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By now, I’m sure everyone has read or heard the comments from Phillies general manager Ruben Amaro Jr. saying that Phils fans “don’t understand the game” and all we do is “bitch and complain.” He went on to say, “There’s a plan in place and we’re sticking with the plan. We can’t [always] do what’s best for the fan.”

Naturally, there was significant backlash to his comments. Local commentators ripped into him. Then the story went national. Amaro had to swim into Missanelli-infested waters in order to apologize. It was a huge mess.

[Side note:  Imagine being a young kid who is trying to sell season tickets to this disaster of a team.  It must be literally impossible.]

But here’s the thing: AMARO WAS RIGHT! Here’s why.

If you run a professional sports team and you put a team on the field/court/ice that doesn’t win, people are ALWAYS going to bitch and complain about what you are doing. It doesn’t matter if injuries decimated your roster. It doesn’t matter if your coach sucks. It doesn’t matter if you’re rebuilding. Amaro was 100% telling the truth. It’s not what people wanted to hear, but he was being truthful.

Here’s some more truth: In baseball, it’s super hard to rebuild when you have a farm system as decimated as was the Phillies’ after they made trades for Halladay, Cliff Lee, and Hunter Pence. Then came significant injuries to key players (UItley, Howard, Halladay, Lee). Amaro was in a terrible position. A lot of people now say that that was the moment when he should have ‘blown it up,’ traded away anyone left that had value and restocked the roster with young talent.

We’ll never know if that ‘blow it up’ strategy would have yielded a better team in the present. But what we do know is even if the Phillies had chosen that rebuilding plan, people would STILL have bitched and complained about it. How do I know? Look no further than Sam Hinkie and the 76ers. They have a plan. They have a process. They are as methodical and patient as it gets. People still don’t like it.

Amaro was in a no-win situation. If you build a team that consistently doesn’t make that playoffs, it doesn’t matter one bit what the reason is. Plan or no Plan.

 

[pvc_paratheme ]