Phillies Nation

Then it’s not Victorino’s fault. I think Victorino will be a good center fielder lead off/2 hole guy for the next few years.

Rowand hit in the 5 hole. That’s why his RBI production was so good.

no, its not victorinos fault. im not blaming victorino, hes doing fine. he wasnt earlier this season, but hes improved himself greatly. its gillicks fault for thinking that feliz and jenkins will replace that production.

feliz is a good value and hes been mostly a good signing. it comes back to thinkgin that a werth/jenkins platoon is good enough when its simply not. jenkins has not held up his end of the deal at all and werth cant hit righties so hes not an everyday player, period. theres still a lot of rbis going unaccounted for that they relied on last year.

say what you want about the competency (or lack thereof) of Ed Wade, but the Phillies did draft extremely well during his time here. This team is built around Arbuckle draft picks under Ed Wade. You have to at least credit him for that…

thats where i disagree don, thats the problem i have htough don. im not happy with simply having a team good enough to watch and root for every year.

where does that lead? it hasnt led anywhere since 1993 and it hasnt culminated since 1980.

it has to be TO AN END. all of the stuff theyre doing now, waiver wire people, cheap guys, adam eatons, etc. all of this leads NOWHERE. it has no good end. weve seen this before. they might get to the WS, repeat, might. they probly wont thogh, and they definitely wont win it.

when do you draw the line and say, we have to win now. and if youre not prepared to do that then dont own a sports team.

know what im saying?

there never a cycle with this team. its always just sort of there. in the mix. not standing out as elite at all. stuck in purgatory. not going for it all, but not rebuidling for a run in the future. just there…

Because owning a sports team is the same as owning every other business… they are making money, lots of it.. its easier for us to tell them to spend more.

That is like telling a movie director to add more special-effect blowup scenes (eventhough his past couple movies have been very exciting!) and the extra money that it costs to possibly make it the best action movie of the year, might not be worth it to him if it comes directly out of his pockets.. and there is no gaurantee you are going to win the award, because you don’t know what other movies are going to show up on the screen that year

I want them to win desperately… but look at teams like the Cubs, the RedSox, …. they’ve struggled for years and years and years… and they’ve been close a few times.

Baseball is the hardest sport to make the playoffs in.. and they’ve currently created a team that for the next few years, should have a very good chance of making the playoffs, and they seem to be only a player or two away from being among the top teams in baseball..

Ownership knows they have to keep fielding good teams, and so they have increased payroll… like the Eagles, GETTING to the playoffs is great if you haven’t been there in a while, but once you do it a few years in a row…your fans expect more… I think the Phillies ownership sees that, and that is why you can expect them to land a good starting pitcher this offseason to match with Cole Hamels

of course its easier bcause theyre making money. theyre in a comfort zone

the most practical solutions? ed snider/comcast buys the team and spends more money on players and the farm system

OR

get a GM, NOT RUBEN AMARO, and a player personnel department/farm director who is an expert at assigning CORRECT value to players. GOOD scouts, GOOD talent evaluators in the front office.

they really dont have that. gillick is better than ed wade, but even gillick has incorrectly valued several players.

I would like to think they’ll get Sheets. Sabathia is going to the Giants. He wants to play on the west coast. They’ll build a team around GREAT pitching and be serious contenders.

Lincecum
Sabathia
Cain
Sanchez
whoever

i think the giants will be good next year actually. i also think the reds will be legitimate contenders to make the playoffs in their division too.

I agree Geoff. I picked the Reds for this year, but they fell short. They’ll get some outfield talent to go along with Bruce and they have a good infield. They have a good 1-2 punch if Harang comes back healthy. They have a good closer too.

They need to solidify a good catcher or at least decent catcher and 2 outfielders.

it should be rather obvious. ruben amaro is THE stereotypical executive yes-man suckup to the ownership. total sychophantic head-nodding puppet. he has been brought up through the system and trained in their ways. hes learned from ed wade and pat gillick.

dont you think they need a fresh pair of eyes in there? someone with different ideas?

if they go with an internal yes-man next year, i really dont think theyll sign a starting pitcher of any value at all don, itll be more of the same, they dotn value starting pitching for whatever reason. its not in their philosophy.

they need someone from the outside to come in, someone who will demand startin gpitching and demand the common sense things that top flight teams to that sets them apart from the phillies. top to bottom, they ened a fresh approach. the scouting is bad, the trainers are bad. the player personnel decision-making is bad. thank goodness they have about a dozen great players on the roster who make them watchable and make them a contender for their division. without those few guys, theyd be as bad as the nationals. because their organizational makeup is about as bad

Wasn’t Gillick just brought-in from the outside with a fresh set of eyes.. and hasn’t he guided them to the playoff doorstep, and then to the division crown in his two seasons here?

The scouting is bad.. the trainers are bad…. haven’t the Phillies been pretty healthy so far this season, much more than say Atlanta or New York (knock on wood)..

Amaro is THE stereotypical YES MAN… What do you want him to speak-up about and get fired over?

That they need to increase payroll (haven’t they done that the past few seasons?)

and go after starting pitching (haven’t they said they’re going to do that this year)

I think this is another case of you ranting, just to rant.. nobody knows whether Amaro will be the next GM or not.. and Arbuckle has overseen most of the good players we still have, and advised the Phillies GMs which guys to keep.. and I think he’s won a few awards in the process.. as voted on by others in baseball

keep in mind, im not just bashing gillick, im bashing the organization itself.

theyve barely inscreased payroll..in 3 years they went from 89mm to 99mm, and thats debateable depending on whos numbers you beleive.

amaro needs to provide a counter-opinion to the general manager to force him to think in different dimensions. typical government-style. thats why the government is incompetent at the very least. the department heads are all surrounded by yes-men. no alternative views, no hashing through problems, just one way, one idea, one method.

they said they were going to go after starting pitching THIS year and that they would go for it. montgomery said “shame on us if we dont go all out to win a championship” he said that on mike missanellis show a few days before they failed to get CC. and since im prett ysure that youll agree that even if blanton performs well, getting joe blanton is not going for it. well, montgomery, SHAME ON YOU! theyd better go after a top line starter in the offseason, but im pretty sure they havent said anything at all about the offseason.

when the phillies have traded for prospects, those deals have historically been TERRIBLE. abreu, schilling, rolen, padilla, polanco all brought nothing in return. they shouldve won a WS with the returns for those guys but they get nothing. even a few stars who are still around wouldve been nice, but they got NOTHING. thats BAD SCOUTING, thats BAD PLAYER PESONNEL EVALUATION.

they traded for freddy garcia when the white sox knew he was already injured and they insisted that he NOT take a physical. they didnt give him a physical. THATS RETARDED. only a mentally retarded person would accept that agreement!!!!!!

youre mistaken about gillick, gillick was brought in because hes a yes-man too. they would not have hired him if he was going to rock the boat and storm into the owners office demanding money for this and that. he doesnt do any of that stuff.

this time around is different. their approach has failed to win a WS, therefore, you have to completely gut the front office and the personnel, scouting, and farm people. new people, new approach. you need a strong-willed, good baseball man in there who knows how to deal with weak ownership and still get what the team needs to win.

they simply dont have anyone like that at all. tahts not pat gillick.

Mainly, Rowand got hits in big spots last year, at least from what I saw. If anything, i’m focused on missing that than his overall numbers.

Also, Chris Duncan is on the DL… unless he’s come off this week or is coming off this weekend. I’m sure there are plenty of others to hit… i do wish they could just throw in the dugout and knock the glasses right off of LaRussa’s face.

HEY FUCK ALL YOU ASSHOLES WHO SAY J-ROLL AINT SHIT THIS YEAR!
JIMMY IS BACK AND HES HERE TO TEAR ANYONES ASSHOLE THAT MESSES WITH HIM!!!!!!

but we are always one or two players away. thats what philadelphia is all about in sports over the past 25 yeras. being good but not legitimate enough to be the very best. talking tough but then letting someone come in and walk all over you and spit in your face while you sit there and say and do nothing. thats what philadelphia has become.

tahts not what im personally all about, and thats why i get upset at people who think its ok to always be good but not great, close but not ever achieve the ultimate goal.

dont you see this as a continuation of the same pattern? theres nothing this team has done this year, really, that has shown me that theyre anywhere close to breaking that pattern of failure. i just dont se eit. they may make the playoffs because the marlins and the mets didnt do anything either.

so another year goes by…am i hopeful that next year they may bring in elite pitching and fill their holes? sure. but we all knew their holes in the offseason, and they didnt fill them all. and they passed it off as not a big deal, but they still didnt fill the holes completely. thats the reason why theyre not any better.

theyre not better. theyre worse this year, they have a worse record. theyre in first place because their division this year is garbage.

last year they were able to hit good pitching. last year they had a better record at this point, this year their record is worse but their division is garbage.

this year they have hit good pitching, legit pitching, maybe once all year?? thats about it. thye did much more of that last year. this year they get shut down by it.

im happy their in first place, i hope they stay there, i want to see playoff baseball again. but dont be surprised when a team with real pitching comes in and sweeps them again.

Again,

which starting pitcher should we have signed that you thought was going to be better than brett myers?

They haven’t ALWAYS BEEN GOOD… they sucked for the better part of my life, and over the past 4 years or so, have become one of the better teams in baseball… getting better as they go along… you’re just dramatic and to cry about how you DEMAND things..

NEXT YEAR THE METS WILL HAVE A NEW STADIUM AND WILL BE FINANCIALLY UNTOUCHABLE. THE PHILS ARE GOING TO BE IN TROUBLE IF THEY DO NOT CONCENTRATE ON DEVELOPING AN ANGEL’S LIKE FARM SYSTEM

i dont think im dramatic at all. i think most of the things i say are fairly obvious and pedestrian. i demand certain things because most of those demands are things that winning baseball teams do.

thats a good poitn Eb. the mets will probably try to sign ben sheets from under our noses. and theyll get him and get away with it.

if the phillies arent prepared to compete financially theyll have to have an awesome farm system. that means firing mike arbuckle and hiring a beane farm disciple.

don..i can only show you the door, youre the one taht has to walk through it.

Dude, know your sounding like the nerdy kid in grade school that tries too hard to out-wit kids that are picking on him.. .and thus gets picked on more… and im sounding like the bully who instead of your lunch money, just wants you to answer questions i have about the ridiculous comments you make