Ruben Amaro Jr. New Phillies GM

by David S. Cohen on Nov 3, 2008 9:18 AM EST

The march of time is unstoppable. Less than three days after the unbelievable parade crowning the Phillies as the 2008 World Series Champions, the team starts its focus on 2009. And, it does so without much surprise.

We all knew this was Pat Gillick's last year at the healm. And, we all had a hunch that 2009 would be Ruben Amaro Jr.'s first year leading that team. Our hunches were correct: the Phillies are announcing his new position at a 10am press conference this morning.

There are plenty of reasons to be concerned about Amaro's ascension. He learned the trade from Ed Wade. His statements to the press often show a lack of understanding of modern baseball analysis. He's more connected to the Phillies establishment that had such a long history of mediocrity than to the Pat Gillick reign.

But, still riding high from last week, I'm in a forgiving mood for now and will wait to fully disect this later in the off-season. For now, let's be content that Amaro inherits a championship team. How bad can he mess things up?

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His statements to the press often show a lack of understanding of modern baseball analysis.

So, meet the new boss, same as the old boss?

by jemagee on Nov 3, 2008 9:52 AM EST 0 recs

How bad can he mess things up?

I’d tell you but it’d make you cry.

by jemagee on Nov 3, 2008 9:53 AM EST 0 recs

That was half tongue-in-cheek, half World-Series-induced-optimism.

by David S. Cohen on Nov 3, 2008 10:07 AM EST up 0 recs

As the greatest in my life time, Josiah Bartlet, said

“Breaks are good…What’s next?”

by jemagee on Nov 3, 2008 10:10 AM EST up 0 recs

LEt me explain the reasons why I think this is a bad thing:
1. Mike Arbuckle is leaving the organization after 16 years because he was not promoted and feels it is time to move on. He scouted most of our current roster and has done a very good job at building our system.
2. I believe it is always best to bring in a GM that has recently been the GM of another team. When a GM comes from another team they tend to trade or sign players that they have previously invested their time in. Gillick brought in Greg Dobbs, JAmie Moyer, He brought in Freddy Garcia (unfortunately), Ryan Franklin, Arthur Rhodes etc… More to the point, when Ed Wade became the GM for houston he traded Brad Lidge for players he had brought in Michael Bourn etc… MY point is that bringing a previous GM usually means that there is a good shot at picking up nice used players off of the scrap heap

by schrifty on Nov 3, 2008 10:36 AM EST 0 recs

You contradict yourself

So, maybe we get lucky with a scrap heap player — 2/5 players you mentioned were actually good. On the other side, maybe we trade someone good (Lidge) for someone meh (Bourn) simply because the GM is more familiar with him.

by Alon on Nov 3, 2008 10:29 PM EST up 0 recs

it is not a contradiction. I am saying that previous gms bring in their other players.

by schrifty on Nov 4, 2008 8:20 AM EST up 0 recs

Maybe I misread

but the line I was referring to was, “I believe it is always best to bring in a GM that has recently been the GM of another team.”

Saying that and then pointing out the Lidge-for-Bourn trade is contradictory — it clearly was not best for the Astros that they brought in Wade to bring in Bourn and lose Lidge.

by Alon on Nov 5, 2008 4:13 PM EST up 0 recs

I am eerily ok with this...

I guess there are 2 instances where a brand spankin new GM is ok. On a terrible team with nowhere to go but up, or on a recent winner. The fact the Phils just won the WS puts high expectations on this team. Amaro will have to either live up to them or perish. This makes the current situation one where if he succeeds, it will be good for us and if he fails he is gone.

For Who? My teammates.

For What? To Win.

How Much? Where do I sign?

by jonk on Nov 3, 2008 10:47 AM EST 0 recs

Amaro was given a 3 year contract. The Phils are set up to be very good for the next 3+ years. We won’t know what kind of signing this is for another 5 years. Amaro’s first business wil be evaluating whether to give Burrell a comparable contract to what he will get elsewhere. He will also need to decide what to do with the stud minor league players we have currently. Personally i would deal Kendrick and Greg Golson if we were given a reasonable offer. I like Kendrick but dont see a spot in the rotation for him next year. I think Golson is incredibly overrated. Possibly a poor man’s Michael Bourn.

by schrifty on Nov 3, 2008 11:27 AM EST up 0 recs

So Amaro runs 3 drafts without arbuckle? Why is this good?

Kyle Kendrick and Greg Golson probably only have any significant trade value to Ed Wade

by jemagee on Nov 3, 2008 6:23 PM EST up 0 recs

Who said it’s good? I said we won’t know what this is for 5 years. This is a team set up to be good for the short term future 2-5 years. A good GM can prolong that period. We won’t know for a bit how good Amaro is though. You are also forgetting kendrick is 21-13 over the last 2 seasons and is a young pitcher. on August 6th his ERA was 4.37 (hardly terrible) with a 10-5 record. After that he imploded in 4 of his next 6 starts went 1-4 in that time and his ERA ballooned to near 5.50 Those few starts can be attributed to poor mechanics, more innings pitched than used to or a number of other reasons. Kyle Kendrick is a solid 4 or 5 pitcher in the major leagues with the upside of a number 3 if he develops a decent changeup/curveball. I think he may still be on the major league roster if things shake out right for him. If not then he may be used as a trading chip.

by schrifty on Nov 4, 2008 6:01 PM EST up 0 recs

I have said before that Kendrick is nowhere near a solid 4 or 5 pitcher in the major leagues. His highly luck-influenced ERA belies what is an awful K rate and a bad walk rate for a pitcher who “pitches to contact” (or at least needs to do so to be effective) – and though I don’t have the numbers in front of me, I know his FIP numbers were pretty terrible.

Also, as you should know, Kyle Kendrick’s win/loss record doesn’t suggest anything other than he had a good offense hitting behind him that happened to hit on the days he was pitching.

Kyle Kendrick might not be a 4 or 5 starter in AAA let alone the major leagues. If he can develop an effective change and gain more command of his fastball he MIGHT be a league average starter at the major league level. But at this point I think that is the extent of his upside.

by FuquaManuel on Nov 4, 2008 9:35 PM EST up 0 recs

This is an awful idea

"This world extends way beyond this little field of dreams we're dancing in and I want to see that world"

by exitfare on Nov 3, 2008 10:50 AM EST 0 recs

Im not sure what to think about Arbuckle. The media was really riding high on him, but I am not sure that a few great draft picks in the first round qualifies you to be GM. I wonder who Gillick would have endorsed.

by Clyde Simmons on Nov 3, 2008 11:03 AM EST 0 recs

Shockingly, I think Conlin’s column about Amaro in today’s Daily News is really good. I’m not quite as sanguine on Ruben as Big Bill is, but his argument is coherent and his reminiscences from days of yore actually have a logical relationship to his main point. Woo hoo.

by taco pal on Nov 3, 2008 4:06 PM EST 0 recs

Link. The comments are, predictably, ridiculous, both pro and con.

For the cons, the insult of choice seems to be that Amaro is a “yes man.” WTF does that even mean? That he doesn’t publicly criticize the performance of the owners? What executive on any team in MLB ever publicly criticizes the performance of his team’s owners? (Extreme cases like Steinbrenner notwithstanding.)

by taco pal on Nov 3, 2008 4:25 PM EST up 0 recs

The loss of Arbuckle is going to be felt in a way that I’m not looking forward to

by jemagee on Nov 3, 2008 6:23 PM EST 0 recs

Amaro

I’m ready to start judging Amaro once he starts actually doing something. As for Arbuckle. Good people leave good teams all the time. Time will tell regarding Amaro.

It’s interesting that some newspaper guy — Stark? — said that Amaro is young and bright and educated but prefers old stats to new fangled ones. Is there any evidence of that? Is Amaro really all that old school? The Phillies, as a team don’t look all that old school. They score runs via getting on base and slugging. They have historically high SB percentages. They don’t believe in signing pitchers to long term contracts. They traded for a pitcher with a great K/9 rate and a not great ERA and save pct. in the previous year.

If Amaro starts deviating from this formula, then I’d say he is too old school. But there is no evidence of that as of yet.

The new GM here in Seattle just hired a stats/SABER/accountant type guy to help evaluate players. He described his philosophy as using all avaiable data and input to get the most complete picture of a player as possible in order to evaluate his value properly. I’m hoping Amaro will use a similar technique. We’ll see.

by smitty99 on Nov 4, 2008 5:32 PM EST 0 recs

He’s a phillies mouthpiece raised under the tutelage of Dallas Green and Ed wade.

If he had any interest in those ‘new fangled stats’ would he have lasted under Dallas Green and Ed Wade (and Pat Gillick) or would he have buckled under the pressure and looked for a more accepting environment not run by an idiot?

by jemagee on Nov 4, 2008 7:18 PM EST up 0 recs

Which idiot? The one who acquired half the players on a world championship team, or the one who acquired the other half?

by taco pal on Nov 5, 2008 11:21 AM EST up 0 recs

Dallas Green is whom i was referring to

So Taguchi was one of the phillies players who won the world series
I’m not sure i would go praising pat gillick for obtaining him

by jemagee on Nov 6, 2008 2:51 PM EST up 0 recs

yeah… that’s sophistry, buddy

by taco pal on Nov 6, 2008 4:05 PM EST up 0 recs

The news that Gillick will be sticking around as an adviser makes me feel at least a little better about this. But I’ve been dreading this move for a long time. I hope I’m wrong, but my sense about Amaro is that he’s ignorant about his own ignorance, and arrogant to boot.

The two most vital abilities for a successful general manager are to recognize talent and to recognize value. The first is really about information (both qualitative, from scouts, and quantitative, from stats) and intuition (think of the Cubs scout from a quarter-century ago who recognized that Jamie Moyer’s mental toughness ran so far ahead of his stuff that he might be able to win without having any real pitches to speak of). The second is mostly about timing: Gillick’s ability to pull deals in August for Moyer and Scott Eyre and Matt Stairs, paying much less than he might have if he’d pulled the trigger before the non-waiver deadline. Then there’s the “people skill” of surrounding yourself with talented individuals and getting them to deliver the best possible job performance.

There’s no reason to believe Amaro has any of these attributes. I hope I’m wrong, but his main qualification seems to be his butt-smooching skills. We’ll see.

by dajafi on Nov 5, 2008 4:20 PM EST 0 recs

I don’t know. I see Amaro as a sort of Rorshach test. Honestly, no one knows what he thinks, what his job duties were, what moves he had a hand in, etc. He’s become a sort of blank canvas on which we all project our hopes and fears, and in this town, you tend to get more fears than hopes. (We knew a bit more about Arbuckle, but really, not that much more.)

Did Amaro “tow the party line” as assistant GM? I suppose so. But if there’s an assistant GM in all of baseball who doesn’t, I’d like to see him. That’s what assistant GMs do: they’re subordinates, middle management. He took orders and implemented decisions made by other people. To whatever extent he actually was personally responsible for one move or another, it’s very difficult for us to decipher it because he operated within a group context.

Mike Arbuckle, incidentally, was no different. I don’t recall ever hearing Arbuckle say anything provocative or out-of-the-ordinary in interviews – like, say, criticizing the team’s approach to J.D. Drew or lobbying the ownership for higher draft bonuses or acknowledging the weakness of the system in the couple of years following the ‘03 draft or calling for a greater use of statistical analysis – I mean, it’s not as if there wasn’t plenty of material to go after during his tenure here. I don’t see why one guy should be considered any more or less a “company man” than the other. Yet a whole mythology has arisen out there, in which Arbuckle is the white knight who was solely responsible for every good thing that the team ever did, while Amaro is the devious bogeyman ready to undermine everything purely out of selfishness and malice. But what evidence is there of that, other than rumors and vague impressions about their likeability gathered from TV interviews?

This doesn’t necessarily mean that Amaro was a good hire. Part of me thinks that even from our limited perspective as fans we should know at least something positive about a GM before he gets hired. I’m just saying that we don’t know anything negative about him either. To the extent that people are saying that we do, it’s really just based on conjecture and a desire to “fill in the gaps” of Amaro’s story to fit into a preexisting narrative that we have about him and the franchise as a whole.

by taco pal on Nov 5, 2008 7:24 PM EST up 0 recs

fair enough

I don’t disagree with any of this, other than perhaps to add the point that we knew a little more about Arbuckle’s role within the organization—player development—than we did about Amaro’s. Even with that, I’m not putting Arby up for martyrdom; I probably would have preferred him on balance, but I didn’t love the guy—in fact I hated his habit of running down our minor-leaguers—and I’m not at all sure he would make a very good GM.

Supposedly Amaro is more adept with budget/payroll considerations, which is a pretty big deal. And as I said, that Gillick will retain a voice, and that LaMar, Kerfeld, and Wolever all apparently are sticking around, offers some reassurance.

by dajafi on Nov 5, 2008 9:37 PM EST up 0 recs