Ruben Amaro joined chucklehead Tom McCarthy and Jamie Moyer in the booth today to explain to everyone why things are not going to be OK and we’re all fucked. That’s when he displayed a complete lack of even a rudimentary understanding of the sport in which he generally manages.
T-Mac brought up Jimmy Rollins being one hit away (currently) from Mike Schmidt’s all-time Phillies hit record, and mentioned that J-Roll™ will do it in slightly fewer at-bats. This is what Ruben Amaro actually said in response [verbatim, sic’d and all that]:
“Yeah, we were checking it out. In fact Schmitty was in the booth yesterday when we were talking about it, and, um, I think it’s about a thousand difference in, ah, plate appearances. Pretty amazing. But their batting averages aren’t that different, which is kind of… weird. I don’t quite understand it.”
WALKS, you dope! WALKS. Mike Schmidt walked a lot more! Holy Christsack.
Rollins has 8,320 career at-bats. Schmidt had 8,352. Virtually identical. But Schmidt had 10,062 plate appearances, Rollins only has 9,168– a difference of 894. Schmidt walked 1,507 times, Rollins only 723– a difference of 784, which, when combined with Schmidt’s additional 32 at-bats, totals 816, leaving room for 78 plate appearances that resulted sacrifices, hit-by-pitches and catcher’s interferences, thus explaining the difference. Get fired, Rube. Get fired.
UPDATE:
Here’s the audio:
And Tom McCarthy referred to him as Phillies Assistant GM right after asking if he liked the broadcasters’ new Tommy Bahama shirts. H/T to readers Chris and Ellen
52 Responses
Dude probably thinks games can end in a tie, too.
They can!
Good Article, Kyle. Looks like Jim taught you a thing or two.
The annotated sound clip is priceless.
This is the same guy who got on with Mike Miss last year before the season and claimed that “walks don’t matter.” His team then proceeded to lose game after game by not getting on base and having the pen give up run after run thanks to the walk (continues this year). For a Stanford guy he sure is dumb. Worst GM in baseball over the past 25 years at least.
At least Amaro isn’t giving the finger in that worn-out photo.
I guess we shouldn’t hold out on Rube using any kind of analytics/sabremetrics/thought process in judging players. Just cup their balls and look at their gums like it’s a fucking dog show. News flash, Rube: they play baseball in the Dominican Republic. How about you pay someone to beat the bushes somewhere south of Clearwater, you jamoke.
Amaro is the classic example of someone promoted past their competence:
1. Batboy – check! ok there.
2. Player – sucked
3. Gopher to Ed Wade and then Pat Gillick – Yes, and the United States VP has many responsibilities also!
4. GM – completely sucked. (Really, a hot dog vendor could have determined that acquiring Halliday, Lee, and Oswalt were good ideas. What else has he done?)
Besides acquiring Nix, Nix, Wigginton, Delmon Young, Michael Young, Bobby Abreu, Brigniac, Mini-Mart, getting nothing for Lee, Victorino, Pence, throwing millions at the unknown/injured MAG, and going 3 years between bullpen-rebuilds?
I can’t think of anything.
You must mean letting Abreu go, since he’s currently out-performing two of our starting “outfielders”
You’re forgetting Schneider, Thome, Revere, Qualls, Durbin, Adams, and pretty much every other bullpen arm you can name.
And I can’t for the life of me understand why people give him credit for the first two years. As was just said, anyone reading this could have made the early moves he made (except for the stealth first trade for lee which he gave back and then some) with just money and prospects. He did NOTHING himself. Couldnt discover a single diamond in the rough, couldnt build a bench or a pen and he STILL has a job. It is remarkable.
FIRE AMARO! NOW!
I actually thought Adams was a decent pickup; he had a good track record, the age/injuries just caught up with him. Schneider? He’s a backup catcher in a league that barely has enough starting catchers.
You all forgot Paps.
When Pat Gillick retired the GM job should have gone to Mike Arbuckle.
Ruben deserves an eternity of fecal bukkake.
I think SABR is to a large extent silly. WAR is based on a fictional premise of a replacement player that doesn’t exist and relies on subjective defensive assessments. I do think it’s useful in projecting, but not a good way of looking at what happened in the past.
That said, there’s nothing SABR about walks. Everyone knows that walks are better than outs. Shit, Harry Kalas and Rich Ashburn used to go on and on about the reason for success in 1993 was all the walks.
Amaro is awful. Hopefully the too-loyal Montgomery can get him the job as commissioner.
Another saber-basher who has no idea what he’s talking about when he criticizes WAR. You clearly have no understanding of the concept of the replacement player. It isn’t an opinion. It is mathematically derived. It’s abstract mathematics, which you can learn more about here http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abstraction_(mathematics). Please, go to the math department of your nearest university and tell a math professor there that abstract math isn’t real because you don’t understand it.
If you knew anything about science, you’d know that scientists use theoreticals all the time. You may remember learning about the ideal gas law in high school chemistry class aka PV=nRT. That scientific LAW is based on the concept of the ideal gas. Now here’s the kicker: it doesn’t exist. There’s no such thing as an ideal gas. Now please go to the chemistry department of your nearest university and tell a chemistry professor there that the ideal gas law is bogus because there’s no such thing as an ideal gas. I’m sure you won’t get laughed out of the room.
Yes there’s subjectivity involved in the defensive component of WAR. Just because it’s not perfect, doesn’t mean it’s invalid. No stats are perfect. There’s far more subjectivity involved in scouting, which nobody, myself included, ever complains about. UZR and DRS, like scouting, is not based on the assesment of one person. There are crosscheckers that verify the assesments. Just because there’s subjectivity involved, doesn’t mean it’s invalid.
I would love, just for once, to read a criticism of WAR, or any advanced stat for that matter, that actually delved into the methodology and statistical analysis used to construct the stat. Not only would that be fascinating, but it would be refreshing to see somebody execute the correct process for scrutinizing an advanced stat for once in the history of baseball. Even if that person was wrong, he’d be wrong for the right reasons, and I can respect that.
Sabermetrics isn’t wrong because you don’t like it, or because it tells you what you don’t want to hear, or because it doesn’t confirm what you think you know. If you think otherwise, than prove it, but contrary to popular belief, anecdotes and incredulity is not an argument.
At least we can agree that RAJ is awful. Regardless of how you think about baseball, that is something everyone agrees on.
Douche, your comment is entirely too long for anyone who frequents this blog.
First, agree with Mikey Mess – massive douche. Second, would add gaping asshole. Third, I would suggest you head to your local university (Neumann or Widener, I’m guessing) and ask for remedial reading help, since I said WAR IS fucking useful for projecting, just not for assessing what actually occurred, because what actually occurred is demonstrated by measuring stats and no hypothetical replacement player put up any stats in games past.
Honestly, I didn’t think it was possible to isolate the biggest pile of shit on the internet, but we’ve managed.
“I would suggest you head to your local university (Neumann or Widener, I’m guessing) and ask for remedial reading help, since I said WAR IS fucking useful for projecting, just not for assessing what actually occurred, because what actually occurred is demonstrated by measuring stats and no hypothetical replacement player put up any stats in games past. ”
You really are fucking stupid Son. War is derived from stats and the equation of what a “replacement level player” at each position is, based on, wait for it… Stats. Do you really think the baseline for WAR is pulled from thin air? War is in fact telling you what a player previously did, it does not try to fortell the future. It’s meant to judge a players performance and you are left to attempt to project what a player will do BASED ON THEIR PAST PERFORMANCES. Seriously try to learn something about a topic before you tell people what it’s ALL ABOUT. Even your very own mother knows more than you. Now go to your room dickwad!
Tell you what, when you find the “replacement player” call me up and I’ll give him a handy behind your double wide.
“… head to your local university (Neumann or Widener, I’m guessing) ”
That’s good Delco knowledge, right there.
bump bump ba-bump
i’ve got one, UZR i find useless as it seems to require 3 years to normalize. that’s sorta bad for WAR too as it’s calculated year to year. there’s better versions i hear, though.
2008 – Gillick – WS Champs
2009 – Amaro – WS Loss
2010 – Amaro – NLCS Loss
2011 – Amaro – NLDS Loss
2012 – Amaro – Missed Playoffs
2013 – Amaro – Finished Under .500
2014 – Amaro – Last Place
Some ass like .300 Monty will spin this as “There’s no place to go but up!”
.300 Monty thinks he’s gonna take them “up, up, and away” in his magical balloon!
Yeah, something like that. Clown.
Ruben and Brace have a lot in common. They both sound like idiots when they talk and they both suck at what they do.
Ruby, Ruby, Ruby! Every day, you bringeth nuggets of your obtusity. Too funny, Kyle.
^^^really is me
^^no its not its me
I will let you know when comments by me are not me. So if I don’t say anything, it’s by me. If I follow it with an “it’s not me” comment, then it wasn’t me. We will go with that for awhile. If that doesn’t work out, then I’ll switch to telling you when it “is” me, and if I don’t say anything, then it’s not me.
Is that all clear? I just want everyone to be on the same page with my comments, because for some reason, I seem to be targeted by the handle stealers more than any other commenter.
If anyone needs me to clarify this further, just say so.
What a stupid bitch.
Nobody gives 2 flying shitcunts about you, the fake you, or you faking to be the fake you. We all wish all of you would go away. Please?
“Everyone,” no one gives a shit about you. you’re one of the biggest turds this blog has to offer.
Thanks for the backup Scott. Do you want to join our commenter’s alliance?
What a fuckin’ dope! And he insists on showing everyone what little he actually knows about the game! Show him the damn door and kick him in the ass on the way out!
FIRE AMARO! NOW!
Everyone remember when Kyle was all over rubes dick? “The big poker….blah blah blah”. Guy used to jerk it to RAJ. Now he just stays hating.
Yup. You can still go back and find the posts where Kyle is verbally cramming Ruben’s entire ballsack down his esophagus.
Of course well all remember that. Kyle is Captain Hindsight. Except when it comes to the original Hunter Pence trade because he still thinks it was a move the Phillies needed to make at the time even though they were on pace for 100 wins.
To be honest EVERYONE had his dick in their mouths 2008-11 sometime, once or twice, maybe 3 times. All the national media, all the fans.
FIRE AMARO! NOW!
Dallas Green’s sitting there thinking “I’m just glad Pope’s not alive to see this mess.”
Did anyone see the philly.com story where that douchebag Chaka Fattah is pushing thru a bill to rename 30th Street Station after his fellow chiseler Bill Gray?
People like Kyle and all these posters can scream bloody murder for Ruben’s head until the cows come home, but as long as Dave Montgomery continues to have a soft spot for Amaro, nothing will change. You know it, I know it, and, more importantly, Ruben knows it.
FIRE AMARO! NOW!
wow, this is almost as bad as obama not knowing the difference between net and gross income.
Or Obama saying Marine “corpse” instead of “core” !!!
Im watching good day & kac.ie definetly got her tits even bigger
I shared this on social media. from a different source. and will do the same until I can type [email protected]!e like you can, dickweed.
I can’t either. This is bullshit.
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