smitty wrote:That was real good EC. Too many baseball references though. The key to the Baumann is you use a bunch of similes and metaphors and stuff that have nothing to do with anything. Then at the very end you do the big reveal. It was about baseball all along.

Or something.

Baumann is the true master of the form.

I’d have Wade. You see, it’s been a really easy narrative device this season to say that the Phillies are going to pot rapidly because they don’t have an analytics department. That’s utter bullshit, peddled to us by thoughtless men looking to fill pages or text boxes with easy conclusions. Much like myself. You can win without embracing “sabermetrics,” whatever that means anymore. You can go old school as hell and still win games, particularly when you’re endowed with the vast financial resources the Phillies have. You can do this without running a single regression, without understanding Bayesian statistics as anything under than a count of the houses you have on the western side of Long Beach Island.

You do that by doing what the Phillies did from when Wade took over to when Amaro took over: you pour all of your money, energy and resources into scouting and player development. You hit an absurd run of good with first-round draft picks, bagging Pat Burrell, Brett Myers, Chase Utley and Cole Hamels, adding Ryan Madson and Ryan Howard with mid-round picks. That’s six Wade picks in five years constituting the top two starting pitchers, a dominant reliever and the 3-4-5 hitters on a team that won the World Series. You make smart decisions with your high draft picks and get the best developmental staff you can.

Which is what Ed Wade did, and you know what? He took a team that had been worth a crap once in the past 15 years and turned it into a perennial contender. Now, that ultimately wound up not amounting to anything during Wade’s tenure, and I don’t think Wade was a good GM on balance, but it’s hard to argue that he didn’t lay the groundwork for a team that ended up winning a title.

etched Chaos wrote:So the Baumann solution is to luckbox the draft? I'm shocked he hasn't advocated stinking it up so you can draft once in a generation talents in consecutive seasons.

The Nightman Cometh wrote:Floyd is fine

mcare89 wrote:

The Nightman Cometh wrote:Floyd is fine

Wasn't for us. I know he turned out fine elsewhere, but Wade yo-yoed the crap out of him.

phdave wrote:

mcare89 wrote:

The Nightman Cometh wrote:Floyd is fine

Wasn't for us. I know he turned out fine elsewhere, but Wade yo-yoed the crap out of him.

I think you are thinking of Gillick. Floyd only made a September call up appearance under Wade.

smitty wrote:

phdave wrote:

mcare89 wrote:

The Nightman Cometh wrote:Floyd is fine

Wasn't for us. I know he turned out fine elsewhere, but Wade yo-yoed the crap out of him.

I think you are thinking of Gillick. Floyd only made a September call up appearance under Wade.

We COULDDA HAD TEXIERIA or whoever that guy is.

phdave wrote:

mcare89 wrote:

The Nightman Cometh wrote:Floyd is fine

Wasn't for us. I know he turned out fine elsewhere, but Wade yo-yoed the crap out of him.

I think you are thinking of Gillick. Floyd only made a September call up appearance under Wade.

In Whose Management Do I Have the Most Trust? 1) Sixers…..(huge gap)….2) Eagles 3) Flyers 4) Phillies
That last one is interesting, because I’d take the Sixers’ management mostly because they’re new. The same goes for Chip Kelly. We know Paul Holmgren and Ruben Amaro and we’ve lived through their mistakes. Both seem to prefer old, expensive players to young, cheap players. Both tend to neglect the draft but have a flair for splashy trades. The Flyers’ bad moves aren’t quite as bad as the Phillies’ bad moves, but their mistakes hurt more because of the salary cap. I guess the tiebreaker is that the Flyers seem to be better at acquiring and developing young players than the Phillies are? I dunno. We’re all screwed.

phdave wrote:A few lost first rounders due to free agent signings I guess. Or not drafting the right players, but that isn't exactly neglecting. I don't know. They seemed to intentionally avoid free agents who would cause a loss of a draft pick this past off season, so that was not neglect. I don't know. I try not to think too hard about what he writes, especially when it seems he is trying hard to tell the goth crowd what they want to hear.

etched Chaos wrote:Uh, how does Ruben neglect the draft? Under his tutelage we've drafted/signed some good talent, or does Baumann not know about Maikel yet?