slugsrbad wrote:

bleh wrote:Who is left from the Gillick era, just Brown and some of the crappy relievers maybe? I think there might be more Wade guys left than Gillick guys.

Brown
Savery
Hewitt
Collier
???

I can't recall anyone else.

Pettibone
Galvis
Cesar Hernandez
Cloyd

I was watching a game the other day and one of the announcer guys mentioned the A's only have like 4 home grown guys on their big club right now. They have been very active in trades and dumpster diving I guess.

I wouldn't count Cespedes as a home grown guy.

Grotewold wrote:I disagree about "what would you have done" being a strawman, though. People post here with certainty about things they can't know all the time. If you're gonna say Amaro drooled his way through 2011-2013 when most any other GM would have kept raising pennants, which seems to be the general vibe here, I think you should offer some specifics. The only ones I seem to hear are Pence and "we should have spent a ton on the draft and internationally," as if the latter was an option for Amaro and he said, "Nah, I'm good."

This (bolded) is also a strawman. I'm pretty sure I dislike Amaro more than most, and for longer. And even I don't think that just about any GM would have kept raising pennants.

However, I do think that most sentient beings wouldn't have ended up with a payroll THIS high, and results THIS low. We are one of the 5 or 6 worst teams in baseball, and that's not DESPITE the talent on the team, it's because of it. We DO have 2 excellent starters, and one older, off-surgery, previously excellent starter. Our bullpen is a disaster. We have an outstanding LF. We have an aging, rather delicate, albeit excellent when he plays, guy at 2B. We have an interesting, too-old-to-be-a-prospect prospect "playing" RF. We're kind of bad at C, SS, 3B, CF. We'll argue 1B, but we're at least overpaid and injury-prone there, if not underperforming.

The next playoff team we have probably needs a different player in at least 4 positions, at least one of the rotation spots, and 4 relievers.

Shore wrote:

Grotewold wrote:I disagree about "what would you have done" being a strawman, though. People post here with certainty about things they can't know all the time. If you're gonna say Amaro drooled his way through 2011-2013 when most any other GM would have kept raising pennants, which seems to be the general vibe here, I think you should offer some specifics. The only ones I seem to hear are Pence and "we should have spent a ton on the draft and internationally," as if the latter was an option for Amaro and he said, "Nah, I'm good."

This (bolded) is also a strawman. I'm pretty sure I dislike Amaro more than most, and for longer. And even I don't think that just about any GM would have kept raising pennants.

However, I do think that most sentient beings wouldn't have ended up with a payroll THIS high, and results THIS low. We are one of the 5 or 6 worst teams in baseball, and that's not DESPITE the talent on the team, it's because of it. We DO have 2 excellent starters, and one older, off-surgery, previously excellent starter. Our bullpen is a disaster. We have an outstanding LF. We have an aging, rather delicate, albeit excellent when he plays, guy at 2B. We have an interesting, too-old-to-be-a-prospect prospect "playing" RF. We're kind of bad at C, SS, 3B, CF. We'll argue 1B, but we're at least overpaid and injury-prone there, if not underperforming.

The next playoff team we have probably needs a different player in at least 4 positions, at least one of the rotation spots, and 4 relievers.

Not gonna disagree too much. I'm happier with Revere than you are but his extreme lack of power is at least a concern. I'm actually more worried about his ankle. He was on his was to a pretty nice season when it exploded on him.

Snagglepuss the Cuban could help this team out if he actually is a real person. Not as sure now as I once was. Heavens to myrgatroid!

I liked our catching outlook before the season started. The concussion problem for Joseph and Valle's refusal to be any good hurts them badly there. I like Rupp as a backup. Kratz is pretty useful. But we don't look nearly as good as I hoped we would at catcher.

What can you say about the reliefers? Building a bullpen with an elite closer, a solid eighth inning guy, and a bunch of cheap guys with big arms is a pretty good idea. Hasn't worked or even come close. I still like the model though.

I kinda like Asche. Let's see how he does.

Rollins being so lousy has been a big bummer too. He was pretty good last season. Just hasn't hit for crap this year. Never a good sign with a 35 year old. I thought he would age better to be honest. At least he's been healthy. But healthy and lousy isn't all that helpful.

Franco is a ways away and he is far from a lock.

We might get some help from guys like Dugan and Perkins. At least as good bench guys.

Too bad Crawford isn't some kinda Harper, ready for the big leagues at 19 kinda guy.

They should start benching Rollins so his 2015 option doesn't vest (1,100 PAs in 2013-14). Let Galvis start the rest of the year. It would be an upgrade anyway.

Love to watch Galvis,in the field but he has stopped hitting. .590 OPS in last 31 games. Ewwwwwwwwwwwww.

Feel like we think Galvis is a better hitter than he really is because it seemed to me (could be wrong) that he has hit pretty well with RISP. Kind of an yang to the Burrell syndrome from 05-06.

.769 career OPS with RISP. there ya have it.

smitty wrote:Love to watch Galvis,in the field but he has stopped hitting. .590 OPS in last 31 games. Ewwwwwwwwwwwww.

He's trying to emulate Rollins.

Bad moves that should have been anticipated as bad:

- Howard contract extension way early and too much $$ for a guy already in decline
- Rollins - same except not early and not quite as bad an overpayment
- Paplebon - poor use of resources, especially weird to have done given recent experience with the Lidge cliff dive
- Pence trade - just too much. For those focused on how singleton may not amount to much and other similar issues, you are focused on the wrong thing. Those guys in the system would be pretty helpful this year to trade to get younger talent that is controllable in the offseason, for example, even with their issues
- Lee/Seattle deal - hard to know if he could have taken more time to get abetter deal, but really a disaster as of now
- Polanco, Delmon, Nix, Wigginton
- not dealing Michael Young and Ruiz at deadline
- letting the Halladay injury situation ride for so long when obviously he was hurt and hurting the team
- not giving Ruf an early chance this year

i recall pretty much unanimous praise on here toward amaro re: the rollins extension. would anyone really have been satisfied with rube going into 2012 with galvis as the starting SS?

Hindsight is a wonderful thing.

Has anyone said Singleton will not amount to much? I don't think so. He's the best 1B prospect in the game.

Ruf wasn't even any good at Lehigh Valley early in the season and he was learning a new position.

We traded Lee for three prospects and then got Lee back anyway. I wouldn't call that a disaster. It would have been nice to get one good prospect who is helping the team by now. But we didn't. Stuff happens.

The Howard thing is the biggest problem. Papelbon was a good idea. He wasn't old and was coming off of superb season. He had been very good and very consistent, unlike Lidge. But too many years and too much dough.

phillies wrote:i recall pretty much unanimous praise on here toward amaro re: the rollins extension. would anyone really have been satisfied with rube going into 2012 with galvis as the starting SS?

No but there are options. It wasn't just picking between Rollins and Galvis.

LA Times:

Scioscia, who grew up in the Philadelphia area, said he had not even considered the possibility of managing the Phillies. "It's nothing I think about," he said.

Wheels Tupay wrote:

phillies wrote:i recall pretty much unanimous praise on here toward amaro re: the rollins extension. would anyone really have been satisfied with rube going into 2012 with galvis as the starting SS?

No but there are options. It wasn't just picking between Rollins and Galvis.

Couldda kept Betancourt. SS is a really weak position in MLB right now. Who do/did you have in mind as an option? Stephen Drew might be a good one. Is he a good fielder. He has had some owies but he's been a decent hitter. Better than decent for a SS. Bosox signed him as a FA. One year 9.5 million I believe. Would have been Rube's best off season move by far I believe.

BigEd76 wrote:LA Times:

Scioscia, who grew up in the Philadelphia area, said he had not even considered the possibility of managing the Phillies. "It's nothing I think about," he said.

He's probably gone all West Coastal like LaSorda.

BigEd76 wrote:LA Times:

Scioscia, who grew up in the Philadelphia area, said he had not even considered the possibility of managing the Phillies. "It's nothing I think about," he said.

i would hope he wouldnt be at this point

I think this is Murphy's point, and it's a really good one: the Lee trade in December 2009 was both damaging in the chain of events it set off and revelatory in what it (should have) told us about the "plan."

The events are pretty clear: having dealt away Lee, they then had to trade more prospects for Oswalt, and only got Lee back at the cost of a huge (though not "bad") contract and a draft pick.

The strategy is the interesting part. They evidently didn't think they'd be able to afford both aces long-term, hence the trade... but they made it quick, if you believe those teams that later claimed they'd have made an offer for Lee had they known he was available. Then, of course, they were able to sign both guys... and this was after the Howard extension, which was probably in process by that point. The obvious play would have been to go all-in for 2010, realizing that a good season--like the one they had--might have provided enough revenue to keep all three. Then no Oswalt trade, and you either use Gose, Villar and Happ to get another needed piece (maybe a Werth replacement?) or keep and use them.

Now, it's likely that the thinking in December 2009 was "we can have two of three from Halladay, Howard and Lee; we want Doc, and we need Howard, so Cliff has to go." Just about every facet of this was wrong: they could afford all three, they didn't need to extend Howard so early, and they did a terrible job of evaluating him. We didn't know that they could have afforded all three beyond that season, but they certainly should have.

As usual with Amaro, every piece of it is defensible in isolation. For instance, you could justify the decision to deal Lee by noting that Happ and Blanton, both coming off strong seasons in 2009, were behind Halladay and Hamels. But the parts had no sum, other than using the team's then-deep prospect inventory and growing (if not totally understood!) financial resources to add talent.

I think the ultimate failure of the Lee trade was that it was a bad trade. If Aumont was a starter or Gillies developed into even what Revere is now, that trade would be semi-defensible, and would be a prime example of the type of moves people think Amaro should've made to balance the present and the future. The fact that they're all spare parts or worse is the killer.

Wheels Tupay wrote:

phillies wrote:i recall pretty much unanimous praise on here toward amaro re: the rollins extension. would anyone really have been satisfied with rube going into 2012 with galvis as the starting SS?

No but there are options. It wasn't just picking between Rollins and Galvis.

Correct. For the gazllionth time, don't resign Rollins, for insurance, get Scutaro with 1/7 left on this contract from Red Sox.

Not hindsight.