allentown wrote:I like that approach. My fear is Amaro will shoot the works on the big club in 2009 for a splashy personal debut and this will cost us a bad draft plus the trading of most of Marson/Donald/Carrasco/Carpenter/Golson. Well, actually I don't fear losing Golson, but you get the idea.

at this point, the three names to fear losing are dominic brown, michael taylor, and travis d'arnaud (and yeah, i can't believe i wrote that, either).

if dominic brown takes another step forward towards developing his power, and if d'arnaud or taylor just maintain their skils while advancing through the system, any of the 3 could be the top prospect in baseball this time next year, though it's much more likely to be brown or taylor than d'arnaud.

So what kind of GM will Amaro be? Probably more old-fashioned than you'd think for a 43-year-old new-waver.

Amaro is a bright, Stanford-educated guy who sees the game with different eyes than his predecessor. But he's more a fan of traditional baseball stats than he is of sabermetric spreadsheets. And he's more likely to rely on his feel for players, the game and a city he grew up in than he is on numbers and statistical trends.

Beyond that, however, many of the good soldiers up and down the scouting and development operation had a personal loyalty to Arbuckle and could look to leave. And even scouting director Marti Wolever, whose contract is up next month, appears to be uncertain whether he wants to stay. So Amaro and Montgomery may need to do a lot of work and damage control to keep that group together.

It also will mean some additions from the outside. Among the names bouncing around the rumor mill are two former Phillies players -- Pirates special assistant Roy Smith and current Orioles scout Dave Hollins, who was a teammate of Amaro on the '93 Phillies.

hopefully hollins gets a spider bite and can't stick around

With the way this organization gives jobs willy-nilly to members of the 1980 and 1993 teams, I bet Eric Bruntlett is just licking his chops right now, knowing that one day he can suckle at the teat of the Phillies former Champs Affirmative Action largesse.

I promised myself that I'd refrain from criticizing the organization for a while, but hiring Dave Hollins in any serious front office capacity might make me go back on my promise to myself.

At first I was on the "Every one calm down" boat, but I'm really not liking what I've been hearing.

can we all wait until after he actually does something as GM before we start judging him? i know everyone here hates him, but jesus, let's be somewhat freaking rational about it.

It is possible Head has gotten good at scouting

People once thought Bill Beans a dumb jock

Barry Jive wrote:can we all wait until after he actually does something as GM before we start judging him? i know everyone here hates him, but jesus, let's be somewhat freaking rational about it.

This organization has never done anything right. No recent occurrence has shown they deserve the benefit of the doubt.

Grotewold wrote:

phdave wrote:Promoting Amaro might be a bad move but it's a little annoying to read the same old criticisms phrased the same old poor-me-I'm-a-Phillies-fan way.

Truth

Yep.

phdave wrote:This isn't some fluke year where a bunch of guys had career years out of nowhere. This is a very good team from top to bottom and should be good for years.

and yet some - maybe even many - suggest Geoff Jenkins may play MORE regularly in the Phils' 09 outfield.

I hanker for more evidence that this is a team rigged for ongoing top-tier performance. I'd love to see it delivered via astute mgmt of the WFC dividend; I guess we'll see.

I'm still betting he does next to nothing and fills in with crappy veteran players -- guys who can't get in base, but look scrappy doing it.

And I think it's really dumb to be counting on Myers as some sort of ace. He had a few excellent starts after his return, but then disappeared again in the playoffs. I think he'll be very inconsistent AGAIN next year. If we can get something good for him, I would trade him and go after someone in FA or trade. There are some decent 2nd tier guys out there and I wouldn't mind taking a cheap flyer on a guy like Patterson, assuming the price is good, the medical reports look ok, and we're not absolutely depending on him.


3B remains the best place for improvement, as Feliz was well below average last year and is more likely to get worse than better. IF we could get a young 3B in trade, it would really help make up for losing Burrell. I could then see going with a platoon in LF or RF.

I'd hope that he's at least going to consider signing Ben Sheets. I know there is some risk there, but there is also the possibility of getting a 1 or 2 for below market value.

Monkeyboy wrote:I'm still betting he does next to nothing and fills in with crappy veteran players -- guys who can't get in base, but look scrappy doing it.

And I think it's really dumb to be counting on Myers as some sort of ace. He had a few excellent starts after his return, but then disappeared again in the playoffs. I think he'll be very inconsistent AGAIN next year. If we can get something good for him, I would trade him and go after someone in FA or trade. There are some decent 2nd tier guys out there and I wouldn't mind taking a cheap flyer on a guy like Patterson, assuming the price is good, the medical reports look ok, and we're not absolutely depending on him.


3B remains the best place for improvement, as Feliz was well below average last year and is more likely to get worse than better. IF we could get a young 3B in trade, it would really help make up for losing Burrell. I could then see going with a platoon in LF or RF.

To me, calling Brett Myers a disappearing act in the playoffs is quite inaccurate. After the first inning of the Milwaukee game, he was fantastic in that one. He quite frankly wasn't very good against LA, but pitched 7 innings of 3 run ball against Tampa. I couldn't have expected much more than that from him.

Bakestar wrote:With the way this organization gives jobs willy-nilly to members of the 1980 and 1993 teams, I bet Eric Bruntlett is just licking his chops right now, knowing that one day he can suckle at the teat of the Phillies former Champs Affirmative Action largesse.

Bruntlett got close to a 1500 on the SAT and graduated from Stanford in three years. I'm sure there's some expertise he could lend to the franchise if he wanted to work in baseball after his playing days.

Barry Jive wrote:can we all wait until after he actually does something as GM before we start judging him? i know everyone here hates him, but jesus, let's be somewhat freaking rational about it.

I don't hate Amaro. Yeah, I would have preferred someone like Gerry Hunsicker and I'm not happy about losing Arbuckle but I think it's way premature to assume Amaro will be a disaster.

I suspect if the Phillies had hired someone else's Stanford-educated assistant GM with a Philadelphia background, people would be jumping for joy. But because people somehow have the impression Amaro is a jerk (as if that has anything to do with being a good GM, anyway) and because he's part of the existing brain trust, his failure is expected.

By many of the same people who thought Gillick was taking the organization backwards.

BuddyGroom wrote:

Bakestar wrote:With the way this organization gives jobs willy-nilly to members of the 1980 and 1993 teams, I bet Eric Bruntlett is just licking his chops right now, knowing that one day he can suckle at the teat of the Phillies former Champs Affirmative Action largesse.

Bruntlett got close to a 1500 on the SAT and graduated from Stanford in three years. I'm sure there's some expertise he could lend to the franchise if he wanted to work in baseball after his playing days.

Is that true?

CFP wrote:

Monkeyboy wrote:I'm still betting he does next to nothing and fills in with crappy veteran players -- guys who can't get in base, but look scrappy doing it.

And I think it's really dumb to be counting on Myers as some sort of ace. He had a few excellent starts after his return, but then disappeared again in the playoffs. I think he'll be very inconsistent AGAIN next year. If we can get something good for him, I would trade him and go after someone in FA or trade. There are some decent 2nd tier guys out there and I wouldn't mind taking a cheap flyer on a guy like Patterson, assuming the price is good, the medical reports look ok, and we're not absolutely depending on him.


3B remains the best place for improvement, as Feliz was well below average last year and is more likely to get worse than better. IF we could get a young 3B in trade, it would really help make up for losing Burrell. I could then see going with a platoon in LF or RF.

To me, calling Brett Myers a disappearing act in the playoffs is quite inaccurate. After the first inning of the Milwaukee game, he was fantastic in that one. He quite frankly wasn't very good against LA, but pitched 7 innings of 3 run ball against Tampa. I couldn't have expected much more than that from him.

The first inning counts. He was ok against Tampa, you're right about that. For some reason, I thought he gave up more than that.

Anyway, he was more like a #4 in the playoffs. His problem has always been consistency and I see no reason to think he's going to put a complete solid season together. If they can get a young solid 3B or OFer for him, I would do it and then sign a FA pitcher to take his place.