Doll Is Mine wrote:Matt Gelb @MattGelb
Phillies failed to trade players in July. Why will it work now? Amaro: "Our priorities now are a little different than they were in July."

Only because Amaro horribly overestimated the talent on this team. Nothing material has changed since July.

Yeah but those guys still don't help long term. Even when we sign someone that could help another team (Byrd), we can't even trade him for pieces.

My thought is if Amaro hasn't been fired yet, he won't be fired for at least 2 years.

Shore wrote:

Trent Steele wrote:

Trent Steele wrote:Bovada has Phillies at 75 to 1 to win 2015 WS.

Only AZ, Col, Hou, and Minn are worse.

Nice.

I'm pretty sure I'd swap rosters with Houston, without even looking anything up.

pretty sure Goldschmidt is worth more than our entire roster

Werthless wrote:

Doll Is Mine wrote:Matt Gelb @MattGelb
Phillies failed to trade players in July. Why will it work now? Amaro: "Our priorities now are a little different than they were in July."

Only because Amaro horribly overestimated the talent on this team. Nothing material has changed since July.

I would think the team is more willing to eat salary in the winter than in season.

It's really about ownership. And who's in charge. I guess whomever has the final say about who runs the baseball side, is content with things as they are? They view 07-11 as success. And if they are making money, growing equity in the franchise. Well....

There is some serendipity involved in all sports when it comes to winning championships. A bit of luck. If the Giants lose 1 game to Pitt, they don't have a parade.

But the way the Phils have handled things under Amaro, is indefensible. And committing to a guy like Ryne Sandberg and his entire staff. There is simply no sense of getting it wrong in so many ways. And so whether the buck stops with Montgomery or the buck stop with the Bucks or whomever else -- I don't know...but a full house-cleaning is in order. It simply is. A front-office culture-makeover is required. Doesn't mean they will win a WS in 3 years. But when the best of BSG and the blogosphere for the Phils, can do a better job of figuring things out, using modern metrics, and just pure common sense.

I have zero hope. But the only hope, is that by some magic, the old vets with high price-tags, find some magic next year and approximate some of their better moments of their pasts.

Utley and Howard became full-time 1-2 seasons later than they might have. Which put them 2 years closer to their peaks. Surely the Phils can figure out the overwhelming evidence on the ages for peak performance? And should have informed length of contracts. Better to have paid a bit more for less years.

Anyway -- here we are. Not much to look forward to.

Sad sad day.

It's interesting that the SF Giants with teams that included Willie Mays, Cepeda, McCovey, Felipe Alou, Marachal, never won a WS. And teams with Barry Bonds, Matt Williams, Robby Thompson, also did not win. And now Bruce Bochy, the new Joe Torre wins 3 with a "core 4" in the bullpen, an Ace whether Lincecum, Cain or Baumgarner -- with no big stars. Sandovar, Pence, and Posey are good ball players but not mega-stars in MVP consideration.

The Phils needed to close in 09-10-11. I could go a decade of ineptitude with 2-3-4 titles/mini-dynasty.

Now, there isn't much to look forward to, except seeing familiar faces continue to decline or be shadows of their former best selves....

slugsrbad wrote:

Werthless wrote:

Doll Is Mine wrote:Matt Gelb @MattGelb
Phillies failed to trade players in July. Why will it work now? Amaro: "Our priorities now are a little different than they were in July."

Only because Amaro horribly overestimated the talent on this team. Nothing material has changed since July.

I would think the team is more willing to eat salary in the winter than in season.

Interesting, if Amaro is talking about handcuffs of ownership. That wasn't my interpretation, but it's an interesting one.

Werthless wrote:

slugsrbad wrote:

Werthless wrote:

Doll Is Mine wrote:Matt Gelb @MattGelb
Phillies failed to trade players in July. Why will it work now? Amaro: "Our priorities now are a little different than they were in July."

Only because Amaro horribly overestimated the talent on this team. Nothing material has changed since July.

I would think the team is more willing to eat salary in the winter than in season.

Interesting, if Amaro is talking about handcuffs of ownership. That wasn't my interpretation, but it's an interesting one.

I'm only making that assumption because of all the smoke around moving Howard and labeling us as re-builders.

I've suspected for awhile that the Phils get so wedded to their initial and early scouting evaluations and ignore more recent performance just to prove their first opinion was right. On one side, they stubbornly give certain players more time to prove themselves than anyone else would. And the converse, little time for those they weren't initially high on even after showing improvement and production potential. Brown and Ruf are recent examples.

Their initial opinion of Brown was that of a LHB phenom in the mold of Darryl Strawberry. They were never high on Ruf (the "fat hands" board meme). Dom Brown has enough a body of work to say he isn't the phenom they thought he would be. Ruf projects as a 30+ HR bat when given regular starter ABs. And yet I truly believe the Phils will trade Ruf for crap in the very near future.

What changed since July--I hope--is that Montgomery is now out of the decision-making loop.

Basically if you're looking for reason to be optimistic about the Phillies, that's it: he seems like a swell fella and I hope the health issues work out, but I've never heard or read anything to disabuse me of the notion that Montgomery is a total blithering idiot when it comes to baseball operations. Even if it's not a question of him vetoing specific moves, it might be that he sets broad parameters that have hurt.

I don't think it's like the rest of them are brainiacs held back by Monty. But it's possible they're less resistant to new input. Like I said, if you're casting for hope the organization will start acting more intelligently, I think that's all there is.

Agreed. Since it seems Rube isn't going anywhere for now I'm going to try and convince myself that the reluctance to part with post-prime vets came from Monty.

BigEd76 wrote:General manager Ruben Amaro Jr. unveiled "The Phillies Way," a handbook distributed to all baseball personnel - coaches, scouts, athletic trainers included - during the team's organizational meetings this week.

Didn't Lee Thomas do this in the late 80s, early 90s too?

Edit: Ed Wade. http://articles.mcall.com/2000-07-30/sp ... arm-system

Philly the Kid wrote:It's interesting that the SF Giants with teams that included Willie Mays, Cepeda, McCovey, Felipe Alou, Marachal, never won a WS. And teams with Barry Bonds, Matt Williams, Robby Thompson, also did not win. And now Bruce Bochy, the new Joe Torre wins 3 with a "core 4" in the bullpen, an Ace whether Lincecum, Cain or Baumgarner -- with no big stars. Sandovar, Pence, and Posey are good ball players but not mega-stars in MVP consideration.

Buster Posey was the NL MVP for the Giants' 2012 WS season.

RichmondPhilsFan wrote:

Philly the Kid wrote:It's interesting that the SF Giants with teams that included Willie Mays, Cepeda, McCovey, Felipe Alou, Marachal, never won a WS. And teams with Barry Bonds, Matt Williams, Robby Thompson, also did not win. And now Bruce Bochy, the new Joe Torre wins 3 with a "core 4" in the bullpen, an Ace whether Lincecum, Cain or Baumgarner -- with no big stars. Sandovar, Pence, and Posey are good ball players but not mega-stars in MVP consideration.

Buster Posey was the NL MVP for the Giants' 2012 WS season.

lol

RichmondPhilsFan wrote:

Philly the Kid wrote:It's interesting that the SF Giants with teams that included Willie Mays, Cepeda, McCovey, Felipe Alou, Marachal, never won a WS. And teams with Barry Bonds, Matt Williams, Robby Thompson, also did not win. And now Bruce Bochy, the new Joe Torre wins 3 with a "core 4" in the bullpen, an Ace whether Lincecum, Cain or Baumgarner -- with no big stars. Sandovar, Pence, and Posey are good ball players but not mega-stars in MVP consideration.

Buster Posey was the NL MVP for the Giants' 2012 WS season.

The Kid is on to something here.

The Gignats' peculiar success helps the cause of incompents, who can easily compare their raggedy rosters to what the Giants have trotted out and say something to the effect of "See, what SF's results tell you is that it IS mostly random good luck - all we have to do is catch some heat lightning in a pissjug" to do every bit as well as teams whose organizations are better run.

Inability is the new inefficiency

momadance wrote:

RichmondPhilsFan wrote:

Philly the Kid wrote:It's interesting that the SF Giants with teams that included Willie Mays, Cepeda, McCovey, Felipe Alou, Marachal, never won a WS. And teams with Barry Bonds, Matt Williams, Robby Thompson, also did not win. And now Bruce Bochy, the new Joe Torre wins 3 with a "core 4" in the bullpen, an Ace whether Lincecum, Cain or Baumgarner -- with no big stars. Sandovar, Pence, and Posey are good ball players but not mega-stars in MVP consideration.

Buster Posey was the NL MVP for the Giants' 2012 WS season.

lol

You got the point. Which is that sometimes having hall of famers, isn't what wins a WS. A scrappy team with above average pitching. (and some luck)

ReadingPhilly wrote:we're in trouble if that's who he plans to build around.

They aren't the young players we need, but they're the young players we deserve.

lethal wrote:

BigEd76 wrote:General manager Ruben Amaro Jr. unveiled "The Phillies Way," a handbook distributed to all baseball personnel - coaches, scouts, athletic trainers included - during the team's organizational meetings this week.

Didn't Lee Thomas do this in the late 80s, early 90s too?

Edit: Ed Wade. http://articles.mcall.com/2000-07-30/sp ... arm-system

Yes, I instantly thought of this too.

"Appendix A: Back-of-baseball-card reading"

its no cardinal way, that is for sure

I think we need to get away from the idea that Amaro is making these personnel decisions. I know he's the one who will be publicly vilified, but the Phillies have a very team oriented approach to this stuff, more so than other organizations, I believe. Gillick is the only guy who I think might go off on his own. Maybe Middleton is doing something behind the scenes, but I think Gillick is our best hope.