they started that in 2011. that's a longass lame duck

The Dude wrote:they started that in 2011. that's a longass lame duck

that wasnt his demeanor then. i was referring to the quote "this is who they sent me". he knew he was on his way out of this team.

anyway, i cant get too worked up about this crap in january. i'll have plenty of time to complain about amaro because i don't see any rejoicing over his firing in the near future

i agree he knew he was on his way out, but the way it went down didn't make it sound like anyone was breathing down his neck. they just don't do it that way. and the way a FO treats a manager is a lot different than the way they treat the GM. I just don't get why people think Comcast will stand idly by

Woody wrote:when have they ever breathed down anybody's neck

Exactly. They never did that with Charlie, or Wade... or even Bowa, who ten years ago was in a similar situation to Amaro in that he was clearly the guy set to take the blame.

Except that the team undeniably got better during Bowa's tenure as manager (whether or not he had anything to do with it). The trend line under Amaro hasn't been good.

But all this is trivia. He'll be gone because unless they're dramatically better than last season--not 3-5 wins, but mid-80 wins or higher, and serious contention--all the factors that inform revenue will be down. Again.

Napalm wrote:i dont think i've read one bad/questionable thing about amaro from the guys he works for. seems to me that they support him.

I can't remember anything anyone above Amaro's level has said, good or bad. There just really isn't anyone in ownership who has positioned himself as a spokesman for baseball matters, or even pulling the strings behind the scenes that I'm aware of.

I can see things going both ways with Amaro after this year, assuming the club is unsuccessful. Clearly there's been an effort to retain draft picks, and if the farm system looks like it's developing well I could see them holding on to him for one more year to see how the plan develops, such as it is. On the other hand, I can easily see, particularly if the club is very bad (which is certainly a possibility), them portraying him as someone who was who was put in place to prolong the run of a successful team and, even if there is some promise, looking for someone else to guide a transition.

I think some people overestimate the Phillies' propensity to promote from within in any case. If Amaro is deemed a failure, there's nothing more formulaic than looking at the last successful GM change, and that's when Gillick was brought in from entirely outside. Much like alternating "players' managers" and screamers, there's nothing more baseball than alternating inside guys and outside guys, ad infinitum.

swishnicholson wrote:I think some people overestimate the Phillies' propensity to promote from within in any case. If Amaro is deemed a failure, there's nothing more formulaic than looking at the last successful GM change, and that's when Gillick was brought in from entirely outside. Much like alternating "players' managers" and screamers, there's nothing more baseball than alternating inside guys and outside guys, ad infinitum.

I agree with this. If a team like the Reds or Braves falters this year, I could see a Jocketty or Wren (both of whose contracts are up in 2014, I think) cut loose by their current clubs and coming to the Phillies.

Both those guys (Wren maybe more than Jocketty) are in the Gillick mode of traditional evaluation more than analytics, but they're both obviously much, much better at it than Amaro.

i tend to agree with this article's premise. though for the conclusion, i think this is the year to be the biggest seller at deadline if/when we stink again

http://www.fangraphs.com/blogs/the-phil ... ddle-road/

I can't imagine why you would agree with that premise when they're going to be bad anyway.

I mean it ignores 2 very key points:
1. Tactically, they signed the wrong players even while limiting themselves to the payroll they did.
2. The fans ARE pissed and ARE leaving in droves.

In other words, they haven't fooled anyone.

no u

good post, bro, post some more vaguely racist things that make fun of other people. Seems you're incapable about being challenged on substantive posts.

k will do

joe table wrote:k will do

so anyway, since jose has opted out of the conversation, I'll just summarize why it's a terrible article or at best a "duh" article:

The author's premise is that a complete teardown will be bad for business. The problem is that business is bad anyway. That people saw through the moves and realized things are bad. And worse, they've prolonged the agony by signing a 35 year old known cheater, below average catcher to a 3 year deal.

What if they had taken the money and signed Tanaka for basically 25 mil AAV? I don't know if that would have been the right baseball move but it would have caused a lot more excitement and more ticket sales than Bobby Hernandez, Chooch, and Marlon Byrd. And again, not conceding that it's the wrong baseball move, but if it is, who cares when you're being projected to 72 wins?

didn't Chooch get medical clearance to use Adderall this off-season? not sure the "known cheater" thing is an issue going forward since the thing he was using to cheat was something he's now allowed to use

sorry i was temporarily incapacitated by the sheer power of jeff's intellect. im back in now. the premises i was referring to in my previous post (with which i generally agree) are the ones that relate to the author claims as to why a teardown has not yet occurred. I do also agree that there is an echo chamber effect for "should firesaled" that may oversimplify some of the factors in play for the franchise. Specifically, this point is one which hasn't really had much discussion on here:

In the meantime, even if the Phillies were to aggressively dump salaries, they would still have a relatively large payroll. If attendance and revenue cratered, the club would be in dire financial straits. That in turn could compromise their ability to supplement the roster the next time an Utley, Howard or Rollins arrives at the big league level.

Now I did not say I agreed with the conclusion that this offseason's approach "may be the best course of action." I have also repeatedly stated that I wanted them to sign Tanaka, but that turned out to be implausible

that article read like the most even-handed thing i've ever read in my life (or just today)

The article also half-heartedly compares the Phils' TV deal to the Astros which has blown up in their faces. But Houston was basically starting their network from scratch, against an established competitor (FSN) with a team that was already well into its decline. Comcast doesn't exactly have to fight for carriage in PA/NJ/DE.

Our teardown can include bad, stupid contracts if they're short term enough which is the case this offseason. But as is mentioned here daily, that doesn't mean present leadership knows what they're doing nor should they be trusted to make the right decisions regardless of the plan.

I thought it was a decent read that at least stuck the landing--the dopes who got us into this mess don't deserve faith to get us out of it--and made the important point that the great years themselves came about with some serious good fortune: Utley/Howard/Hamels exceeding expectations, and Werth/Ruiz/Victorino annihilating them.

The point he could have emphasized more is that they missed the teardown moment, which was last July when (I am now conviced) they should have traded Utley and Lee. Having kept those guys, a reload this winter would have logically followed. Instead it almost seems like they're trying for 75-80 wins.

My TGP colleague Justin Klugh probably has the better version of the same argument on philly.com, which is that it's damn hard to "contend" and "transition" at the same time, and Amaro seems well on the way to fucking up both.

pacino wrote:that article read like the most even-handed thing i've ever read in my life (or just today)

Yeah, it provides a reasonable rationalization to hold onto mediocre contracts. I don't really agree with it, because I think that the reason that the Phillies are bad and trending downward is because Amaro can't tell the difference between the good contracts and the bad contracts.

The more I think the Phillies should slash and burn payroll, auctioning off their best players for prospects, I think of the Indians. They had awesome attendance throughout the 90s, initiated a deliberate rebuild/sell-off, and the fans didn't come back. They won 96 games in 2007, yet drew only 2.3MM when they were drawing 3.4MM through the late nineties.

http://mlb.mlb.com/cle/history/year_by_year_results.jsp

I know a little about that situation. The people in the know there are pretty sure that has far more to do with the recession than in selling off pieces (and these are people who weren't tied to the actual sell off, so it's not as if they're trying to defend their own decisions). I thought I heard on NPR or some such that Cleveland's gone from 900K people to 300K in the course of ~50 years.

A piece can be even handed without actually being right. The Phillies sales office have been almost Wrestling Referee Level comical with the amount of warnings they give me about renewing my tickets then walking back on the deadline. This strategy isn't doing anything good for them. The tactics are even worse.

sydnor wrote:I know a little about that situation. The people in the know there are pretty sure that has far more to do with the recession than in selling off pieces (and these are people who weren't tied to the actual sell off, so it's not as if they're trying to defend their own decisions). I thought I heard on NPR or some such that Cleveland's gone from 900K people to 300K in the course of ~50 years.


A piece can be even handed without actually being right. The Phillies sales office have been almost Wrestling Referee Level comical with the amount of warnings they give me about renewing my tickets then walking back on the deadline. This strategy isn't doing anything good for them. The tactics are even worse.

Cleveland city has lost a great deal of population -- in 2010 it was around 396,000, 45th largest city in the US. However, greater Cleveland ranks 28th as an MSA and the Cleveland-Akron combined statistical area ranks 15th at around 3.5 million.

That's a lot of folks.