Phillies general manager Ruben Amaro Jr. confirmed to Jim Salisbury of CSNPhilly.com that Charlie Manuel will return as the team’s manager in 2013. Manuel will remain in place next year and the sides will re-evaluate following the ’13 season. Amaro said he’s pleased with Manuel’s performance but acknowledged that the two disagree at times, as most GMs and managers do.
Here are some more highlights from Amaro’s Q&A with Salisbury:
- Amaro said Ryne Sandberg has been great as the organization’s Triple-A manager. The GM declined to call Sandberg the successor to Manuel, but said he’s worthy of consideration for MLB managerial jobs. Amaro added that he is hopeful Sandberg gets the chance to manage in the Major Leagues and said he would like to keep him in the organization.
- Chase Utley is an option at third base for the 2013 Phillies, Amaro said. The decision depends on Utley’s comfort level at the position. If the Phillies look outside of the organization for third base help they could seek a left-handed hitter to platoon with Kevin Frandsen.
- The Phillies aren’t impressed by the free agent options at the hot corner. “There are no third basemen out there,” Amaro said. “Very, very few. The options are very, very small. It’s no secret that that’s one of the things we were looking for at the deadline and the availability of third basemen was basically zero. And the ones that were available, the prices on them were enormous.”
- The Phillies may find their setup relievers from within the organization, Amaro said. Pitchers such as Antonio Bastardo, Phillippe Aumont, Justin De Fratus and Josh Lindblom are options. However, the Phillies were disappointed with Bastardo’s performance this year and he’s an unknown going forward.
I guess that means another year of Rollins leading off. The last time that Rollins had an obp above .340 was 2008. A .305 obp in the leadoff spot is not really helping the Phillies. Then having singles hitter pierre hitting 2nd. I think phillies need a manager to mix things up, and tell rollins that he isn’t as good as he thinks he is.
Jimmy is the real life Willie “Mays” Hayes.
I don’t think thats fair. J Roll has had a great career. And I don’t think Pierre could do better in the lead-off spot everyday. All season, Charlie has only been able to play who he has on his team, and the talent is not there like the past. Jimmy is the best option the Phils have for lead-off.
As far as I’m concerned JRoll has been overrated for years. There were maybe a few years he was really good (2004/2007/2008) but the rest of his time he has been nowhere near a star. They gave him 33M/3 contract before this season. His last decent season has been 2008, ridiculous the person in this weeks mlbtr chat that questioned if he could be a HOFer. (ops over .800 only 3 times)
Sure he may be ok, but he really should not be leading off on a playoff contender(at beginning year), because he really doesn’t get on base enough anymore.
Fangraphs’ WAR has him as the second best SS since 2003 and the 5th best since 2008. Not too shabby. He is an excellent fielder and will give you something at the plate, which is something that can’t be said about most SS. I think he is every bit worth the contract he signed. He may not be the prototypical leadoff hitter at this point in his career, but he is still a valuable player in general.
I’m assuming Jeter is the only once since 2003 because he is the only SS holding down a job that long. And since 2008 you really only have 8 players (jeter, escobar, hardy, peralta, aybar, reyes, hanley) that have been regulars during that time. 5th best war out of 8 players isn’t really that great. That and the 3/18M that they gave Polanco is hurting them. That left side of their infield is really not helping their offense. .305 obp player leading off is ridiculous. WAR isn’t always the best indicator too, offense is more important especially when you got a bunch of big strikout pitchers. He provides minimal offense, and to make it worse he is always leading off.
Minimal offense compared to whom?
Rollins has the 9th-best OPS of any qualifying SS in the MLB (out of 17) in 2012, good for slightly above the mean.
2011: 10th-best of 19
2010: Injury Year, didn’t qualify
2009: 12th-best of 17
2008: 6th-best of 15
Add to that his gold-glove-caliber D (Tulo’s taken it for years when offense gets factored in, regardless of what’s supposed to happen), and you get the best SS in Phillies franchise history (they had a nifty little comparison on the game a few nights back where they showed Rollins’ stats on one side and Bowa’s on the other, and Rollins was higher in every category except total hits).
Is he the best SS in history? No. Not even close. But he’s the best Phillies SS in history, and his career numbers put him well above average – and a likely HoF resident eventually, if you’re comparing him to the other SS in the HoF.
Also, your list is missing a few players.
Renteria played through 2011. Scutaro has seen significant time at SS since 2008 (including qualifying as a SS for several years). Keppinger plays SS all seasons but once since 2007. Tejada? Orlando Cabrera (through 2011)? Betancourt? Stephen Drew? Alexei Ramirez? 5th-best WAR out of 17 suddenly sounding better… We’re only talking 4 years ago.
~10th best yearly in league is not HOF worth. A big part of HOF quality is comparing them to the league. Most of the SS with “mediocre” stats were from the 1800’s and deadball era, and those stats were actually above average. In today’s environment comparing Rollins to the league, he not a likely hofer.
The reason there are only 15-19 qualifying SS every year is that it’s a position where offense is decidedly lacking in general, so players get platooned, replaced, or otherwise removed before they can qualify. Generally speaking, those non-qualifiers have numbers below those of the qualifiers, else they wouldn’t be platooned, replaced, etc.
Robin Yount over 20 seasons:
3142 hits (157/yr avg)
583 doubles (29/yr avg)
126 Triples (6.3/yr avg)
251 HRs (13/yr avg)
271 stolen bases (14/yr avg)
.285/.342/.430 career slash
Career RF as SS: 4.99
Career FLDG% as SS: .964
Cal Ripken over 20 seasons:
3184 hits (159/yr avg)
603 doubles (30/yr avg)
44 triples (2/yr avg)
431 HR (22/yr avg)
36 stolen bases (2/yr avg)
.276/.340/.447 career slash
Career RF as SS: 4.62
Career FLDG% as SS: .979
Jimmy Rollins over 12 seasons (technically fewer, but played in a few games in 2000, and 2012 isn’t over yet, so let’s assume they cancel out to a full season):
2001 hits (167/yr avg)
420 doubles (35/yr avg)
105 triples (8.75/yr)
187 HRs (16/yr avg)
398 stolen bases (33/yr avg)
.270/.327/.431 career slash
Career RF as SS: 4.13
Career FLDG% as SS: .983
I don’t think Rollins is the best SS in history or any such thing (though he’s got a legitimate claim as far as Phillies SS go), but unless he drops off far more precipitously than it looks like he will, his numbers look pretty good when compared against recent entrants to the HoF at SS. Ripken had more league-wide awards, but they weren’t on the strength of dramatically better seasons, by and large.
And Ripken and Yount certainly did not play in the dead ball era.
They both were also better. Rollins career obp is .327 (compared .340/.342) and that has really been dropping in the past 4 years. The other 2 also broke 3000 hits, Rollins just hit 2000, He has a good shot at 2500, but not much higher.
Another stat: Rollins career ops+ is 97, compared to 112 for cal, and 115 for Yount. So he is below league average, and only once did he top either of their’s career ops+ in a single season. Cal also hit 430 hr.
They both also played most of 20 seasons. Rollins has played for 12 seasons, Do you really think that Rollins has another 8 years in him?
A player with not as gaudy stats can up his HOF creds by more playing time. Rollins will be ugly to watch if he is still out there at 41.
And we all know that fielding % is a bad stat, try to convince me that starlin castro is as good as his fpct is made out to be.
I get your a Philly fan, but I still struggle to see how Rollins will ever be a likely hofer in your words.
Being a Philly fan, for better or worse, has very little to do with thinking that Rollins is excellent. In fact, it tends as much towards the other direction, with many fans having relatively-unfounded disdain for him because he doesn’t hit like a prototypical leadoff hitter and because of a few comments he’s made in the past about the Phillies fanbase.
OBP is an important stat. OBP is, however, somewhat-overrated (especially since the publication of Moneyball) when it’s viewed as the most important “simple” (non-SABR) offensive metric. A difference of .13 points in OBP does not override the significant power difference, as well as the fact that Rollins is a significantly more prolific base-stealer (thus turning singles/BBs into effective doubles significantly more often, without raising his SLG).
You have your doubts about FLDG%, I have my doubts about most of the park/league-adjusted statistics, as they can often be suppressed by teams with poor offenses and excellent pitching staffs/defenses (something the Phillies have had for 2 years now, but certainly isn’t limited to them). I imagine your argument against FLDG has to do with the official scorer, but I also think it’s trendy to say that errors are called less often now than they used to be – the MLB average errors/team has gone up and down in recent years, but hasn’t moved by more than 10 from peak to trough since the 2000 season.
Do I think Rollins plays for 20 years? Probably not. Do I think he plays for 15-16? Pretty likely. This contract alone will extend him through 14, with an “easily-obtained” vesting option for 15. I agree that, at 41, Rollins likely won’t be anywhere near “league-elite” levels. That doesn’t mean he hasn’t been for the past decade, however, nor that he won’t still be in the top half for the foreseeable future. As I said, comparing him only to qualifying SS misses the point that there are as many SS who don’t qualify as do (because they didn’t play well enough, or got injured, or were traded to a team who had a better SS, etc.). Obviously, that’s important when asking if he’s the best SS in baseball (he’s not), but very few SS provide both the offense and defense he does, and fewer still have been doing so for over a decade. I don’t think his production before 2017 will drop to replacement-level either.
Cal Ripken’s career WAR in 21 seasons was 98.7 (I think we can both agree that’s aided in no small part by his “Iron Man” streak). Rollins won’t catch that. Yount’s career WAR in 20 seasons was 74.1. I doubt Rollins will catch that either. However, his current WAR (47.6 +/- depending on 2012) puts him likely in the 60+ WAR area by the end of his current contract. Assuming that’s the end of his career, his WAR/season average will fall closer to Yount’s than Ripken’s, but also significantly above Yount.
Additionally, since the people voting on it are the BBWAA, whether or not someone is voted in is not purely metrics-based. How well their team did while he was playing, how much of a “leader” they felt he was, and a number of other “non-crunchy” facets of a player’s career loom significantly larger than they do on the stat sheet. As evidence, see: Gold Glove awards, Kemp, Jeter.
And also the most prolific SS in franchise history.
He also ducks paying taxes?
Ryne Sandberg is going to be 70 before he finally gets his shot at this rate.
All signs point to 2014, as long as someone doesn’t hire him away before then.
Good thing there’s no indication from anywhere that him managing has any effect on WAR.
Is there any indication anywhere that any minor league manager has any effect on WAR? That’s an absurd standard.
Kinda pointless I think. Minor league managers are less out there to win games and more out there to help develop players. Sure its nice to win, but you never want to see the minor league manager substitute say a good rhh for a lhh that is bad vs lefties. Even if that is something that you would do in the majors. That said, I think he would be a good change for the Phillies. I think that Manuel is too engraved in his ways, and they need a new manager to shake the team up.
That’s precisely the point. There’s no indication that any manager has any effect on WAR, so feeling like one guy is getting passed over “unfairly” has no basis in reality. He’s being passed over because there are other people that the GMs of various teams prefer, nothing more, nothing less.
Yes, I understand there can easily be reasons, despite Sandberg’s reputation as a prime managerial candidate why a team did not go with him. But since I didn’t say that particular teams were wrong for passing him over, only that it’s a shame he keeps ending up in positions where that happens, there’s really nothing to argue about here, at least not based on any of the points you’ve attempted to raise.
I raised one point, and I didn’t think I was arguing anything by stating it. Sandberg is a “prime managerial candidate” in as much as he’s managed minor-league teams, and hasn’t yet managed a team in the majors. I’ve seen nothing to indicate (again, as of yet) that he’d be any better at it than any other minor-league manager who hasn’t managed in the big leagues.
Phillies fans (especially those who dislike Manuel, but in general as well) seem to have this irrational belief that Sandberg is going to be the sort of manager that sticks with a franchise for decades on the strength of his crafty bullpen moves, effective lineups, and complete loyalty from his players. Hence, if he doesn’t get promoted to the job soon, some other team is going to “poach” him in the interim.
In reality, there’s nothing to make us think he’d be any better than Manuel, or any other manager (or would-be manager). I’d have thought that the Cubs would have been the first team to promote him to the bigs, and the fact that they didn’t had to be based on something, since there surely wasn’t any lack of love for him among that fan-base or franchise. He then proceeded to go another 2 years as an “eligible bachelor,” so to speak, but never got picked.
You’re having a different argument than I’m having and so I am not entirely certain how to respond. You’re arguing that there is no empirical evidence to support the idea of Sandberg as a prime managerial candidate and you’re arguing against the suggestion that the teams who have passed on him could have made a mistake. Bravo. Have fun with that. I never suggested the former or the latter.
I’m simply saying that, given how widely held the assertion is that Sandberg is a prime managerial candidate–whether said assertion is right or wrong is immaterial to my point… it exists–it is a shame from Sandberg’s perspective that he continually finds himself in situations where the timing and/or chemistry with the major league team does not afford him an opportunity. Many, many, many people–whether they be right or wrong, supported by data or no–are of the opinion he deserves a shot, and yet, he keeps getting tripped up, waiting behind Piniella, waiting behind Manuel, being admired by Epstein, but not being of the exact mindset he’s looking for… From Sandberg’s perspective, that has to be a drag.
I didn’t really think I was arguing, as I stated in my previous post… I agree that it definitely must be a drag for Sandberg, and I can understand if he might get a bit depressed about it, even.
But at the same time, the fact that he’s been passed over so much – especially with the Cubs, but also after his interviews with Boston and St. Louis last year – leads me to believe that there is nowhere near as much consensus among GMs and owners that he’s a “prime managerial candidate” as there is among Phillies fans who dislike Manuel, or even among Cubs fans (although really, I haven’t heard many Cubs fans pining for what they “missed out on” by not promoting Sandberg). That former group, especially, seems irrationally scared by the idea of “losing” Sandberg to another team, as if we already know he’s going to be a manager who will make every move correctly, and never end up with a discipline problem.
If Farrell goes to the Red Sox after this season, I won’t be surprised if the Jays go after Ryno to coach them.
Getting a pitching prospect from Boston for Farrell, getting Ryno as manager, and getting everyone effing healthy would be a successful offseason in my books.
So I guess its another year of lethargic baseball, mismanaging a bullpen, Jimmy leading off, and best of all…starting Michael Martinez.
RAJ has Manuel signed for one more so you know he isn’t gonna throw cash away even if he does for his players.
I am hoping for RAJ to be fired and Manuel soon afterwards. Both of them are terrible and need to go.
Yup 3 division titles are pretty terrible for Ruben, two of which finished first in MLB baseball.
… and 5 straight division titles, two pennants, three nlcs appearances, and a World Championship is pretty terrible for Charlie Manuel. Let’s fire him for one bad year. Lol.
Has nothing to do with this year. I have never liked Manuel, and this is a person who was at game 5 in 2008. At the parade I was complaining because I knew that he wasn’t going anywhere for a few years. I hope now that he retires after the season.
Manuel cost us the 2009 series with his terrible decisions with the starting rotation and lineup. Last year he could have kept the Cardinals out of the playoffs, but he wanted that 102nd win to have the most in team history. That final series against the Braves should have been a period of rest before the playoffs, which would have given them a chance to beat us one of those games, hence, keeping the Cards out. It wasn’t like the Cards didn’t take 3 of 4 from us a few weeks before the end of the season (oh wait they did).
I know you watch the games, and if you can’t find enough terrible decisions on a regular basis I can’t help you. But lets keep throwing Bastardo out there with the game on the line. That has worked out great. Lets keep putting Rollins in the leadoff spot when he doesn’t get on base. Lets play the core guys every single day so when the season is wrapping up they are spent. Lets not bunt with a runner on second with no outs (When every person in the stadium and watching at home knows what to do in that spot). Nope, Swing for the fences every AB, no matter the situation.
For a hitting guru he sure has a problem getting his team to hit. I don’t know if you noticed, but why does Utley get the hard shift and he continues to pull it. He clearly has the ability to put the ball all over. Manuel has a track record of having power guys pull EVERYTHING. That is not what you teach guys (He messed up Thome in Cleveland).
Manuel has had one of the best teams in baseball the past 5 years. You know, the kind that wins 90+ without much actual managing needed. But when it counts, he falls short. I can only imagine what a good manager would have done with this team during the same span of time. As much as I cannot stand LaRussa I believe he would have won a minimum of two WS titles.
In the end it doesn’t matter. I get one more year of cursing at the TV or from my seats about something stupid he did or didn’t do. Can’t wait until next year.
You spent the parade celebrating the first Philly sports championship in over 20 years complaining about the future?
Our starting rotation in 2009 was Cliff Lee, Pedro Martinez(!), and Cole Hamels during a year that ends in “9.” I count 1 legitimate above-average starter there. You can toss in Blanton for game 4, if you like (he did have that HR a year before).
In 2010, we came up against the best rotation in baseball, and took more games from them than any other opponent they faced that post-season.
In 2011, we played game 162 with mostly backups for half the game, but Howard, Utley, Rollins, and Ibanez hadn’t been off the DL very long at that point, and none of them had found their strides again in the meantime. The series against the Braves was as much about getting the team in playoff shape as it was “getting 102 wins.” And realistically, we wouldn’t even have that as the lasting memory of the series if we’d been able to score a single run in game 5, or Cliff Lee doesn’t blow up in game 3 (or we had any kind of bullpen to go to while Lee still had a tie on the books).
When did Manuel “screw up Thome in Cleveland,” again? He had one full season in Cleveland where he hit under .270. He had one full season with an OPS under .967. What player wouldn’t love to have a .967 OPS or better every year?
I may not personally agree with a number of his moves (not all, not even most, necessarily, but a number), but you simply cannot deny – with any factual basis – that Manuel has kept a team full of all-stars, MVPs, and egos aplenty from causing any significant clubhouse problems. In fact, he’s inspired such loyalty that not only do these players continue to want to play for him, they inspire other players to do the same.
When was the last time that players wanted to come to Philadelphia to play baseball for a manager?