It’s hard to fathom that it has come to this, but poor,
over-zealous decisions have led to it.
Ruben Amaro Jr. made a splash in his first year as the
Phillies GM in 2009 by acquiring Cliff Lee from the Indians for a bunch of prospects
that most thought were washed up. Not one of those players has amounted to
anything and the Phillies won that deal, flat out.
Since then, the deals have been awful.
I’ve said it many times before, the whole handling of the
Cliff Lee situation has been ridiculous. The 2010 team should have been Cole
Hamels and Cliff Lee, not Roy Halladay and Cole Hamels.
There was no need to send away players like Travis D’Arnaud,
who Amaro has tried to re-acquired — at least he knows he made a mistake.
But even after that, he’s continued to make mistakes,
sending top prospects to the Astros in back-to-back years for Roy Oswalt and Hunter
Pence.
Now, in a sellers mood, he traded Shane Victorino in a deal
that looks OK at first glance — much better than what the Phils could have
gotten in a compensatory pick — and Hunter Pence in a deal that blows my mind.
Pence cost the Phillies two top prospects to get him and now, because the Giants weren’t
willing to give up their top prospect, Amaro got a decent catching prospect when they already have a better catching prospect in Sebastian Valle, who was ranked No. 9 on MLB.com's Jonathan Mayo at the start of the season.
It wasn’t absolutely necessary to deal Pence. He’s controllable through
the end of 2013, a bit expensive, but controllable, and if you wanted to deal
him, it didn’t necessarily have to be before the trade deadline — especially if
teams weren’t ready to deal the proper compensation. Amaro could have waited
until the winter meetings.
Nonetheless, personally, I could handle the Pence deal more
if Amaro didn’t fail in other areas — like trading Joe Blanton and Ty
Wiggington.
I understand that these two could potentially be moved
during the waiver trade period, but if they aren’t, it is an absolute waste to
have them on the roster for the remainder of the 2012 season.
All day Tuesday, it seemed like the Phillies were close to
dealing Blanton to Baltimore, but the Orioles didn’t want to pay all of the $3M
and the Phillies were asking for too high a prospect — from what I read.
If that’s the case, why a phone call wasn’t made at 3:50
p.m. to make a final compromise blows my mind.
To have Blanton on the roster for the final two months means
nothing. Ruben should have been in a “Get What You Can” mode.
Again, he still has time to fix this with the waiver
deadline, but it’s upsetting that he didn’t get it done now.
That said, the final two months should be interesting.
I’m interested to see Domonic Brown get his first real crack
at an every day starting job.
I’m interested to see if the Phillies shut down Roy
Halladay and allow him to properly heal for 2013.
I’m interested to see a few young starters get some
chances, like Tyler Cloyd (10-1 at Triple-A).
My expectations for the final two months is just for this
franchise to show the fans a direction. Is Philly rebuilding or just
considering 2012 a loss and looking to contend right away in 2013.
One thing is for sure, Amaro has taken several steps
backward since becoming the GM days after the Phillies won the World Series in
2008. He now has to start taking steps forward, and if he doesn’t do it by the
end of 2013, he’ll surely be taking steps out the door.
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