The Nine Lives Of Ruben Amaro Jr.

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After eight years as a Major League Baseball player, Ruben Amaro Jr. shifted to the front office in 1998 when he was appointed as the assistant general manager of the Philadelphia Phillies. From 2006-2008, Amaro learned at the feet of Hall of Fame general manager Pat Gillick who was the architect of the Phillies World Series Championship team in 2008. Gillick decided to hang it up after the Phillies World Series triumph and Amaro was promoted to fill his void in Philadelphia.

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Ruben Amaro Jr.

At first Amaro kept the Phillies machine rolling along as the team had their core players in shortstop Jimmy Rollins, second baseman Chase Utley, first baseman Ryan Howard, and starting pitcher Cole Hamels. In 2009, Amaro acquired starting pitcher Cliff Lee from the Cleveland Indians. The Phillies made it back to the World Series in 2009, but they were stopped there by the New York Yankees in six games. In 2010, the Phillies traded Lee to the Seattle Mariners, but they acquired starting pitcher Roy Hallady from the Toronto Blue Jays and starting pitcher Roy Oswalt from the Houston Astros. The Phillies would win 97 games in the regular season, but they ran into a San Francisco Giants team in the National League Championship Series that was able to match them as far as dominant starting pitching. Lee would rejoin the Phillies in 2011 and they ran roughshod over every team in the NL as they would win 102 games. But the Phillies would lose to the eventual World Series Champion St. Louis Cardinals in the National League Division Series.

Since 2011, the Phillies have seen a steep decline in their production. Last year the Phillies had their first losing campaign since 2002 and this season hasn’t been that kind to Philadelphia either as they will finish 2014 in the basement of the NL East.

When Amaro made the moves to acquire players such as Halladay, Oswalt, and Lee, they were win-now deals due to the fact the he parted with the top young talent in the Phillies minor league system. With the Phillies not being close to contending in the past few seasons, Amaro has had chances to part with aging players such as Hamels, Utley, and relief pitcher Jonathan Papelbon, but he has opted to keep holding on to an aging team. In 2010, Howard had two years left on his contract with the Phillies when Amaro signed him to a five-year extension worth $125 million. Howard made the final out of the 2011 NLDS and in the process he ruptured his Achilles. Howard has not been the same player since the injury and the Phillies are on the hook to pay him $78 million over the next three seasons.

Amaro has been so desperate to keep the Phillies together with spit and glue that he fired manager Charlie Manuel last season. 2013 was the only season the Manuel has a losing record with the Phillies and he led the team to the World Series Championship in 2008. Now Phillies assistant general manager/ scouting director Marti Wolever was fired this past Friday in what smells of another desperate act by Amaro. Wolever had been with the Phillies since 2001 and he was the man responsible for bringing Howard and Hamels to Philadelphia.

The fans in Philadelphia are out for blood because the changes that they want with their beloved Phillies starts with the team parting ways with Amaro. Amaro’s success as the Phillies general manager was on the back of Gillick’s work. Including the Phillies, Gillick was the man that guided four MLB teams to the postseason from his front office perch including winning a pair of World Series Championships with the Blue Jays in the early 1990’s. All Amaro has done recently has hurt this franchise by giving back loaded contracts to aging players while making it tough for the person after him to clean up. The Phillies team payroll this season of $169 million is the sixth highest in Major League Baseball. Of the five teams ahead of the Phillies on that list, four of them are postseason bound while the Yankees were also in contention for a playoff berth until recently.

The Phillies are not going to get better anytime soon as long as Amaro is still running the show there because he does not believe in making his baseball team in Philadelphia any younger. In the National League East, the Washington Nationals are the king of the mountain as they are what the Phillies were a few seasons ago. The New York Mets and Miami Marlins and two young teams that are improving while the Atlanta Braves will look to bounce back in 2015 from a disappointing 2014 season which spells trouble for the Phillies who are taking a turn for the worse. Amaro continues to somehow survive, but at some point the Phillies ownership group led by David Montgomery has to see enough and Amaro will be shown the door in Philadelphia which could warrant a parade on Broad Street.

Source: Sportrac.com

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By | 2014-09-28T13:23:26+00:00 September 28th, 2014|Categories: Major League Baseball|Tags: , , |0 Comments

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