"Look at all this shit!" Photo credit: David Manning-USA TODAY Sports

“Look at all this shit!” Photo credit: David Manning-USA TODAY Sports

The bow tie man himself, little baby Ken Rosenthal, writes about Ruben Amaro’s failures to move his three most valuable commodities and Ryan Howard:

This was the winter of deal-makers — A.J. Preller, Rick Hahn, Andrew Friedman, Billy Beane, Dan Jennings. Amaro and Phillies president Pat Gillick needed to head that list. But they’re not even close to being on it.

Yes, the Phils made seemingly decent trades to get rid of shortstop Jimmy Rollins and outfielder Marlon Byrd. Yes, they have reasons for their inability to move Hamels, Papelbon and Co. But this is a team that had clubhouse issues last season, an environment not “conducive to winning,” according to manager Ryne Sandberg.

That environment will not improve this season, given the uncertainty surrounding so many prominent veterans. And good luck to the Phillies persuading their fans to buy tickets for a team that remains stuck in neutral.

Honestly? It’s getting to the point where I’m not even sure what to excerpt from these articles anymore. It’s just graf after graf of grammatical hits on the Phils. So I’ll try my hand at writing one:

The Phillies are hoarders. They’re aware they have a problem. They acknowledge something needs to change. They know that box of record sleeves – which double as toilet seat covers for guests fearful of contact with a brownish-yellow-hued jester’s chair – needs to be thrown out. But when it comes time to put up or shut up, all they can part with is a stubborn old coffee machine (Jimmy Rollins), a noisy teakettle (Shane Victorino), and that bluetooth-enabled alarm clock and speaker that they could never figure out how to work anyway (Marlon Byrd). All the while, the big gold bar sitting on the kitchen table will serve as a coaster for another year (Cole Hamels). The little-used, gas-guzzling riding mower, of real value to a family with actual greenery on their property, remains in the storage shed, pissing off other power tools (Jonathan Papelbon). The iPhone 4s that sat beneath a pile of papers on a desk, waiting to be put up for auction on eBay, now holds no value because the screen cracked when someone unwittingly placed the big gold bar on top of it (Cliff Lee). And then there’s that Hi-Fi stereo unit and DVD player combo taking up space in the living room that they’re just going to have to live with or pay someone to remove (Ryan Howard). What a mess indeed.

How’s that?