Napalm wrote:

Woody wrote:My biggest problem is that Ruben appears to view multiple injuries over multiple years to multiple old players as merely bad luck, and not a tendency or result of natural decline. And that's troublesome. He doesn't seem willing, either in his actions or his public statements, to be able to fully let go of his view of these guys as the studs they were in 2006-2009. And I understand that he needs to be optimistic in public.

But whether he actually believes it or not is beside the point. He's managed the roster as though he does.

gotta sell tickets brah. come out to the ballpark to see your old favs before they wither and die off and with a little luck, we can sneak into the playoffs! honestly its a great strategy because they're not seriously competing and have since stopped mortgaging the future. its clear to everyone involved, even Amaro who has said as much in quotes in the past, that they're retooling and rebuilding, while trying to stay somewhat competitive with high profile players and you just hope for some luck and health. i guess if theres anything to be mad about, its the philosophy of a transition vs a total tear down.

Don't think they can afford to do a total tear down. They ain't the Astros.

I guess Boston is the model to follow. Although they had some real good young players who got healthy and some really good prospects and they have Bill James to boot.

Yeah. Amaro is not really the guy to retool and rebuild I'd guess.

It's gratifying to see others tire of smitty's schtick.

smitty wrote:Don't think they can afford to do a total tear down. They ain't the Astros.

What does that even mean? They won 73 games last year. They're gonna be in that neighborhood again. Would 65 be different?

we're better off with ruf full-time at 1B than howard

Shore wrote:

smitty wrote:Don't think they can afford to do a total tear down. They ain't the Astros.

What does that even mean? They won 73 games last year. They're gonna be in that neighborhood again. Would 65 be different?

The Astros did something pretty smart. They got rid of all their players who made any money at all. They added a TON of prospects. Some of them are pretty good. They hired Kevin Goldstein. They could be contenders in a few years.

I don't think the Phils can get away with that. They drew more than 3 million fans. The Astros Drew 1.6 million.

The Phils have the big TV contract now right? They probably would not have been able to do a Houston style tear down with that thing in the air.

What's funny about the quote - and what has been lost in the subsequent 3 page circlejerk- is that the Howard quote doesn't match up to the premise of the article.....it's like Amaro couldn't think of anything positive to say.

Premise: Just because these guys are old, it doesn't mean they are finished as highly-skilled players and can still be very productive in 2014: "I don't believe all of a sudden that these guys are so old that they've lost all of their bat speed, their quickness, and their abilities,"

Point 1: Rollins: He may have lost a step....but he's smarter and can make up for his lost-step and still be really good.

Point 2: Utley: Yes, his knees still hurt...but he still runs well and if it wasn't for an unrelated injury, he would have been even better last year.

Point 3: Howard: zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz.....what's up with airplane food?

That was the point.

the quote sounds like he's being defensive. he could have articulated it better, but he's probably sick of hearing about it. its his job to deal with it, but smuggery goes both ways. we love it when his balls hang low and we hate it when the act is wearing thin

sydnor wrote:It's gratifying to see others tire of smitty's schtick.

Yea, but he's still on his original username, so there's still love there.

omg lol

also he's rude to most posters he doesn't agree with and he's mean to floppy.

come to think of it, maybe there's common ground here...

BigEd76 wrote:

cody_smasche
Made a reservation for 3 on valentines day. Can only imagine how much I just got judged over the phone. #fun

Him, Tyson Gillies, and...?

I'm not crazy about the strategy of not blowing up and not going all in at the same time. I can understand that they need to sell tickets. And I can understand that they don't want to use prospects or break the salary cap. But the last two years he has picked up a very questionable group of players when there were better players available (Burnett, Sizemore, etc). His player evaluation ,or the evaluation of those he entrusts with that evaluation, has been pretty crappy. He looked good going after the big fish that had about zero chance of failure and that hid his evaluation weaknesses.

edit: And I say this as someone who doesn't think Byrd or Ruiz will be terrible.

slugsrbad wrote:

BigEd76 wrote:

cody_smasche
Made a reservation for 3 on valentines day. Can only imagine how much I just got judged over the phone. #fun

Him, Tyson Gillies, and...?

mouth

Monkeyboy wrote:I'm not crazy about the strategy of not blowing up and not going all in at the same time. I can understand that they need to sell tickets. And I can understand that they don't want to use prospects or break the salary cap. But the last two years he has picked up a very questionable group of players when there were better players available (Burnett, Sizemore, etc). His player evaluation ,or the evaluation of those he entrusts with that evaluation, has been pretty crappy. He looked good going after the big fish that had about zero chance of failure and that hid his evaluation weaknesses.

edit: And I say this as someone who doesn't think Byrd or Ruiz will be terrible.

I agree with this in part. But for one thing, it's unclear the extent to which those guys were interested in the Phillies (though in Burnett's case, I'm very confident nothing would make him happier than the Phils offering him $14-15m--he supposedly wants to stay in the NL, and he doesn't want to be totally lowballed by the Pirates... I'm actually starting to wonder if the Mets might swoop in). For another, if Amaro's evaluation skills are lousy--and I agree with you that they are--do you want him either going all-in, where there's a risk that he'll not only foul it up but hamstring his successor, or rebuilding, where he could saddle us with the next generation of Gillies/J.C. Ramirez/Larry Greene Jr./pick your bugaboo?

There's logic to the middling course. It's really unsatisfying, but it does minimize harm. I just wish that rather than hoping a million things go well and they'd contend, they would fire Amaro and bring in someone who might do the rebuild well--realizing that they go into it with some major assets, mostly the market size. But that's not the culture of the organization.

Monkeyboy wrote:I'm not crazy about the strategy of not blowing up and not going all in at the same time. I can understand that they need to sell tickets. And I can understand that they don't want to use prospects or break the salary cap. But the last two years he has picked up a very questionable group of players when there were better players available (Burnett, Sizemore, etc). His player evaluation ,or the evaluation of those he entrusts with that evaluation, has been pretty crappy. He looked good going after the big fish that had about zero chance of failure and that hid his evaluation weaknesses.

edit: And I say this as someone who doesn't think Byrd or Ruiz will be terrible.

Last year was awful. Both Youngs were real bad. Michael actually was better than expected. But he still stunk. We did get a reliefer for him which was a shocker. And mini mart supports your stance almost all by itself.

The Red Sox were brilliant in picking up guys who could help. They whiffed on a few but they got really good years out of a lot of guys. Some were expected to be pretty good and others were not. Victorino was magnificent and Nava is amazing.

This year might not be as bad but all of the guys are risks. Byrd is a very unusual player. Not many guys have career years at 35. He was pretty lousy in his 20s. Was pretty good from 29 to 32. Got hit in the face with a pitch and sucked in 2012. It's possible he'll be good this year. At least he can play a corner Of position and be an asset there. Our defense was lousy last year.

The thing is, Hernandez and MAG almost HAVE to be good or this season will suck anyways. Also the bullpen has to be good. I'm not sure there's a good chance of even that happening. But it could.

But you're right. Except for the Thome trade I can't think of a recent move that made me think: clever move.

I see other teams that make moves that make me think that. Of course, those don't always work out. But at least the other teams are trying.

Dajafi, I agree they are caught between a rock and a hard place, a trap of their own construction. I think the creator of the mess is the last guy that should clean it up, but I know I'm preaching to a very large choir on that one. I do think they will be somewhat better this year. Pretty much everything went wrong last year and that's unlikely (but not impossible) to happen two years in a row. Unfortunately, I'm afraid they may improve a bit and save RAJ's job, at least for this year. This will be a season of mixed emotions either way.

Smitty, I think it's funny that they talked about being creative and then did about the least creative things possible. I don't care one bit if they are creative or not, but it would have been nice to see some guys with higher ceilings. Byrd will be an upgrade, probably, and Ruiz will be better than last year if healthy. And I can't imagine the bullpen not being better, if for no other reason than they were comically bad last year. And even a Pettibone or Kendrick will likely outpitch Halladay's line from last year. Some other things will go wrong to balance some of that out, but on balance I think we'll be better. I'm interested to see Asche and maybe the debut of Franco if Howard's not healthy. And I'll also be interested to see if Ruf can follow up his big year by working himself into some regular playing time. Oh, and Mags should be fun to see. I'm hoping we can all, myself included, find the strength to watch and enjoy as much of it as possible. It could, and probably will, be a bumpy ride.

At least there are some young guys who are probably good enough to get some playing time. I'm hoping my main man Cameron Rupp gets to play for the big club at some point and does well.

I do know I will find reasons to watch them whenever I can.

There's no crying in baseball?

I liked the signing at the time and was disappointed that he really didn't get to pitch. I'm going to root for him a bit more now after that interview.

It would definitely be kewl if he was awesome. Him and Diekman. Maybe even Bastardo and DeFratus. Bullpen of the year.

Why not?

It's February and he's in the best shape of his life.

WHY CAN'T US