Playing Phillies GM for a Day

The Phillies are at an interesting crossroad right now between rebuilding and contending. Still, the team could be handled a little better. That's where I come in. 

As I watched the Winter Meetings unfold, I was inspired enough to write about why they are awesome (they are) and why the Phillies shouldn't fall under the normal, ludicrous notion to shell out money to the best free agents available and expect to instantly contend. I was bitter, mostly because I kept hearing people tell me that they should. Also because my girlfriend had a mouse in her house and he kept outsmarting the mousetrap. Well, eventually the trap got him by the leg and he no longer is messing up her kitchen. Now its time to catch the Ruben Amaro by the leg and stop him from messing up our Phillies, if you're picking up what I'm putting down.




I've cleared my busy schedule of playing Snake online and switching out Cecil Shorts and Greg Jennings for my WR3 in my fantasy matchup (which is more important than it sounds. I'm the number one seed at 10-3 in my league, but find myself thinking as the underdog against a 5-8 eight seed. I expect to lose this week. Shorts, Percy Harvin and LeSean McCoy are hurt and I don't believe Bryce Brown can keep it up. And this is a really good eight seed who has lost six in a row solely because Eli Manning decided to shit on the season. I'm going to lose, I know it.) to give Amaro the offseason off (pun intended ;) ) and let me take the reigns of general manager of the Philadelphia Phillies. I am going to go through the team and their options and by the end, we will have our 25 man roster for opening day. So I'm going to put on my yacht jacket, sit in my pearly white den under my deerhead, sip on some scotch on the rocks, and put on some Minnie Reperton to relax to. I'm GM for the day, babayyy!

As my first act as general manager, I need to address the key areas the team needs to fill. Those areas are a power righty, ideally a corner outfielder power righty, a third baseman, a starting pitcher, dominant middle reliever and a setup man. And if we have time, maybe another bench player since I'm spoiling it right now, I am not resigning Nate Schierholtz. 

So first things first, let's sign that power righty, or should I say power switchy?! Or should I say, power Swishy?! That's right, as interim General Manager of the Phillies, I am inking Yankees free agent outfielder, Nick Swisher. Swisher is a switch hitter who can hit for power, he hit 24 homeruns last season, and a decent average, finishing at .272 last year. He drove in 93 runs and scored 75 himself. He hit 36 doubles and only grounded into 9 double plays in 624 at-bats, something that I adore. He also walks a considerable amount, his 77 were 8th in the league in 2012, another thing the Phillies could use more of since they often forget you're not required to swing at every pitch. Swisher will be a tough draw, since Cleveland and a few other teams are very interested in him, but I can not let a power hitting switch hitter who can break up our lefties slip away. I offer Swisher a five year, $77 million contract, something I don't think another team would be able to sway him from. On to the next one.

I think Philadelphia put themselves in a spot where they need to sign a starting pitcher who is young and good enough for the 3 or 4 spot (3 in case Roy Halladay doesn't return right away, or they trade Cliff Lee for Ben Franklin). I think the Phillies should sign Edwin Jackson from the rival who ended their NL East division champions streak this season, the Washington Nationals. Jackson is 29, has an ugly no-hitter under his belt where he walked every other batter and threw about 4 or 500 pitches, and posted a respectable ERA for where we want him in the rotation (4.03). Jackson does not need to be lights out, and he won't be getting paid $11 million a year again by anyone. Jackson would serve as a reliable righty with experience who should still be in the prime of his career. An offer of three years and $31 million should be enough to round him up, which I understand is just under $11 million a year, but hey, I don't tell you how to do your job. (On a serious note, I think Jackson is definitely worth ten million dollars a year. We signed Adam Eaton to a similar deal a few years ago, things can only get better). Welcome to the City of Brotherly Love, Mr. Jackson! 

Next comes the issue of the bullpen. This area struggled for the team last season, but honestly, what area didn't except for the Cole Hamels-Cliffe Lee department? Michael Stutes did get hurt early, and his return gives us a solid seventh inning guy. Antonio Bastardo should have a bounce back season as the eighth inning guy, but do we have any evidence that he will? Kyle Kendrick needs to be the long relief or sixth inning guy, Michael Schwimmer can't handle the 8th and the rest of the bullpen barely has more experience or skill than Gary Bettman has feelings. So, we're going to the market to sign a setup man for Papelbon! Hello Wisconsin, we're taking another Twin (hopefully you geography buff's catch that blunder! Although this is a sore topic, since I came in second place in my seventh grade geography bee on a horse's ass question that was current events, not geography. Oh! I'm sorry, I didn't realize one needed to know where the Olympics were held in 2004 in order to master geography, I was probably too busy studying geography. everybody hurts... ). I would love to sign Matt Capps, whose past ERA season totals look as follows: 3.79, 2.28, 3.02, 5.80, 2.47, 4.25, 3.68. Those are pretty consistently good numbers he's posted since 2006. Capps should be relatively cheap, and he isn't looking for some megadeal to lock him up in Philadelphia. He's also only 29. Capps inks our three year, $13 million deal. 

Finally comes the third base area. Do we keep Kevin Frandsen as the starter, despite dangling his spot in the Michael Young trade (if Young comes to Citizens Bank now, does he get booed on JD Drew levels? Something tells me hell yeah!)? I think so. I was all for the Young deal since Texas was willing to eat more than half of his contract and we only needed to give up Schwimmer pretty much. That is a risk of zero in my eyes, and even though he had a down year last season and is approaching 40 before Obama is out of office, I think he could easily post twenty homeruns playing in Philadelphia for 81 games a season. However, since he is not coming to Philly, I want them to start Frandsen because I loved everything I saw out of him in 2012 and want to see what he can do with a full season under his belt starting at the hot corner. 

Therefore, the opening day lineup looks something like this for 2013:
SS Jimmy Rollins
CF Ben Revere
2B Chase Utley
1B Ryan Howard
LF Nick Swisher
RF Dominic Brown
3B Kevin Frandsen
C Humberto Quintero (Carlos Ruiz takes over after his 25 game suspension and moves to 6th)

The bench will include John Mayberry, Eric Kratz, Laynce Nix, Freddy Galvis and Darian Ruf.

The bullpen will include Kyle Kendrick, Michael Schwimmer, Michael Stutes, Josh Lindblom, Matt Capps and Jonathon Papelbon.

And the starting rotation will be Cole Hamels, Roy Halladay, Cliff Lee, Edwin Jackson and Tyler Cloyd. 

That team wins the NL East this season, as far as I'm concerned. At the very least, if Atlanta scores more runs now with Michael Bourn and Washington wasn't a one year fluke, they will be in the wild card play-in game. The Mets and Marlins are in the battle for last, although David Wright might be a man on a mission this season, or he might flounder out now that he got paid. Nevertheless, the Phillies will win 86-93 games with the roster I listed above. The only glaring weakness is the offense. It still lacks power unless Rollins plays a whole season and doesn't save 95% of his homeruns for one span of a week, and Utley and Howard are healthy all year. Otherwise, I trust the bullpen and I trust the rotation. 

A sidenote worth thinking about, Uncle Charlie's contract expires this season. It expires in an awkward time because honestly, are the Phillies rebuilding, per say? No. They also are not in total contention right now, but the team is getting older at the core. Amaro needs to decide if Manuel will be the manager of the foreseeable future (3-5 years) and he needs to do that soon. The contract expiring is one thing looming on one player, its a whole different story looming over the manager. I'd resign him to keep this core together for three more years, but than that's a wrap.

So it was fun being general manager for a day, and see. I can walk the walk of not spending ludicrous amounts of money and still putting together a team that will contend for the National League pennant again. That being said, I did want to throw a lot of money at Vincente Padilla, just to bring him back. One more year! One more year!