Go away, Ruben Amaro. Go away. You’ve ruined them. You’ve ruined it. You’ve ruined everything. Cole, Ryan, Jimmy, Cliff and Carlos. You’ve ruined them (but you haven’t ruined Chase– no one ruins Chase).
There’s a time when all great things must come to an end. For instance, Man vs. Food episodes end. Scott Hartnell’s supposed romance with Sheena Parveen ended. Such is life. Good things end, and usually the best things end quickly, abruptly, and often in spectacular fashion. But there’s a certain expectation that those in charge, those with the ability to pull the levers of our heartstrings, will take much care to unravel what was once great, or prolong it as best as they can, without leaving everything burning in their wake. In sports, this is done by carefully disassembling a great team, by keeping the best parts, in order to prolong the excitement, and selectively removing unnecessary pieces, not unlike the way you unwrap a Christmas present wrapped by one of those superhuman mall volunteers, or remove an unnecessarily complex piece of lingerie from a significant other (WHY DO THEY PUT THOSE BUTTONS THERE IF THEY’RE JUST FOR SHOW?). You do these things, at the very least, to show respect for something great. You dismantle tactfully. Without that basic code, we’d all be savages. Things would conclude with unneeded briskness. Breaking Bad would’ve ended mid-season without us knowing what happened to Walt and Jesse. We never would’ve found out if the plane crashed in Seinfeld. We’d just throw children into their beds, sans story. Buzz Bissinger would conclude Philly Mag profiles without a fully-realized thought. Bungee cords would be made of steel. Our world would be a place filled with unsettling abruptness.
Ruben Amaro never got this memo.
Instead of identifying the useful heroes from the 2008 World Fucking Championship team and subsequent division winners, and retooling, selectively, around them, he tried to hold on to to virtually every one, forcing them into the catastrophe that is the last three seasons and this unceremonious image death of people we kind of liked at one time. In no particular order:
Jimmy Rollins. Instead of team to beat, an MVP award, and that game-winning hit in the 2009 NLCS, the lasting memory of Rollins may be of a guy who seemed mostly interested in self-promotion and setting a personal record, and who had frustratingly obvious flaws in his approach. The Phils should’ve moved on from Rollins after his last contract was up in 2011.
Ryan Howard. By giving him a five-year, $125 million contract nearly two years before it was to kick in, Amaro and the Phillies placed unfair expectations on Howard, who is now the subject of so much hate and is officially a $60 million platoon player with creaky legs who may get cut next season. He shouldn’t have been given a new contract, in 2010.
Cliff Lee. While not a member of the 2008 team, Lee was beloved after his run in 2009. What has Ruben done with him since? Traded him for no particular reason, signed him a year later, and now has made him the subject of continued trade rumors for the past two years– an existence so stressful for Lee that he has resorted to literally burping and farting at reporters. In hindsight, bringing Lee back in 2010, as much as it pains me to say, was probably a poor decision, from a financial standpoint.
Cole Hamels. He may forever be a good pitcher on a bad team who’s forced to bitch about his run support.
Carlos Ruiz. Re-signed before the 2013 season despite obvious injury and age concerns. Instead of being lovable Chooch, he’s now the injury-prone catcher who’s unfortunately paved the way for Wil Nieves and Cameron Rupp plate appearances.
Oh yeah, and then there was that time Charlie Manuel got hastily fired without so much as a tip of the ol’ cap:
None of this is to mention that Jayson Werth, Hunter Pence and Shane Victorino, all of whom were viewed by Amaro as dispensable, continue to have success elsewhere, AT POSITIONS IN WHICH THE PHILLIES ARE SORELY LACKING.
The Ryan Howard thing has done it for me. As frustrating as he is to watch, it’s not fair – to Howard or to us – that we may have to remember him as the overpaid first baseman whom the Phils had to send off to his lazy river. And unfortunately, he won’t be the only once-loved player who will leave us with a bad taste in our mouth. It’s all Ruben’s fault. He completely bungled Operation Keep Window Open by doing nothing but more of the same, with some Delmon Young, Chad Qualls and Laynce (and Jayson!) Nix sprinkled in. He tried to prolong greatness by ignoring advancing time and complementing aging players with useless and overpaid shit, when what was really needed – as hard as it may have been – was the slow undoing of a championship team. That’s how you retool or reload. The Chicago Blackhawks did this well. But that opportunity has passed for the Phils. It’s now time to rebuild, and that means parting ways with players whom, unfortunately, we now can’t wait to say goodbye to. And it’s all Ruben’s fault.
26 Comments
Ruben is the worst GM in the history of the franchise and quite possibly the worst GM baseball has seen in 30 years. It is THAT bad and congrats to him for pulling the wool over the eyes of so many these past 3 years. He hasn’t made a single move that any of us couldn’t have made with $$ and prospects and almost every single roster filler decision he has made has been wrong too. Pretty remarkable. We’ll be cursing this know-nothing over the Pence trade for the next 20 years, easy.
A retard with a Magic 8-ball would have been a better GM statically speaking.
This piece is the equivalent of Malaysian Airlines getting a poor review sometime last week for serving stale peanuts. We already knew all of this from actually watching more than two games.
I blame rube and the owners…the owners made a shit ton of money off us fans and didn’t want that to go away…their main goal is to keep us coming back by signing the players we always.had in our hearts…i will not give them another penny or turn on csn at 7:05 until i see Rubens head on a spike like ned stark
The thing that is most disturbing is the fact that it doesn’t seem Rueben is going to get canned for this mess. The idea of Rueben running any rebuild effort makes me sick.
I will say waxing poetic over Hunter Pence and his Jayson Werth is probably not the right thing. Werth got $126M and Pence was pretty frustrating player during his time here. The fact we gave up tons for Pence and got nothing for him a year later doesn’t make him a great player. I can picture him flailing away with this rest of this lineup and this team being just as terrible. If we kept him he’d be just another overpaid, underperforming, immovable piece. Rueb had to trade him to protect himself from overpaying him.
“The fact we gave up tons for Pence and got nothing for him a year later doesn’t make him a great player. ”
No, but his numbers since we traded him make him a better player than anyone Ruben kept. They expected him to be “the guy” once we had all those injuries and when he couldn’t do it Ruben just gave him up for nothing. He then wins a world series, now bats at the top of the order and forgetting that we got nothing for him, Ruben actually gave up FOUR future major leaguers. The fact that it only took the Astros 2 years to place all of those guys on their 25-man roster is an even bigger indictment. Clerical error or not, this trade will be the legacy by which Ruben is most remembered decades from now.
You cannot evaluate a trade based on the actual transaction itself. You have to look at the reasons surrounding the trade to have a full analysis. Much like the flyers signing Bryzgalov meant trading carter/Richards, The Pence trade was made because of two crucial mistakes which then led into even worse mistakes.
Mistake #1: Phillies let werth walk because they didn’t value his production behind Howard.
Mistake #2: Phillies felt ok letting werth walk because they had dom brown the untouchable.
Mistake #3: Dom brown isn’t ready so Ruben panics and trades blue chip prospects for Pence.
Mistake #4: Either by ignorance or just plain arrogance, Ruben trades Pence because he has an arbitration year coming up and assumes brown is ready.
Mistake #5: Brown isn’t ready but he moves to left anyway.
This is just one trade!
you’re gonna shit all over hunter pence. he just fucked your phillies up the ass dry. hitting for a .476 average over 4 games. psssshhhhh
“Instead of identifying the useful heroes from the 2008 World F***ing Championship team and subsequent division winners, and retooling, selectively, around them, he tried to hold on to to virtually every one, forcing them into the catastrophe that is the last three seasons and this unceremonious image death of people we kind of liked at one time. ”
So Jimmy, Howard, and Cole were not “the useful heroes” from the 2008 championship team? And you would not have kept Jimmy Rollins? I know he can be maddening to watch at times, but he is still a very good shortstop. (I like Freddy Galvis as much as anyone, but I’m not so sure I’m ready to see him as the everyday SS.)
This team has big problems. (Duh.) But even with all of those problems, this team would still be winning a lot of games if Ryan Howard had remained at anything remotely resembling his typical offensive self from the 2006-2011 seasons.
Our outfield is awful, but you can’t gripe about Howard’s contract and then harp on about Werth, who signed a 7 year $126 million contract (slightly higher total dollars even if a longer deal than Howard’s by 2 years).
Injuries to Doc and Howard de-railed this team. If not for those injuries, this team is still winning games and making runs at another World Series. That’s just the way sports is. It sucks, but it is what it is. (Same with the Pronger injury for the Flyers.)
You are delusional if you think the only thing this team is missing is a healthy Howard and Doc. Plus, depending on old players is not exactly the best way to build a team.
Every team has injuries. Hell, just look at the list from the 2007 Phillies. Fortunately, they had a GM in place who knew how to build a roster. All this GM knows is how to destroy it.
As for Jimmy, the one thing Gillick always preached was roster overhaul and instead Ruben did the exact opposite. And then the guys he did replace were replaced by absolute slop.
I never said they were the “only” thing missing from this team.
However, if those two were healthy, the last few seasons (including this one) would have gone *much* differently, even with those significant weaknesses in other areas (e.g. OF production).
Great points Andy! Can we swing by and pick up Victorino, Werth, Schmidt, Carlton, Ashburn, Dick Allen, Robin Roberts, Grover Cleveland Alexander and other Phillies greats in your magical fantastical time machine? Because oh boy we’d just be superduper if THAT happened! YAY HAPPINESS!
I think he chose the wrong heroes.
Which heroes should he have kept? Werth? Victorino?
Who the hell else likes Freddie Galvis? He’s terrible.
My point is that if you’re going to get rid of Jimmy, you’d better have a plan to replace him with someone better.
There just aren’t that many decent shortstops available out there.
Is Andy for real? I sometimes think he’s a plant to troll us. I mean nobody can be this clueless and douchy at the same time. I want to punch him so hard in the face. DORK
I like to read his blog while I touch myself.
I literally cannot wait for the uproar by phils fans when uncle Dave Montgomery brings back that fat face fuck raj
Isn’t this the same blog that used to praise every single move Rube made?
Exactly!!! Kyle used to have a boner (Morning Wood) over every move Cuban Ruben made, despite the long, overpriced contracts for aging superstars. But now that the moves obviously did not work out, Kyle changes his tune. Real sports fans saw this Phillies downfall a long time ago. But since Kyle’s baseball experience lasted from 2007 – 2011, he has no real insight into this.
Montgomery will retire because of his cancer issues and then maybe, Middleton will recruit Billy Beane, who will be an icon in Philly.
ABSO-FUCKING-LUTELY
Kyle is a fucking bandwagon pussy. If the team is great, he fillets everything connected to it, if they are bad, he kicks the down team like a little bitch. Fuck him and his fucking website.
The bottom line is don’t take Ruben’s mistakes out on the players. I will always remember them for ’08. And I think most people will once they’re gone and a few years go by.
ya’ll gotta get over your fucking selves. they won one championship. one. it’s not like they were a dynasty like the yankees. one championship in what…30 years? that ain’t no dynasty. and they caught a break with that 46 hour rain delay in 2008.
Agreed on everything but the rain delay. How the fuck was that a break? The umps waited until the game was tied to call the delay. We waited two days and basically played a 4 inning game which the Phillies won. How the FUCK was that a break?