The Lions' Pride

I have to agree as a Pirates fan that would be the steal of the year. I think a deal for Hanrahan would look more like the As deal for Andrew Bailey.

For the Matt Adams fans: his first at bat he looked BAD on a low changeup (which is a pitch he is struggling with so far), and then lined a hard single into right center for his first Major League RBI. Good solid hit.

Phillies win! Phillies win!

No for real...the Phillies won!

There are a lot of Philly fans that love Charlie Manuel. Count me in the group that can't stand the guy. When the Phillies lose it is because of him, when they win...well its in spite of him. We were so desperate for a championship that we settled for this knucklehead. Anyone could have coached some of those previous Phils teams to victory and maybe if we had a competent coach we would have a second World Series title.

The other thing that bothers me is how people say how Charlie is this hitting guru, but yet since he has been manager the hitting has just gotten abysmal. Bowa was such a better coach than Charlie, but he never had the talent imo plus we had Ed Wade lol.

Sorry I am venting, this is 7 years of anger being released.

The difference between most of those coaches and Charlie is that they are competent.

The second thing is that Charlie will give the team back massages while someone like Joe Torre would light a fire under the teams A$$.

Also this is about the whole body of work. I think most Phillies fans will admit that we got lucky in the Series when we got the Rays. They were a good team, but certainly weren't the best the AL had to offer that year.

A lot of Phils fans love Charlie because he's the only manager they've ever seen (having started watching baseball around 2007/8/9). They think "he won a World Series, he's great."

Manager is such an easy freaking job and he's horrible at it.

Ruben is a bottom 5-10 GM in the league, Charlie is a below average manager and Ed Wade is back in scouting - luckily they have deep pockets to buy a team in spite of these deficiencies. Can't imagine how many games a small market team would lose with this leadership.

Good for them if they can pull it off, but I doubt it. I'll tip my cap to the Pirates if they can do it and laugh at the Angels. That's an Ed Wade type deal.

What is so special about Trumbo? He had over 500 AB's last season and hit 29 homers, thats great...but scored a total of 65 runs. That's off the charts pathetic. I know he is hitting .330+ this season, but he isn't in there everyday, and Scoscia can match him up a bit more. If he were playing everyday, he'd be exposed.

If the Angels are going to get going, Trout and Pujols will be in the middle of it. If they are dependent on Trumbo's offense, they are no better off than they were last year... However, the back end of the pen is where they need some help. Walden has actually been incredibly good since being demoted. No runs and one hit given up in 10 RAPP. With Frieri, Hanny, Downs and Walden, now they'd have a pen that could compete with Texas in the back end.

Not sure how you can say Amaro is a bottom 5-10 GM.

the guy brought in Cliff Lee in 2009 in a trade at the deadline or near it. They made the WS and lost to the Yankees in 6, and lee was phenomenal.
In 2010 they brought in Doc Halladay and Polanco, and won the division again, and lost to the SF Giants because they couldn't hit in the clutch.
In 2011 they bring back Cliff Lee, and make a trade for Hunter Pence. Again their offense lets them down in the post-season.

I think Amaro has done a pretty decent job in bringing in the guys, and the reality of it is, the players he has brought in, haven't flopped. It has been the existing players that he inherited that have let the team down in the big spot.

He signed Wilson Valdez who IMO was extremely important, but he's elsewhere. He brought in Papelbon, who is better than Madson. They traded Abreu, who was at the end of the road. I'm sure there's been others that have worked out in the Phillies favor that I am missing or forgetting.

I agree with the poster above because they are right....there's nothing an elite manager could do with this group this year. I don't dislike Manuel nor do I love him as a manager. The team needs to get younger, and they need to get better. It's not manuel's fault they don't hit. It's not gross' fault they don't hit. the reality is there's 12/13 hitters on that roster who just arent getting it done and just refuse to put the ball in play, but rather swing for the fences each and every time. Rollins, Victorino are the biggest culprits.

You think the Phillies try a suicide with those 2 up last night like they did with Pierre? No freakin chance, neither guy is dependable to make contact let alone put down a bunt like that.

Umm... you have to get on base to score runs.. that's the first step. Show me another guy in the league that had over 500 AB's, and scored 35 runs, not counting his own HR... doesnt matter what team, where they hit in the lineup, etc... its pathetic.

The Phils have Howard anchored at first base for the next 4 years, they can't move his contract. If Trumbo could play any position other than 1B, the Angels may not trade him... he can't play 3B, and he can't play the OF... what are the Phils going to do with him next year when Howard is back?

And Phils fans bitch about Howard, so now they are going to bring in another guy that does the exact same thing?

Arod in 2010 and Prince in 05 are both good examples, and both considered the worst seasons of their careers.

I am not putting too much stock into scoring runs... that's the game drive in runs AND score... not hit some jacks, and get on base a .291 clip... Mark Trumbo is basically Jack Cust from 07-09'... except Cust got on base at almost .400 and took 100BB in a season, MT took 25BB last year...

I'll break down the moves:
Cliff in 09 - good move. However, who wouldn't have made that deal? Honestly, it's a no-brainer, but I still agree, good deal.

Cliff traded in 09 to Seattle to bring back Halladay. Huge, huge problem with this. Bringing in Doc is great, no problems at all in that. However, he sold Cliff to the very first bidder for a bag of peanuts. You have a huge asset in a pitcher who just dominated for 3 months including in the World Series and didn't have an outrageous contract at the time and you accept the first bid without even shopping him? Imagine the haul Lee could bring in there. It's a terrible trade and it's not even funny. It was the second biggest transactional mistake of the Amaro era.

Bringing me to the biggest, the Ryan Howard contract. Many lauded the decision at the time, but it was clearly a mistake. He still had a few years left on his deal to see how he progressed considering his body type and age were built to regress considerably very quickly. It was a terrible move. There's no way around it.

The Ibanez signing was also very blah. 3 years at a big number for 73 year old Raul Ibanez? Give me a break. The Phils were then married to him as an every day hitter in left when he was ranked as the worst or second to worst fielder in the majors. Bad decision.

Bringing back Lee - good move, no fault there. Stealth move.

As for the trades with Houston. Amaro benefitted of Ed Wade being the absolute worst GM and wanting to help out Philly cause it's where his heart was (the Phillies signed him back into the management after the Astros fired him, hmmm.....).

He also depleted the farm system over the years, part of which was necessary for some of these moves, part of which could have been replenished from the Lee deal or other moves.

Now, the biggest non-transactional error - he hasn't implemented a full statistics department on the Phillies. About half the teams are fully statistical in their player analyses. The Phillies have the smallest statistics department in the majors and I think they just recently added one guy to do it all (and to be honest, I doubt they listen to him). The game has long passed Amaro's style by.

As for Charlie, don't even get me started...