaving the organization, but Amaro was initially under the tutelage of Ed Wade, who was by all accounts a big, stupid doo-doo head. With a season and two winters under his belt, there’s enough activity to fairly evaluate his work up to this point, and draw some conclusions about the kind of GM he is.

Today, I’ll be looking at how Amaro has handled arbitration, contract extensions, and re-signings. Going forward, my intention is to objectively evaluate Amaro’s decisions without relying on the gift of hindsight; that is to say, I’m attempting to judge the merits of transactions based on what was known at the time. It would hardly be fair to expect Amaro to know the future, after all. Analysis after the jump…

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