Categories: Podcasts

Playing the Rube: A Baseball Experiment – Chapter 17: The Natti Meeting

The Phillies won a world championship in 2008.

Then Ruben Amaro Jr. was named general manager.

The Phillies didn’t win another world championship.

Tim Malcolm and Dan Walsh wonder if they can do better. So, we continue “Playing the Rube,” a bi-weekly series with accompanying podcast in which Tim and Dan attempt to steer the Phillies to more victories, starting in 2009, through the deep simulation game OOTP Baseball ’18.

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CHAPTER 17: THE NATTI MEETING

Imagine an otherwise empty conference room in the ground floor of a Center City hotel. Keurig machine. Diet Coke cans. Long tables and stacked chairs. And Tim and Dan planning the long-term mission of the Philadelphia Phillies.

The Natti Meeting is a four-day exercise in going over the past, looking at the present and preparing for the future. We uncover our needs (a big bat, one good arm, a ton of depth) and begin discussing names just as the trade deadline begins creeping up on us.

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Tim Malcolm

Tim first found the Phillies as a little infant at Veteran’s Stadium, cheering on a Juan Samuel game-winning home run in his very first game. With the pinstripes in his blood, he witnessed Terry Mulholland’s 1990 no-hitter, “Steve Carlton Night” at the Vet, game three of the 1993 World Series, countless games during the charmed 2008 championship season and various road excursions. Since November 2007 Tim’s been writing about them daily at Phillies Nation, becoming one of the world’s most popular Phillies scribes. You can catch him on Twitter and Facebook, as well. When he’s not talking about the Phils he’s relaxing with a St. Bernardus ABT 12 or one of his many favored brews.