Thanks!

ek wrote:Amaro said a few things on WIP today after his PC

-will attempt to address pitching first. mentioned Moyer and Eyre
-will try and work something out with Burrell but it might not happen
-will try and get a deal done with Hamels but might not happen either
-payroll will far exceed 100 million next year

Far exceed? Wow. Um. Are the owners ok with this?

About 3/5 of the roster is accountable for $96 million or so (and that's with estimating Hamels going to arb instead of a contract), so the owners are probably aware of it

CalvinBall wrote:

ek wrote:Amaro said a few things on WIP today after his PC

-will attempt to address pitching first. mentioned Moyer and Eyre
-will try and work something out with Burrell but it might not happen
-will try and get a deal done with Hamels but might not happen either
-payroll will far exceed 100 million next year

Far exceed? Wow. Um. Are the owners ok with this?

define "far."

With the Thome payment and the Gordon and Taguchi buyouts, they're approaching $112MM now (assuming various estimated arbitration awards), without Burrell, Moyer and Eyre. Moyer and Eyre will probably add another $9MM-$10MM or so, so they'll be $120MM+ easily, even without dealing with LF.

ek wrote:I don't know. he didn't elaborate on "far"

I have a feeling far means 115 or something like that. To me, far is more like 140. The difference is Pat Burrell, plus another player or two.


BTW, a guy I work with said he heard Gillick say that to sign some of their current players they would need to make 1/2 what they are making now. My coworker said he was hinting at Pat Burrell. I didn't hear it myself. Can anyone else verify this? The guy at work is sorta known for talking out his butt about the Phils, so I won't believe Gillick said it until I hear it from someone else.

JFLNYC wrote:With the Thome payment and the Gordon and Taguchi buyouts, they're approaching $112MM now (assuming various estimated arbitration awards), without Burrell, Moyer and Eyre. Moyer and Eyre will probably add another $9MM-$10MM or so, so they'll be $120MM+ easily, even without dealing with LF.

Damn. At this point, they might as well make a run at Sabathia and Manny and drive that sucker over $160MM

JFLNYC wrote:With the Thome payment and the Gordon and Taguchi buyouts, they're approaching $112MM now (assuming various estimated arbitration awards), without Burrell, Moyer and Eyre. Moyer and Eyre will probably add another $9MM-$10MM or so, so they'll be $120MM+ easily, even without dealing with LF.

I'm a little confused with the Thome situation. The way I understood it was that the Phillies only owed money if the White Sox decline his option, in which case they are on the hook for the buyout. Otherwise, the White Sox will pay his entire contract for him to play there this season.

Monkeyboy wrote:

ek wrote:I don't know. he didn't elaborate on "far"

I have a feeling far means 115 or something like that. To me, far is more like 140. The difference is Pat Burrell, plus another player or two.


BTW, a guy I work with said he heard Gillick say that to sign some of their current players they would need to make 1/2 what they are making now. My coworker said he was hinting at Pat Burrell. I didn't hear it myself. Can anyone else verify this? The guy at work is sorta known for talking out his butt about the Phils, so I won't believe Gillick said it until I hear it from someone else.

I don't think it matters what Gillick said anymore.

JFLNYC wrote:With the Thome payment and the Gordon and Taguchi buyouts, they're approaching $112MM now (assuming various estimated arbitration awards), without Burrell, Moyer and Eyre. Moyer and Eyre will probably add another $9MM-$10MM or so, so they'll be $120MM+ easily, even without dealing with LF.

I read on Lauber's blog that if the Sox do not pick up Thome's option, then the Phillies owe them the $3M buyout. Have you read that anywhere else?

Not sure if this was posted in the thread yet, but Amaro's deal is for three years.

His '09 option vested since he surpassed 1100 plate appearances over the last 2 seasons, so there is no buyout.

If the budget is a function of revenue (and I think we have reason to believe it is) then I would figure well in excess of 20% over last year. Maybe more.

Woody wrote:I'll put it this way: In some respects, I believe the Phillies happened to win a World Series in spite of themselves. Of course they're not the first and certainly won't be the last to do so.

Prior to this season, would you have said that the Phillies, as an organization, consistently do what is necessary to compete for the World Series? I don't think many of us would have. That's really all I'm saying.

But how many teams do what is necessary to compete for the World Series? Maybe the Cubs in the NL this season -- but not previously.

You have Boston, a very well run team with money and brains and lots of forward thinking as an organization. But even they make a lot of mistakes. They are stuck with a bad contract in Julio Lugo. They traded away one of the best hitters in baseball (Hanley) for an injury prone pitcher who has been very good at times but also has had injury ptroblems. The Red Sox have won two titles this decade but they ran out of gas this season.

Who else? The Yankees? Detroit? The White Sox? I guess you could make a good argument for them. But they also have had lots of problems over the last few years and the Yanks haven't gotten close to the World Series in a while despite huge payrolls.

Look at some of the other World Series teams recently. Colorado made the WS but has been pretty bad in most other seasons. Houston made a WS but haven't really been run all that well. St. Louis? They've had some good teams but also have no farm system and looked really bad by the end of this season.

The Phillies had a very fine core of players in Utley, Howard, Burrell, Hamels and the rest of the guys we know about. They won a lot of games this decade but never added the fill in pieces to make the playoffs or contend for the big prize.

But over the last couple of year they did exactly that. They added key pieces who contributed in a medium to big way in their success -- Werth, Dobbs, Moyer, Blanton, Eyre, Stairs, Victorino, Durbin -- guys like that. And they did so without really spending anything for them. They couldn't do many big trades because they didn't have a deep talnet base to do so with. The one big trade that worked out well of course, was the Lidge deal. Again, that cost next to nothing. But when you look at the final result, they did a heckuva job adding a bunch of talent at no cost.

Of course, they made a lot of mistakes. The Abreu trade, the Garcia trade, the Eaton signing, So Taguchi, Jenkins and many others. But really, all teams make mistakes. In the end, the Phils didn't give up all that much and added the right parts to make a championship team. They made a fair amount of mistakes but no more than any other team and they really didn't hurt themselves too terribly with their mistakes -- no Carl Pavano, Juan Pierre, Andruw Jones type mistakes. They didn't put too many eggs in old, hurting free agents like the Mets did.

The Phils ownership isn't really great -- but there are few big league teams that really have good ownership.

The Phillies have been one of the top teams in MLB this decade -- close but no cigar until recently and now they have two straight playoff appoearances and a World Series title. There are very few other teams that can come close to that record.

So how bad is Amaro really? We have many on this here thread and the two big complaints regarding him are that he is smug and that he doesn't say anyhing to the press.

If it's indeed true that he is smug -- so what? I remember reading that a lot of folks don't like Billy Bean either and he's a pretty good GM. As far as what he says to the press goes, I don't care. I don't expect GMs to ever be very revealing in what they say. It just isn't important in my view.

I have no idea if Amaro will be a good GM or a horrible one. But I do know he has played some kind of role with this club for a long time and the team has been amongst the most successful in MLB. I don't know of anything specific about him that indicates he can't be a good GM. Time will tell I guess.

Amaro means consistency. The general plan is this:

1. Work within a budget.
2. Most players will be developed in the system. Free agency will be used to fill in any gaps, with rare high impact signings. Whenever possible, fill gaps through trades rather than free agency. Instead, financial resources will be used to sign current players in their prime.
3. The goal is to build a consistent winner--88-92 wins a year, this will mean that every year presents the possibility of post-season play.

It's easy to criticize the Phillies and their approach, but for the time being, they're going to stick with what works.

28 more years. Ownership is already seeing to it. LOL.

What do people think - was Gillick staying as an "advisor" a reaction to the Arbuckle departure or was it planned all along?

i think amaro's first instinct will be to clean house. the first action of a man, like i assume amaro to be, is to clear house, and hire all new people whose loyalty is directly tied to him. the primary consideration of each new hire would be loyalty. or nepotism. or croneyism.


but that's the worst case scenario, and we should actually have an idea if this happening by the handling of wolever's contract, which i think ends in december.


i'm not very hopeful, but it's possible he could surprise all of us, and really, after this season, they earned the right to fuck it up. i don't think i'm gonna complain when any of this happens, and i don't think i'm gonna bow to the gods when it doesn't. i'm sated for a while. whatever happens after this, at least we had 2008.

Phillies.com moves pretty fast. Front office listings already reflect Amaro's promotion. Arbuckle removed.

SQUIRE

TenuredVulture wrote:Amaro means consistency. The general plan is this:

1. Work within a budget.
2. Most players will be developed in the system. Free agency will be used to fill in any gaps, with rare high impact signings. Whenever possible, fill gaps through trades rather than free agency. Instead, financial resources will be used to sign current players in their prime.
3. The goal is to build a consistent winner--88-92 wins a year, this will mean that every year presents the possibility of post-season play.

It's easy to criticize the Phillies and their approach, but for the time being, they're going to stick with what works.

I'm all for that. Consistency means less big mistakes, and if you're winning consistently, anything can happen in October. I don't think we were the best team in baseball during the regular season, but sneak into October, and surprise, you're World F'ing Champions.

I'm no fan of Amaro, but I'll give him a chance before I start painting him as Darth Vader looking to mold the Phillies in his image.